CHAPTER TEN: Into The Thick.
Ariel races towards the trenches. He is running
as fast as his genetic enhancements allow him to. The air in his helmet is circulating around inside making
it hot for him. He sweats. Evaporation forms on the scars mending on the left side of his face. He has fastened the pendant Suri gave him to his shoulder armour. The pendant is his oath of moment.
He reaches the trenches and drags the two closest men out by the backs of their collars. At first they don't understand but when they see the Astarte's stand before them they bow on one knee. The sun is no more. The Dark Angel has entered the battle field.
The sun hides from the Dark Angels. They suck in every particle of light and leave only darkness. "Relinquish your post and come with me." He orders to the two Imperial soldiers.
They will be court marshalled. The General will be sure to punish them to further cement his own authority. They voice their concerns.
"My lord. We cannot leave our post. We will be disobeying a direct order. We'll get in trouble." "Look around you!" growls Ariel. "Are you not already in trouble?" A round from the auto gun
of a cultist slams into the helmet of the Astarte's.
It does nothing. It happens before the two soldiers eyes
and helps them to chose their orders. Follow the angel, or follow the General? They choose wisely, even though the words of the Dark Angel are hard to swallow.
"Leave this trench. Stronger forces attack us from the
rear position. Forces your general has failed to acknowledge and address. Grab a handful more battle brothers and return to the village. As many as you can. Take the civilians to the underground training area in the fields. Hide them
there. Keep them there. Protect them. We will fight. You will live but only to protect them. If the training area is compromised then fight to the last. Take no sick. None that are falling to the plague. They will only desecrate the numbers further. They are already lost." The two soldiers nod. One will have to leave his own mother to
die at the hands of the plague. This is hard for him.
Auto rounds blast towards them. Lasgun flashes sear over
no man's land. The two men climb over the trench in the opposite direction. Mud cakes their clothes and
weighs them down. Within a matter of moments the trench starts to drastically thin out. Inevitably the cultists surge forward and fill the gaps. The Cadian troops of the Imperial Army fight gallantly. Las rifles popped through the distended abdomens of cultist warriors.
Cultists firing auto rounds into the heads of the guard. Groans and growls came over the trenches and cries
of agony as bodies on both sides are dismembered. Close quarters. No quarters. Behind the cultists heavy weaponry roared. It opened on the cultists and Imperial Guard
alike. Throwing limbs and heads and carcasses into the air. Gravity slamming them back to down with as much force as any other weapon being used this day. Bones cracked
and splintered. Ariel looked at what unfolded before
him. He saw a soldier who had lost his weapon fly over no man's land with his knee out. His form was perfect and Ariel recognised this technique instantly from
his training with Galil. The knee pumped into the guts
of a cultist causing him to buckle down. They felt no pain but they couldn't defeat the laws of physics.
Maggot like insects spewed out in a thick sludge from the
cultists mouth. The soldier ceased the opportunity. He
took the cultists head under his arm and cranked upwards. Ariel recognised this technique also. The cultists head eventually popped off. The head of the Imperial Guardsmen also flung back. Just as he had killed the cultist
an auto gun round collected him in the head. Drilling
deep into his brains and exiting through the back of his skull. The kinetic force continuing to push the round
into the shoulder of another Imperial soldier fighting behind him. A head for a head. An explosion
erupted in the trench. Three bodies flew upwards. Two landed on the ground. The third was caught by a cultist on his bayonet. Ariel didn't enter the violence yet.
He had a battle plan. He knew as soon as his presence was known thicker, overwhelming forces would be deployed. Decimating the Imperial Armies numbers. Vengeance
filled him. He was blood thirsty. "How long?" he thought. He lay in the cover of a crater waiting. Observing the battle. Watching the trench dissipate as the cultists over ran it and every man fought for himself.
Finally, a voice.
"My lord. The civilians are safe." Ariel turned around. "Very good." He said. "Now we can fight war as war should be fought." He drew back the bottom of his
robe and revealed his arsenal. He withdrew a chain sword. He raised it.. It growled and roared. He revved it harder, and harder. He pointed it at the battle and charged in!