The waiting dragged on for longer than I would have thought. The attacking mutant horde had moved with speed and purpose, but it seemed as if the artillery had finally managed to suppress them, at least to a small degree. But as all things must do, the waiting came to an end when the moving cloud of explosions and blood passed a pre-marked line, the trenches lit up with the collective firepower that was mustered against the tide of mutated flesh running towards them. The charging mutants died by the hundreds each second but for every fallen mutant, another 3 appeared in its place.

I fired my Lasgun in short, controlled bursts of laser fire, seeing notification after notification popping into the corner of my view. I was gaining good XP from this. Several small-caliber rounds made contact with my armor, but thankfully I got nothing more to show for it than some bruising. I tried turning slightly sideways to make myself a smaller target, without sacrificing my accuracy and hoped it would work.

My charge pack ran dry and I started mumbling the praying of Unloading as I fumbled to get the charge pack out of the Lasgun, "Machine Spirit, Forgive my actions, soon you will be whole again". As soon as I finished the prayer, it was as if the charge pack just.. popped out.. into my hand.

I jammed the empty charge pack into an empty pocket, and grabbed a new one as I mumbled the prayer of Loading, "Machine Spirit, Accept my gift, Swallow the light and spit out Death" Slamming it home, I resumed firing, only to realize the mutants were almost on top of the trench in the short few seconds it took me to reload the Lasgun. I scrambled for my bayonet and barely had time to slot it into place before a flesh horror came over the trench top. Its multiple extra limbs were flailing while holding improvised melee weapons, its unnervingly dead eyes fixated on me and the noise, oh the noise.

Horrible screeching mixed with what sounded like nails on a board and tearing metal. The sound hit me and almost made me stagger, the effects feeling a physical assault on my mind, but I stood my ground and thrust the rifle upwards in a desperate attempt to impale the mutant and fling it over the trench so its corpse did not stink up my designated area.

It was a good thrust, aimed at the stomach. An ordinary man would have been busy screaming for his life after getting gutted like that. The mutant, however, seemed less than unaffected. He..She.. It? Swung the trench club* towards my head and I had to bash it aside with my Lasgun. I tried stabbing the thing again, but it dodged and swung the club again, this time swinging a bayonet from the other side.

I jumped backward, bringing my weapon to bear, and started unloading Lasgun shots as fast as I could. At such a short-range, it was impossible to miss and the mutant tumbled over and stopped moving. I didn't have time to celebrate though. As soon as my opponent fell over, I looked down the line and saw the same situation unfolding in front of me. Making a quick choice, I opened fire.

The back of the closest mutant was punched open by the force of the repeated hits, covering me in a spray of blood and guts. The guardsman that was no longer under immediate threat from getting stabbed turned around and did the same as me, shooting at every mutant in the trench we could get a clear line of sight on. Meanwhile, the heavy weapons emplacements were thundering loud as ever, spitting payload after payload of explosive death at the enemy.

The more troopers we freed from the melee, the more Lasguns joined our ranks and started clearing the trench quickly and effectively. The artillery was landing within 10 meters of the trench, giving a whole new definition to the phrase "Danger close bombardment**"

Mutants still made it through the hellfire of artillery, but the rate with which they made it through had declined somewhat, enough for the trench to keep the mutants at bay.

We were still under massive pressure. Being from the hive city, they had untold amounts of wargear and supplies at their disposal, along with the capability to manufacture more. And they were well aware of this, judging from the hail of grenades that were constantly tossed at the trench as the enemy got close enough. Most of them fell short or sailed over the trench, but every once in a while a lucky throw would see the death of another handful of troopers.

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Blood was running deep in the trench already and the situation looked hopeless. Every second the mutant kept trickling into the trench and with them came chaos and death. In all of the chaos, amongst the screams of the dying and wounded, the horrible screeches of the mutants, the rolling explosions, and the rampaging gunfire, I heard the clear tone of a new whistle. But I heard nothing after the whistle and moments later I was engaged in more fighting with my fellow troopers.

The mutants kept pushing and we kept giving ground. No matter how many died, more kept coming. Then it came.

The sound of running boots and labored breath being filtered through a gas mask. all of a sudden, made all the eerier by their silence, the Krieg soldiers jumped into our trench and started killing mutants with a reckless abandon that bordered on suicidal. I saw Krieg soldiers jump into clusters of enemies, a grenade in each hand while hollering a muffled prayer to the Emperor in the moments before they turned into a raging inferno of fire and shrapnel.

We rallied behind the fanatical Krieg troopers and began the difficult and nasty task of clearing out the trenches. I might have committed, what back in my world, would be considered a horrible crime against gamers, and gone to great lengths to ensure I got the kill. Might as well exploit the situation to my own advantage. beyond a few offhand comments about my zealous nature in making sure the mutants were dead, nothing came of it.

I joined in the looting of the corpses with more enthusiasm than I did when I looted my fellow dead troopers back on Karrik and I quickly gathered a small heap of Lho-sticks and charge packs that I squirreled away. While I was not a smoker (yet) Who knew? And in any case, they made good items for trade.

Thinking back to the charge on our trench and the following mop-up, I had killed more than 30 mutants, if my math was right. I pulled up my character sheet to see the results of this battle.

HUMAN. LEVEL 3.

STAT POINTS REMAINING: 5

ALIGNMENT: FAITHFUL IMPERIAL.

LITANIES: 19

AUGMENTATIONS: NONE

LEVEL: 293/2400

STRENGTH: 8

AGILITY: 8

PERCEPTION: 10

WILL: 6

LUCK: 16

SKILLS

FEATS

ABILITIES

What was up with my alignment? Why did it change? I had done nothing that could be considered as directly against the Imperium OR the Imperial doctrine. I would have to think about his. I was certain the answer lay somewhere in my memory of the world I came from. But for now, the answer eluded me.

Now, what to spend my points on? Maybe Will, considering the effect the screeching of the mutants had on me. Or more agility, in the hopes it would reduce reload times and make melee combat easier.

I could go for more strength, making sure that whenever I landed a hit, it could be felt.

Maybe some more luck, to keep the things going my way, like the Krieg charge that, quite literally, saved our asses.

Or perception, making sure I get more deadly hits on the enemy, instead of stabbing them in places that still let them fight back

I would have to consider this carefully.

In the meantime, I opened up my SKILLS to see what I had gained in that department.

LASWEAPON PROFICIENCY, LIGHT: TIER 2, LEVEL 3.

LASWEAPON PROFICIENCY, HEAVY: TIER 1, LEVEL 2.

STUBBER WEAPONS, LIGHT: TIER 1, LEVEL 2.

STUBBER WEAPONS, HEAVY: TIER 1, LEVEL 2.

MELEE WEAPONS, CHAIN: TIER 1, LEVEL 1.

MELEE WEAPONS, POWER: TIER 1, LEVEL 0.

MELEE WEAPONS, REGULAR: TIER 1, LEVEL 6.

MELEE WEAPONS, SHOVEL: TIER 1, LEVEL 0.

UNARMED COMBAT: TIER 1, LEVEL 2.

ARMOR PROFICIENCY, REGULAR: TIER 1, LEVEL 5.

ARMOR PROFICIENCY, POWER: TIER 1, LEVEL 0

I had tiered up in light Lasweapons. I wondered what that did for me. I had to try and figure this out. "information, lasweapons light" I thought to myself.

Nothing happened.

"Expand, skill, lasweapons light," That got me some results.

LASWEAPONS, LIGHT, TIER 2, LEVEL 3

TIER 1: KNOWLEDGE OF HOW TO USE AND MAINTAIN LASWEAPONS.

TIER 2: KNOWLEDGE OF MANIPULATION OF POWERPACK OUTPUT AND LASGUN POWER SETTINGS.

TIER ?: CONTINUE TO LEVEL UP TO UNLOCK NEXT TIER.

Well, that was not the worst thing that could happen. I now had the ability to turn my power packs into hot-shot power packs. effectively lowering my amount of shots per pack by half, but making them much more powerful. Of course, there was always the chance of the hot-shot power pack would overload my weapon and burn it out, but that was a risk I was willing to take to add more stopping power to my shots.

The looting done and the last enemies killed, there was not much to do other than return to my barrack for a well-deserved rest.