Chapter 222: Point of view (1/2)
Lord Commissar Cain was not happy. By every single rule of the universe he should have been long since dead, by claw or bite or bolt, even old age.
Instead, his body was still in its prime, barely a day over 30 years old. The Adeptus Munitorum had already decreed that Commissar Cain was to be considered alive and well even when presented with clear evidence to the contrary.
So far, he had been declared lost in space, devoured by Tyranids, chopped to bits by Orks, fallen into a Warp Vortex, blown apart by a volcano, drowned in a massive tidal wave, even enslaved by the Dark Eldar.
But to nobody's surprise, Cain had always survived.
Even now, when his new Mordian_Iron_Guard regiment was being overrun by genestealers in the underhive of Phodia, the capital of Hive World Asphedex, nobody really expected him to actually die.
After all, the regulation of the Imperium stated that he could never die.
Slashing left and right with his relic sword called Peace, Commissar Cain advanced to the front lines, to lend a hand to his brave guardsmen.
'Good men, all of them. So brave...' thought coursed through his mind, as he kept watch for any cowards or defectors. Fortunately, the Iron Guard had excellent recruiting standards and the guardsmen died with fury in their eyes, even as the corrupted mutants sliced them apart with their impossibly sharp claws.
Not sharp enough to block Peace. Nothing was. Damn sword could cut steel or bone with same deceptive ease.
'Damn Lancefire! Why did you have to give me this crazy sword?' Cain complained as he drew his blessed Inferno pistol and blew a hole through a giant genestealer, with tendrils coming out of his mouth. Better make sure, the larger xenos didn't reach the weak flesh of the Mordians.
At his back, the last pair of Amazons kept watch from their Armed Sentinel walkers, making sure that nothing attacked him from behind. Kelya and Mirage, the last of his Catachan bodyguards still alive after a century of service were mostly machines by now, their limbs and organs replaced with bionic components following scores of crippling injuries. Beside the giant chainswords, each Sentinel had a Lascannon arm, and those artillery-class weapons sliced though a dozen enemy ranks each shot.
To the right, his own children formed the Chrome Company, all wearing burnished power armor with pauldrons made of blackstone. Using multi-meltas and storm-bolters his children had a field day in these dark and polluted catacombs, as they held the line strong and blocked any attempt at envelopment.
Sadly, to the left the situation wasn't good at all, as the Mordians lacked Sentinels or power armor, and were thus getting massacred by the damned genestealer cultists.
Just then, a trio of large Broodlords burst through the rusted walls and crashed into the weakened left flank, creating a dangerous breach.
Cain drew back a few steps to analyze the situation and try to find an escape route. It seemed this battle was lost, once more. ”Reserves, strike to the left!” he ordered while sneakily retreating towards the right, where the Chrome Company should be able to escort him out of this bloody mess.
The last Mordian battalion charged bravely into the maws of the genestealer Broodlords, while the Amazons focused fire on the middle Broodlord.
An Iron Guard Sergeant jumped bravely right into a giant maw, then detonated his melta bomb, while a second Broodlord fell on its side due to losing a knee to the Amazons lascannons.
However, the last Broodlord wasn't scared at all, and plowed through the final Guard battalion right toward Cain.
'Damn it! Why me?' Cain complained inward, while shooting the second shot of the Inferno pistol, and only burning out a single arm of the genestealer boss.
Cain slammed the pistol back into the hip holster and grit his teeth. 'I was leaving, why do you have to follow me?' he cried inside.
”Hold strong, for the Emperor!” he shouted outward, since morale was quite important, even in defeat. Especially in defeat.
A measured retreat would be much better than a panicked rout. Some people might survive that way, especially himself.
The monster jumped forward and slashed wide with its diamond talons, then gulped the poor Commissar whole. 'This is it! I am dead.' Cain thought as the maw closed around him and began crushing his light armor.
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”Huh? It seems luck is not enough, after all.” I commented out loud, while storing the brave Commissar in my tesseract.
”Woo?” Canis argued at my side.
Hmm. My wise wolf might be right. I did change this man's luck, or perhaps I was part of Cain's story now. Everyone deserved a Deus Ex Machina rescue, and my Titan Legion deploying right now on Asphodex was even named after this trope.
Still, that kind of dedicated targeting on the part of the Hive Mind, it didn't sit well with me. The last Broodlord had intentionally ignored easier targets just to reach the good Commissar, possibly in an attempt to shatter morale or weaken the defenses of this planet. Ever learning and adapting, the damn xeno godling.
With a flick of my fingers, the Iron Guard was returned to their barracks, while my techmarines continued the task of clearing the underhive, and get some live training too.
Aspirants in their new Armed Sentinels and the proper Lamenters with their Dreadknights Leviathans formed the main force striking towards the psyker genestealer Patriarch, at the bottom of the Hive City.
I kept a lazy watch over my troops, not that I expected any injuries against such weak opponents. My children and I trained on Space Hulks after all, without any armor or heavy weapons. Today it was merely a warm up, as my fleet tried to reduce the number of Tyranids approaching the planet from below the galactic plane. Lady Cassandra commanded the harassing fleet this time, from the Singularity battleship, while I had the task of creating a strong anvil to crush the bugs with, anchored by the Black Lament fortress.