"Get down!"
Ur shouted as bullets skimmed over his head, kicking up bursts of dull-colored explosions across the dirt and stone of Dunwich Grand Cemetery.
"Hagrid, with me! The other squads stay put and wait for the signal!"
Ur rose and ran toward the nearest shell crater, knowing Hagrid's squad was right behind him.
A storm of gunfire crisscrossed the area before the cemetery administration office and the columbarium, a structure of tall towers, vaults, and tentacle-like formations, its surface covered in glittering fragments and white powder.
The artillery had bombarded this area repeatedly, yet resistance still remained. Evidence indicated that an enormous network of catacombs lay beneath the Grand Cemetery, where the human defenders were stubbornly holding out.
It was five in the morning. The sun was only a cold disk just above the horizon, casting a frigid halo over everything.
Machine guns hidden in bunkers poured their fury upon the advancing Orks, while over two hundred Kommandoz gathered in a classic assault formation and launched an attack on the blast doors of the eastern catacomb entrance.
"Damn Snotling junk! They said they'd cleared the place, but there're still so many tough points—fire points! I'm gonna fuck their arseholes!"
Still cursing, Ur slid into the shell crater in a single stride. The machine guns gnawed chunks of gray rock from around him, spraying fragments over his face and body.
Hagrid, more than a dozen Kommandoz, and Kaoreish, whose face was still half green, rapidly took up positions at his sides while firing cover shots.
Kaoreish had recovered, but he could no longer return to his former identity. Guk had not required him to go to war; he could have stayed comfortably in the rear and waited for his reward.
But Kaoreish had suddenly fallen into an identity crisis. He