Then the rebels' anti-strike batteries open up, huge turrets swivel skywards and blasts of laser energy punch through the atmosphere. For almost a minute the return fusillade continues, dissipating the clouds above the fortress with the heat of their attack. The ship in orbit must have pulled out, as no more death comes spilling from the cloud cover.
Half a minute later a siren sounds along the whole trench. Rations Boy looks up, face suddenly pale and lip trembling. That's the standby order. Next one sounds the attack/ he tells me.
This is my big chance. In the confusion of the attack, it'll be easy to slip out the other side of the trench and get myself out
of here. As stimulating as their company is, I don't want to be anywhere near these recruits for more than another half-minute.
'I'd wish you luck, but I'm afraid I'm hogging that all to myself just for now/ I smile, but they don't look reassured. Never mind.
Just then the grim-faced commissar comes striding round the corner of the trench, his beady eyes fixed on me. 'Bring the prisoner with you when we advance. Let him go and I'll have all of you up on a charge of negligence!'
Frag! Still, an order's one thing, but execution's another.
Then the attack siren sounds. I'm being pushed out first, so I guess my new friends have learnt one thing, at least. I start sprinting cross the open killing ground to the next trench line. The enemy snipers, who I'd avoided so nimbly before, get a second chance at skinning my hide. There's a yell and Wide Eyes goes down as a bullet smashes through his neck, spraying spine and blood over my stolen uniform. I snatch up his lasgun and send a volley of shots from the hip into the sniper's probable hiding place. No more shots ring out for the moment.
Then something grabs my leg. Looking down I see the hard-headed commissar down on his knees coughing blood, broken. He looks at me with those hard eyes and whispers, 'Do something decent with your life for a change, treacherous scum!'
Without a thought I turn the lasgun round and grant him his wish. The beams of murderous light silencing him forever. I must be getting soft. I've never bothered with a mercy killing before now, especially this knee-deep in trouble.
With the commissar down, this is my chance to break for it. I just have to turn round and ran straight back the way we came. I don't think the rebels are going to bother shooting at someone running in the opposite direction. Just then I notice something, probably the enemy, casting a shadow in the lightning, just ahead of us to the right. Damned snipers must be laughing it up tonight. I look about as a shot plucks at my tunic - maybe I was wrong about an easy getaway. There's a ruined farmstead on the left and I head for it. With the resumption of sniper fire, some of the rookie platoon is face down in the mud, hiding or dead, I don't know. The rest are standing
around, milling about in confusion. Someone I don't know gets in my way, his eyes strangely vacant with desperation as more and more of the rookies are gunned down by hidden foes. I slam my fist into his weasel face and as he stumbles out of my way he goes down, his chest blown out by a bullet that would have hit me. Another couple of heartbeats and I'm over the wall of the farm and kneeling in some kind of animal pen.
Right, now that I've separated myself from those no-hopers, time to formulate my escape plan. Then there's the thud of boots all around me and I realise that the platoon has followed me into cover instead of carrying on their planned advance to the next trench! A journey, I might add, that they would have never finished.
One of the little soldier boys grabs my collar and shouts in my ear. 'Good thinking, sir! We'd have been butchered if you hadn't brought us here!'
Frag! 'Brought you here?' I almost scream. 'I didn't fraggin' bring you here, you dumb rookies! Frag, you stupid wetbacks are gonna get me killed, hangin' around here with "target" written all over you as badly as if it was in bright lights five metres high! Get outta my face before I skin you, you stupid little fragger!'
Chips of masonry are flying everywhere now as the snipers bring their high-powered rifles to bear on us. Well, as long as these space-heads are around, I might as well use them to my advantage. As Tagel used to say, an iron ball around your leg can still be used to smash someone's head in. Actually, that was probably one of the longest sentences the dumb brute had ever used, so I figure he'd heard it from someone else. Pulling my thoughts back to the problem in hand, I point through the downpour towards the escarpment where the snipers are lying in cover.
'Suppression fire on that ridge!' I bellow.
Drilled for months while in transit to this hellhole, the platoon reacts without thought. The guys around me open up with their lasguns, a torrent of light pulsing through the darkness. I find the shattered casing of a solar boiler and use its twisted panes to get some cover from the shells knocking chunks off the plascrete wall of the outhouse. Little did my boys know, but the shuttles wouldn't hang around forever, and I've still got every intention of warming my behind on one of those seats.
There's a shouted greeting and die remnants of another squad joins us, two of the guardsmen carrying grenade launchers. They start fiddling with their sights to get the correct trajectory but by diis time diere's more incoming fire as die snipers behind the ridge get reinforcements. I snatch one of the launchers, select a frag round and send the charge sailing through the air. I grin madly, along widi odiers I note, as diree bodies are tossed into view by the explosion. Casting die launcher back to the guardsman, I draw die concealed knife from my right boot and charge. Not too far now.
As I leap over a mound of bodies, I see die rest of the platoon on either side of me, pouring over the ridge. Stunned by die sudden attack the traitors are soon hacked down in a storm of lasgun fire and slashing bayonets. I gut two of the rebel swine myself. From there it's just a matter of half a minute's jogging to the forward trench line. As the others set off I turn on my heel and start heading back to the second line, which now would hopefully be empty. I see the grox-breath lieutenant to my right. He sees me too. But before he can say anything, him and his command squad are knocked off their feet in a bloody cloud by a hail of fire. I see shadows moving up on the left, cutting me off from my route to die shuttles - for now at least.
As I splash down in the front-line trench, I hear the sergeants crying out die roll-call. Lots of names get no reply and I guess they've lost about three-quarters of die men. The others are gonna die as soon as die rebels counter-attack, and I'm gonna make damn sure I'm not around to suffer a similar fate. Suddenly I notice everyone's looking at me, expectation in dieir eyes.
'What die frag is this? What're you looking at, for Emperor's sake?' I snarl at them. It's the oldest one of my guards who makes die plea.
'Lieutenant Martinez is dead! The command squad are all dead!' he says, high-pitched voice wobbling widi fright.
'And?' I ask.
And you saw to Commissar Caeditz!' he replies.
'Yeah, and?' I ask again. I don't like die sound of this at all. I dare not believe it, but I have a feeling somediing bad is happening.
'We're stuck here until another command squad gets sent up/ he explains. There's no one in command. Well, except you. You said you were a lieutenant/
Teah, of a fraggin' penal legion platoon!' I spit out. That don't mean nothing in the real world/
You got us this far/ pipes up another nuisance, his face streaked with rain and blood, his lips swollen and bruised.
'Look, no offence, but the last thing I need right now is a bunch of wet-backed brainless fraggers like you weighing me down/ I explain to them. 'I got me diis far. You guys have just tagged along for the ride. There's a seat on one of those stellar transports with my name on it, and I fully intend to sit in it. Do you understand?'