Chapter 485 civilwar
It has been three weeks since the civil war began. Today the west side of Grand Tizca fell into silence. I think there is a temporary ceasefire there.
The Iron Warriors will take advantage of this short break to replenish the defensive front. This morning, two auxiliary infantry companies of the Fifteenth Legion were mobilized to follow the command of those Iron Warriors and supplement the defensive work. The 13th and 15th teams had just arrived from the southwest side of Big Tizca, and their backpacks and boots were full of trench soil.
Thunderhawks flew from outpost to outpost, transporting Astartes and mortal armies. Sometimes the vehicles exploded into a cloud of gray mist before landing, and sometimes nothing happened. Today, I heard the alarm bell ringing violently near the communication tower. The clerks were busy delivering a burst of information. Soon they became quiet. I did not hear them announce that an aircraft had landed at the transfer station.
Lemuir ate and lived with some soldiers, and shared the illustrated magazines and magazines they sent. Most of these contents did not come from Prospero, but human aesthetics and tastes were the same. He didn't know how to open a can with a knife at first, and maybe he could, but he was clumsy enough that the veteran next to him lost patience and traded the can he opened for Lemuir's. After he came back, he told us about the incident, and then he lay down in his sleeping bag and began to write a record of what he had seen.
I was envious that he had a datapad, while I was still using the notebook I inherited from Camille. The tip of the pen can easily puncture these papers, or draw out lines with deep grooves.
We do not share the current situation of the war with the Astartes. Since Kalista disappeared, those warriors have become more vigilant towards us. But this won't affect us too much. Lemuir said that we are memoirists, and it is our duty to record the war on the front line, except for causing trouble to the front-line soldiers with such trivial matters as opening cans.
Space warriors appear in various parts of the city of Tizka day and night, intercepting the ghostly Luna Wolves like ghosts. Those metallic armors especially like to move in complex maze areas. , that is, the old city of Tizca, where the surface conditions are the most complex. The main force of the defense, strangely enough, still cannot be called a mortal.
The number of auxiliary troops in the Fifteenth Legion is very small, which is the opposite extreme from the Fourth Legion. The Primarch Magnus was concerned about the participation of his people in battle, and on the other hand, it was often difficult for them to keep up with the marching style of a psionic legion. There were so many Astartes from the Fourth Legion that the number of times I heard the sound of the Auxiliary's laser guns penetrating bricks was almost the same as the number of times the warheads of bolt bombs exploded and shattered things.
The battle of the Astartes does not need us mortals to worry about. In fact, they seem to be very far away. After the first week of indiscriminate bombing and unmatched counterattacks, the battle between those superhuman warriors As if a tacit understanding had been formed, Lemuir recorded it as a symbol of civilization. They became more focused on destroying each other's existence, and the battles between mortals became more targeted, just as the drones in the sky specifically targeted various aircraft painted in pearl white. They flutter quickly like patches of color when one's vision is blurred.
"Go and give something to the warriors," these slogans came not from the communication center base stations that still existed on the spiers of the Great Pyramid, but from the mouths of the citizens of Tizca. People who did not directly participate in the war tried their best to deliver food, water, and even some weapons to the defending soldiers who were mainly mortal troops in the destroyed city. The latter is less common.
At first the Iron Warriors even banned this, but later the regulations were relaxed and people were happy for a while. "It is also our duty to defend our homeland," were similar words circulated among the people, and the most energetic to do so were actually the children around puberty, who would have participated had it not been for the Emperor's judgment and Prospero's destruction. This year's Astartes Selection.
I have to marvel at what is happening here, because I know how theoretically the Astartes can ignore the lives of mortals. I began to agree with Lemuir's ideas. Privately, I wondered if the nobility of the matter had something to do with the special nature of the Legiones Astartes, who indeed embraced some extremely classical beliefs and were inspired by their mission, even in the absence of their Primarch.
Yes, the news of Horus Luperkar ends as of his return to Terra, Magnus has passed away, and Perturabo is far away. But they are still the spiritual leaders of the Legion for the time being, and that emotion maintains these superhuman warriors, telling them when they should be cruel to the end, and what moments are left.
"You think too highly of them," said Mahavastu Callimachus, who had been Magnus's ghostwriter and who once sat side by side with the noble Primarch. On a ship, now he squinted his old eyes and looked into the distance through the lens. A group of rifles were placed in a wooden crate covered with colorful cloth. The Spire Guard (this is the official name of the Auxiliary, their emblem is the scarab, and the color scheme used to be gold, red and white, now gray due to dust) hopes that the Corthonian headhunters of the Luna Wolves will be aware of the dangerous goods. , they always explode at the right time.
Mahavastu then lay down on the ground, and beside him the minaret guards began to aim and shoot. The sound of explosions about three hundred yards away was in my ears. I was shaken, and experience told me not to raise my head now. A few seconds later a man next to us collapsed like a bag of bleeding grapes, freshly plucked from the vine and smashed into the sandbags on the roof, even though it was not grape-picking season.
Soon we began to move, and some screams were mixed with the sounds of large and small explosions, including individual rocket launchers and heavy machine guns. If the Psychic Fortress robots hadn't been disabled due to the influence of the Black Sun, this battle would have been much easier, I think.
I do not share Mahavastu’s pessimistic attitude. A man had better have faith, otherwise he will regret his life when he dies.
The bullet hit a man in the arm, then lower in the chest, tearing through the armor, but the damage was not limited to the surface. We stayed inside, making periscope-like things as a joke, and watched our warriors fall out of sight. The smell here is terrible, and some of the carrion has been left uncollected, except for the pets that were once raised and are now really hungry.
Lemuir suggested that the people who died in this house be taken downstairs and buried. In our surprised eyes, he admitted that this was a joke.
"It's not that dangerous around here," Lemuel explained. "A few of us ran all over the entire outer wall of Grand Tizca without getting hurt..."
"You're missing an ear," Izala reminded.
Lemuir shrugged not to be outdone, "That's another thing. The west side is silent today, just like it was all around the city a week ago. The infestation of the Luna Wolves has also been suspended. When, in your words, Camille, it is the light of civilization that shines with compassion.”
These are not my words, I think, this is Callista’s style.
I hope Lemuel is still awake, after all a week ago he went up to the communications tower and requested that Prospero's blues, including "Everyone Knows" and "Yesterday's Belt", be played on the free channel. You go home." Later, these songs were not only sung on the radio waves, but the entire Tizka was faintly immersed in the singing.
The sound of cannons rang out again the next day, and the Great Pyramid of the Tianxiao School collapsed in the air raid that day. I think at least thirty Astartes were killed in the defense battle that day, considering that it was a The great pyramid of the school may have more dead than I guessed. I remember seeing an old man in his seventies, maybe even older if that was Prospero the Sage, throwing rocks at the Luna Wolves, and he picked up a few small ones and aimed He grabbed those soldiers and threw them out with all his strength. He was killed quickly, the bullet shattering his ribs and piercing his lungs. After him, a child of about eleven years old did the same thing. Soon the child died too.
“We are here to record the battle on the west side,” Izala answered Lemuel, “not to challenge their nerves. Camille, please take more pictures. Photos, then we will go back to the communication tower."
While she was talking, I kept expecting a sudden triggering of an explosive device, and when I realized this, I felt that I was too tired. The sound of gunfire and artillery bombardment already sounded in my hallucinations, but none of my companions responded.
"The civil war will end one day, Izala, and sooner or later we will need to bury these bodies."
"The Emperor's order to the Luna Wolves is to destroy our planet, and sooner or later they will do it completely," Izala said, her eyes red and her tone fierce, "I am as familiar with the Space Marines as you are. The true nature of the civil war has no end before this, Lemuir, maybe we can take a breath, but there is no more."
"What is this?" I said. .
“What?”
I shook my head. I don't know, I don't know where the question I'm asking comes from. I thought about the Persian-pattern tapestry on the roof of the house we were in. The wood grain of the low table on which the toast was placed had cracked after years of use, but when I touched it, I knew it had just been wiped with cotton cloth and waxed. . The purple crocus blooms beautifully, with the stamens sticking out like red ribbons.
The shooting started suddenly and extremely urgently. All of a sudden the Luna Wolf men launched an attack. Many guns were raised to shoot at us. Lemuir pulled us and ran below. , protecting Izala and me with his shoulders. Some large-caliber rounds shook the ground behind us, as did round after round of grenade launchers, and as we got closer, grenades. After a burst of gunfire stops, the machine gun will immediately take up the slack.
I felt a kind of anger in the attack of the Luna Wolf. They had obviously just made the decision to break this temporary and tacit respite by renewing their attack, and I felt like they were just dumping their bullets on our buildings with everything in their barrels. I'm not sure what that old saying is called, but it probably means that they have reached this point and there is not much left to restrain themselves from.
At the same time, new orders began to be sent quickly through the communication channel, like a sudden summer shower. For those of us who do not hold military positions, these signals usually play some rules for protecting ourselves in wartime, some encouragement and declarations of victory, and, yes, sometimes they do play some songs.
But now, the real military order has been issued, telling everyone who has the ability to use a gun which defensive fortresses need simple reinforcements, and the remaining powerless people must rush to the nearest underground within how many minutes Fortress and so on, these words bombarded my ears urgently, and I began to feel that I was being pierced by a bullet in the head.
What happened? Mahavastu's voice came from afar. He ran very slowly. After all, he was old. Before the civil war began, Magnus approved him to travel in the latest self-driving sedan. His glory was gone. No return.
"I don't know," Lemuel gasped, trying to finish his words before choking to death, "The command seems..."
Also fell into anger. I think something completely angered the Iron Warriors and the Sun of Thousand Dusts, causing them to give up their insistence on some invisible rules, just like the angry roar of the Luna Wolf at this moment. I started to feel scared and didn't understand how things had suddenly changed.
We tried to avoid walking in the open air. The house we were in just now was blasted through by air strikes in about ten minutes. Then, a representative black smoke cloud erupted high in the sky above Prospero, just above the Grand Tizca Central Library. The red beam penetrated the clouds and easily penetrated the dark sky shrouded in the black sun. The powerful attack originating entirely from the material universe was not restrained by the Emperor's black terror, and soon some broken fragments seemed to fall from high altitudes, drawing long lines of fire rain.
That is the defensive cannon of Big Tizca, and its strike range can reach the orbit.
I'm not sure which Luna Wolf ship it was targeting. Was it the Vengeful Spirit? But the Vengeful Spirits did not come that close, and the Luna Wolves remained surprisingly vigilant at this point: their fleet would not enter our range unless necessary.
Then Mahavastu fell down. He looked up at the beam of light, which was exposed to the field of vision for too long, as if he was calculating something. Soon the overcharged plasma gun of the infantry platoon command team penetrated his chest and got stuck somewhere in his body. He looked at us, gasping and collapsed. Lemuel tried to do something to help him. Izala's hand was burned by the psychic power. She must have wanted to use a simple psychic power to stop something. I called out to the nearby medics for a while, but no one followed us. Not long after, Mahavastu died.
As we continued to run, the skirmishes on both sides intensified, with many of the orders more aggressive than on any day in the past three weeks.
Lemuir's hands were still stained with Mahavastu's blood. After a while, he said: "But what's civil about civil war?"
( End of chapter)