After having Beck inform me of everything that had transpired, I went to supply and got my sweet new sergeant stripes. Hopefully I would get to wear them for more than a day. And with that I went to see my squad. There were 10 guardsmen assigned under me, all of them freshly arrived to the planet. Even though they were new, the were coated in the mud that seemed to cover half this planet. Which coincidentally, I didn't even know the name of. I didn't really care though.
I assembled my squad in one of the trenches and introduced myself to them. I was about to ask one of them their name when the orks decided it would be a great time to fire some mortars at us."GET DOWN!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.
The mortar rounds started landing all around me. One of my new squad mates, the largest and meanest looking one, took some shrapnel straight through the eye. He didn't even scream, he just died instantly. My stomach dropped as I felt a swoosh near me and heard a muddy splat. Not a foot away from me was a dud mortar shell stuck in the mud. I nearly pissed myself. After the shock I had the common sense to run down the trench away from the dud. Some quick yelling made my squad do the same. Just in time too, as another mortar round landed on top of the dud making a extra large explosion that took out one member of my squad who hadn't gotten far enough away before he started praying. The emperors best protection is common sense.
I decided getting the names of my squad wasn't important. If they survived more than 2 days I would figure out who the were. Those next two days were exactly like the first, mortars falling around us like rain. Occasionally I heard our artillery respond, but that was little conciliation to us down here on the receiving end of those mortars. Eventually those two days had passed and it was time for me to learn the names of the men and women who were still alive. There were 7 of them, Emmerick, Sepp, Ottilyn, Oswin, Bartoma, Gildara, and Andris. They survived 2 days of mortar bombardment so they had a little bit of luck on their side. They were gonna need it.
It was time to advance. Word had come down to form up the platoon and prepare to advance. Beck shouted us all into position, my squad and I were smack middle of the line, Beck was only a few feet to my right. Everyone was covered and mud, and smelled like the ground around them. That is to say, they smelled like the decaying corpses of orks mixed with feces. Luckily for me, Beck had us moving out within a few minutes.
Our tight formation advanced across the muddy, ork-body covered ground in front of the trenches. I occasionally had to order one of my men or women to move faster when they started lagging behind but other than that we were moving along with great efficiency. I could only wait for us to meet the enemy. It took much longer than the last assault for us to reach the greenskins. But eventually we found the bastards. With Beck's order I fired my lasgun, it's sound adding to the collective snapping of our first volley. A few more orks charged towards us so we fired another volley. And another. they were coming piecemeal, there was no way they could break us like this.
A decent sized wave began charging towards us. A few wildly sprayed their shootas at us. One of their rounds glanced off my shoulder armor, surprising me a little but leaving no other ill effects. Turned out the armor integrated into our uniforms can actually help. Shocking. A volley was fired at the charging orks, but before Beck could order another the Kommandos sprang their trap. The first alert I got was a shower of mud and blood coating my back, a concussive forcing knocking me off balance, and a ringing in my ears. The grenades were followed up by shouts of "WAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!" and the sound of feet slapping the slushy ground behind me. Thinking fast, Beck ordered the second rank to about face and fire at will.
Seeing as the man behind me (Oswin was his name) had lost his lower body to the Kommando's grenades and the orks charging the front rank were being repulsed pretty well by the rest of the guardsmen up front, I turned around. Kommandos were coming at us as fast as their muscular legs could move them. I saw what seemed to be their leader and began hosing him with lasgun fire. It only pissed him off. He looked me in the eyes, raised his shoota, and opened up. While his atrocious aim was great for me, it wasn't so good for those around me. Beck got her lasgun knocked out of her hands and a couple of the guardsmen around her fell to the ground screaming.
Right after Beck lost her gun, the Kommandos got within melee range. One of the greenskins swung his choppa at Beck, she dodged it allowing the men around her to stab the thing to the ground. Beck ripped the choppa out of the dead ork's hands waved it around a bit and ordered everyone to hold the line. My witnessing of Beck was interrupted when a Kommando tried to chop my head off. He almost did too but I ducked at the last moment. I then sprang upward, and putting the power of my legs and arms behind it, bayoneted the ork straight through the throat and into his tiny brain. I retracted my bayonet and kicked the ork to the ground.
The Kommandos were all killed, either by lasgun fire or by bayonet point. With them taken care of, I turned to face the direction of the original orks who had served as the Kommando's distraction. There were just a few left, quickly finished off by ranged fire. Beck, (having decided she didn't want to get shot by a commissar for using an ork weapon, so had exchanged it for a lasgun on the ground) ordered the advance to continue. On we advanced, leaving behind those we lost.