Evans Keyes crouched nervously behind a makeshift position hastily piled with charred rocks, his knuckles white from gripping his pulse rifle so tightly. The cold metallic feel permeated through his combat suit gloves, yet it did nothing to calm the frantic pounding in his chest. Inside his helmet, only his own rapid, heavy breathing echoed.
In front, a deep green mist silently and relentlessly spread towards their position, like a slowly moving wall of toxic gas, devouring all light and sound in its path. He knew it was the Imperium of Man army's signal to attack. It was the color of death.
Evans mechanically repeated, over and over in his mind, the words his Lieutenant had instilled in them with a hoarse voice during the pre-battle mobilization.
"The humans' purpose in coming is to enact a complete, merciless genocide upon us!"
"For T'au! For your families back home!"
"Defend The Greater Good!"
These words, like a self-hypnotizing incantation, echoed repeatedly in his fear-addled mind. Only in this way could this fresh recruit, newly graduated from the academy and stepping onto a real battlefield for the first time, slightly quell the almost overflowing fear within him and squeeze out a minuscule, insignificant bit of courage to face death.
The deep green toxic mist quickly approached; through the helmet's optical sensors, countless distorted human figures could be vaguely seen moving within it.
Whether it was psychological or not, Keyes felt that what moved within the churning toxic mist were not flesh-and-blood beings explainable by modern science, but rather something more terrifying, more unknowable. They were malevolent spirits from ancient legends, bringing plague and despair, driven by hatred for all living things.
"For The Greater Good!" As the first figure was about to emerge from the edge of the thick mist, Keyes roared with all his might from the depths of his throat. Using the temporary courage brought by this roar, he fiercely pulled the trigger.
A scorching blue energy beam tore through the dim air, accurately hitting the figure, who fell and twitched twice on the ground before becoming still. Seeing this, Keyes felt a slight sense of relief: it seemed these guys were indeed flesh-and-blood creatures! They could be killed!
But what happened next quickly destroyed the sliver of courage he had just mustered and cruelly shattered his psychological defenses.
When a comrade in front fell, the humans behind him, instead of seeking cover and advancing alternately as Keyes had learned in daily tactical training, acted as if they hadn't even seen their companion's death. They charged forward madly, trampling over their still-warm comrade's corpse, disregarding their interwoven firepower!
Then, the anti-personnel minefield at the front line was triggered. Violent explosions tore the front-most humans to shreds, sending soil and flesh flying into the sky. Keyes had thought this would delay the offensive, but the subsequent Helldivers ignored it, charging forward along a straight line without slowing down, actively detonating one mine after another with their own bodies. Soon, a safe passage paved with severed limbs was brutally carved through the minefield.
They charged to the front of the position with a savage tactic that exceeded Keyes' imagination and completely defied tactical common sense.
The Helldivers at the very front unhesitatingly raised their guns and fired grenades, throwing iron-lump-like grenades into their position. These new recruits from the Fire Caste, though wearing fully sealed combat suits that could resist toxic gas, lacked the beastly intuition of the Kroot that could react to even the slightest danger. The severe lack of combat experience made them appear quite disheveled in such large-scale, indiscriminate explosions, and their front line instantly became chaotic.
At the same time, a harsh, air-rending whistling sound descended from the sky.
"Artillery! Take cover!" Under the Lieutenant's shrill roar, earth-shattering explosions swept across the entire position. The violent shockwave, like an invisible giant hand, slammed Keyes to the ground. He felt dizzy, the world inside his helmet spinning, with only a sharp ringing in his ears.
By the time he shakily regained his senses, those humans, those Helldivers, had surged onto the position like a tide, engaging them in close combat! Clearly, they didn't care about the potential friendly fire from the recent artillery barrage.
Keyes instinctively drew his honor blade from his waist, but before he could even assume a fighting stance, he saw three Helldivers, armed with mud-and-blood-stained entrenching tools or combat knives, swarm him. As a new recruit, he might not even be able to defeat these lunatics who rolled in mountains of corpses in a one-on-one fight, let alone one against three.
He blocked and counterattacked with all his might, but that blade, a symbol of honor, seemed so powerless under the enemy's storm-like assault. Finally, a crude combat knife broke through his defense, fiercely piercing the armor joint of his shoulder. In agonizing pain, his tightly gripped honor blade slipped from his hand with a clang, falling to the ground. Immediately after, a mud-splattered military boot violently kicked him in the chest, sending him sprawling to the ground.
It seems this is my end! Keyes thought in his pain. He gave up resisting, despairingly closed his eyes, and prepared to await death.
But he waited for a while, and the expected cold, finishing blow never came.
He opened his eyes in confusion, stunned to find: those Helldivers completely ignored him, a Fire Warrior who, though lying on the ground, was clearly still alive. They just rushed past him, continuing their charge towards the rear of the position without looking back! In that short time, he had already seen the three Helldivers who had confronted him earlier already reduced to blurry specks in the distance.
"What... what's going on..." At this point, his combat suit's life support system had activated, and a cool liquid was injected into his body. Under the effect of the stimulant, the sharp pain in his shoulder was rapidly receding. So he struggled, trying to stand up from the ground, "You... why didn't you kill me..."
"Get lost! I don't have time to kill you!" As soon as he propped up his upper body, a Helldiver running past him shoved him aside like kicking a pebble on the roadside, sending him tumbling violently back to the ground.
Amidst the chaotic battle noise, he vaguely heard words that his brain could not fully comprehend or process. The Helldivers, still running wildly, laughed aloud in a tone full of joy:
"I'll definitely be the first to get Sicarius' autograph! Hahahahaha..."