novelden Chapter 1033: 2 Years of Raising, 2 Seconds of Fighting
Chapter 1033: 2 Years of Raising, 2 Seconds of Fighting
The moment the belly gate of the landing battleship opened, the promethium fuel and the sour smell of vomit mixed into the holy oil of death.
Calvin stepped onto the sticky ground and entered the landing craft. His pupils contracted at the sight of the blood-red "XIII" code on the hatch. The number was written with powdered skulls of the fallen soldiers mixed with holy blood, and it glowed eerily under the dim emergency lights.
"This is the Emperor's holy number, bless you bunch of rookies!"
The commissar's bolter smashed into the landing ship's armor, and the sparks illuminated the tactical chip implanted in his left eye. "When you roll in the greenskin's excrement, remember this number will burn through all the heretics..."
The sudden jolt of gravity turned his threat into a groan, and his shoulder armor with an eagle emblem hit heavily on the fire extinguisher box.
When Calvin groped his way to seat No. 13, he discovered that the crash belt had been torn off by the previous user.
A soldier huddled in a corner was carving a prayer on the bulkhead with a bayonet. Amid the flying metal debris, the stroke of "XIII" was gradually dyed dark red, and it was obvious that the man's fingers had been worn to the bone.
Tommy's stammering prayers came from the front right, and the boy stuffed dried lavender flowers into the breathing valve, filling the entire gas mask with an absurd floral scent.
"I heard the orcs would eat you for dinner."
The Catachan veteran across from him suddenly spoke up. He was applying some kind of frog venom to his serrated dagger. "Last time in the Varan Swamp, we poured thirteen kinds of poison into the greenskin position..."
His story was interrupted by the landing craft's violent lateral acceleration. Three soldiers who were not wearing their seat belts hit the ceiling like rag dolls, and one of them had his teeth embedded in the groove of "XIII".
Calvin clutched the silver ring in front of his chest, and the wheat ear pattern on the inside of the ring became clearer in the cold sweat.
As the landing ship's engine let out its dying roar, the entire ship suddenly rang with the prayer tape recorded by the mechanical priest. The chanting sound of the stuck gears and the roar of the anti-aircraft artillery fire outside the cabin formed a strange duet.
He glimpsed through the observation window that the escorting fighter group was disintegrating, and the light from a Lightning fighter being hit by a green plasma cannon just happened to illuminate the surface of the Vigilance Planet below - that was not soil at all, but a carpet of death made up of countless Ork and Astra Militarum corpses.
“Thirty seconds!”
The commissar's roar was mixed with the metallic clang of the bolter being loaded, "Hold back the shit and piss in your pants!"
Twenty-seven different versions of the Emperor's Prayer suddenly exploded in the cabin. The holy book of the state religion in a soldier's arms was spontaneously combusting, and the charred pages were stuck to the surface of the vomit.
"This is not a good sign!"
The sky of Vigilant was burning. Calvin's face was pressed against the bulletproof glass of the landing ship's observation window, and the emerald tracer bullet tracks were burned on his retina.
The wings of the Ork fighters were made of rusted steel plates and dinosaur bones, and the green exhaust from the engines dragged poisonous vortices in the clouds.
An Imperial Lightning fighter had just completed a beautiful roller maneuver when the cockpit was pierced by a heavy pile driver modified by the Orks in the next second. The pilot's exploded head froze into bloody ice crystals in the vacuum.
"Three o'clock on the port side!"
The pilot's screams mixed with the groans of metal fatigue, and Calvin saw landing ship No. XIX being hit by Ork anti-aircraft artillery.
The hull of the ship carrying fifty soldiers from home exploded like a ripe pumpkin. Among the flying armor fragments was actually half a bouquet of dried lavender. The blood-stained lavender petals slapped against the porthole of landing ship No. 13, leaving a tear-like mark.
The Imperial Navy's retaliation was violent and precise.
Three Sword-class frigates swooped down from the ionosphere, and the light spear array evaporated the Ork fighter group into emerald metallic steam.
But more green aircraft emerged from the cracks in the clouds. An orc bomber that was converted from a church dome actually used an entire stained glass window as a throwing weapon. The portrait of the saint shattered into millions of pieces as it passed through the landing ships. A soldier's pupil was permanently pierced by a piece of glass with a golden halo.
“Ten seconds!”
For the first time, fear was revealed in the political commissar's roar. His belt with a skull inlaid on it was leaking electricity, and the smell of burning mixed with the smell of urine that filled the cabin.
Calvin found that his palm was stuck to the silver ring, and the broken gun pattern carved by Irene on the ring was sucking the blood beads on his palm.
In a final glimpse through the observation window, he saw an out-of-control Ork warship crash into the Vigilant Star orbital defense platform, and radioactive dust rose from the mushroom cloud of the explosion.
The moment the landing hatch exploded, Calvin's world was dyed green. It was not the emerald green of the wheat fields in his hometown, but the poisonous glow of the orc plasma cannon.
The first green light evaporated the five soldiers in the front row. The part of Tommy above his neck where the lavender sachet was hung was directly vaporized, and the boy's headless body was still in the posture of loading the laser gun.
"Get down, bastard!"
The commissar's roar was mixed with the sizzling sound of burning flesh. When Calvin was knocked over by the blast, he saw the Catachan veteran rip the grenade ring open with his teeth, and the poisoned dagger was still stuck in the eye socket of a greenskin.
But the roar of the orc's chainsaw axe was louder than his dying laughter, and the pieces of poison frog flesh and human intestines were tangled into bloody ribbons in the sky.
The ground is shaking.
It was not artillery fire, but the orcs' giant combat shoes welded with rusty iron nails that rolled over the wreckage of the landing capsule.
Calvin's cheek was pressed against the scorching metal floor as he watched Edgar's carefully calibrated laser gun energy box being crushed by the tracks. Thirty-seven energy boxes engraved with the names of his wife and children exploded in succession, leaving a charred "XIII" on the chassis of the green tank.
These people who were raised by their parents in their hometown for 20 years did not even survive 20 seconds on the battlefield.
"move!"
The political commissar suddenly pulled up a corpse and held it in front of him, and the rotten corpse fluid poured all over Calvin's face.
Three orc rockets exploded at their heels, stirring up not mud but orc fangs all over the ground.
A flying tooth pierced Calvin's kettle, and the aroma of hometown ale and the smell of blood brewed into poison in the gas mask.
The moment they fell into the crater, the whole sky suddenly darkened.
Calvin looked up and saw the napalm bombs dropped by the Imperial Navy bombers, and the waterfall of fire bloomed like a golden lotus on the Orc position.
But the next second, the cockpit cover of a bomber that was hit flew off, and the burning body of the pilot happened to fall on the edge of the crater where Calvin was hiding. The man's mechanical hand was still holding a burnt family portrait.
“Watch this!”
The political commissar suddenly stuffed the grenade launcher into Calvin's arms, with the skull fragments of a deserter still stuck in the barrel.
His one eye flashed with crazy excitement, and his chainsaw sword cut through the smoke and pointed at the orc machine gun position: "That's your wedding hall!"
"For the Emperor! Forward!"
Calvin looked in the direction of the bloody blade. On the fortress built by the orcs with human bones, there was a half-flag of the Astra Militarum. It was the flag of the company to which Edgar's brother belonged. The emblem of the hometown church could still be made out on the charred flag.
It was as if there were ears of wheat rustling in his ears. Calvin reached for the silver ring on his chest, but only grabbed a handful of dirt mixed with brain matter.
As the second wave of landing capsules plunged into the coastline, trailing black smoke, the sea water suddenly began to boil.
It was not due to artillery fire, but some kind of Tyranid ship covered with biological armor was landing. But Calvin didn't know at this moment that in the ruins of the medical station fifteen kilometers away, a medical soldier numbered MED- was using his silver ring to clamp the broken gas mask.