"Charge with me!"
The roar of Gordo, the accompanying Chaplain, drowned out every sound of fighting in the trench.
He was the first to fight his way out of the tangled melee, charging toward the bullet-riddled metal hatch leading into the Fortress.
His left hand gripped his short-barreled Laspistol, its Gun muzzle glowing faintly red from continuous fire.
In his right, he swung a heavy Chain Hammer, scraps of flesh and dark bodily fluids clinging to its buzzing chains.
Several xenos soldiers lunged from the shadows behind the hatch, their slender limbs wielding serrated bone blades.
They moved swiftly, letting out hissing shrieks.
The Chaplain did not pause.
He pulled the trigger at the first xenos. A flash of red punched clean through the shell-like exoskeleton of its chest, burning a smoking hole.
As the xenos staggered backward, the Chaplain's Chain Hammer was already sweeping across with a rush of air.
"Scream!"
The hammerhead missed its skull, instead smashing into the forelimb the second xenos raised to block.
The bone blade and chitin shell burst apart beneath the crushing power field, spraying fragments and blue blood.
The xenos let out an agonized shriek and lost its balance.
The Chaplain stepped forward, pressed the Laspistol in his left hand beneath its jaw, and pulled the trigger.
With a soft hiss, the xenos's scream cut off, half its head reduced to Charcoal.
A third xenos thrust at him from the flank.
The Chaplain twisted sharply aside, its bone blade scraping across his breastplate in a trail of sparks.
Almost simultaneously, he swung the Chain Hammer backhanded in a vicious rising blow.
"Go to hell!"
The Chain Hammer struck the xenos squarely beneath the jaw.
The tremendous impact snapped its slender neck with a sickening crack. Its entire head folded backward at an