A numb-faced PDF officer walked through the trench, his black knee-high boots splashing through the standing water with wet slaps.
Sweet Star's climate was extremely warm and humid. Not long after trenches were dug, rain and groundwater seepage would turn them into ditches.
Thus, nearly every soldier on the scene was soaking in the muddy water.
The officer walked some distance through the trench, inspecting the soldiers' condition. Then he raised his hand, checked his watch, and shouted:
"Everyone, check your Lasrifles and bayonets. In ten minutes, we attack the enemy positions."
Then he looked up at the battered loudspeaker mounted on a broken wooden post above the trench.
"Open your ears! The planetary governor has something to say to you!"
Meanwhile, in the Secondary Hive City Genpei and his people had first captured, there was an enormous civic square.
However, a God-Emperor Statue had now been erected in the civic square, which had been renamed God-Emperor Square.
At that moment, a massive platform stood beneath the God-Emperor Statue, surrounded by a dense crowd of PDF officers.
Behind those PDF officers stood hundreds of thousands of PDF infantrymen. Every one of them wore a solemn expression, with a Lasrifle slung across their back and a bayonet fixed to it, pointing straight at the sky.
It seemed that once they had heard the planetary governor's speech, they would be heading for the front lines.
All of them watched the platform and waited.
The wait did not last long. The planetary governor, dressed in heavy formal attire, strode up onto the platform.
He came before dozens of microphones, swept his cold gaze over the hundreds of thousands below, then opened his mouth and shouted:
"Warriors at the front, and warriors about to go to the front!
"It has been five months since