The squad leader's alert was like a stone tossed into still water, and the ripple effect spread rapidly.
The Company Commander received the news, and the Astartes Sergeant, who was the de facto highest military authority on the position, learned of the enemy intrusion warning almost simultaneously.
The alarm didn't cause him the slightest panic. Enemy night infiltration was a textbook conventional operation. On the contrary, the news spurred him to make a firm decision.
"I will inspect the position," the Sergeant said to the Company Commander beside him, his tone brooking no argument.
As a Space Marine from Ultramar, he was keenly aware of the distance between theory and practice.
Although invisible, this distance was sometimes harder to cross than the Great Rift Valley of East Africa.
The Codex Astartes used countless battle examples to illustrate that a perfect plan could collapse completely due to the most trivial oversight by the executor.
He could issue the order, but would the men below truly execute it with 100% adherence and no discount?
Would a lack of discipline or sheer laziness lead them to adopt a mindset of "good enough," thereby creating fatal vulnerabilities in the entire defensive layout?
If it were one of the other Astartes—those who had done nothing but wage war for hundreds of years in silent monastery-fortresses and essentially only spoken to their own battle-brothers—they might not think so deeply.
But the Ultramarines were different. If nothing else, governing the vast and prosperous Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar required endless opportunities to interact with mortals.
For this reason, the Sergeant knew that when human beings indulged their flaws, the depths of their failure could rival the deepest ocean.
Moreover, the shoddy defense he saw plastered on the men's faces when he first arrived had left him with an incredibly poor first impression. Therefore, he had to see the progress of the defensive construction with his own eyes.
On his way to the position, he had already braced himself for the worst: to see a shambles of fortifications and, correspondingly, to enact his contingency plan for how a Space Marine squad could patch the holes in the mortal defense line.
However, when he stepped onto the main position on the crescent-shaped hill, the sight that met his eyes brought a trace of surprise to his usually placid gaze for the first time.
These Helldivers—they were actually building the position meticulously?
The entire hill position had become a busy and orderly construction site. One squad of soldiers was swinging entrenching tools, digging communication trenches at standardized angles; the depth and width of the trenches were just right, and they had even prepared grenade sumps at the corners.
Another team was reinforcing the heavy weapons platforms, using sandbags and metal plating dragged from the ruins to construct sturdy firing ports. The angle of every firing port had been precisely calculated, forming an interlocking field of fire. Others were laying communication lines, and everything looked highly organized.
The Sergeant initially suspected that these fellows might have known he was coming to inspect, only to put on a last-minute show of effort. Such things were common in the bureaucracy.
But he quickly dismissed the idea. The overall completion of the position was very high; the trench network was already taking shape, the fire points were logically deployed, and even the camouflage netting covered most of the area.
He examined the site with a critical eye, looking for flaws, yet could not find any obvious faults. This could not have been achieved by a last-minute scramble.
This left the Ultramarine Sergeant utterly baffled.
If they had the ability and willingness to construct such standard, sturdy defenses, what was the meaning of them randomly digging a ditch in the plains and squatting in it to wage a world war against the Tyranids before?
Was it a unique form of combat asceticism?
Masochism?
The Sergeant was unaware that for the players, the logic was extraordinarily simple. Previously, the Company Commander, who was also a player, was in charge.
Building defenses was just a verbal suggestion without mandatory force, and the Company Commander himself didn't feel it necessary to dig too well, so everyone naturally just did a perfunctory job.
But now, building the defenses was an instruction personally issued by him, the NPC in blue power armor.
In the players' system, this was a tangible Quest.
The extent to which players' enthusiasm could be mobilized for quest rewards was something this century-old Astartes could not comprehend.
However, although the Sergeant was satisfied with the sight before him, such an expression would never be easily revealed. He had, after all, fought for hundreds of years; self-control and inscrutability were basic qualities.
He summoned the Platoon Leader responsible for this section of the defense and asked in an examining tone: "Report your defensive deployment. How are the heavy fire points configured?
Do the defensive sectors of the squads overlap? Where is the assembly point for the reserve team established?"
"Reporting, Sir! Everything is excellent!" The Platoon Leader, named Leonardo, puffed out his chest and answered confidently,
"Current progress is steadily advancing! Squad Leader Michelangelo is leading his squad, responsible for installing anti-collapse support structures for the Heavy Bolter position!
Squad Leader Donatello is leading his squad, laying anti-infantry mines and tripwires fifty meters ahead of the position!
And Squad Leader Raphael is leading his squad, currently debugging the communication lines for each fire point to ensure smooth command!"
At the mention of these three names, the Ultramarine Sergeant showed no particular reaction, but the Company Commander accompanying him was already struggling to suppress a laugh, his shoulders visibly shaking.
"Hmph," the Sergeant couldn't discern the immense 'aura' contained within those names. He simply judged from the content of the report that this Platoon Leader was clear about his mission and was not incompetent.
"Maintain this effort."
It was right then, just as the Platoon Leader was basking in the afterglow of being complimented by his NPC superior, that a panicked figure came sprinting across the firebase like a man possessed.
Clutching his stomach like it was a live grenade, the Squad Leader hollered:
"Reporting, Platoon Leader Michelangelo! It's an emergency! A matter of heavenly urgency!"
Michelangelo sighed, turning halfway, already annoyed. "What is it, soldier? We're in the middle of a briefing."
"I gotta take a dump, sir!" CaseOH wheezed. "A massive one! Like, DEFCON 1 levels! It's breachin' containment!"
The entire platoon went silent.
Even the Ultramarine Sergeant paused, half-turning his helmet like he couldn't believe what he just heard.
Michelangelo's face went redder than a tyranid's carapace. "You son of a *****! You storm over here mid-report to tell me your plumbing's about to go critical?"
"I thought it was tactical to inform command!" CaseOH stammered, hopping from foot to foot like a caffeinated penguin.
"Tactical?! Tactical?! Get your fat ass off my battlefield before I call in an orbital strike on the latrine!" Michelangelo roared.
As the two screamed at each other like drill sergeants in a daycare, the Ultramarine Sergeant simply turned away, muttering through his vox:
"Emperor preserve us… I'm too pure for this sector."
After all, the Helldivers always said baffling things and did unbelievable acts.
Perhaps this was just Perditia's unique planetary culture. The Sergeant no longer cared; as long as they could fight and build their defenses properly, that was enough.
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