I heard a heart-rending scream and a terrible silence that at that moment swallowed even the roar of the guns and the machine gun. It was so painful to hear him screaming in seemingly endless agony. At that moment he was already dead and his consciousness faded, only a bloody shroud enveloped his mind and an endless cold penetrated deeper into his soul. Instincts that awakened only at the last moment forced him to throw out this cry without words, he needed help, this was the only chance to survive and do everything for which nature created him.
And that made it even more terrifying when that scream broke and died down, because nothing could help him anymore. He died for someone else's goals and hopes on the cursed soil of his world, in this hateful slaughterhouse. Why were we here? I even forgot about it for a moment, continuing to lie in the mud, deafened by the shock wave, while something shone in the sky behind the black clouds. But gradually understanding returned and the ringing in my ears died down. Krieg was doing what he was created for, making us into who we were meant to be.
I forced my head to the side, starting to look around the area. And immediately I saw the ribs sticking out, the cadet was lying five meters away from me, tightly clutching a bunch of grenades. This image will haunt me in my dreams for a long time, not letting me forget all this horror. But even it will fade in the coming future, because all this was only a prelude to the real nightmare for which we were prepared.
Turning over onto my stomach, I began to crawl, taking advantage of the mangled landscape, full of unevenness and cover from piles of bodies, craters and broken equipment. I half-stepped forward and then began to chop at the cadet's hand with a shovel. He did not want to let go of the handle even after death.
But despite the fact that this attack had died down, a new wave was already entering the battle and the survivors stood up again with them. Realizing that it was simply impossible to break through, hiding among the bodies, injecting ourselves with lethal doses of painkillers, we were only waiting for a mistake from those who dared to consider us already dead. And then a cry rang out and, having waited for the best moment, I jumped up and ran with all my might to the target, which was some fifty meters away, the price of which was high, but could be even higher by tens of times.
At that moment, Krivoruky, who had gotten hold of a grenade launcher somewhere, managed to hit the trench that covered the flanks of the dug-in tank. The machine gun crew was firing at the infantry, noticing me too late. Another enemy cadet stuck his head out of the trench on the other flank, but a moment later, not a shell, but a whole motherfucking aerial bomb exploded in his trench and the shock wave literally threw his body twenty meters into the sky.
He literally flew like a broken sack across the battlefield like some kind of doll. If someone had told me something like that, I wouldn't have believed it, but war... sometimes you'd see something even more impossible, something that would never be shown in movies or written about in fiction, because you had to see it to start believing it. And God the Emperor is my witness, bodies being sent flying by multi-ton air bombs were a small part of that coming madness.
My heart was pounding, the whole world was against me, even the landscape was trying to break my legs or at least dislocate my ankle. But the bodies in front of me cleared the way, the courage and desperation of my allies protected me from a stray shot. No luck, only endurance and speed, a hail of artillery and the sacrifices of others allowed me to reach the tank at a distance of five meters and make a dash.
Under the adrenaline, I surpassed myself. The bundle was extremely heavy, five grenades, more than three kilograms in weight, not all guardsmen could afford to throw such a bandurina ten meters, and certainly not in the thick of battle... even the Krieg soldiers with their training had to stand out from all the others, or reduce the distance.
But I underestimated myself and therefore the throw was much more powerful and effective. Five cumulative jets hit the engine and caused a fire inside, but even in hell the crew managed to fire two more times with high-explosive fragmentation shells before the ammunition detonated and the shock wave with a terrible explosion tore out the turret, knocking me off my feet along the way.
And as soon as I fell, I immediately jumped to my feet and staggered towards the only chance to survive. I had to get to the trench and recapture it from the enemy, because being in a virtually open area would not end well. Right there, too, chaos reigned, mines and shells flew in every now and then, equalizing all the cadets regardless of their personal qualities. Everyone was turned into mincemeat and there was no point in looking for any justice in this, only chance determined whether you would live longer than others or not.
I successfully lost all my weapons, because I didn't believe that I would even make it to the tank. So the alien and half-discharged lasgun was lying somewhere in the mud, and I took up the infantry shovel again. I had nothing left except for it, however, this is already much more than one could sometimes hope for.
My gaze fell on the corpses, torn apart by shrapnel. Torn necks, mangled heads, streams of blood gushing from the pelvic arteries… some of the cadets were already dead, but did not yet realize it. Their bodies were bizarrely bent in terrible convulsions, as if they were returning to consciousness, trying to get up and then losing consciousness again in the same second. They did not even scream and only one of the cadets wheezed. He, too, was pretty badly riddled, but he tied his leg with a tourniquet and, leaning his shoulder on the edge of the trench, was already starting to aim, pointing the barrel of his lasgun at me.
At this moment, the value of a soldier was decided, and the importance of Krieg's rigorous training became apparent. Fear is an extremely strong feeling and it is impossible to predict your behavior if you have not encountered it before. As a rule, people are divided into three types. The first ones fall into a stupor, this is not a defect, on the contrary, an evolutionary mechanism that has passed through hundreds of thousands of years. Freeze, do not move, become invisible and even do not breathe, so that the predator passes by.
The second ones immediately start running away from the threat, which is also very effective and there are usually many more of such people than the first ones, which again gives the right to draw some conclusions. However, there are the least of all the third people who start attacking the threat. This is the reason why men are needed in the army, because they often belong to the third type, because their biological role is to die for their offspring.
And thanks to strict selection and training, there were only people of the third type among the cadets. When faced with a threat, rage and anger forced them to destroy everything in their path, suppressing the instinct for self-preservation. The ideal soldier, who thinks only about destroying the enemy and does not dream of returning home.
At that moment, I suddenly felt something that was unusual for me. The palette of emotions and feelings was extremely strange, which further strengthened my worst suspicions. Strange additives in the food, strangely behaving cadets from this corps, an incredibly high birth rate and the very fact that they had to survive on a planet called a dead world - all this indicated that genetic intervention was a necessity and a condition for survival.
It was scary to even imagine what the women of this world went through to satisfy the state's demand for young men who, even before they came of age, would be sent to die on other worlds for someone else's ideals and faith in a better future.
A series of flashes illuminated the trench, but the cadet's hands were shaking from the tremor, he stood unsteadily and staggered from his wounds, besides, I was moving forward and at the last moment I tried to bend over in three deaths. My shoulder blade, which took one of the hits, became red-hot, another one scorched my helmet, but the enemy could not kill me.
Gathering his last strength, he wheezed loudly and struck with his bayonet, but I easily parried it with my shovel, and then, transferring the momentum of the blow, brought its red-hot blade down on his thigh, where there was no protection. His tourniquet broke, blood gushed out at an even greater speed, but even despite such a painful blow, the cadet did not lose consciousness.
His last attempt was to rip the gas mask off my face, but I knocked him to the ground without much difficulty, and then began to smash his mug with my foot. Glass crunched, blood splashed, more and more blows came to his neck, and at some point even the wheezing died down, replaced by the sound of rain.
One after another, the drops fell to the ground, there were more and more of them, a terrible downpour began. Mud mixed with blood, the trenches began to flood and wash away. The quartermasters had a lot of difficult work ahead of them to save at least something in this hell. But there were those who had it even worse than us.
Looking down the trench, I saw cadets from my corps there. Their insignia immediately showed that they were an assault brigade. They had been thrown into the very depths of hell, tying up the enemy's best units. Apart from their losses, they had simply gnawed a hole and then begun to advance deeper and further. Their task was to sow chaos everywhere and die in the process. It was among them that there were the most grenadiers, death riders, and combat engineers. A trail of chemical weapons followed them, and the only field artillery was self-propelled guns.
In this battle they lost eighty percent of their personnel, but thanks to this the operation was successful and the losses were less than expected. Although it was also worth understanding that many of our enemies were... strange and broken. However, soon the battle was over and our corps met another one, which, it turned out, attacked from the other flank.
In total, our two corps could number up to one hundred thousand cadets. Quite a formidable force, but in the process of occupying enemy positions, we found out that the enemy was twice as numerous. I was unable to reach the remaining survivors, because the assault brigades had gone far ahead, and the battle itself had turned into a massacre. The organization was destroyed, the enemy units were isolated from each other, the enemy tried to resist, but the assault brigades simply pressed forward, developing their offensive and not even giving a chance to regroup.
The rest of the infantry barely kept up with them, conducting pinpoint clearings of shelters and finishing off survivors. Sometimes we didn't even engage in direct combat, letting the equipment dismantle yet another dugout. It became perfectly clear why the command decided to carry out such a thing. These cadets, our enemies, really couldn't become Krieg men. And from the two corps that carried out this operation, they assembled one, the quality and effectiveness of which greatly increased.
But there was no joy of victory, as well as the general understanding and joy that we had accomplished the task, lasted hardly a few minutes. All forces were thrown into restoring the front line, digging fortifications and helping quartermasters, because there were a lot of corpses and all the equipment needed to be put to another round of use.
"Your new boots, Damage," Quiet said without emotion, then handed me a pair of boots. "I was promoted to quartermaster for my composure and superior mental stability."
After that, he turned on his heels and went off to complete his next task. Most people would probably find this extremely impolite or even rude, but after so many months on Krieg, I already understood that these words were an incredible display of attention and camaraderie. Especially for Tichy, who, despite his laconicism, still decided to inform us that he had been promoted. Well, I was happy for him, he would make a good quartermaster, and the section with prayers in the Memo was his favorite. He really could lead the fallen on their final journey without going crazy.
I started changing my boots. They were quite reliable and still did their job. However, my feet started itching, which meant that somehow the acid rain was reaching my skin. The first thing I noticed was a strange seam on the heel. Only the pairs that had been taken from a corpse and repaired had that. Any other guardsman would have spat in the commander's face for that, but I just put on what I was given. That kind of attitude was normal in Krieg.
"A good battle, I learned a lot," suddenly Krivoruky decided to share this information with me. His gas mask, helmet and armor had been replaced: he had taken a beating, but he had returned to duty, even though he was now under the influence of a painkiller, not very strong, so as not to kill his nervous system.
"Are you feeling okay?" I asked, hearing the changes in the wheezing gas mask.
"Yes, great," lied Krivoruky, because he was afraid that someone would think that he couldn't cope with the task at hand: they wouldn't kill him, no, they would just send him to the rear for a while, because since he was standing on his own two feet, the wounds weren't that serious, and the fighting had ceased. "Do you think I could become a grenadier?"
- If you live long enough.
Krivoruky nodded, then continued to look somewhere into the distance, where a new enemy would soon appear. The command had not yet given the order, but it would definitely appear, even if only as mock-ups. Although Krivoruky would have preferred to fight with other cadets again, because after what he had experienced, he now sincerely believed that this was the best way to learn, because he had become much better.
As for his desire to become a grenadier... it made me feel uneasy. For reference: losses among grenadiers are always more than eighty percent, they are even given special helmets, with a skull, a kind of sign of recognition of their death. But for Krieg this is an honorable privilege and the best opportunity to atone for guilt. In addition, grenadiers, although they have the same status as regular infantry, are respected by other soldiers and, in theory, those twenty percent of survivors can someday become an overseer, and an overseer is a sergeant, they are simply called that in Krieg. Sergeants command everything that is smaller than a company, a company is a captain, and companies already consist of regiments, which are controlled by senior officers.
It was also important to understand that a company meant a squad of more than seven hundred people. And that even such a size sometimes did not prevent many regiments from growing in width and further. In general, any regiments could be of any size when formed, at first several thousand people. Then they began to grow, including during military operations, joining those regiments that it was decided to disband. And there was no limit, and some regiments, including the Death Corps regiments, generally sought to have as many soldiers as possible in each unit, and if possible, the company could be made even larger.
However, I was still haunted by the sky, namely the unrest in the warp. Many others also felt how almost everything changed in an instant. There was no doubt that at this moment Chaos was celebrating its victory and who knows, maybe what was happening was connected with the fact that Tzeentch, due to his next paranoia, lost his grip at the most inconvenient moment, allowing the creation of events that should not have happened.
One way or another, we had undergone a baptism of fire, which meant that we would soon become guardsmen. This was the best moment, although it seems that I was the only one dreaming about Kreiser coming soon and giving us a regimental flag. The rest continued to do their own thing and were ready to dig Krieg trenches until their death. I probably should have thought less, too.
And yet, it was reflection that ultimately allowed me to begin to understand the scale of the catastrophe that was unfolding. Only to begin to understand, because everything that had happened, from the strange cadets to the warp going crazy, were just echoes of the disaster that had already sucked us in up to our necks.
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