# Last Men Standing



## The_Cook (May 11, 2013)

_Deep breath, first post... This was originally prepared for BL submission over a period of about 18months; as a book it's about 2/3rds complete, 1/3rd edited to a first review standard. Seemed a shame not to share it, so here you are. Constructive comments greatly appreciated._


*Last Men Standing*

Not all regiments are destined for infamy, the ignominy of war chews more up and spits more out than it lauds as heroes or villains.

*Chapter 1 – First Blood*

The eyes had been accusing him for hours but Noirmutier held his ground. He held his ground because, finally, he was a soldier in The Imperial Guard. That ground that he held was a muddy rut, a rut that the regiment had occupied for the last 48hrs and was already referring to as ‘The Trench’. It might have been the regiment’s first trench but it wasn’t Noirmutier’s; it wasn’t his first sentry duty. Twenty years in planetary defence had shown him enough muddy holes, isolated gatehouses and windswept guard posts for him to have developed a grudging affinity for sentry duty but nothing he’d done had quite trained him for this. This wasn’t the safety of home; this wasn’t sentry duty against accidental incursion by drunken citizenry; this was real. Somewhere out in front of him lay an enemy that would as much kill him as he would them and he had to endure that anxiety under the accusing gaze of the eyes.

The eyes belonged to Them. Those who he and the rest of the Imperial War Machine, that Noirmutier was but an unimaginably small part of, had arrived too late to save. They were what the official accounts of the uprising would eventually refer to as The Valley of the Impaled. They were the faithful of Polaxamer, the world whose once verdant land he now stood within and gazed across. They were three hundred thousand that hadn’t deigned to join in with the rebellion; They had been marched out of the processing hive at Griebol and into the wide fertile valley of the river Burne. They were the first to have seen the true colour of the rebellion and that colour was dark indeed. They became The Impaled. They were hoisted up and skewered on to the supports for the Grieve vines, onto broken lengths of irrigation pipe embedded into the ground and onto the denuded trunks of sapling trees. All across the valley they were impaled on any suitable implement that the Rebels could find. They were men, women and children, their blood soaking the trampled vines, their cries echoing along the valley for days of drawn out agony as they died their slow agonising deaths. 

Imperial troops would not land to break the rebellion for another three weeks. Those troops that saw the sight from the air said that the lines of The Impaled described arcane patterns that tore at the eyes, tri-fold arcs repeated over and over again at ever greater magnifications, but from the ground all that could be seen was a sea of sticks and bones. Pair after pair of vacant sockets stared at him, shadowy dark in the wan moonlight that struggled to penetrate the incessant drizzle. From the worms eye view that he had whilst standing in the trench they towered over him, hundreds, no thousands, of people staked across the landscape’s gloom. They bore down upon him, accusation upon accusation, why hadn’t he saved them? He had to continually remind himself that he could never have saved them, when they had died he was still two weeks of warp travel away across the vast expanses of space. 

For a lingering moment eldritch fire hung in the sky; the clouds alight, as bright as day, from lightning arcing within. It only made the eyes more accusing. Empty nuggets of coal black in waxen visages, despairing as the accompanying thunder rolled down the valley scaring the myriapods from grazing on the lank fresh. Noirmutier feared the myriapods as much as he feared the eyes, the rhythmic click of each creature as hundreds of legs scuttled across the landscape in their hunt for the dead flesh on which they feasted. The Valley of the Impaled was an unending bounty for them; gorged beyond measure the creatures had reached gigantic proportions. The flash of lightning revealed myriapods the size of a man’s arm grazing on the valleys un-natural harvest until the rumble of thunder across the land frightened them away. Their pale scurrying bodies became white streaks flitting through the darkness following the lightning’s coruscant illumination.

Whilst the myriapods were frightening the flies were just an irritant. They were everywhere; an incessant buzzing in Noirmutier’s ears, that formed a crawling carpet of diaphanous wings on any hard surface on which they could land and swarm. Walking the duckboards that lined the floor of the trench stirred up irate clouds of them. He could even feel them on his back, or at least he imagined he could feel them. Those six tiny feet distinctly different from the un-yielding patter of the rain, set after set treading on him through the watery silk of his thermal under-layer, his russet fatigues, his bulky flak armour, and his storm cape. He tried to shrug them off with a shiver of his shoulders, sweeping his hand across his las-rifle to ward off the dozen or so that had settled on it, but it didn’t really help. One of them was back within seconds; perched on the las’s magnocular sight it preened its face with its front legs. Noirmutier glared at it but all he got was his scowling face reflected a thousand times in its faceted eyes. He tried to put all of the distractions from his mind, the eyes, the flies, for there were other things to concern him now. Now he was concentrating on the shadows for out there amongst the rows of stationary dead in the valley there were shadows that seemed to be alive and moving. 

One shadow in particular had been occupying Noirmutier’s thoughts and he had been watching it for some time. Because of the rain it had never resolved itself to more than a hazy, indistinct blur smeared across the land but that shadow was definitely creeping through the fields of mud and bone. It moved slowly from one impaled victim to the next, inching ever closer. Noirmutier trained his las on it. Peering through the magnocular did nothing more than irritate the preening fly, even magnified the rain steadfastly refused to give the shadow definition. The magnocular revealed the remains of a small rockcrete bridge arching gently over what Noirmutier’s could only presume to be some form of brook or irrigation channel. The shadow separated briefly to pass across it, flitting behind the low rain slick parapet. 

That gave Noirmutier pause for thought. Whatever the shadow was it was four separate things and he was just one. One man that was suddenly feeling much more lonely than he had been up until now, with only a cloud of flies for company. The Colonel’s orders had been very precise, just one man for every other stretch of trench between the fire-breaks. It made tactical sense; keep up a thin picket line for observation whilst holding the rest of the men back as a moveable defence, but when you were that man; when it was you left at the front you felt very much alone. The next sentry was probably about 200m and four fire-breaks away; it was doubtful whether he could even see what Noirmutier could see given the rain’s murk. Noirmutier could call out, but to do so would alert whatever was out there, any element of surprise that might be in his favour would be lost. He held his tongue, biting it hard, the tang of blood filling his is mouth as his clenched jaw held his tongue tight between his teeth. With every move that the shadow made towards him he clenched his jaw tighter, forcing his tongue into silence. He tried to harness the pain, he needed to keep alert.

The shadows merged back into a single blur that kept low to the ground. It edged past the line of ruined rags of what Noirmutier had taken to referring to as The Soldiers. A series timber poles with their macabre hanging of flesh and bone; wrapped in the shoddy remnants of a uniform. They probably weren’t soldiers, the uniform was too gaudy to have been a martial uniform, even a dress uniform, except maybe a Marshal but Marshals don’t come in rows of five. It was probably the staff of some hotel judging by the scraps, bell hops in braided finery. Noirmutier wasn’t about to change the name he’d given them now, not with the shadow continuing to advance. It moved ever closer, trailing it’s way along the endless coils of razor wire that spiralled away through the fields of dead into the rain filled murkiness of the night, advancing on towards the trench, Noirmutier’s stretch of trench.



“Halt!” the whisper fought fiercely against the patter of the rain. It found its mark, the shadow stopped moving. Noirmutier steadied the barrel off his las-rifle on the trench’s flak-board parapet, keeping the sights trained on the ethereal form that lurked in the darkness and the downpour. 
“2nd Platoon, Reconnaissance patrol returning.” hissed back, another whisper that was barely audible above the rain’s patter. “Is that you Noirm?”
Emperor be praised, the relief flooded through Noirmutier. His worst fears hadn’t been realised, he wasn’t alone with the enemy. It was his fellow guardsmen, probably, “State the pass of the day?”
“C’m on Noirm, it’s me.” 
There was a burr of an accent in the whisper, low gothic strung through with country tones from their homeland of Amorea. Not many squad leads had a country burr; it had to be Sardon or Fontenay? It didn’t matter which, as the fear dropped away Noirmutier regained a degree of composure and the determination to stick to the procedures that he’d be taught. They would have to state the pass of the day or he would not let them proceed but how would he do that? His mouth was ahead of his mind and before he’d thought it through he’d already hissed out a response, “Pass of the day?”
“Rubricon” came the reply.
“That was yesterday!” 
“Damn!” There was commotion out beyond the lines of razor wire, voices conversing in low tones. “Noirm it’s frigging raining and these bones are spooking the hell out of us, can’t we just come in.”
Fontenay, it had to be Fontenay. Only Fontenay would try to bend the rules. “Procedures! State the Pass of the day?”
“Screw you Noirm, we’re coming in!”
Noirmutier picked a scrap of cloth hanging on the coiled wire just in front of now moving shadows and lanced it with a single bolt from his las-rifle. The bolt delivered enough energy in one instantaneous thump to cause even the damp rag to burn. In the brief flare of the flame, the shadows resolved for a fleeting instant into four human faces; faces that were still in the process of registering the shock of Noirmutier’s warning shot.
“Holy throne!” The shadows stopped and dropped to the floor, “What the hell are you trying to do Noirm?”
“State the pass!” Noirmutier shifted his las, lining the bead of the sights up on the foremost shadow as it hunkered down into a slight hollow in ground.
“You ‘diot! You almost shot us!”
“State the pass!”
Low conversation resumed out in the dark, the words indecipherable to Noirmutier. He kept his rifle trained on the shapes, their low murmurings often lost beneath the patter of the rain. “Tartarus?” 
Noirmutier relaxed, lifting the rifle slightly but maintaining his vigilance. “Approach.” The shadows resolved to four soldiers as they advanced on the trench, their mottled russet combat fatigues caked in the dark cloying mud of no-man’s land. The same dark mud smeared their faces, skin pale from two months of transit now had a black tan from the muck and old blood they’d been crawling through. They reeked as well, Noirmutier had caught a whiff of the valley on the breeze but the rain had managed to dampen the worst of the smell, now the troopers carried the stench right into the trench, right to his nose. A noxious mix of stagnant water and rotting matter all underpinned with the iron tang of old blood. Squeezing through a gap in the coils of razor wire, they crawled up to the parapet and dropped wearily down into the trench. 

“Fontenay you ‘diot. Why can’t you get it right the first time?” 
“I’m the ‘diot?” Fontenay shot back at Noirmutier’s accusation; ”It’s us Noirm; you know who we are!”
“This isn’t practice any more. This is real. You could have been anyone.”
“No we couldn’t,” Fontenay stood his ground, squaring up to Noirmutier, “who else sounds like me? Who?”
Noirmutier considered it for a moment, other than Sardon there was nobody in the regiment that had Fontenay’s country burr, but Sardon spoke with a guttural bass drawl rather than Fontenay’s melodious tenor. “Well, nobody.”
Fontenay pressed on, pleased with his little victory, “Besides, it’s quiet as the dead out there if you’ll pardon the pun. There’s nothing moving, just hundreds and hundreds of those dead people on stakes. Frigging freaky, but the dead can’t hurt us.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because they’re dead?” suggested Fontenay exasperated. “It’s what we do, we’re soldiers. We kill things to make them dead so that they won’t kill us. We know dead things when we see them!”
“I’m well aware of what a soldier does, it’s just that we’ve never done it remember? We’re new to this game.”
“Look, we’ve been out there, its deathly quiet. Roquecor you tell him.”
Roquecor looked up from where he’d slumped to the ground, “My damned knees. We must have done about two hundred meters on our knees in this stupid frigging mud with this stupid frigging rain on our frigging backs amongst those frigging dead people.” He was trying to rub his knees but his hands just came up with the thick cloying mud that caked his fatigues. He sniffed at his hands cautiously before recoiling at the stink, “I’d probably be scared of them if I weren’t so pissed off with this frigging crap. Fontenay’s right, there’s nowt frigging out there.”
“Doesn’t mean you can skip procedure.” Noirmutier refused to give up on the point he was trying to make, if Fontenay got away with an abuse of procedures now he’d always get away with it, where would the regiment be then?
“Since when did you make Drill Sergeant?” questioned Fontenay.
“It’s just rules Fontenay. It’s not like it’s hard, follow them.”
“Hang on! I’m the patrol lead, I give the orders around here!” asserted Fontenay. 
“You ceased to be a patrol the minute you returned to the trench.” Noirmutier wasn’t going to let them get away with this. He’d been charged with defending this stretch, therefore he was responsible. Fontenay couldn’t be allowed to ride roughshod over everything that they’d been taught there’d be chaos; a good regiment need discipline. “You may lead out there, but I’m sentry here, I call the shots”
“You call the shots? I’m not taking orders from some jumped up old hack that’s done nothing but sit here all night.” the aggression in Fontenay’s reply shocked Noirmutier. Sure Fontenay was arrogant but such a personal assault was a step to far. Standing his own ground Noirmutier rounded on the patrol,
“I was ordered to stand sentry! I didn’t do eighteen years in planetary defence to be bossed around by a whelp that’s barely out of scholam. I’ve been ordered to defend this section and I will, you either obey my direction or I shoot you on suspicion of being the enemy!”
The boy was quick; Noirmutier had to give him some grudging credit for that. Fontenay had his bayonet from his belt in a swift movement, rapidly bringing the knife to Noirmutier’s through .The boy was cautious though, he was pressing the flat of the blade against Noirmutier’s throat rather than the edge but all it would take was one quick twist it could all turn very nasty for Noirmutier. At least with the flat of the blade the boy’s intention not to harm unless necessary had been declared.
The blade rasped against Noirmutier throat as he spoke, prickling against the hairs on his chin, “Whatever you do lad, you’ll be explaining it to the Colonel, maybe even the General if you take this any further.” 
“In the Emperor’s name, will the two of you just let it be! You’re both equally wrong and equally stupid to boot.” Roquecor pushed his way between the two of them prizing them apart, forcing Fontenay’s bayonet away. “Font’, let it go. Can’t we just report and rest?”
“Fine!” Fontenay shrugged, resigning himself from the conversation by pulling the knife back and turning away.
“Just remember the pass-phrase next time.” said Noirmutier to Fontenay’s back. A cheap dig but he felt he’d earned it, the skin of his throat still cold from the chill of the blade’s steel. 
“Sure, fine.” Fontenay dismissed the comment with a wave, un-strapped his flak-helmet and pulled his forage cap from a pocket in his fatigues. Fontenay still had the dashing looks of youth about him, if anything his face was slightly boyish beneath a mop of tousled hair that had grown back quickly after the regular regimental close-cropping. A dab hand at the controls of a Chimera and a capable marksman to boot, if it weren’t for his insolence and tendency to bend the rules he’d have been more than just the leader of a four man surveillance party. With the forage cap stuffed loosely onto his tousled head, he picked up his ammo-belt and slung both belt and helmet over his shoulder. “C’m on boys let’s go get some sleep before we see what tomorrow brings.”

Noirmutier returned to the fire-step; the carefully cultivated patch of dry ground from where he had been leaning against the parapet was now soaked. He felt the dampness seeping through the front of his fatigues as he lent back against the parapet and settled his body into position to resume his lookout. The damp from the ground, coupled with the rain, meant it was going to be a long, uncomfortable night, relief was still another two hours away. He could already feel the water dripping from the brim of his helmet, finding the gap between his storm cape and his neck, a cold wetness soaking into the fatigues beneath. He swiped away the flies; he’d been laid still only a matter of moments and already they were starting to gather. Buzzing angrily around his head they seemed singularly undeterred by the rain. He flicked them away as best he could and hauled his las-rifle back up onto the parapet, resuming his watch out across no-mans-land. His eighteen years of sentry practice stood him in good stead, the recitation coming easily to his lips, as he resumed his watch. 
“Lord Emperor look over me, that through my vigilance I and all those I protect may rest safe this coming day.”
Behind him the patrol struggled back to their feet and began a weary trudge back to the welcome comfort of their bunks, in-front of him a hundred vacant eyes began their accusatory stares once more. 



“Fontenay!” 
Noirmutier’s whisper was loud enough to stop Fontenay in his tracks; he hadn’t gone more than thirty paces. What the hell did that pedantic ‘diot want now? His patrol needed some sleep, he needed some sleep. “What?”
“How many patrols were out tonight?” asked Noirmutier quietly.
“Just us.” Where was this leading? He turned back to where Noirmutier was leaning on the parapet waiting for the sentry’s response. The old man was staring out into the depths of the night, the concentration set hard on his brow.
“Throne!” 
That said enough. Fontenay lowered his ammo-belt to the ground and raised his las-rifle. The rest of his patrol quietly followed suit, bringing up their own rifles and adopting a ready stance.
“I’ve got movement.” said Noirmutier. “Off to the left.”
Fontenay waved his patrol towards the left. They spread out down the trench, pressing in tight against the flak-board walls, making the most of the sparse cover provided by the timber balks that propped up the revetments.
“You sure?” It didn’t make much sense to Fontenay, for the two hours that he’d pushed his patrol through no-mans-land the only movement that they’d seen had been flies and myriapods feasting on the dead. They’d even made it as far as the leading elements of the opposing trench-works, an abandoned amongst the field of horrors they’d given the obs’-post a wide berth, the empty shallow pit leading back to a deeply cut access trench that quickly drowned in foetid water. No, they’d not seen a living thing out there. 
“Sure I’m sure. I saw something.” Noirmutier was squinting into the rain, peering through the water sleeting from the sky. Fontenay watched him blink, as if he was trying to focus on something out in the dark. After much blinking Noirmutier finally responded, “Nah, nothing.”
“Stand down” Fontenay was relieved to have been right; there had been nothing out there. “False alarm.” His patrol detached themselves from the trench wall and they started for the belts and packs that they had all dropped earlier. Fontenay gave Noirmutier one last glance, the ‘diot was still persisting, squinting and cocking his head from side to side. The man was as stubborn as a belligerent grox, he never seemed to want to give up. “Noirm, leave it. There’s nothing there.”
“No.” there was a certainty in Noirmutier’s voice. It was all Fontenay could do to wait and watch as Noirmutier went repeatedly through a strange motion of turning his head away then flicking it back quickly to look out over the trench,
“What in The Emperor’s name are you doing?”
“I can see them.” Noirmutier swiped away the flies congregating around his head and turned it once again, “But it’s only from the corner of my eye. Only when I’m looking away can I see them. We have intruders!”


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## The_Cook (May 11, 2013)

The wire rattled. A common enough sound on a windswept night in the trench but tonight the air was still, the rain falling straight and true. The tiny crack of cutters; a shudder and another rattle whipping its way along the coils. Fontenay’s breath was burning in his lungs as he strained to hold it in, to afford him the silence to hear each and every sound. Crouched in the trench they were effectively blind, those faint sounds of movement their only clue as to what was happening around and above them. He’d need to breathe soon, before the pounding of his heart in his ears drowned out the noises he was so desperate to hear. Straining for the distant sounds the sonorous drone of a passing fly was as deafening as a Thunderhawk on full reheat doing a low altitude strafing run. The rustle of his fatigues as he swiped the fly away was as distracting waves crashing on a beach. He resumed his concentration once more. Another crack. A shuffling above; somewhere just the other side of the parapet. From behind a squelch. Fontenay whipped his head around at the sound of mud sucking on a boot. Standing just paces behind him in the trench, Roquecor was ashen white, foot still raised, the mud dripping accusingly from the sole of his boot. Fontenay fixed him with a deathly glare. Roquecor shrugged apologetically and lowered his foot with exaggerated caution. The mud sucked again, from the trench this time, but some distance off to the left, beyond the firebreak, definitely not one of Fontenay’s patrol. Heavy and thick, the slap of mud breaking over mud, something large must have dropped in, something large enough to be a man. A duckboard groaned, the riging creak of it taking the weight of a foot. Watching his own footing, ever aware of making a noise of his own, Fontenay edged cautiously along the trench towards the sounds.

Frontline trenches follow a zigzag pattern, the angular kinks acting as firebreaks to protect the rest of the line should a grenade or artillery shell hit the trench. Fontenay crept up to the corner and peered around the solid wooden corner-post into the next section. With the bright glow of the moon lost behind the thick rain clouds the figures looming overhead were almost invisible in the rain. Three of them; one in the trench, down on its knees, staring outwards, rifle up and aimed, a posted sentry. A second up on the parapet, crouched low, manhandled a modest size transit-crate down to the third figure standing in the trench. The crate slid roughly to the ground, a dull thump against the flak-board lining the trench. A second crate was pushed to the edge of the parapet, a small avalanche of damp soil and stones cascading down into the mud. The sentry turned back, the incompetence of the two figures lifting the crates raising a low growl.

Fontenay held up his hand, bidding the rest of the patrol to wait. A couple of steps back from the corner Roquecor tucked himself in behind a revetment prop on the far side of the trench. Varlaix and Baliergues moved into positions close behind. This was it, their first encounter. The pounding of his heart had moved from his ears to his mind, all the intricacies of tactics and target designation that he’d spent months learning had gone. He couldn’t remember a thing and here he was about to lead his first assault on an enemy. Not just his first assault, the regiment’s first assault. He’d always assumed that the Colonel would have been on-hand to help out, lead them through the attack for the first time, but no it had fallen to him. Only now did he realise that the pounding in his mind was fear. Fear of death, of dishonour, of just making a simple mistake at this most important of moments. He only had 31 summers behind him, 22 years by Terran standard, little more than a boy and now it all rested on him. He tried to rein the emotions in, turning back to the rest of the patrol, hoping they wouldn’t see his fears. Roquecor was watching him from the far side of the trench, grim faced, waiting for a sign. Basic training had taught them hand signals, a means of silent communication on the battlefield. They’d all had to learn the signs, but could he remember any of them now? Could he hell. It took real concentration, both to recall the signals and to steady his hands. Three fingers three targets; He pointed at Roquecor then twisted his hand left for go left; He must have got some of the action right, Roquecor gave him a nod and a thumbs up. He signed Varlaix and Baliergues to give covering fire down the centre. Silent and still the patrol waited, it was all on Fontenay now. Pick the moment, the moment when their regiment would engage the enemy for the first time. Fontenay waited, hand raised waiting, heart pounding in his mind.



Stabbing shots of monochromatic light made the flak board glow. Caught unprepared in the open the interlopers had nowhere to turn. The first volley of shots felled the sentry. The crate that was being man-handled over the parapet crashed down onto the third figure’s legs as the volley clipped him and he lost his grip. The crunch of breaking bones clearly audible over the fizz of superheated air from the las fire streaking past. The figure’s helmet muffled a low moaning wail of agony. On the lip of the trench the second figure, still out in no-man’s land, dropped down into the lee of the parapet, scrabbling for a weapon.
"Throne! Keep me covered." Fontenay started down the trench, his las-rifle raised towards the point on the parapet where the figure had just disappeared. The head that he was expecting to appear never did, instead the barrel of a las-rifle rose above the parapet by unseen hands, the trigger jammed onto full auto.

The fusillade forced Fontenay back into cover, Roquecor, who had followed him down the trench, dropped into the cover of a trench prop opposite. 
“They told us...” Roquecor paused as another volley lanced through the damp wood of the duckboards and vaporised the mud below into a cloud of dirty steam. “...we’d be fighting fanatics...” The trench prop took a hit, the energy in the las-bolt blasting a cloud of wooden splinters into the trench as the water within the damp timber boiled in an instant. "Font’, this is insane!"
“Patience. It’s a las,” Fontenay squeezed back against the trench wall as the stabs of light veered towards him, “he’s either going to burn out his resonator...” The stream of bolts veered close once more, scoring the trench wall a couple of paces down from Roquecor, “or he’ll drain his charge pack. Either way, we’ll have him when he stops.”
Flies dissipated in agitated clouds as the shots lanced through their congregations. The unlucky few caught in the beam immolated in specks of fire. Scorching duckboards, boiling mud and searing the flak-board revetments the volley continued. The shots might have been wild and un-aimed but they would have been lethal to anyone caught exposed in the confines of the trench. 
“How long to drain a charge pack?” cried Roquecor over the fizz of the shots.
“Fifteen...”, a stray bolt flashed past Fontenay’s nose, close enough for him to smell the ozone it generated as the intense beam of energy tore apart the air with a superheated crack. “Damn!” He pushed himself further back into the unyielding trench wall, trying his best to suck in his stomach, to stop it projecting beyond the meagre cover the trench prop provided, “...maybe twenty seconds on continuous fire.”

He smelt the burnt flesh before the pain managed to flood through. One of the canon of loose shots had seared across his thigh. Fontenay’s rifle rose at the same rate as his cry of pain bursting from his throat. Flicking the safety across to auto he thrust the rifle out into the trench. Two could play this stupid game! With little to no aim he squeezed the trigger. Pulse after pulse burst forth from the rifle’s barrel, Roquecor’s features opposite reduced to a series of staccato images of surprised shock in the stroboscopic glare of the shots.

As quickly as it started, it was over. Two last, feeble, shots barely managed to scorch the coating off of the flak board before the volley faltered completely and Fontenay ceased his returning fire. His leg hurt like hell. Hazarding a quick glance at it he could see no blood, just a cauterised stripe of blackened skin the size of his index finger. It might hurt like hell but the adrenaline pounding through his veins could easily move him through the pain.
“Now!” he hollered and together with Roquecor they both lunged forwards. Squeezing down the trench side by side, rifles up, they continued peppering the parapet with las-bolts. Too late, the las-rifle lay abandoned; their shots well wide of the disappearing interloper who was already sprinting away from the trench.



A single las shot cracked out across no-man’s land, the vivid burst of laser light silhouetting the unending coils of razor-wire that lay just beyond the parapet. 
“Got ‘im,” Noirmutier’s voice echoed along the trench, “He’s down!”



The trench was silent bar the patter of the rain, which was rapidly dispersing the ozonic tang of the las fire, the scattered flies returning almost instantly.
“What the hell was that?” demanded Roquecor.
“What?” Fontenay was still starting at the parapet, trying to take everything in. He was alive, despite the withering hail of las-bolts that they’d had to endure.
“Full frigging auto? This ain’t an afternoon at the holo’s!”
“I was returning fire!” Still struggling to get to grips with the situation Fontenay tried to focus. Post fire fight drill, just like the stupid hand signals the simplest procedures had gone from his mind in the heat of the moment.
“Why didn’t you frigging frag him?” 
“What?” Las, check his las. The post fire-fight drill was coming back, echoes of the Colonel’s booming voice tumbling across a windy training range. Safety on; Check the power pack; Reading of twelve percent, below the threshold, so-; Swap the pack; Rifle up; Assume ready stance.
“Emperor’s mercy, if the Colonel had seen us we’d have both been put on report? Trench tactics, frag grenades, remember?”
“Yes. No!” Fontenay slid a fresh pack from his webbing. Roquecor’s berating really wasn’t helping, one procedure at a time and he needed to focus on this one first. “Why didn’t you suggest a grenade?”
“Me? You’re in charge? You almost knifed Noirm just to prove that point.”
“You’re carrying as many grenades as I am you ‘diot.” Stuffing the discharged pack into a pocket Fontenay squared up to Roquecor, “You could have used your own initiative and lobbed one!”
“Shut it!” Noirmutier’s voice echoed along the trench once more, “Get out there and get that body, it might have useful intelligence on it.”
Fontenay held his ground against Roquecor’s withering stare. He wouldn’t draw his steel on his own man, the only edge he could use were his words and they were failing him right now. As it was Roquecor got there first whilst Fontenay’s mind was still chasing a suitable riposte, “Some bleedin’ team we are, we’re taking orders from old man sentry. You’re leading, you go first.”
There was nothing more that Fontenay could say, so he turned and clambered up onto the firestep and crawled out of the trench without a word.



Keeping his rifle aimed Varlaix edged cautiously along the trench and approached the first body. This was his first kill, for that matter it was the regiment’s first kill. It was the first time that he’d even seen a dead body up close and he wasn’t so sure that it was dead. Slumped against the wall of the trench it looked as if it had just sat down. He prodded it nervously with the toe of his boot, jumping back in surprise at the sigh of air escaping from limp lungs. Slumping forward onto its face the body belched as it fell. It was obvious that it was dead, no man would willingly sit bent forward in such a manner. Varlaix tried to suppress a foolish grin, how could he have thought that the man wasn’t dead, they’d lanced them good and proper with las-bolts. He stooped in to get a closer look, turning his nose at the sharp tang of stomach acids and the sweeter tones of rot and decay that hung heavy in the trench after the man’s bilious exhalations.
“Hey, look at this!”
Now that the body had fallen forwards Varlaix could see that the enemy trooper’s fatigues were ripped and torn across the back. The skin, visible through the ragged holes in the coarse cloth, was welted and sore. Where the skin had been broken the exposed flesh was turning septic, green stains spreading across the body, thin veins of infection running dark beneath the pallid yellowing skin. He kicked the body over onto its back as Fontenay and Roquecor scrambled out into no-man’s land to bring back the one that had tried to escape. 
“They look just like us?” Varlaix said to Baliergues
Baliergues waved his hand over the body, “What did you expect?” the feeble attempt to ward off the flies that were already settling was only partially successful.
“I don’t know. Something more?”
“More?” questioned Baliergues as he gave up fighting the gathering swarm of flies.
“When you hear Preacher Veysset ranting on about ruinous powers, you expect them to be more... well, more ruinous.”
The second body dropped into the trench as Fontenay and Roquecor pushed it over the parapet. Beneath a rusting steel helmet the man’s pallor was the same sickly yellow as his companions and his back bore a similar pattern of welts, scars and septic veining beneath the torn fatigues.
“These guys don’t look too good.” said Fontenay slithering down the revetment back onto the floor of the trench.
“They don’t smell too good either, not for bodies that have been dead for just a few minutes.” Varlaix could taste the soft flavour of rot on the back of his mouth from the gasses the bodies were expelling. He spat out a fly that had flown into his mouth. The insects were everywhere now, drawn by the dead met, the corpses already crawling with a swarm of the irritating insects. “You’d have thought they’d have sent some better troops out rather than these walking wounded?”

The third body groaned; a long low moan that continued forever.
“We got a live one?” Fontenay dropped to his knees, rifle up. First the grenades, now this. His patrol had barely coped with its first contact, it was a continuing wonder they were all still alive. “Didn’t you check?”
“I didn’t get that far.” Varlaix replied as he struggled to get his rifle up.
Baliergues ducked to the side into the cover of a trench prop. “They all looked dead from where I was.”
“You ‘diots, what were we taught? Always check the bodies!” Fontenay prodded Varlaix with the muzzle of his las-rife, “Go on, check it out.”

Varlaix looked towards the wounded enemy. The second transit case that the enemy had been manhandling was pinning the man to the floor, the man’s legs un-naturally twisted where the case had shattered the bones. White splinters pierced the skin, dark blood seeping from the puncture wounds formed a growing pool that was spreading over and beneath the duckboards. There was lifelessness to the eyes, a pale watery iris tied to the centre of web of red veining, Varlaix caught the movement, the flick of the eyes down towards the gun and Varlaix realised that he had to act. The man’s weapon was on the floor. He might not be moving much at the moment but it wouldn’t be safe until the weapon was fully out of arms reach. Launching himself from his crouch, his own rifle trained on the enemy at all times, Varlaix covered the distance along the trench in three strides. The enemy trooper’s hand was already trying to close around the gun stock when Varlaix applied his boot. Dislodging the weapon from the enemy’s grip, the kick sent it spinning down the trench, safely out of the way.

Beneath another rusted bucket helm was a man. Limp, sallow flesh hung loosely from his face, his dark eyes sunk well back in hollow sockets. As he sat there his lips were tracing out the shapes of words. It was neither a cry of anguish nor a plea of mercy that he spoke but a steady chant, the mouth shaping to a steady time. Perhaps some recitation of rites of death? Even as Varlaix approached the man seemed intent of continuing with those quiet words on his last feeble breaths.
“Speak up!” Varlaix prodded the man in the ribs with the barrel of his las-rifle as a means of encouragement. The man spoke up, but only slightly, Varlaix leaned in to hear better, braving the rotten crudity of the man’s breath. The words whispered were not low-gothic but a foreign tongue, a harsh, jarring collection of syllables. Just listening to them hurt; the very sounds themselves seemed to be turning Varlaix’s stomach. He could feel his throat tightening, his stomach clenching, he struggled to hold down bile rising from within. The man seemed to realise the effect he was having, he drew a large breath hard into his rattling lungs. He couldn’t manage a shout, but the words he spoke were louder now, clear enough to be heard by all. Half a sentence in and Baliergues had his hand to his head, wincing at some kind of pain that wracked him from within. Fontenay had dropped his rifle and was wrapping his arms around his guts, clutching his stomach and Roquecor was leaning unsteadily against the fire step.

Fighting against the nausea rising fast within his throat, Varlaix planted his boot hard onto the man’s neck. He felt the breaking of the bones through the sole of his boot, the accursed speech faltering before the finally neck snapped. With the man silenced Varlaix’s nausea faded quickly in the quiet that descended on the trench. He had to break that blessed silence by clearing the phlegm that had risen in his throat, one hacking cough to clear the taste of bile clinging in his mouth; spitting a wad of saliva onto the duckboards where it quickly slipped between the treads to become one with the mud below.
“What in the name of Terra was that?”
“Nothing good, that’s for sure.” Baliergues had slumped back against the revetment, his face looked pale and he repeatedly massaged his forehead trying to sooth a furrowed brow. “That ruinous enough for you Var’?”
“I’m sold. Next time we shoot ‘em on sight and be done with it.” agreed Varlaix clearing another wad of phlegm from his throat.
“Damned right we do!” slurred Baliergues shaking some colour back into his face, “Next time check the bodies and shoot ‘em again just to be sure. Don’t give no quarter.”


“Whoa!” 
They’d been about to move the bodies, but Fontenay’s cry stopped Roquecor and the rest of the patrol in their tracks. Jumpy after the curious bout of nausea, Roquecor had his weapon up and raised within a second, dropping to one knee to take up a solid fire-stance. “What?” 
“Do you realise what we’ve just done?” 
Fontenay seemed pretty pleased with himself despite the concerned face that Roquecor knew he was wearing. A concern that was clearly evident on Baliergues’ and Varlaix’s faces. “What?”
“We just made the regiments first confirmed kills” said Fontenay grinning.
“I suppose.” Roquecor couldn’t fault him on that observation, messy though it might have been there were indeed three dead bodies.
“Damned right! They’re ours we made ‘em.” Fontenay was positively beaming now, the grin running from ear to ear. “That’ll go down in history.”
“...and we’re not dead into the bargain.” chipped in Varlaix.
“Not through your actions, you left that last one unchecked.” chided Fontenay but Varlaix just shrugged off the jibe rather than rising to it. “I can see it now, our names carved on the wall.”
“What wall?”
“I dunno, some wall, somewhere.” Fontenay was staring into the distance, absorbed in the dream his imagination was conjuring up, “Polished black stone, three men tall and a hundred men long. No, two hundred men long! It will commemorate the regiment’s achievements and we will be there. It will be our names first in the list, the fine engraving picked out in purest gold.”
Roquecor had to laugh; Fontenay’s dream was just that, a dream. Who would want to commemorate them; “For killing three mangy, fly ridden opponents?” 
“Two.” injected Varlaix, “Noirm’ got the third”.
“Correction,” stated Roquecor, “two mangy, fly ridden opponents?”
“Roq’, you’re not helping. Don’t spoil the dream” sighed Fontenay, “Mangy or not, two or three, they’re still the first and that makes them unique. That makes us unique.”
The thump on the duckboards rumbled through the trench, the heavy pounding of a big man running fast. Roquecor saw Fontenay’s jubilation quickly fade to uncertainty as the steps rapidly approached. “Throne! It’s the Colonel!”



“What the hell are you ‘diots up to?” roared Colonel Creusot as he sprinted around the fire-break and raced towards them, “I heard las-fire and shouting?”. 
Fontenay stood up straight and snapped a quick salute as the Colonel approached. “Incursion Sir. All dealt with Sir.” 
Short, thick bodied with strong shoulders the first impression most people had of Creusot was that of a rough head on an inverted triangle of muscle. Twenty standard years of campaigning had peppered his short cropped dark hair with grey but it had also made him Colonel and the regiment’s first officer. A capacity in which he had helped to select and train every one of the raw recruits that now faced the enemy. The Colonel’s eye narrowed beneath a furrowed brow, flicking between the bodies and the squad lead. Fontenay stood his ground against the accusing eyes until the Colonel barked out a gruff, “Where’d they come from?”
“Noirmutier spotted them in No-man’s land, sir. They were following us back from patrol. We caught them in the trench.”
“You ‘diots, you probably led them here.”, said the Colonel shaking his head, “at least you had the foresight to clean up your own mess.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Fontenay paused, unsure what to do next. Had that been a rebuke or a compliment from the Colonel? He’d often thought of himself to be good at reading people, but Fontenay just didn’t have the measure of the Colonel, yet. Another grunt and then the Colonel was glancing up and down the trench taking everything in. His gaze lingered on the las burns along the trench.
“A messy ol’ scrap you had here.”
“Yes, Sir they put up quite a fight sir.”
“Did they?” tracing his fingertips along the scorch marked flak-board. “It all looks a bit one sided to me. I heard two bursts of full auto.”
“They weren’t as disciplined as us, Sir”
Creusot paused in-front of the tattered sand bags along the parapet, fingering the holes in the coarse weave material that were weeping mud. “Oh really?”
Fontenay refused to betray what the evidence said otherwise, anyone with an ounce of sense could see that a burst of full-fire had come from the defending side and the Colonel had more than an ounce of sense. The empty las-pack hung heavy in Fontenay’s pocket, if the Colonel demanded that they present their power packs he’d be found out, but what would be the point? It was done now, no one harmed and an incursion stifled. 
Thankfully the Colonel didn’t seem inclined to press the point. “Roquecor, find a vox-unit and contact command, report this. Get them to issue a warning on my say so. There might be others out there testing our defences." The Colonel looked towards the bodies, still lying where they’d been dumped or had fallen; then his eyes landed on their cargo. "What are those?"
“Transit cases sir. They were manhandling them into the trench.”
Creusot strode over, “Now, why would they be doing that?”
Fontenay watched Creusot study the two transit cases inquisitively, “I don’t like it.” As the Colonel turned back to the team another concerned frown crossed his brow, “The crates can’t stay here on the front line, move them back to the auxiliary trench and I’ll deal with them there.”
“Yes sir. What about the bodies?”
Creusot wandered back to remains of the three enemy troops.
“Normally I’d say burn ‘em. Drop ‘em in a pit with a melta bomb and stand well back.”
“Is that the safest way to dispose of them?” Fontenay joined him. 
“Usually, yes...” 
The Colonel left the statement dangling; Baliergues took the bait “Wouldn’t that violate our blackout orders?” 
“Well done, you’re catching on.” Creusot kicked at the lifeless bodies, weighing them up. “One fire fight in and finally you’re starting to learn.”
“Corpse sacks?” continued Baliergues, “The forward aid station will have corpse sacks.”
Creusot smiled, nodding. “Your idea Baliergues, you go. Fetch some; the others can stand guard here.” Creusot paused, thinking; “Whilst you’re there pick up some chem-suits.”
“You mean we shouldn’t touch them?” questioned Baliergues
“Do you want to risk it?”
“Risk what?”
“Exactly!” Creusot was smiling again although Fontenay had absolutely no idea what the Colonel was smiling about. Then a thought flashed across Fontenay’s mind,
“We lifted one of the in from no-mans-land?” 
Creusot took a step back, instinctively Fontenay backed off as well. Had they caught something? Could they really contract something through such a quick touch? Creusot was eying him up and down, “You’ll probably be fine.” Creusot’s response sounded distinctly un-committal, he only returned to his usual commanding self when he resumed issuing orders “Baliergues get chem-suits.”
“Yes sir!”
“Once the bodies are gone, you need to sterilise this area.” ordered Creusot sweeping his arm around to indicate the current bay of the trench.
“Flamer?” queried Fontenay, trying to edge back in on the conversation.
“No you ‘diot.” chided Baliergues “That’s no different from a melta-bomb.”
“Quite right.” acknowledged Creusot “It would be an open invitation to an artillery barrage.” 
“Sorry sir.” Fontenay shrunk back again, “What then?”
“Formol.” responded Creusot. He paused briefly to contemplate his answer before carrying on, “I’ll get a couple of drums of Formol solution sent up to you. You spray everything, dump the bodies in the half empty drums, seal them in and then send them back for incineration.”
“Yes sir.” said Fontenay, the rest of the troop nodding in understanding.
“Then spray the trench a second time, just to make sure.” Creusot nodded to himself, satisfied with the plan. “I’ll send back the Formol. Don’t let anyone touch those crates, get them back to our auxiliary trench and I’ll deal with them later. Then get yourselves back to the aid post and take a counter-septic shower just to be sure. I’m off to the bunker, before you ‘diots distracted me the General had called a briefing.”


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