Zzzzt!
The blinding high-energy laser beam had only just faded, and the burnt stench still lingered in the air.
Immediately after, the ground began to tremble.
Rumble, rumble…
Before Rod could recover his vision from the searing light, a deafening engine roar erupted behind him.
He instinctively turned his head.
What he saw was a sight he would never forget.
Five steel beasts tore through the curtain of rain, clad in gray urban camouflage.
Like five mobile fortresses, they advanced in an arrowhead formation and drove straight into the battlefield from the rear.
Chimera armored transports.
They showed no intention of slowing down.
Their broad metal tracks mercilessly crushed through the mud, rolling over severed limbs that could no longer be identified as friend or foe, before charging directly across the crumbling second-line trench.
Screech!
The air pressure from the sudden braking even blew the water off Rod’s head.
Five Chimeras stopped neatly a few meters in front of the trench.
With their thick frontal armor, they instantly built a steel wall.
Thud!
Thud!
Thud!
Thud!
The heavy bolters mounted on their hulls began to roar.
Every bolt shell burst into a flower of blood within the green tide.
The multilasers on their turrets let out a high-frequency shriek that made the teeth ache.
Zzt!
Zzt!
Zzt!
Several deadly red beams wove through the rainy night, forming an airtight fire net.
The Ork Boyz that had been charging while howling moments earlier now fell like wheat before a combine harvester, cut down in sheets, blasted apart, and burned black.
Even those thick-skinned Ork Nobz were nothing more than slightly tougher targets under concentrated multilaser fire.
Rod pressed himself against the wet sandbags of the trench and gulped down air.
Safe.
For now.
So this is what that stolen battle merit was exchanged for?
Not a bad trade…
He felt as if every bone in his body was about to fall apart.
The strength brought by his burst of adrenaline retreated like the tide, leaving only endless soreness and weakness.
“Hah…
hah…”
Beside him came panting like a broken bellows.
Rod turned his head.
Platoon Leader Karl staggered over, one step deep and one step shallow.
After reaching Rod, he simply collapsed into the muddy water.
“Holy shit…”
“Damn it…
I already saw the Emperor waving at me…”
The platoon leader trembled as he tried to reach into his pocket for a smoke, but after fumbling around for a long time, he only pulled out a wad of blood-soaked paper.
He froze for a moment, then his hand dropped weakly.
At that moment…
Clang!
The command hatch on the turret of the nearest Chimera, number 779, suddenly popped open.
A plume of white steam surged out.
A middle-aged vehicle commander in his thirties, wearing a black soft tank cap, poked half his body out.
There was an easy confidence on his face.
Ignoring the rain outside, he reached up to adjust his headset.
“Brothers!
Did you miss me?”
His voice came through the vehicle-mounted loudspeaker, sounding especially abrupt amid the gunfire and cannon fire.
“Haha…
Now this is some fine weather!”
Before Rod and the others could react, the commander pressed a hand against the throat mic at his collar, his tone instantly turning cold and hard.
“All crews, attention!
All crews, attention!
Don’t you dare save ammunition for me!
Hit them hard!
Blast those Greenskin bastards back to their junk heaps!
Free fire!”
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
As if responding to his order, the firepower output of the five Chimeras instantly rose another level.
“Hey!
You two down there!”
The vehicle commander looked their way again and pointed toward the rear of the Chimera.
“Stop playing spectators!
We don’t sell tickets here!
Get aboard!”
Platoon Leader Karl patted Rod on the shoulder.
“Move…
Rod, move.”
The two of them were like corpses that had just crawled back to life.
Supporting each other, they struggled out of the trench that looked like a mass grave.
The Chimera’s massive hull blocked all the bullets and death ahead.
Rod stepped through the mud.
Every step felt like pulling a radish from the earth.
Clack.
The rear hatch of the armored vehicle slowly opened with a hydraulic hiss, revealing a dim but warm interior lit by red light.
For one instant, Rod actually had the illusion of coming home.
The two climbed into the rear compartment with both hands and feet.
The moment he sat down on the hard metal bench, Rod felt all the strength in his body completely drain away.
He leaned against the compartment wall, listening to the gunfire outside become muffled behind the armor, and felt as if he had crossed into another world.
The vehicle commander also crawled out of the forward turret and made his way through the narrow passage into the rear compartment.
He took off his rain-wet gloves, pulled a slightly flattened cigar from his chest pocket, and held it between his teeth without lighting it.
Platoon Leader Karl struggled to stand and salute, but failed twice.
In the end, he could only lean against the seat and barely raise a trembling hand in gesture.
“Third Company…
Third Platoon…
Platoon Leader Karl.”
After saying that much, he had to gasp twice.
“Sir…
you are?”
The commander waved his hand, signaling that there was no need for ceremony.
“Marcus, lieutenant, Fifth Company of the Iron Cavalry Armored Regiment.”
The middle-aged man glanced at their miserable state.
The two still-bleeding cuts on Rod’s forehead and hand, Karl’s leg still dripping blood, and the thick layer of blood and mud coating both of them.
A faint trace of respect flashed in his eyes.
He returned a standard Imperial Aquila salute.
“We received an emergency transfer order.
We’re here to take over the defensive duties for this sector.”
Lieutenant Marcus bit the end of the cigar and shrugged.
Platoon Leader Karl’s eyes suddenly widened a little, as if he had remembered something.
“The captain…
didn’t the captain say…
you weren’t arriving until tomorrow?”
His mind was still somewhat muddled, and even his words were out of order.
“And…
wasn’t it supposed to be only three Chimeras supporting us?
This…”
He looked at the interior of the vehicle, then listened to the dense firepower outside.
Lieutenant Marcus raised an eyebrow.
“What?
We promised three, and now we brought you five.
You’re still not happy?
What, you want to return them?”
Seeing Platoon Leader Karl hurriedly shake his head, Marcus stopped joking.
He sighed and took the cigar from his mouth, holding it between his fingers.
“To be honest, I’m not too clear on the specific situation either.”
He pointed toward the rear.
“We were originally digging in at the defensive position in Usor Two Agricultural District.
Then half an hour ago, we suddenly received orders to abandon that side and support this place at full speed.”
“If you ask me, some big shot probably changed his mind all of a sudden.”
Marcus gave a cold laugh, clearly displeased with this kind of order changing from one moment to the next.
“But it looks like we arrived in time, more or less.
If we were two minutes later, we’d probably be collecting your bodies.”
As he spoke, his gaze swept around the rear compartment, then he looked through the vision port at the deathly silent trench outside.
Aside from these two drenched survivors, he saw no one else getting in.
Marcus frowned, his tone softening slightly.
“So…
only you two are left?”
Platoon Leader Karl’s body stiffened suddenly.
He slowly turned and pressed his face against the cold firing vision port, trying to look outside.
The rain was still falling.
The trench was full of water.
Aside from torn sandbags and corpses sprawled everywhere, so mangled that no one could tell who was who, there was nothing.
No bearded veteran.
No machine gunner who always handed him smokes.
None of those green kids who used to complain every day that the food tasted awful.
Quiet.
Deathly quiet.
Only the Chimera’s autocannon and heavy weapons roared, but the louder that sound became, the more terrifyingly empty the trench felt.
Karl stared for a long time, until the viewing glass blurred from the warm breath he exhaled.
Only then did he slump back down, lowering his head and staring at his muddy military boots.
“Yeah…”
“Just…
the two of us.”
Lieutenant Marcus fell silent.
He seemed to have seen this kind of scene many times before.
This was the daily reality of the Imperial Guard.
In the meat grinder, there were no lucky ones.
Those who survived were just unlucky bastards carrying the debts of the dead.
He reached out and patted Karl’s mud-covered shoulder hard.
Once.
Twice.
There were no comforting words, because anything he said would be bullshit.
Then his gaze passed over Karl and landed on Rod, who had remained silent in the corner.
Marcus’s eyes paused on the bolt pistol for one second.
That was a captain-grade sidearm.
Then his gaze moved upward and stopped on the dog tag hanging from Rod’s neck.
D-9982.
Private.
And he looked like a fresh recruit who had not even fully grown into himself yet.
“Recruit?”
Marcus asked with some uncertainty.
He could hardly believe it.
In this kind of meat grinder, the veterans had all been killed, yet a recruit had survived?
Rod raised his head.
In those black eyes, there was no collapse after fear, nor the wild joy of surviving disaster.
He nodded.
“Yes, sir.
Newly arrived replacement soldier.”
“He’s not an ordinary recruit.”
Platoon Leader Karl suddenly spoke from the side.
He raised his head and said with pride,
“He’s a recruit watched by the Emperor.”
Marcus froze for a moment, then chuckled.
“Ha!
I can see that!”
He looked Rod up and down.
“A private surviving a shithole this intense without losing an arm or a leg?
That really is something.
Looks like the old Emperor hasn’t decided to spend this commemorative coin just yet.”
As he spoke, he raised an oil-stained thumb toward Rod.
“Well done, kid.”
After that, Marcus straightened up, put his tank cap back on properly, and returned to the crisp efficiency of a commander.
“All right, enough mourning for the dead.”
He pointed toward the rear hatch.
“This section of the defense line is now under the control of us tin cans.
Your mission is over.”
“Now take your backsides and report to your company command.
I imagine your captain will be very surprised to see two ghosts come back.”