Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 485 Civil War

The civil war has been going on for three weeks. Today, the west side of the Great Tizca fell silent. 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 15th Legion were transferred there to follow the command of those Iron Warriors to supplement the defense. The 13th and 15th squads just came from the southwest side of the Great Tizca, and their backpacks and boots were full of trench soil.

Thunderhawks fly between outposts, transporting Astartes and mortal troops. Sometimes these vehicles explode into a cloud of gray mist before landing, and sometimes nothing happens. Today, I heard the alarm bells ring 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 flying vehicle had landed at the transfer station.

Lemuir ate and lived with some soldiers, and shared the illustrated magazines and magazines they were given. Most of these contents did not come from Prospero, but human aesthetics and interests were interlinked. He didn't know how to open the can with a knife at first, or maybe he could, but his movements were clumsy enough that the veteran next to him lost patience and exchanged his opened can for Lemuel's. He came back and told us about it, then lay down in his sleeping bag and began to write a record of what he saw and heard.

I envied him for having a data pad, while I was still using the notebook I inherited from Camille. The pen tip could easily pierce the paper or draw deep lines.

We didn't share the current situation of the war with those Astartes. Since Callista disappeared, those warriors have been more alert to us. But this will not have much 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 for the front-line warriors with trivial things like opening cans.

Space Marines appear in various parts of the Greater Tizca city day and night, intercepting the equally ghost-like Luna Wolves like ghosts. Those metallic armors especially like to move in complex maze areas, that is, the old city of Tizca, where the surface conditions are the most complicated. The main force of the defense, strangely enough, still could not be called mortals.

The number of auxiliary troops of the Fifteenth Legion was extremely small, which was the opposite of the Fourth Legion. Primarch Magnus cared 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 Astartes of the Fourth Legion came in such large numbers that I heard the sound of the auxiliary army's laser guns penetrating bricks as many times as the number of times the warheads of the bombs exploded and shattered things.

The battle of the Astartes did not need us mortals to worry about. In fact, they seemed to be very far away. After the first week of indiscriminate bombing and equal counterattacks, those superhuman warriors seemed 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 was blurred.

"Go and deliver something to the warriors," these slogans were not transmitted through the communication hub base stations on the top 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 deliver 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 regulations were relaxed and people were jubilant for a while. "Defending the homeland is also our mission," these words were circulated among the people, and the most energetic ones were actually the children around puberty, who would have participated in this year's Astartes selection if it had not been for the Emperor's judgment and the destruction of Prospero.

I couldn't help but marvel at what happened here, because I knew how much the Astartes could theoretically disregard mortal lives. I began to agree with Lemuel's thoughts. In my heart, I wondered if the nobility of this matter was related to the special nature of the Astartes Legion. They did embrace some extremely classical beliefs and were inspired by the mission, even if their primarch was not present.

Yes, Horus Lupercal had heard nothing until he returned 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 was maintained among these superhuman warriors, telling them when to be cruel to the end and what the remaining moments were.

"You think too highly of them," said Mahavastu Callimachus, who had once been Magnus's ghostwriter and sat side by side with the noble primarch in the same ship. Now he squinted his old eyes and looked through the lens into the distance, where a group of rifles were placed in a wooden crate 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, but now it has turned gray due to dust) hope that the Kosonia headhunters of the Shadow Moon Wolves will pay attention to those dangerous goods, and they will always explode at the right time.

Mahavastu then lay on the ground, and the minaret guards beside him began to aim and shoot. The explosion about three hundred yards away was as close to my ears as ever. I was shaken and trembled. 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, some screams mixed 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 pessimism. A person had better have faith, otherwise he will regret his life when he dies.

The bullet hit a man's arm, then the lower part of the chest, tearing the armor, but the damage was not limited to the surface. We stayed in the house, making something like a periscope as a joke, and watched our warriors fall out of our sight. The smell here is terrible, and some rotten meat has not been picked up, except for the pets that were once raised and are now starving.

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

"It's not that dangerous around here," Lemuel explained, "several of us ran all over the outer wall of the Great Tizca, and we are still unscathed..."

"You lost an ear," Izara reminded.

Lemuel shrugged his shoulders, not to be outdone. "That's another matter. The west side is silent today, just like the rest of the city a week ago. The invasion of the Luna Wolves also has a pause. In your words, Camille, this is the light of civilization shining with compassion."

These are not my words, I think, this is Calista's style.

I hope Lemuel is still awake. After all, a week ago he went up to the communication tower and asked to play Prospero's blues songs on the idle channel, including "Everyone Knows" and "Take You Home Yesterday". Later, these songs were not only sung on the radio waves, but the whole of Tizca was faintly immersed in the songs.

The next day, the sound of artillery sounded again. The Great Pyramid of the Sky 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, perhaps the death toll was more than I guessed.

I remember seeing an old man in his seventies, or even older if that was the sage of Prospero, throwing rocks at the Moon Wolves. He picked up a few small ones, aimed at the warriors, and threw them hard. He was killed soon after, the bullet shattered his ribs and went through his lungs. After him, a child about eleven years old did the same thing. Soon the child died too.

"We are here to record the battle on the west side," Izara answered 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 be suddenly triggered. When I realized this, I felt that I was too tired, because the sound of gunfire and bombardment had already sounded in my hallucination, but none of my companions responded.

"The Civil War will end one day, Izara, and sooner or later 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 Space Marines as you are. Before that, how can the Civil War end? There is no end, Lemuir, maybe we can take a breath, but there will be no more."

"Then what is this?" I said.

"What?"

I shook my head. I don't know, I don't know where my question comes from. I thought of the Persian pattern carpet on the roof of the residential building where we were, and the wood grain of the low table for baking bread was still cracked after years of use, but you can tell by touching it that it has just been wiped with cotton cloth and beeswaxed. The purple saffron bloomed well, and the stamens stretched out like red ribbons.

The shooting started suddenly and with great urgency, all at once, the Luna Wolves were on the attack, many guns raised to fire at us, Lemuel dragged us down, protecting 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 felt a kind of anger, just in the Luna Wolves' attack. They had obviously just made the decision to re-launch the attack, breaking this temporary and tacit rest, and I felt that they were just pouring bullets, throwing everything in the barrel into our buildings. I'm not sure what the old saying is, it means that they have reached this point and there is not much left to hold back.

At the same time, new orders began to be sent rapidly on the communication channel, like a sudden summer rain. For those of us who don't hold military positions, these signals usually play some rules for protecting ourselves in wartime, some encouragement and declarations of victory, and, yes, sometimes some songs.

But now, real military orders were issued, telling everyone who was able to use a gun which defensive fortresses needed simple reinforcements, and the remaining powerless 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 that I was being pierced through the head by bullets.

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

"I don't know," Lemuel gasped, trying to finish his sentence before he choked himself to death, "Command seems..."

Also fell into anger. I thought 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 roars of the Luna Wolves at this moment. I began to feel fear, and I didn't understand why things had suddenly changed.

We tried to avoid walking in the open air. The house we were in just now was blown through by air strikes in about ten minutes. Then, a representative black smoke cloud broke out in the sky above Prospero, just above the Central Library of the Grand Tizca. The red beam penetrated the clouds and easily pierced the dark sky covered by the black sun. The powerful attack that originated 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 was the Grand Tizca's defensive cannon, and the strike range could reach the orbit.

I'm not sure which Luna Wolves ship it was targeting. Could it be the Spirit of Vengeance? But the Vengeful Spirits didn't get that close. The Luna Wolves were surprisingly wary of this: their fleet wouldn't come within our range unless necessary.

Then Mahavastu fell, looking up at the light, exposed to the view for too long, as if calculating something. Soon the overloaded plasma gun of the infantry platoon command group pierced his chest and lodged somewhere inside him. He looked at us, gasping for air and fell. Lemuir tried 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 called for a while to the nearby medics, but no one followed us. Not long after, Mahavastu died.

We continued to run, and the conflict between the two sides became more intense, and many orders were more radical than any day in the past three weeks.

Lemuir's hands were still stained with Mahavastu's blood. After a while, he said, "But what's civil about civil war?"