Secret War: Upon Blood Sands

Chapter 34

Tathe blinked back the tiredness as his body seemed to move in autopilot and raised his laspistol to put a bolt through the skull of yet another Velrosian trooper. Yet another trooper who Tathe recognised but refused to recall the name of or what squad he was from. Dellenger on his right shot flurry after flurry of las fire from the hip, while Karmen Kons on his left sent aside las barrage after las barrage with her kine shield. The Sovirithians now had their flamers at the fore, and they bathed the enemy with a constant wall of fire.

His gaze wandered over the horde of Resurrected, searching for Adreen. Hoping to the Emperor that she would never be amidst them, that he wouldn't be forced to kill her.

Tathe was the former and Dellenger the latter. Adreen was never the most skilled combatant or stealth practitioner. Still, she was insightful, able to read people as well as a battlefield with almost freakishly on point accuracy, but she was also charismatic—a leader. Tathe had believed that she deserved to have a higher rank for a long time and even suggested it to his father once.

General Tathe had dismissed it with his typical lack of explanation, saying: 'You are a commissar, a political officer, in charge of morale and discipline, and that is that. Such advice is out of your jurisdiction. I don't need your advice on who to promote. I know what I'm doing.'

Tathe had later put this to Adreen after a night together, and she too had dismissed him. 'I'm not interested in climbing the ladder, Delan. Never have been; I'm happy where I am.'

He'd been a naive fool; she'd always seemed immortal, so he almost believed that she was. No matter the mission general Tathe or colonel Vonlet sent her and her squad on, she and Dellenger would always come back. That was a lot more literal now.

Sudden tears blurred Tathe's vision, and anger made him pump wild shot after wild shot into the Resurrected. It'd been only a few minutes since they started moving, but it already felt like an age. The Imperial forces slow advance had slowed even more. The Resurrected came in even thicker and faster and from every direction. Both the once-guardsmen and the cultists now acted like an ill-disciplined rabble. It wasn't just ill-disciplined, but it also stunk of desperation. It was getting more and more obvious they really didn't want them near the tower.

Tathe smiled. It was strange, but despite the increase in enemy numbers and despite the exhaustion and the newly found slowness of their advance and the mixture of the regiments. Morale seemed high, higher than when they began somehow. Tathe supposed it was because their objective was near, that and the enemy's desperation fuelled them like it sapped the remaining discipline from the Resurrected.

At times cries of 'for the Emperor!' or 'for Sovrith!' and other such exclamations echoed through the almost completely consistent buzzing of lasgun fire.

Tathe allowed their enthusiasm to wash through him; it seemed to make the anger and grief flow from his chest and into his legs. He knew it was temporary; he just hoped it'd be temporary for long enough.

He was foolish; he was supposed to be a commissar, so he was meant to be amongst the most ruthless beings in the cosmos. As a commissar-cadet, he'd believed he was, but Tathe knew after years of developing his self-awareness he was never capable of such ruthlessness.

Tathe was just lucky he served with a regiment so disciplined, he never needed to exhibit such ruthlessness.

His laspistol clicked dry, and only two seconds later, his hands had reloaded and continued to launch shot after shot. He gave his surroundings a quick glancing.

As much as he hated to admit it, the Sovrithian gunline performed even better than the Elbyran one had before. Their accuracy was amazing, and their discipline as they covered every inch with las fire, remarkable. The Elbyrans, beside the Marangerians, were skirmishers first and foremost; they'd rarely needed to perform such tactics in their long service. But the Sovrithian rifles seemed to specialise in this warfare. This made Tathe re-think his decision for him and his Elbyrans to play decoy; perhaps if the Sovrithians had done it, there would've been fewer casualties. Tathe dismissed the regret; he'd known his father would naturally wish to have all his attention on the Elbyrans. The general seemed to have some way of viewing what was going on in the city and how Tathe could only speculate, but he'd hoped it was somewhat limited, which has proven true.