Mark's Cerebral Hemorrhage

Today should have been a beautiful day, Colonel Mark thought angrily as he crouched behind a makeshift barricade. It was all because of those bastards who had suddenly rebelled. Damn it. He had never received the slightest sign of Chaos corruption from either the Adeptus Arbites or the Ecclesiarchy.

He leaned out and fired viciously at the rebels, hitting several idiots who were charging forward with shrieks before ducking back behind the sandbags. A barrage of bullets struck the sandbags in front of him, and his shoulder pressed against them could clearly feel the impacts from the other side.

The reserve soldiers of the 4th Company and 5th Company were in complete disorder, yet they still obeyed his commands and struggled to return fire with their local weapons. Most could not even guarantee the accuracy of their shots. In Colonel Mark's eyes, this was simply a waste of Imperium ammunition.

He had originally intended to select a batch of soldiers from the 4th and 5th Companies to replenish the 3rd Company, but it seemed there was no need now. They were all just raw recruits, still lacking training.

Colonel Mark even saw one cowardly soldier merely stick both hands and his gun out from cover and start spraying wildly. This enraged him even further. If Commissar Aude had been here, those incompetent soldiers would have angered him into illness as well.

Still, he had no idea how Commissar Aude was doing now. The commissar had driven to the Adeptus Mechanicus yesterday to investigate the recent failures in communications equipment. Communications at outposts throughout the Green Basin region had suffered varying degrees of disruption and malfunction. Commissar Aude had felt something was wrong, so he had taken more than a hundred men from the 1st Company with him to see whether the Adeptus Mechanicus had a problem.

And what about himself? He had been plunged into this mess, and he had not even brought enough spare magazines.

When his last power pack ran dry, Captain Mark had no choice but to activate the Chainsword he never left without. However, this Chainsword tailored for Imperium officers was worlds apart from those used by Space Marines. Narrower and shorter, it could be wielded by an ordinary human, but compared to the Chainswords of those superhumans, it was like a tactical knife.

Plain and unadorned.

But size had never stopped a Chainsword's high-speed teeth from shredding every enemy of The Emperor. Colonel Mark could hear the chaotic footsteps drawing closer. He would fight for The Emperor until his final moment, as always. As for those reserve soldiers, Colonel Mark glanced back at them again. They were simply too young.

Just as Colonel Mark prepared to charge out and let his Chainsword claim a few more traitors who had betrayed The Emperor, the massive transport vehicle driven by Delia came crushing in from behind the rebels. Soldiers of the 1st Company poured fire down upon the rebels from the transport's enormous cabin, which offered excellent visibility.

Blazing lasfire rained down, mercilessly and efficiently striking every rebel without cover. Their limbs and heads were completely vaporized, leaving behind only charred corpses.

Colonel Mark spotted Yukagel, the 1st Company's commander, aboard the vehicle and immediately shouted, "Reinforcements are here! Charge with me! Show these rebels The Emperor's wrath!" Then he charged out at the head of the assault, cutting down several rebels before they could react and seizing their weapons to fire upon the enemy.

Seeing their commander fight so fiercely and witnessing the arrival of reinforcements, the reserve soldiers were instantly invigorated. One after another, they followed his example, rushing out from their hiding places and corners to hunt down the rebels, who were being attacked from both sides and had fallen into utter panic.

The rebels' morale had risen quickly and vanished just as quickly. The rebels surrounding Colonel Mark collapsed in a chain reaction, fleeing and leaving only their miserable backs to the Imperium soldiers. But Colonel Mark and his men had no intention of letting them escape alive. They pursued relentlessly, firing as they ran.

The slaughter continued for nearly half an hour. Not a single rebel escaped; every one of them became a corpse upon the ground. The stench of blood and the scorched smell of roasted flesh assailed the noses of every survivor. Mutilated bodies were embraced without complaint by the earth. If fields were planted here, they would surely yield a fine harvest.

Colonel Mark looked at the now-stationary transport vehicle and rolled his shoulders and arms. He had spent too long on the peaceful world of Karmaklan, and this sudden bout of intense combat left his whole body aching.

"I've gotten lazy. That won't do." Colonel Mark criticized himself a few times, thinking that once these rebels had been suppressed, he would spend several days engaging in real combat with Commissar Aude and restore himself to his former condition.

"This is what's left of the 1st Company, Colonel," Yukagel said, giving Colonel Mark a standard salute.

"What's left?" Colonel Mark did not even want to consider the deeper implications. He merely fixed his eyes on Yukagel and waited for him to continue.

"The 900 soldiers of the 1st Company stationed at Keton were attacked by rebels. We held the line perfectly until a black-armored giant carried out a one-sided slaughter. Only then did we abandon our position."

"A black-armored giant?"

"Yes, sir! A black-armored giant, wielding a terrifyingly large Chainsword and a Bolter decorated in horrifying fashion. Our Lasguns could barely penetrate his heavy armor. Fortunately, Soap, the acting squad leader of the 3rd Company Assault Squad, fought to the death and saved everyone's lives."

"Where is that black-armored giant now?"

"On the vehicle, sir."

Colonel Mark hurried toward the transport vehicle. Yukagel's description reminded him of the superhumans he had seen during his military career, beings with the appearance and conduct of The Emperor's angels. Colonel Mark felt deep pride and honor at being able to see such angels. Many Astra Militarum soldiers would never see a single Angel of Death in their entire lives. Their numbers were so few, while the Imperium's territory was so vast.

As he carefully examined the enormous body far beyond that of an ordinary human and the heavy armor comparable to a battle tank, Colonel Mark's worries were fully confirmed. What they had encountered was not a sudden Chaos rebellion, but a planned Chaos strike. There were even traitorous Space Marines among them.

That explained it. Nine hundred 1st Company soldiers could hardly be expected to stop a Chaos Space Marine. Then how many of these warriors were there? What was their objective? They had probably disrupted the communications as well. Would something happen to Commissar Aude? A string of questions flooded Colonel Mark's mind until he suddenly remembered an even more shocking fact.

"You said Soap killed this?"

Colonel Mark stared at Yukagel with an expression of shock and doubt that anyone could recognize.

"That's right, sir. He used some kind of bomb to teach that bastard a harsh lesson. And that unlucky fellow with the blasted-open chest was the second black giant Sergeant Soap had killed."

Colonel Mark burst into laughter, praising The Emperor's name. "I never expected our regiment to produce someone this fierce! I'll submit his combat report to higher command. How is he now? Is he alive?" However, Colonel Mark had already assumed Lin Fan was dead. When Astra Militarum soldiers clashed with those superhumans, they could only rely on lives to fill the gap, and sometimes even that could not fill the chasm created by such an overwhelming disparity in strength. Still, even if he had died, it would not have been a bad thing. The Emperor never forgot those who fought bravely for the Imperium. Killing a Chaos Space Marine with nothing but Astra Militarum weaponry was an honor that would surely allow him to stand beside The Emperor after death. It would also make him an excellent, inspiring example to shape the spirit of the 37th Regiment.

If the achievement was confirmed, the Departmento Munitorum would not mistreat this hero. They would find Lin Fan's relatives or descendants and reward them with better positions, or directly admit them into the Schola Progenium to become honored Imperium officers or commissars.

"He fell unconscious after the explosion, but his life is not in danger."

"Good, good, good!" Even repeating the word several times could not express how delighted Colonel Mark was. The headache caused by the reserve soldiers' dreadful performance and his rising blood pressure immediately vanished. "Next, we can't let Sergeant Soap's sacrifice go to waste. Return to Keton with me at once. We still have battles to fight."