Commander Hecht was, unlike so many of his brethren in other Guard regiments, neither in awe of the Angels of Death nor all that willing to just do as they said; in fact many of the Kriegers, consummate professionals the lot of them, resented this mere Sergeant of Primaris telling them what to do – especially since they had already held off wave after wave of heretical scum without his input, the piles of rotting corpses in No Man's Land being testament to that.

"Commander, have your men form ranks, have the sergeants call volley fire as they near our position. Do not fire until they close enough for you to see into their eyes, then unleash the fury of your weapons upon them."

Giving a snort of affirmation but also annoyance behind his mask, the Commander summoned his Vox-Operator and relayed the orders nonetheless, at least giving a good show to the Astartes in the trench, but a handful of those that had come to the planet not long ago. Throughout the trench networks were others Marines, of the Primaris and 'lesser' types, and although their fighting prowess was assuredly valued their orders were not.

Valerian licked the sharpened canines behind his full lips for the fifth time in as many minutes, the stale air of the planet recycling itself within his helmet as he took another breath and blink-clicked a number of queries on his HUD into nothingness.

[color=ed1c24]“Look to your front.”[/color] He spoke over the helm-comm, his limbs springing into a firing position as Kriegers gathered about him in the same manner as they did with his comrades, NCOs and Sergeants noticing the incoming enemy moments later.

They came not as an organised group, all form of rank-and-file forgotten along with their faith in the Emperor of Mankind, but as a howling and yelling mass of poorly armoured and poorly armed sacrificial lambs. What they lacked in firepower though, they more than made up for in numbers, the Hive City holding millions within its boundaries – not to mention the mutants and beastmen of the lowest Hive levels – and for weeks now they had been unleashed on the besiegers thousands at a time.

Such an attack was coming again.

The Guard did as they were told, waiting and waiting and waiting, only opening fire as the enemy came within a close enough range that their las-weapons could not possibly miss; auto-guns and heavy bolter weapons teams opened up immediately, fire from further down the line clearly heard, bolter and las-gun matching the roar of enemy cries.

Each squeeze of his bolt rifles trigger sent an explosive round hurling into a heretic, and Valerian used them sparingly, marking anyone who could plausibly seem like a 'champion' or officer of the traitor foe. A yelling giant with soiled sergeants chevrons here, a peak-capped fool with a star on his cap there, it was almost too easy!

[i]Something[/i] niggled at the back of his mind though, something from memories prior to his suspended animation by the Archmagos, something that filled him with greater excitement. He had no idea what it was at that moment, but he knew it wouldn't be long before he found out either.