He checked the precision timepiece on his wrist. It was not yet noon, but the air was stifling and clammy.
Kun Yang, a soldier of the Dunwich Fifteenth Militia Regiment, undid the strap on his rifle, wiped the sweat running into his eyes, then shoved the sharp, angular tip of a metal bar into the rusty door lock.
He hesitated, then glanced at Captain Hai Xite behind him.
The officer was tense. He held his gun at the ready, stock firmly tucked beneath his arm, prepared to fire at any moment.
His face was covered in beads of sweat, and it was not only because of the heat.
"What are you waiting for?"
he snarled in a low voice.
Kun Yang shrugged. Honestly, he did not know.
He knew nothing except what Hai Xite had told him and the rest of Second Company that morning—get their asses to the pumping station outside the western suburbs and find out why the sentries there had failed to report in for three days.
The soldier gently worked the pry bar until its tip caught the mechanism inside the latch, then began turning the gears.
And so, he slowly opened the door by hand.
Down the low corridor, six other men from Second Company pressed close to the walls behind him and the captain, their weapons already ready.
This was the worst kind of assignment, Kun Yang thought as he turned his tool.
Especially when they were blindly opening doors without knowing what was waiting on the other side.
But damn it, they were soldiers—they had to obey orders.
Especially in these tense times.
Compared to risking his life against Orks at the front, he would rather do easy work. They said the front had become hell; a division went in, and half a