Chapter 76: Stand Behind Me, Ma'am
If there truly was a hell in the universe, then the mutants now pouring from the fissures in the underhive were showing them what it looked like.
Yulia watched in horror as the hideous creatures, beings that had only existed in urban legends, swarmed into the upper hive and slaughtered the scavengers who had been loitering around her home. Then, the sorcerers, wielding staffs of human bone, performed a blasphemous ritual on the corpses.
Tissue swelled and burst from the bodies, adhering to the mutants. The evil creations burrowed into their flesh, and amidst horrific wails, a new host of twisted monsters was born.
"Don't look."
Price's hand covered Yulia's eyes. The familiar warmth calmed her panicked heart slightly.
"Pack your things. It's time to go."
"Okay."
Yulia, along with Sophia, quickly packed some ration-bars and water, as well as a short-barreled stub-gun for self-defense. She then went back to her room, shattered a picture frame, and tucked the family photo inside her coat. She knew they had to travel light.
Price continued to watch the window, at the shadows of the approaching cultists. They were waving scavengers who had been impaled from the groin to the skull on barbed pikes, a clear sign that this city block had fallen into their hands. For some reason, the community's activities had visibly decreased recently, then vanished altogether. At the same time, in the fringe areas where their home was located, the cultists' activities had become increasingly rampant.
At one point, Price had even heard the sound of a Baneblade firing, but he had dismissed it as a hallucination.
He silently pulled back from the window, enduring the pain in his chest as he slapped a magazine into his bolter. He glanced at Erica, who was already wearing a blindfold, then led the women through a service tunnel towards the next city block.
They traversed two blocks with practiced ease, an area Price had already scouted. But just as he was about to thank the Emperor for a smooth journey, disaster struck.
Or perhaps, this was fate.
An idle glance from a sorcerer, who now shared his world with daemons, and he had spotted a shining soul amidst the ruins.
Round, smooth, like a piece of amber cast from pure white resin.
"Get them!"
An emptiness and hunger in his soul compelled him to cry out, a shrill whistle that sent the twisted creations and mutants at his side hurtling forward.
BOOM!
A bolt round shot out, blowing off half the body of a foul creature. Price, enduring the searing pain in his back, shouted, "Run! Run down the main road, don't stop!"
Yulia took the little girl, lightening Sophia's burden, and the two of them broke into a sprint.
Price tried to raise his gun again, but the piercing pain in his chest made it impossible for him to stand straight. He had to abandon the idea of a fighting retreat. With one arm, he braced the barrel of his gun on a broken pillar and fired continuously at the enemy.
By now, three mutants had closed in. The one in the lead had two faces and was unnaturally muscular. He took down the two weaker ones with his first shots, then fed the last two rounds in his magazine to the muscular mutant.
A hammer of fused flesh and iron swung towards him.
Enduring the intense pain, Price rolled aside. The cheap bolter, along with the pillar, was shattered into pieces. Twenty years ago, Price was certain he could have easily killed these Chaos scum. But now, he was old, and wounded.
"Come on, you Chaos dregs," Price said, hiding a short blade behind his back as he stood five meters away from the 'beast'. "My death will take you with me."
The 'beast' nodded dumbly and started to move forward.
Just as Price was about to make his last stand, another change, one that should not have been in his destiny, occurred.
ZZZZT—
A dense hail of projectiles stitched a line through the air, shredding the massive beast into pieces. A crossfire quickly carved out a kill-zone, holding back the charging cultists.
Price turned his head.
One heavy transport vehicle after another was blocking the main road, their mounted cannons firing on the surrounding heretics. And the most eye-catching figure was a towering silhouette in the middle of the convoy.
"It's an Angel! An Angel of the Emperor!" Yulia cried out in surprise.
But Price's expression showed little joy. Although the color was unfamiliar, the insignia on the armor was one he knew well. Especially from the time he had seen them feasting on corpses on the battlefield.
Sigh~
Price couldn't help but sigh in his heart. Why did fate always play such jokes on him? Why, when all his old comrades had passed on, was he the only one left to guard the treasures they had left behind, struggling on a planet half a galaxy away from home?
"Get to them! Get to their convoy!" he shouted with his last bit of strength, before collapsing to the ground. At this point, all he could do was gamble.
He stared fixedly ahead, letting the bone javelins thrown by the cultists pierce his thigh. He wanted to see the end of this. He could not accept that his and his comrades' treasures would be taken away so easily.
"Damn you! You've taken my most prized treasure!" the distant sorcerer shrieked. A surging spell gathered in his hands and shot straight towards Yulia, who was carrying the little girl.
"No!" Price cried out in despair.
A shadow fell over the fleeing Yulia.
CLANG!
The daemonic spell struck a pauldron, chewing out a chunk of armor and making the Angel's body shudder.
Only then did Yulia realize she had just walked a step away from death.
"Stand behind me, ma'am," the Angel said without turning back. His solid form stood between Price's family and the foul creatures, like a mighty fortress wall.
He raised his gun. A flash ignited the air, followed by a sky-blotting barrage of fire.
And this was the end that Price saw.
"I'm not dreaming, am I?"
A bright light brought Price back to his senses. He touched his chest, which no longer ached, and looked around.
Enforcers of the Imperial Cult patrolled the area. A crowd of people stood in orderly lines. The hall was not exactly clean, but it was not chaotic either. The fragrance of food filled the air, and a bandage was now wrapped around his own chest.
He had been rescued by a patrol of armed faithful who had been deliberately combing the edges of the Upper Hive, their purpose to gather the scattered populace.
Everything felt so unreal.
The light in his vision brightened. Price looked over and saw that the young man in front of him had run off as if fleeing for his life. He quickly stepped forward and looked at the Commissar who was now sitting in the young man's place. Aside from being an old man, every feature of his matched his memory.
Price often lamented the vastness of the galaxy, which had kept him from returning home. Sometimes, he had to marvel at its smallness, to be able to meet an old friend in a foreign land.
"You're cutting in line," Commissar Alexei of the "Broken Swords" said without looking up, glancing at the roster in his hand, which was not even a third full. He was recruiting soldiers to serve as auxiliary crew for the non-essential systems of their armored vehicles. Now that the Cadians had fully transitioned into a heavy armored force, the physical requirements for their soldiers were not as high. What was important was a steadfast will to fight, enough to ensure they didn't make mistakes while loading and aiming.
"The young lad in front of me couldn't handle your pressure," a hand, covered in wrinkles and scars, pushed a piece of yellow, tattered cloth forward.
"Armageddon Steel Legion, 141st Regiment. John Price."
The Commissar looked up and saw an old man in a yellow greatcoat. The old man stood ramrod straight before him, his eyes meeting the Commissar's unnerving gaze without fear.
"Price?" the Commissar asked, again, tentatively.
"Long time no see, Alexei," Price said with a smile. Meeting an old friend in a strange land... it eased his long-strained nerves considerably.
The Commissar looked at his chrono, left a space on the registration form, and motioned for his old friend to wait to the side. After two hours of registration and screening, he finally handed the work over to his adjutant, who had come to relieve him.
"Long time no see." The Commissar led him to the edge of the queue and held out his hand. Two equally aged hands clasped together.
"Long time no see," Price said, unable to help but remark on the Commissar's graying hair. "The ageless Commissar is finally old."
"My great-grandson is older than you," the Commissar retorted with a faint smile. He opened his lho-stick case and asked, "How did you end up here?"
"After a crusade, the regiment took too many casualties. A few hundred of us were left. Not worth picking up, so they just left us here. Missed the good times when you were around," Price said with a laugh. He held out his hand. A Tech-Priest with an instrument took a drop of blood, and a blue light lit up on the device. It meant he had passed.
It was a genetic testing device, capable of detecting humans infected by the Genestealer xenos. In the Shrine, which now housed over a million Imperial citizens, everyone had to undergo such a test once a day, on average.
He suddenly felt that this old Commissar was exactly where he should be. Price wiped the drop of blood from his fingertip. In his own imagined best-case scenario for his family, it was still many times worse than this.
He then pushed away the lho-stick the Commissar offered him. "I've quit smoking and drinking," he said.
"Family?" the Commissar asked, immediately extinguishing the lho-stick he had just lit.
"Yeah. Wife passed early. Spared her this mess. Left me with a daughter, Yulia. She wanted me to live a long time. So long that I've outlived all my old comrades," Price said with a self-deprecating smile. "But I don't know if I should call it lucky or unlucky. It seems I'll be able to die on the battlefield after all."
"This man! Your test is not satisfactory! Please step aside!"
Just as the Commissar was about to say something, a commotion drew their attention. A young soldier was arguing with the adjutant. From his uniform, he was likely from the local Planetary Defense Force. The Pierdra PDF had been scattered in the initial fighting. Because their high command had already been infiltrated by the Genestealer Cult, to eliminate the threat this force might pose to the brood, they had been thrown into the most brutal battlefields.
"I was in the reconnaissance company of my class. I believe my professional skills are sufficient for this duty."
"We are not just assessing professional skills, sir," the adjutant said, looking at the young man with cold, falcon-like eyes. He saw the young man's gaze flit away and sighed inwardly. A man who hesitates like this, how can you expect him to save your life when you're fighting daemons?
"If you simply wish to serve the Imperium, you can sign up for the armed faithful of the Imperial Cult, or the enforcer squads. They also have decent benefits."
As the adjutant finished speaking, the young soldier was pulled aside by a middle-aged man.
"My name is Skork. I'm a tech-wright. I'm proficient with las-type weaponry."
The adjutant continued to stare at him with those same emotionless eyes. "What do you fight for?"
The middle-aged man met the adjutant's gaze without wavering. "For my family."
"Very well. You're accepted."
The young soldier who had been pushed aside nervously tugged at his sleeve, as if hiding something, or perhaps just flustered under the pressure. When he heard the word "family," his expression visibly darkened.
The Commissar narrowed his eyes.
"Cornwall!" Price suddenly called out.
The young soldier looked up in surprise, but the surprise was quickly replaced by panic, and he froze in place.
"Uncle Price," he said uneasily. But Price's next words brought the surprise back.
"Sophia is here. You can go see her."
"Where is she?" Cornwall asked eagerly.
"In the Scriptorium of the Holy See. She's making steel-plate rubbings there," Price called out. "Remember to report your identity to the Sisters, and your relationship with Sophia, if you don't want to end up on a torture rack."
"I understand." Cornwall quickly turned and disappeared into the crowd.
"There's something wrong with that kid. You should have someone follow him," Price said to the Commissar in a low voice.
The Commissar was noncommittal, but secretly made a hand-signal.
"He is not suited to be a soldier. His heart is filled with doubt, and he has too many attachments. He is not pure, and has no strength," the Commissar judged.
"Yes. The boy is not soldier material. He only became a warrior for Sophia's sake."
"How many children do you have, exactly?"
"Can't be helped. The lads all left early. What was that old saying of Georgis'? 'Born under an unlucky star, destined to jinx my teammates.'" Price laughed at himself. "Where were we?"
"About the recruitment of auxiliary forces for the Astra Militarum."
The crusade army was massive. The armed faithful and the civilians could maintain order and hold the line. While you couldn't expect them to face Chaos directly, they could still fight xenos and cultists, at least enough to hold out until other combat forces arrived. This fighting force had successfully freed up the Skitarii and the Cadian armored regiment. These mobile forces were now constantly assaulting the areas where the Word Bearers might be in the underhive, and the flesh-filled Forge-World, and were inevitably taking casualties. The Cadians had been forced to start recruiting soldiers after the losses of the past two weeks.
Fortunately, a fully mechanized force did not have such high physical requirements, which simplified the screening process and allowed them to absorb veterans who had been tested by the fires of war. As long as they could fire on Chaos traitors with a steady mind, and could free up a Cadian to operate the heavy armored vehicles, it was a net gain.
"Count me in," Price said, his voice calm, as if he did not know they would be stepping onto a hellish battlefield.
"You will die," the Commissar stated a simple fact. If you die, your treasures will lose their father's protection.
"I know." There was only one reason Price was standing here. His and his comrades' treasures were now safe. And he, a veteran who had long since fulfilled his duty—for the Emperor, to defend the sanctuary that housed those treasures—it was time to take up his gun again and serve the Emperor to the end.
The two men looked at each other.
Everything was said without words.
Just like the old days.
(End of Chapter)