Emperor's Bane

Chapter 998 The Quagmire of Taran

"Go–oo–ood morning! Taran!"

"Thud, tug, tug, tug, tug..."

When the hingeless rotor moves at high speed, it continuously cuts through the surrounding airflow, creating different pressure differences between the upper and lower surfaces of the blades, thereby generating an upward force and a sustained and powerful cutting sound.

It is under the influence of these two elements that can simultaneously escape the influence of gravity that steel behemoths are able to move proudly between towering peaks and seas of clouds. Bathed in the soft orange light of the rising sun, they soar like agile eagles over the land called Taran.

More than ten Thunderhawk attack helicopters, fully loaded with 124 fully armed Astartes soldiers, swiftly swept over Taran, bringing with them a humid, warm airflow. Heading towards their distant military targets, the noisy rotors startled flocks of birds perched on the ground, while the swaggering eagles, seemingly fearless, attracted the attention of those lurking in the shadows.

But for the passengers who were resting and preparing for battle on the armed helicopter, the things on the ground were not something they needed to worry about for the time being. Their troubles came from the rattling of the propellers, the biting wind constantly interfering with their helmets, and the cramped space inside the helicopter.

And then there are those unpleasant colleagues: and the powerful music playing on their players.

"Some people are born to wave the flag."

"Ooh, they're red, white, and blue!"

"And when the band plays 'Hail to the Chief'."

"Oh, they point the cannon at you, Lord!"

"Sergeant! Can't you keep your voice down?!"

"This damn propeller is noisy enough!"

From the old loudspeakers, Terra rock classics from 30,000 years ago are playing, but clearly not everyone has the artistic appreciation to enjoy them.

Leaning against the window, the rifleman holding the windowsill covered his mouth in discomfort as he shouted at the machine gunner hanging next to the armed platform. The latter was sitting next to the open hatch, keeping the muzzle of the fixed airborne machine gun pointed at the ground below, humming that classic anti-war song.

"It ain't me."

"It ain't me (That's not me)~"

"I'm not a senator's son! Ohhh!"

Looking at him shaking his head and looking so engrossed, he clearly didn't hear his comrades' complaints.

"Alright, sir."

Just as the rifleman was about to roar again, the officer sitting on the front cushion turned around.

"Since the propeller is already noisy enough, let's not worry about this."

"We're going to the battlefield in less than ten minutes, so let's not have any infighting at this time."

"Once you get to the battlefield, you'll still have to rely on your comrades to shield you from the bullets of the Imperial Fist."

"I don't think so, sir."

A soldier sitting further back smiled.

He looked down at the ground: it was an endless expanse of green.

"Look at this godforsaken place."

"I'm afraid we just went down there and don't even know where each other is: let alone blocking bullets, we'll be lucky if we can even regroup."

"Shut your mouth."

The officer straightened his powered helmet, the air churned up by the propeller slapping against his goggles with a crackling sound that made his gums ache.

After uttering a curse, he also looked down at the ground and muttered to himself.

"But you're absolutely right."

"Those idiots in the navy do nothing all day long."

"If they hadn't failed to gain air superiority, we wouldn't be fighting in this godforsaken place."

The complaint was clearly audible in the not-too-large cabin, and even the noisy propellers couldn't drown out the low murmurs of the others in agreement: even the helicopter pilot turned his head and nodded.

"Who says it's not?"

Even the classical music enthusiast loudly echoed his superior officer, and then, as if he had suddenly discovered something, he picked up the machine gun and spat fire a few times at the land they were flying over.

"Da da da!"

A short burst of gunfire instantly woke up the soldiers who had been dozing off in the cabin.

"Why are you crazy!"

The officer jumped up from his chair and leaned his upper body behind it.

"I think I just saw something?"

The machine gunner scratched his head.

"But it must be an illusion..."

"Then don't open fire indiscriminately."

The officer rubbed his temples in pain.

"This godforsaken place is already a headache enough..."

He leaned back in his chair, trying to block out the noise of the propellers and his unreliable subordinates, hoping to get a few more minutes of rest before the battle began. But the scene outside the porthole seemed to have some kind of magic, always urging him to open his eyes and look at that green that was so different from his hometown of Barbarus.

It was a vibrant green, imbued with the life magic of nature. Thousands upon thousands of trees of varying heights grew wildly under the pale orange sky, their bases entwined with dense thickets and vines. At a glance, one could hardly see the soil, nor what was hidden beneath those extremely lush canopies.

These naturally growing canopies obscure the already mild sunlight above Taran, hiding the truth of this land in the damp, cold shadows: also hidden within the thick, milky-white fog that rises with the morning sun every day.

And they fought amidst this towering greenery and endless white fog.

This was not part of the original plan.

The officer shook his head, his eyes bloodshot.

As a mid-level officer in the Death Guard Legion, he naturally knew how things had escalated to this point.

……

In fact, at the beginning, the Typhons fleet did not pay much attention to the conquest of the Taran system.

After all, since Taran was reinstated by the human empire at the beginning of the Great Crusade, this lush agricultural world had never been associated with war.

It is a fertile planet bathed in sunlight. Even the Age of Conflict did not disturb the richness and verdant greenery of Taran itself. The people here are prosperous and wealthy. Although they have enough money to maintain a large and well-equipped defense army, no one ever thought that there was a seed of fighting prowess in the blood of the Taran people.

Even though the Imperial Fist had reinforced the world's defenses as much as possible before the Death Guard arrived, they still didn't have time to build Taran into the perfect fortress they envisioned: therefore, when Typhon's fleet emerged from Mandeville, the Seventh Legion's warships did not immediately rush out to fight them.

On the contrary, relying on the impregnable space station in Taran orbit and the armed asteroid, they formed a clearly deliberate formation.

When the Death Guard arrived, the Taran before them was divided into two distinct parts: about half of the Taran airspace was completely undefended, with neither Void Shields nor any signs of preventing a large-scale landing.

The other half of Taran's airspace was not only densely packed with the last elite fleet of the Imperial Fist, but also with all the weaponry capable of annihilating the landing army in mid-air, including Void Shields and anti-aircraft firepower.

After deliberation, Typhons and the core company commanders brought in by Primarch Mortalian discovered that with the current fleet size of the Death Guard, they were not entirely confident of winning the space battle against the Imperial Fist: for some reason, Sigismund's fleet was far larger than the intelligence indicated, and by a significant margin.

According to intelligence, Sigismund should now only have about a hundred warships left.

But in reality, the Imperial Fist was actually a large fleet with over six hundred warships.

It was as if behind this leader of the three great expedition heroes stood an entire fully operational arsenal.

After deciding to avoid a fleet showdown, and fueled by confidence in the quality of their army and soldiers, as well as the arrogance of victors who had never suffered a defeat since the start of the war, the officers of the Deathguard unanimously decided to send troops on a direct landing to crush the Imperial fist on the land of Taran.

Thus, more than 30,000 Deathguard warriors became the first invaders to land in Taran.

As soon as they landed, they plunged into a lush, endless forest on Taran Star, seemingly devoid of any human habitation.

……

"The Imperial Fist has tightly protected all areas suitable for decisive battles, such as cities, farmlands, and plains, under the protection of their fleets. The only landing sites left for us are jungles, forests, and endless tropical rainforests."

"They hid several important cities, fortresses, and arsenals in these tropical bushes. The thick Void Shield prevented the fleet from destroying them directly, and for reasons of international relations, we could not use unconventional chemical weapons in this conventional war: we could only crush them in ground combat."

"Then let those Imperial Fists see what real heavy infantry really are."

The boastful words of Typhon and his company commanders still echoed in the officer's ears, but they could not put the veteran, who had experienced decades of war, at ease. He felt that something was wrong with this war, but before he could think about it, he heard the noise of his subordinates behind him again, so he had to frown and look back again.

"what happened again?"

“We are discussing a problem, sir.”

The machine gunner answered with a smile, while the music from the phonograph continued to drift through the cabin.

"It ain't me."

"It ain't me."

"I ain't no military son, no!"

"what is the problem?"

"He tried to fire again, sir!"

The rifleman loudly denounced his colleague.

“Several of us tried to stop him, but he insisted that he had seen something in the jungle.”

"What you saw with your eyes?"

The officer looked at the machine gunner.

"Uh... it's intuition, sir."

"Screw intuition, we're the Death Guard, and you can't possibly be a psyker."

The officer simply stood up and went to his group of subordinates, who were clearly somewhat uneasy.

"I know what you're thinking. Aren't you just afraid of this forest beneath our feet?"

"I'm telling you, there's nothing to worry about."

“There’s really no difference between here and Barbarossa: whatever is here, will also be here.”

"If you don't believe me, look to your left."

"That's a forest, it's trees."

"Look to the right: it's also a forest, and also trees."

"Same as the one on Barbarossa."

"Look to the left, there is thick fog and mountains."

"And on the right are thick fog and mountains: weren't these the same things you saw when you were farming back in your hometown?" "If you really don't believe me, then take another look at the left side."

Tell me, what else did you see?

“It’s birds, and trees, sir.”

The machine gunner answered cheerfully.

"very good."

The officer turned around with a smug look on his face.

"We saw birds and trees on the left, so let's see what's on the right."

"Very good. The birds are moving away from us, the forests are being left behind, the fog is being churned up by our propellers, and the Imperial-standard North Wind anti-aircraft missiles are flying towards us..."

"boom!!!"

A piercing shriek struck the tail of the Thunderhawk attack helicopter with pinpoint accuracy. The behemoth that could soar through the sky instantly lost all balance, helplessly drawing a death circle in mid-air. Accompanied by shrieks, explosions, sparks, and the onboard crew's loud warnings, another crazed Black Hawk crashed into the boundless jungle hell.

As it spun and fell downwards, following the pale yellow flames and a plume of gray-black smoke, a lingering melody still drifted in the air.

"It ain't me."

"It ain't me."

"I ain't no fortunate one, no!"

……

In the shadows beneath the tree canopy, a giant man holding a missile launcher nodded to his companion before quickly disappearing in different directions.

------

"……Grass!"

"Cough, cough, cough!"

"I'm alive?"

"Of course you're still fucking alive!"

Looking at the machine gunner lying on the scorched ground, still somewhat bewildered, the rifleman, equally covered in dust, breathed a sigh of relief while cursing under his breath. Without any hesitation, he lifted his comrade up, ignoring the tearing wound that made the former cry out in pain.

"Hurry, we need to get away from where the helicopter was: who knows when this thing might explode?"

"I know, I know, be gentle!"

The machine gunner writhed in pain on the ground until his superior officer, who had also come over, kicked him without hesitation.

"okay!"

"You've been a Death Guard for twelve years, after all!"

"Pay attention! Don't lose points!"

As the machine gunner grumbled as he got up, the officer glanced around briefly, his eyes warily scanning the seemingly empty forest, muttering about the team's current situation.

"The helicopter crashed and the pilot was killed."

"Of the twelve people in total, only seven survived."

"There's no need to count on reinforcements for now; the other helicopters also appear to have been attacked separately."

"But we should be able to find a way to reunite..."

"sergeant!"

Thinking of this, he shouted.

"How's the life detector research going?"

"There might be a problem, sir."

The sergeant, scratching his head in front of a heavy, radar-like instrument, seemed a little unsure of himself.

"what is the problem?"

The officer walked over, while the sergeant shook his head rather helplessly.

"Either this thing is broken, or the explosion just now killed us all."

"Look."

He handed over the equipment.

"Do you remember how many people are in our helicopter squadron in total, right?"

"Of course, one hundred and twenty-four people."

The officer glanced back.

"But now there are at most 119 people: what happened?"

"Take a look."

The sergeant pointed to the detector.

"My detectors show that there are at least two hundred intelligent life forms within a radius of about one kilometer."

"……what?"

The officer paused for a moment, then looked around.

Based on his more than 100 years of combat experience, he did not sense any suspicious aura.

It's as if the missile that shot them down was launched by a treant that had become sentient.

"interesting."

Upon hearing this, the machine gunner picked up his beloved machine gun, stood beside his officer, and began firing wildly into the nearby forest. This time, no Death Guard tried to stop him.

Flames spewed, and the ferocious bullets snapped the not-so-thick trees in half. The fragile vines and herbs suffered heavy losses in this senseless catastrophe. The machine gunner aimed directly at a distance of several hundred meters to the side, unleashing all his firepower at at least dozens of trees and hiding places from afar.

On one side, on the other side, and on the other side again.

Under the watchful eyes of every Death Guard, he scanned every possible hiding place for humans.

"Alright, we're safe for now."

The officer nodded, signaling him to stop.

"Moreover, with such a commotion, regardless of how many enemies are hiding in this forest, at least our friendly troops who also fell down should already know where we are."

"We'll rendezvous with them first, then request new transport planes and reinforcements from headquarters in the rear, and then make further plans."

Seeing that no one objected to the arrangement, the officer turned to look at the remaining two members of the squad: the pharmacist and the technical sergeant who were busy working among the corpses and remains.

"How's the situation over there?"

The pharmacist simply nodded, while the technical sergeant wiped away his sweat with a look of relief on his face.

“We are very lucky, sir.”

"Do you define good luck as losing five comrades in battle without even realizing it?"

"They would have all died."

The technical sergeant pointed to the disintegrating helicopter.

"If that missile had been a little more accurate, the secondary explosion would have killed us all and blown us into the air."

"Then that saying will come true."

"Which sentence?"

"War rages over Taran, but I fly higher than the Thunder Eagle."

"...Pfft!"

Despite knowing it was somewhat inappropriate, the officer couldn't help but laugh.

The soldiers beside him were also amused.

The rifleman next to the sergeant was also amused.

Meanwhile, the machine gunner, who had leaned his machine gun against a tree next to the rifleman, was also amused.

And next to the machine gunner: Tree was also amused.

"Hahahaha... Huh?"

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Six distinct gunshots rang out, and a sharp blade slowly sliced ​​across the machine gunner's horrified expression: this was the last trace of a Death Guard squad on Taran.

From officers to sergeants, from pharmacists to riflemen, everyone was struck in the head by a single, precise bullet; as they fell to the ground, a faint smile remained on their lips.

The machine gunner, whose throat had been pierced by a sharp blade, was the last to breathe his last. In his incredulous gaze, on the large tree that his machine gun bullets had targeted three or perhaps four times, a strange twisting occurred, and a person emerged from the bark where he had just leaned his machine gun.

He was wearing strange, yellow power armor, and slowly crouched down in front of him, pointing a knife at his throat.

His voice was strange and hoarse, as if he was deliberately trying to cover up his original voice.

His words, however, sounded clumsy.

"For...for Dorn!"

Then, the sharp blade slashed across again.

When the machine gunner had completely lost his purpose, he heard, from the depths of the distant forest, a series of premeditated gunshots and the sudden thuds of people falling to the ground.

And further up in the sky, helicopters, still oblivious to the danger, slicing through Taran's orange skies with their rotors, their sounds a triumphant display.

……

"It ain't me."

"It ain't me."

"I ain't no fortunate one, no!"

(End of this chapter)