Warhammer 40: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 485 Civil War
The civil war has been going on for three weeks now, and today the west side of the Grand Tizca fell into silence. I think there is a temporary ceasefire there.

The Iron Warriors will take advantage of this short break to fill the defensive line. This morning, two auxiliary infantry companies of the Fifteenth Legion were transferred over to follow the command of those Iron Warriors to supplement the defense. The Thirteenth and Fifteenth Squadrons just arrived from the southwest side of the Great Tizca, with their backpacks and boots full of trench soil.

Thunderhawks fly between outposts, transporting Astartes and mortal armies. Sometimes these vehicles explode into a cloud of gray mist before landing, and sometimes nothing happens. Today, I heard the alarm bells ringing violently near the communication tower. The clerks were busy passing on information for a while, and soon they fell silent. I didn't hear them announce that a craft had landed at the transit station.

Lemuel ate and lived with some soldiers, sharing the illustrated magazines and magazines they had been given. Most of the content was not from Prospero, but human aesthetics and tastes were the same. He didn't know how to open a can with a knife at first, or maybe he could, but his movements were clumsy enough that the old soldier next to him lost patience and exchanged his can for Lemuel's. When he came back, he told us about it, and then he lay in his sleeping bag and began to write a record of what he had seen.

I envied him for having a datapad, while I was still using the notebook I inherited from Camille. The pen tip would easily puncture the paper or leave deep grooves.

We did not share the current situation of the war with those Astartes. Since Callista disappeared, those soldiers have been alert to us. But this will not have a big impact on us. Lemuel said that we are the memoirists, and it is our duty to record the war on the front line, except for causing trouble to the front-line soldiers with trivial things like opening cans.

Space Marines appeared in various parts of the Greater Tizca city at all times of the day and night, intercepting the equally ghostly Luna Wolves like ghosts. Those metallic armors especially liked to move in the complex maze area, that is, the old city of Tizca, where the surface conditions were the most complicated. And the main force of the defense, strangely enough, was still not mortal.

The XVth Legion's auxiliaries were extremely few in number, the opposite of the IVth Legion. Primarch Magnus was concerned about the participation rate of his people in the war, and on the other hand, it was usually difficult for them to keep up with the marching style of a psychic legion. The IVth Legion's Astartes came in such large numbers that I heard the sound of the auxiliaries' laser guns piercing through bricks as often as the sound of the warheads of the bombs exploding and shattering things.

The battles of the Astartes need not concern us mortals. In fact, they seem to be far away. After the first week of indiscriminate bombing and equal counterattacks, those superhuman warriors seem to have formed a tacit understanding, which Lemuir recorded as a symbol of civilization. They began to focus more on destroying each other's existence, and the battles between mortals became more targeted, just like the drones in the sky also specifically aimed at various aircraft painted in pearl white. They floated quickly like blocks of color when people's vision blurred.

"Go and bring something to the warriors," these slogans were not transmitted through the communication hub base stations on the spire of the great pyramid that still existed, but spread from mouth to mouth among the citizens of Tizca. Those who were not directly involved in the war found ways to send food, water, and even some weapons to the defending warriors of the mainly mortal forces in the destroyed city. The latter was less common.

At first the Iron Warriors even banned this, but later the rules were relaxed and people were jubilant. "Protecting our homeland is also our duty," people spread similar words among them, and the most energetic ones were actually adolescent children. If it weren't for the Emperor's judgment and the destruction of Prospero, they should have participated in this year's Astartes selection.

I couldn't help but marvel at what was happening here, knowing how the Astartes could theoretically disregard human life. I began to agree with Lemuel's thoughts. Secretly, I wondered if the nobility of this matter had something to do with the uniqueness of the Legiones Astartes, who did embrace some extremely ancient beliefs and were inspired by their mission, even without their Primarch being present.

Yes, Horus Lupercal had been heard from until his return to Terra, Magnus was dead, and Perturabo was far away. But they were still the spiritual leaders of the Legion for the time being, and that emotion kept these superhuman warriors together, telling them when to be cruel to the end and when to be cruel.

"You think too highly of them," said Mahavastu Callimachus, who had once been Magnus's ghostwriter and sat on the same ship as the noble Primarch. Now he narrowed his old eyes and looked through the lens at the distance, where a group of rifles were placed in wooden crates covered with colorful cloth. The Spire Guards (this is the official name of the auxiliary army, their symbol is the scarab, and the color scheme used to be gold, red and white, now gray due to dust) hoped that the Kosonia headhunters of the Shadow Moon Wolves would pay attention to those dangerous items, and they would always explode at the right time.

Mahavastu then dropped to the ground, and the minaret guards beside him began to aim and fire. The explosions about three hundred yards away were as close to my ears as ever, and I was shaken by the shock. Experience told me not to look up now. A few seconds later, a man next to us fell down, like a bag of bleeding grapes, just picked from the vine, and hit the sandbags on the roof, although it was not the season for picking grapes.

Soon we began to move to another position, with some screams mixed in with the explosions of various sizes, including individual rocket launchers and heavy machine guns. If the robots of the Psionic Fortress had not been disabled by the influence of the Black Sun, this battle would have been much easier, I think.

I do not agree with Mahavastu's pessimistic attitude. It is better for a person to have faith, otherwise he will regret his life when he dies.

The bullet hit one man in the arm, then the lower chest, tearing through the armor, but causing more than just surface damage. We stayed inside, making periscopes as a joke, and watched our warriors fall out of sight. The smell was bad here, and there was some rotting meat that no one had picked up, except for the pets that had once been kept and were now starving.

Lemuel suggested taking the dead in the house downstairs and burying them, and to our astonishment he admitted that this was a joke.

"It's not that dangerous around here," Lemuel explained. "We ran all over the outer wall of the Great Tizca and came out unscathed..."

“You’re missing an ear,” Izara reminded.

Lemuel shrugged unyieldingly. "That's another matter. The west side was silent today, just as the rest of the Ring City was a week ago. The Luna Wolves' infestation also has pauses. To use your words, Camille, it's the light of civilization shining with compassion."

That's not my words, I thought, that's Calista's style.

I hoped Lemuel was still awake, after all, a week ago he went up to the communications tower and requested that Prospero's blues songs, including "Everybody Knows" and "Took You Home Yesterday", be played on an unoccupied channel. Later, these songs not only sang on the radio waves, but also immersed the entire Tizca in the sound of the songs.

The next day, the cannons rang again. The Great Pyramid of the Owl School collapsed in the air raid that day. I think at least thirty Astartes died in the defense of that day. Considering that it was the Great Pyramid of a school, there might be more dead than I guessed. I remember seeing an old man in his seventies, or even older if it was the Sage of Prospero, throwing rocks at the Luna Wolves. He picked up a few small ones, aimed at the warriors, and threw them hard. He was killed quickly, the bullet shattered his ribs and went out of his lungs. After him, a child about eleven years old did the same thing. Soon that child died too.

"We are here to record the battle on the west side," Izara replied to Lemuel, "not to challenge their nerves. Camille, please take more photos, and then we will go back to the communication tower."

As she spoke, I kept expecting an explosive device to suddenly go off, and when I realized this, I think I was too tired, because the sound of gunfire had already sounded in my hallucination, but my companions did not respond.

"The civil war will end someday, Izara, and then we will need to bury these bodies."

"The Emperor's order to the Luna Wolves is to destroy our planet, and sooner or later they will do it completely," Izara said, her eyes red and her tone fierce, "I am as familiar with the true nature of the Space Marines as you are. Before this, how can the Civil War end? There is no end, Lemuel. Maybe we can take a breath, but there will be no more."

"So what is this?" I said.

"what?"

I shook my head. I don't know, I don't know where my question came from. I thought of the Persian pattern carpet on the roof of the house where we lived, and the low table on which the toast was placed. The wood grain was still cracked after years of use, but when you touch it, you can tell that it has just been wiped with cotton cloth and beeswaxed. The purple saffron bloomed beautifully, and the stamens stretched out like red ribbons.

The shooting started suddenly and with great urgency. All of the Luna Wolves were on the offensive at once. Many guns were raised to shoot at us. Lemuel pulled us down and protected Izara and me with his shoulders. Some large-caliber rounds shook the ground behind us, and there were rounds of grenade launchers and grenades when we got close. When the gunfire stopped, the machine guns would immediately fill the gap.

I sensed a kind of anger in the Luna Wolves' attack. They had clearly just made the decision to break this temporary, tacit respite by resuming their attack, and I felt like they were just pouring bullets, throwing everything in their barrels at our buildings. I'm not sure what the old saying is, but it means that they've reached this point, and there's not much left to hold back.

At the same time, new orders began to be sent out rapidly on the communication channels, like a sudden summer rain. For those of us who were not in the military, these signals usually played some rules for protecting ourselves in wartime, some inspirational declarations and declarations of victory, and, yes, sometimes songs.

But now, real military orders were issued, telling everyone who was capable of using a gun which defensive fortresses needed simple reinforcements, and the remaining incapable people had to rush to the nearest underground fortress within a certain number of minutes. These words bombarded my ears rapidly, and I began to feel like I was being pierced through the head by bullets.

What happened? Mahavastu's voice came from afar. He ran very slowly. After all, he was old. Before the civil war, Magnus allowed him to travel in the latest automatic sedan. His glory was gone forever.

“I don’t know,” Lemuel gasped, trying to finish his sentence before choking himself to death. “The command seems to…”

I was also filled with anger. I thought that something had completely angered the Iron Warriors and the Thousand Dust Suns, causing them to abandon their adherence to some invisible rules, just like the angry roar of the Moon Wolf at this moment. I began to feel fear, not understanding why things had suddenly changed.

We tried to avoid walking in the open air. The house we were in was blown through by air strikes in about ten minutes. Then, a representative black cloud of smoke broke out in the sky above Prospero, just above the Central Library of the Great Tizca. Red beams penetrated the clouds and easily pierced the dark sky covered by the black sun. The powerful attack that came entirely from the material universe was not restricted by the Emperor's black terror. Soon some broken fragments seemed to fall from the sky, drawing long lines of fire rain.

That's the Grand Tizca's defensive cannon, with a range that can reach orbit.

I'm not sure which Luna Wolves ship it was targeting, could it be the Vengeful Spirit? But the Vengeful Spirit didn't get that close, and the Luna Wolves were surprisingly cautious about this: their fleet wouldn't come within range unless it had to.

Then Mahavastu fell down, looking up at the beam of light, exposed to the field of vision for too long, as if he was calculating something. Soon, the overloaded plasma gun of the infantry platoon command group pierced his chest and lodged somewhere inside his body. He looked at us, gasping for breath and fell down. Lemuir tried to do something to help him. Izara's hand was burned by psionic energy. She must have wanted to stop something with a little simple psionic energy. I shouted for a while to the nearby medics, but no one followed us. Not long after, Mahavastu died.

We continued running, and the conflict between the two sides became more intense, with many of the orders being more radical than on any day in the past three weeks.

After a moment, Lemuel, his hands still stained with Mahavastu's blood, said, "But what's civil about civil war?"

(End of this chapter)