Chapter 35: Outskirts of the Heglas Hive

10 kilometers in front of the Heglas Hive, millions of Astra Militarum soldiers built a circular defense belt around the Heglas Hive to resist the invasion of the greenskins.

A Hive

Private Joseph, who had just inserted a standard bulletproof plate in front of him, sat on a small pile of earth dug out from the temporary trench to rest. He adjusted his gas mask so that his face would not be squeezed by the ill-fitting mask and become a little numb. The sealed protective clothing and heavy windbreakers, gloves and masks, wrapped each soldier tightly, without any skin exposed outside.

As a heavy industrial planet that produces a large amount of equipment for the Empire, Armageddon, except for the hive, has long been deeply polluted by serious industrial wastewater. The highly toxic exhaust gas in the air is enough to turn the lungs of anyone who lacks a mask into a pool of blood within three minutes.

Joseph tightly grasped the laser gun in his hand, feeling that all this was really crazy.

The green-skinned orcs quickly broke through the planet's orbital defense with an unstoppable force. The metal garbage in the sky showed a burnt red luster after rubbing against the atmosphere, just like the feeling of a sea of ​​fire falling from the sky described in those legends.

These metal garbage balls hit various places on the surface of the planet without considering the accuracy at all. One after another, the metal balls broke the spires formed by the towering hive buildings. The huge building remains rolled over to the lower areas powerlessly in the explosion, creating more chaos and destruction.

God Emperor, those damn nobles and officials must have died a lot. Thinking of this, Joseph, a soldier recruited from the bottom hive mine factory, felt sincerely happy. Countless people with bloody mouths jumped out of those metal balls, wearing tattered iron armor, holding inferior guns with bullets that did not match the model. God knows how these orcs survived such an unbuffered collision. The inferior guns that even the poorest gangsters despised had exaggerated gunshots and unimaginable destructive power.

Joseph was fortunate to be led by a sergeant to surround and kill a group of greenskin troops who were slaughtering the residents of the hive. When he picked up those exaggerated greenskin guns with bandages and welding holes on them, and carefully checked the contents of the chambers and magazines.

They were just some random garbage stuffed in, just roughly made into a bullet shape, with different diameters and lengths, and some bullets didn't even have a stable primer. But these rags were stuffed into the magazines by the greenskins, and they could be perfectly shot out of the barrels to smash rows of soldiers equipped with bulletproof armor into pieces.

Now, the cleaning work of the hive city has been completed for a long time. They were hurriedly sent by the managers and military and political officials of the hive city to dig trenches in this land full of pollution and toxicity, and reinforced the defense line with these metal plates that were suspected to be removed from the houses on the bottom floor of the hive city.

Joseph felt that he might not survive the next battle, although he saw many powerful artillery such as petrified lizards and manticores on the way to the Chimera armored vehicle, and his comrades beside him also had many four-chamber heavy mortars and automatic guns at the bottom of the box.

But soldiers like him who are at the forefront, in addition to suffering the most violent enemy attacks, may also have to endure the "warm" artillery support from friendly forces in the rear.

Thinking of this, Joseph lowered his head and looked at a comrade next to him who was wearing the same clothes. The two eyes buried under the protective goggles looked at each other, and the two saw the indifference and despair of the impending death in each other's eyes.

"Hey, for the Emperor, right?"

The man opposite Joseph raised his palm and leaned towards him, and a muffled sound through the gloves sounded between the two. Joseph clapped his hands with the soldier he didn't know, using this method to relax his nervous nerves.

"For the Emperor, brother."

"They are coming! Get ready for battle!" A huge voice like thunder came from another part of the position. Joseph knew that this was his biochemically modified superior. He also made a horn with adjustable sound at his throat, so that he could give orders with that huge roar on the battlefield or in the training camp.

He adjusted the helmet on his head, stood on the flat mound where he had just sat, and observed the movement in the distance between two bulletproof metal plates. The huge dust raised by running or driving was like a naturally formed sandstorm, with a spectacular scale. He could even feel the slight shaking of the trench he was relying on. There must be a lot of green-skinned barbarians, and their physique must be not small.

As the flames of several explosions bloomed in the sandstorm, the greenskins rushed into the previously buried minefield. In order to ensure the defense of the hive and the stability of the front, the officers did not consider any passage areas and minefields, and directly buried all the mines that could be buried around the defense line. Even so, they were still afraid that the number of mines was not enough, and they violently collected more homemade explosives from the hands of the hive gangs and buried them together.

Fireballs of varying sizes exploded straight into the sky, and the black smoke and dust mixed together, making the sky opposite Joseph even worse.

"Prepare for artillery fire!"

Another roar hit Joseph's ears, and he hurriedly hid his body in the trench. He didn't want to be injured by his own people in the first round of artillery fire.

On the battlefield several kilometers away, neatly arranged petrified lizards, manticore artillerymen, and soldiers operating heavy mortars and howitzers created a shocking movement. Thousands of shells that streaked through the air flew over Joseph's head and hit the minefield where the greenskins were wading.

The explosion completely suppressed the roar of the greenskins, leaving only the land that was constantly shaking in the explosion and the front-line soldiers who were attacked by the sound waves. The continuous bombardment also attracted the counterattack of the Orks, and louder artillery sounds came from that side, and more shells flew from that side.

The shells fired by the greenskins emitted black smoke of substandard military quality, and drifted crookedly to every corner of the battlefield, but they probably didn't care about these, just because we were there, without any artillery ballistic calculations.

After cleaning the steaming mud that splashed onto his goggles, Joseph could clearly feel that the orcs' artillery fire was more ferocious than that of his own army. Although it had no accuracy at all, the constant sound still made his lungs ache.