# The Battle of Talo VII



## Ste (Aug 28, 2008)

Heavy rain saturated the battlefield and turned the mud around the trench line to slop and mess, the wooden slats barely holding the sea of grime back. Heavy guns pounded behind the security of our trenches and shook the earth. Enemy artillery bombed through our lines and caused huge sections of the trench line to cave in and suffocate riflemen under a tide of mud, gore and flesh. 
The rattle of machine gun fire drowned out the screams of soldiers dying around me and the noise of enemy gun fire. A momentary cease fire gave me time to collect my thoughts and move to a safer position. Smoke danced and weaved through the trenches from across the battlefield.
I was a private first class in the 152nd Rifle assault regiment, running from one gunning position to another, watching my comrades be torn apart by masse fire power and ordinance. I was equipped with standard issue flak armour, a light chest plate bearing the imperial eagle and originally a tan colour, but know it was soiled with blood and dirt. My fatigues of similar origin but now also stained. The air on this forsaken planet was toxic if exposed for to long, so all of the line infantry were equipped with full face gas masks and lasrifle with under slung grenade launcher. 

“Acid barrage! Incoming!!!” sounded from the speakers, the voice rusty through poor lines and low quality equipment. I darted over dozens of bodies face down in the river of blood, missing limbs and massive exit wounds made me feel nauseous. I looked up to the sound of whistling and i stumbled backwards and fell into a dug out. I watched the gigantic shell explode in mid-air and thousands of tiny capsules fell just twenty metres off ground level before exploding into a cloud of potent acid. Watching the acid rain down onto the commissar ordering and executing men at the will of the emperor. The acid doused him and his skin bubbled and burned, his voice gargled as his throat melted from inhaling the deadly toxin. He fell to his knees and held his face before thumping into the puddles of death that littered the trenches.
I looked out into the abyss from the safety of the dug out and the silence was short lived as every man out of cover was incinerated by the acid attack. Only a handful of us remained. 
after the sun fell I walked out into the trenches and stepped onto a gun step to peer over the edge into the cold lines of the enemy. 
A few more men moved up to the trench line peering through the scopes of their rifles into the empty battlefield. Echoing voices of the thousands dead blew over no mans land and the only noises to be heard was the rustling of my fellow riflemen moving up to the trench line for the word of the commissars to ‘send us over the top’.


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## arturslv (May 12, 2010)

Nice and tense story, have some rep.


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## Ste (Aug 28, 2008)

Thanks, i'm currently just starting on a longer story at the moment, which i have posted up the intro to here. i will be included this small outcut later on into my new story 

-ste-


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