Pyro was lying in the trench, struggling to distinguish how many stars were visible through the deep green canopy of toxic gas that hadn't changed for months.
Just then, a Helldiver carrying a communications device scurried over, tapping his leg.
"Squad Leader! Squad Leader! Stop counting stars, we have a situation!"
"Damn it, I'm absolutely not being a Squad Leader next time," Pyro cursed, scrambling up from the mud and brushing off the dirt. "Too much damn hassle. I should just be a grunt and only worry about how to aim a gun at the enemy. If this is another one of those 'I lost my dice, Squad Leader help me find it' stupid issues, I swear I'll challenge you to a duel to the death!"
"Hey, bro, stop complaining, this is a big deal this time," the player said, grinning, completely devoid of any battlefield tension. "A Space Marine is headed our way!"
"A Space Marine?" Pyro was surprised. "Are you sure? What the hell would a Space Marine want with our pathetic trench where we have to go outside even to use the latrine?"
"Why would I lie to you?" the other urged. "Hurry up and go, don't keep the big guy waiting, he's a Space Marine after all!"
"Dammit, last time you said there was a Batmobile parked outside the trench, and I wasted time sneaking out to look for it! And what happened?!"
Despite his grumbling, Pyro stood up and followed.
But when he cautiously poked his head out, he froze. To his utter shock, the guy was actually telling the truth! Right in front of their crude position, a Space Marine in yellow and black livery, with a golden scythe emblem painted on his shoulder pad, stood motionless like a statue!
The sheer oppressive feeling from his massive physique was palpable, even from a dozen meters away.
"By the Emperor," Pyro muttered, adjusting his Carapace Armor, and jogging forward to give a standard Aquila Salute. "Good morning, Sir! May I ask what brings you here?"
Hearing the words "Good morning," the Space Marine instinctively glanced up at the pure green sky, seemingly trying to determine the time of day.
However, he didn't dwell on the subject, only speaking in a voice like a deep, echoing bell: "I am Sergeant Reinhard Roberts of the Second Company, Scythes of the Emperor Chapter. I am here to lead your unit, as per the newly mandated Unified Command Doctrine."
"Uh, with all due respect," Pyro's expression was slightly strained, "Sergeant Roberts, you... a Space Marine, are here to lead our squad of eleven men, including myself?"
Reinhard was clearly struggling to maintain his composure too, but he replied, "While I do not fully comprehend the order, yes, the order is absolute."
"What kind of a seizure is Command having?" Pyro muttered to himself in confusion.
In truth, the reason for Calgar's new mandate was simple. Unified Command didn't just mean Calgar giving orders and everyone obeying, warfare wasn't that simple.
Everyone understands the principle: for large-scale operations, discipline must be strict. Asking hundreds of Astartes Chapters with different combat styles, cultures, and no pre-war co-ordination to fight together would likely lead to them fighting their own separate wars, rather than working seamlessly.
If Calgar expected to solve this through personal command, his level of detail would have to extend to things like, "Heavy bolter on position X move five centimeters to the left."
So, Calgar's solution was this: first, scatter the Space Marines, distributing them to various positions to lead the Helldivers.
During this process, they would gradually integrate. If one position faced danger, a Space Marine from a different Chapter at another position could immediately come to aid. This would build friendships forged in fire.
When the time was right, the forces could be reassembled, and the situation would be much improved.
"Alright, Sir," Pyro reluctantly accepted the situation. "In that case, do you have any instructions?"
"First, conduct a pre-battle briefing and equipment check," Sergeant Reinhard stated gravely. "Report your ammunition, supplies, and personnel status."
"Reporting, Sir!" Pyro cleared his throat.
"Ammunition... is adequate, enough for the next wave of assault at least. Supplies... we haven't finished the rations from a month ago. The nutrient bar flavor is really disgusting.
The guys would rather die than eat them. Personnel status... everyone's alive, morale... we were just telling jokes, so I guess it's okay."
Sergeant Reinhard Roberts fell silent. No emotion was visible on his statue-like face, but Pyro could feel the Sergeant's superhuman brain processing his extremely unconventional report.
"I need to personally inspect your weapons," Reinhard finally said.
What followed was perhaps more shocking to the veteran Space Marine than facing a Hive Tyrant.
He picked up one team member's Lasgun and found the stock engraved with the phrase:
"For the Horde."
The scope of another rifle had a wobbly crosshair painted on it with oil paint. Most ridiculously, he found a bayonet on one rifle was actually a sharpened metal spoon strapped on.
"What is this?" Reinhard pointed at the spoon-bayonet, his voice filled with incomprehensible confusion.
"Reporting, Sir!" The team member proudly puffed out his chest. "A multi-functional combat tool for emergencies! It can both stab the enemy and pick teeth after a meal!"
Sergeant Reinhard took a deep breath, his power armor's respirator hissing faintly. He decided to skip this topic.
"Next, tactical deployment." He took a tactical data-slate from his waist, which immediately projected a complex battlefield map. "According to intelligence, the Tyranids' next assault will come from our twelve o'clock, estimated to be one wave of Hormagaunts.
My plan is for me to act as bait, drawing their main force frontally. You will use the toxic mist as cover, outflank them, establish a crossfire point at coordinate grid 7-B-4, and attack their flank.
You must complete the crossfire setup within thirty seconds, and then…"
He lectured enthusiastically on a brilliant, textbook-worthy tactic. Yet, even through his gas mask, he could sense the Helldiver before him was staring at him with a look of utter bewilderment, as if listening to gibberish.
"Uh... Sir," Pyro interrupted carefully. "Do you mean... you want us to run around the side and shoot those bugs in the butt?"
Sergeant Reinhard fell silent again.
His tactical mind, honed by countless battles, realized what it meant to talk to a brick wall for the first time.
"…That's one way to understand it," he said with difficulty.
"Got it! Understood!" Pyro immediately spun around and shouted to his team members.
"Did you all hear that? The boss... ah, Sergeant Reinhard will be holding the front, and we'll go around the side and sneak up on their butts! Whoever gets the most kills gets the Ant-ox Can tonight!"
"YEAH!!!" The team members erupted in a cheer completely lacking discipline.
Just then, the ground in the distance began to shake, and shrill shrieks tore through the toxic mist.
"They are coming!" Sergeant Reinhard immediately raised his Boltgun, declaring sternly, "Execute the tactics! For the Emperor!"
"For the Can!" The eleven Helldivers shouted in unison with an earth-shattering roar, then completely ignored his brilliant "outflanking" plan. They screamed and leaped out of the trench, rushing towards the swarm in a frontal charge with their custom weapons.
Sergeant Reinhard: "…"
Sergeant Reinhard Roberts took a deep breath. His advanced helmet filtered the toxic mist, and one hand subtly rested on the combat knife at his waist.
He watched the backs of the eleven Helldivers charging towards the swarm like fanatical cultists, mentally preparing for the worst. In his centuries of combat experience, he had seen too many such reckless mortal forces.
Their courage was commendable, but their fate was universally the same—being torn to shreds by the enemy's assault.
He was ready
. Once these Helldivers were completely wiped out in a few minutes, he would hold the position alone until his Chapter brothers arrived for support, or until he died here. For a Scythes of the Emperor Space Marine, there was little difference between the two outcomes.
However, to his surprise, the sound of combat lasted for a full half-hour.
The booming of Lasguns, the roar of Chainswords, and the screeching of the Tyranids intertwined into a chaotic symphony of war.
Throughout this period, not a single Helldiver rushed past to his position. The sound went from intense to moderate, and finally, after half an hour, gradually subsided.
Reinhard watched in disbelief.
The eleven Helldivers who had just charged out were now all cheerfully walking back through the dense mist, as if they had just returned from a relaxing, armed picnic.
Pyro was carrying the huge severed head of a Tyranid Warrior in his hand, its four scarlet compound eyes still holding the ferocity of its death.
They had even managed to seize the opportunity to slay the leading creature of this small Tyranid assault force!
"Sir, mission successfully completed, please inspect the results," Pyro casually tossed the heavy head at Reinhard's feet, where it landed with a thud.
"If you want to keep it as a trophy, you have to hurry. Ever since those Tyranid grasses and flowers started growing, any organic matter left on the ground will be digested clean in less than half an hour."
Reinhard looked down, nudging the head with his massive ceramite boot. The Warrior's head rolled once, the cut was clean, and brain matter and bodily fluids were still seeping out.
This was not a fake; it was real.
This Helldive squad... had wiped out the enemy without suffering any casualties!
It was impossible. His tactical intuition and biological knowledge screamed against it.
A mortal squad, engaging a Tyranid Warrior-led force in a frontal charge, winning without casualties? This defied the laws of physics and the logic of warfare.
In fact, to take down this wave of Tyranids, apart from Pyro who was a priority target for protection, everyone else in the squad had died several times.
The total death count was dozens of casualties. The Helldivers had indeed earned a lot of merit points, but it was hard to say the Tyranids had lost out much in terms of biomass.
However, even if Reinhard had been right beside them, his perception would have been warped by some invisible force.
He could recognize the facts: "This squad just suffered dozens of deaths" and "This squad currently still has eleven men," but his superhuman brain was unable to connect the two contradictory facts—"dozens of deaths" and "no change in number"—to find the logical flaw.
His mind automatically bypassed this logical black hole.
"Sir?" Pyro approached a step closer, looking confusedly at the silent Reinhard.
Just then, a flash of deadly cold light!
Reinhard's movement was lightning-fast. The combat knife at his waist instantly cleared its sheath, aiming straight for Pyro's heart!
Pyro's reaction was faster than his brain. Without even thinking, his bodily instincts drove him to horizontally block with the Lasgun across his chest.
"Clang!"
With a sharp sound, the Adamantium-forged knife easily sliced the Lasgun in two. But this momentary block successfully saved his life.
"Clatter!"
The other Helldivers reacted in less than a tenth of a second, immediately raising their weapons. Ten black muzzles were aimed squarely at Reinhard. The atmosphere in the trench instantly plummeted to freezing point.
Pyro first looked down at his Lasgun, which was now in two pieces, then looked up at Reinhard, who was slowly resheathing his knife, his face full of resignation: "Sir, what was that supposed to mean?"
"Testing whether you were human," Reinhard said, as he slid the knife back into its sheath, his voice still steady. "It appears every one of you is a seasoned veteran.
At the very least, the courage to point a gun at an Astartes on sight is not something everyone possesses."
Because Pyro didn't see the white border that signified hostility, he knew Reinhard had never had any true killing intent. He waved his hand, signaling his team members to lower their weapons.
"Alright, alright, it was a misunderstanding. So, Sir, did we actually complete the mission or not?"
"You seem to value the official 'mission completion'," Reinhard's gaze swept over the soldiers, whose emotions shifted with astonishing speed.
"You eliminated the offending Tyranids, so of course, you completed the mission."
As soon as he spoke, all the Helldivers instantly broke into happy smiles, as if they weren't the ones who had just pointed guns at a Space Marine.
They completely cast the brief standoff out of their minds, cheering and jumping back into the trench to discuss how to distribute the Ant-ox Can tonight.
Reinhard stood in place, silently observing the oddly behaving soldiers. Then, he opened his data-slate and began recording his observations.
[The morale of Helldivers ground soldiers is extremely volatile; they do not appear to suppress their emotional expressions.
One second they are in a state of high combat alert, and the next they are cheering wildly over mission completion.
Perhaps this is related to their unique death-worship culture—because death is imminent, they refuse to suppress their emotions?
But how do they channel this philosophy towards a death-match with the enemy instead of self-degradation?]
[Do not attempt to prescribe overly detailed or complex tactical plans to the Helldivers. They either do not understand, or are unwilling to understand.
Their fighting style is remarkably direct, yet the results are surprisingly effective.
Perhaps I should consider leveraging their subjective initiative, merely informing them of the specific mission objective, and allowing them to figure out the means of completion themselves.]
[Individual combat capability is extremely strong, far exceeding that of regular Astra Militarum soldiers. At least within my assigned squad, every member demonstrated first-rate veteran quality, be it reaction speed or will to fight.
Perhaps I was merely coincidentally assigned to a squad composed entirely of elite veterans?]
[They seem very eager for the nominal completion of the mission.
Even though the threat was factually dealt with, they repeatedly sought my verbal confirmation of mission completion.]
Reinhard stared at the data-slate.
After a moment, he closed it and put it back. A single case does not prove a theory. He needed more examples.