Keeping time with the twin heartbeat pounding in her chest, with the thunderous roar of artillery across the ash-gray battlefield as the drumbeat, and with the wails of dying enemies as the accompaniment, Gaia began dancing the familiar dance of slaughter.
But something about it felt strange to her.
This time, the bizarre agitation and inexplicable pleasure that usually sent her into a frenzy were nowhere near as strong as before.
Now, even in the midst of bloody killing, she could still keep a relatively clear head.
That allowed Gaia to devote part of her attention to the ordinary soldiers fighting alongside her.
She had no time to think too deeply about the source of that change. Right now, all of her focus was fixed on the battlefield.
She moved like the guardian god of the human soldiers, constantly saving them from alien gunfire and blades.
And to the greenskins, she was death itself, turning one boy after another back into mushrooms beneath her heart-shaking dance of destruction.
To her human comrades, she was as warm as the blazing sun in the chill of early spring.
To her alien enemies, she was cruel enough to strip away their last scrap of protection in the dead of winter.
While Gaia cut loose on the battlefield, Commissar Horne also led the Conscript Regiment in a flanking charge into the Ork positions, catching the shoota boyz firing at the front completely off guard.
With the help of both forces, the Astra Militarum troops, who had been on the verge of collapse, quickly regrouped and drove back this latest greenskin offensive.
As the smoke slowly drifted away, the Astra Militarum soldiers who had won this battle showed not the slightest trace of excitement.
In silence, they began clearing the battlefield, gathering whatever supplies were still usable and counting the comrades they had lost.
They did not even have a second to mourn the dead, because the Orks had not truly been defeated. They could come surging back at any moment. Every second now had to be spent repairing and reinforcing the ruined defensive lines.
Watching all this, Gaia could not help feeling a little lost.
Even though she now possessed strength comparable to a Space Marine, she still could not really do much for these loyal soldiers.
As her power continued to grow, she increasingly felt the helplessness of the individual.
Faced with a disaster engulfing an entire planet, even the legendary Primarchs would find it difficult to change the overall situation through personal force alone.
Perhaps what she needed were comrades who shared her ideals, brothers and sisters in arms who could fight beside her.
At that thought, Gaia felt a quiet stirring in her heart.
Without realizing it, her dream seemed to be deepening.
At first, she had only admired the idea of becoming a Space Marine.
But now, what she longed for was to save as many suffering humans as possible.
When had that change begun?
The moment that thought arose, her adoptive father's kindly smiling face appeared in her mind once more, along with the words he had entrusted to her:
"You must become someone useful to the God-Emperor."
"And then leave this filthy place behind."
Yes, Father. It was your teachings that changed me.
Gaia's gaze trembled slightly, then hardened.
But now I realize there was still something wrong in what you said.
If everyone like me simply leaves the filthy places behind, then the filth will remain there and go on poisoning others.
What I must do is change this filthy place.
Standing upon the battlefield choked with smoke, she raised determined eyes toward the stars and swept her gaze across the galaxy.
If the Warhammer universe was a cesspit,
then she would become the spark that set the filth ablaze.
Gray clouds steeped in despair rolled across the horizon, seeming to twist into grotesque inhuman faces, grinning viciously as they looked down on the one daring to resist them.
Gaia showed no fear.
She silently stared back across the ancient void at those unseen faces.
Though she seemed so tiny beneath the endless layers of cloud, the fire in her eyes burned fiercely.
That fire had already existed when she was still an infant, but back then it had been as weak as a single flicker.
Now, it had become a torch in the darkness, enough to illuminate the gloom around her.
"Thank you for your help. Are the governor's reinforcements already on the way?"
A deep, powerful voice sounded behind her.
Gaia turned toward it and saw a sturdy man in hardened flak armor climbing over the trench and approaching her, then saluting in proper Imperial fashion.
"I am Petrus, the acting commander of this force."
With a scar slashing across his left eye, the commander looked every bit as solid and unyielding as his name suggested.
"No. We are only a Conscript Regiment. The Planetary Defense Force is still defending inside the hive city."
Commissar Horne walked over and answered truthfully.
Anger flared in Petrus's eyes.
"Ever since we arrived on this planet after receiving the governor's distress signal, we have been split into several battle groups along the front line, using trench warfare to buy time while waiting for reinforcements."
Petrus looked at the conscripts Horne had brought with visible displeasure.
"But thirty-four Terran days have passed, and other than these conscripts who can barely hold their rifles steady, we have received no reinforcements at all."
His voice carried deep frustration. Under these circumstances, he could not help suspecting that the governor of this planet had effectively abandoned the Astra Militarum forces who came here to help.
After thinking for a moment, Gaia said to Petrus:
"Let's speak privately. I may know why the planetary governor has been so negligent in this war."
Petrus looked puzzled, but still nodded. Gaia's performance in battle earlier had left a deep impression on him.
That superhuman speed and strength, along with the strange black protrusions on her body, gave him a strong sense of familiarity.
So the two of them walked off into a secluded corner under Commissar Horne's puzzled stare.
Once she had confirmed there was no one nearby, Gaia slowly pulled out the grotesque emblem she had torn from Paulus's breastplate, then quietly recounted the intelligence she had obtained through interrogation.
Just as she expected, Petrus's face changed immediately.
Under normal circumstances, accusations aimed at the nobles of the Upper Hive would have been utterly unthinkable.
But now, in Petrus's eyes, all the questions that had been bothering him suddenly fell into place.
Those nobles who had already turned to a cult had deliberately let the greenskins and the Astra Militarum tear each other apart, while they fished in troubled waters from the shadows.
Worse, in order to eliminate potential threats, they had intentionally refused to act, hoping to use the aliens' hands to get rid of them.
Petrus was instantly furious. He had personally watched his soldiers fall one by one beneath alien blades and guns, only to learn that their sacrifices had merely bought time for those rotten parasites to carry out their profane rituals.
He drew a deep breath, suppressing the fury on the verge of erupting, and said slowly:
"We must report this immediately. But there are too many greenskins at the front, and the profane energy field they generate is disrupting normal long-range communications."
"We'll have to push toward the rear flank first, reach an area where communications still function, and report those bastards' crimes from there."
...
Across the boundless plain, dust rose high enough to blot out the sky under the furious charge of near-endless greenskin boyz and their red-painted wagons.
And behind them, within the thick clouds of dust, a mountainous figure loomed in and out of view.
It straightened to its full monstrous height and let out a thunderous roar like a peal of heaven-splitting thunder:
"I heard dere's a big humie who's dead killy, and loads of boyz are scared of 'er!"
"But I'm gonna show ya all dat I'm da most killy, da most Waaagh!, and da greenest Warboss of all!"
At its roar, the Ork boyz all fell into a frenzy and answered as one with a world-shaking bellow:
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"
(End of Chapter)
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