"Everyone should die for the Emperor, and not live for himself!"
The messenger slave screamed, overshadowing the messy footsteps of the soldiers running through the narrow corridor of the troop transport ship towards the launch pad and the orders shouted by the officers.
"Kill heresy, kill alien, prepare for war!"
The servants hung on the wall kept reminding their duties in a pre-recorded loop, while Hays staggered with the others with a heavy backpack on his back.
After the battle in the Lamptan system, the 310th Infantry Regiment of Abubakari took a rest for half a month. This period was also their rare leisure time. Some new recruits were also added to the regiment, and Hayes was finally called "Supervisor" for the first time.
But he is not the kind of person who can act as a veteran, although this really makes him very happy, diluting a lot of the sorrow arises from the deaths of Fitz and Jung.
But for the soldiers of the Empire, stability seemed to be forever temporary, and they soon came to a strange place to face equally strange enemies. Until three hours ago, Haschet, who had become their company commander, drove everyone out of the bunk with the sound of the whistle and told them to prepare for planetary landing.
"Be alert, be savage, and be strong!"
The screams of the messenger slaves grew louder, and the harsh echoes bounced back from the speakers mounted on the metal walls and ceilings around them.
"Only the Emperor of Faith is your shield and armor!"
The servant was loud, but Hays didn't hear a word, and he and the rest of his company were driven through the maze-like corridors of the troop ships like flocks, passing by the naval crews from time to time, suspending their duties, cheering them up, and replacing their initial sarcasm laughter with half-encouraging words.
Considering that their former passengers might soon encounter a fight, the normal repulsion between the Navy and the Guard seemed to suddenly give way to mutual respect.
"You have no reward except for the emperor's satisfaction!"
"You don't know any truth except what the Emperor's servant told you!"
"There is no room for problems in a loyal head. Doubt is a despicable cancer, and its symptoms are cowardice and fear. To be strong against it, there are only three things in your mind: obedience, responsibility and dedication."
Out of the narrow corridor, Hayes followed Hashet into the seemingly large assault boat.
It was a giant rectangular airship, steam rising from the hydraulics of the platform it supported, and the priests rushed around it, like conscious ants helping a fallen giant, Hays saw the priests extending the fuel pipe from the concave spout in the far wall of the launching chamber to the engine of the assault boat, while others applied the surface of the lander with ointment, burned incense, blessed, or made final adjustments to the lander using various sacred calibration instruments.
The assault boats kept buzzing throughout the process, the uneasy engine vibrating on the metal floor of the launch pad, and Hayes and the others stood there staring at it uncertainly, like the alert traveler was unsure whether to venture to wake up a sleeping beast.
To be honest, he has always been afraid of these half-human and half-mechanical priests, even more so than the political commissar, because he was "curious" when he was working in a factory and saw these priests turning a living person into a servant.
That nightmare tortured him for a year, and after that he would stay away from these red-robed priests as much as possible.
"Come on, you idiots!"
Hashet shouted, the volume of the continuous messenger radio around them had been reduced by the empty space of the launch pad to allow them to finally hear the orders of the new company commander.
"Although I know you rustic buns have never seen an assault boat before, don't make a fuss."
In fact, most people do not have one: they ride in relatively fragile transport ships, and only those more "elite" astral army are eligible for use.
There is no doubt that their regiment's previous surprise attack on the ordnance factory made them escape the label of the cannon fodder regiment to a certain extent.
This atmospheric assault boat is very similar to the shark assault boat used by the Navy to jump, but it is much larger than it and is nearly 400 meters long.
As Hayes rushed to the assault boat with the others, he found himself in awe of approaching such a huge vehicle, it looked like it could accommodate at least a thousand people, not to mention tanks and cannons.
Soon, the assault boat opened its doors on the front, and the main assault ramp stretched towards them like the tongue of some incredible metal beast. Hayes and the others ran up the ramp into the cave-like and dimly lit interior of the assault boat itself, and found a grimly-faced crew waiting to point them to the nearby stairs.
The team then quickly followed the stairwell to the top floor, with rows of seats and aisles arranged on the deck.
“Find a seat and fasten your seat belt.”
Their battalion commander also appeared, and the man still looked disheveled.
"I hope you sit together in the order of squad, platoon and company. Anyone who is not in the seat and is ready to airborne within two minutes will find that they will become a pool of bulkheads."
Hurrying to the designated seat, Hayes sat down quickly, carefully tied the buckle of the seat anti-collision protection to the waist, shoulders, and chest, then pulled them tight to fit him and ensure the safety on his laser gun was set to "safe", then straighten the gun and first insert it into the shallow recess of the weapon stand in the front of the seat, then clamp the barrel lock to hold the gun in place.
Then he reached out and patted Winter, a recruit who had just arrived in the company, was replenished into their machine gun squad.
By the way, Hayes has become the squad leader now, but he still follows Hashett most of the time, so in fact, Hashett is still in command of this squad.
"Hey, check the gun."
Hearing Hayes' reminder, the pale boy nodded quickly and carefully checked the laser gun on his hand.
It can be seen from his slightly trembling fingers that he was nervous because this was his first time on the battlefield.
In fact, Winter served almost the same service as Hayes, but he was very lucky. The assigned troops had been on alert missions near the Grief Galaxy for a long time, but there were almost no enemies in that place.
However, his good luck has come to an end recently. The regiment he is in was disbanded and the soldiers were replenished to the frontline troops with relatively large losses. Winter therefore came to the 310th Infantry Regiment of Abubakari, and he had never really been on the battlefield before.
Winter was born in a peasant family with two sisters and one younger brother. If nothing unexpected happens, he will be a farmer in the future. He will find a wife, raise his daughter, cultivate the land, and hand over half of the harvest of each season to the grain collection station. Just as he did in his life for several generations of ancestors, he will eventually die at the age of fifty and be buried near his homeland, the body returns to the fertile land, and the soul goes to the throne.
That's how Winter thought of his future when he was seventeen.
But when he received the news that he was summoned to join the Imperial Army, everything changed.
Chapter completed!