Undying Valor
Commissar Daniel Strank stood behind a line of hastily erected sandbags stretching across a several mile expanse of trench works. The world's sun was setting, casting an amber glow to the desert in which Strank stood. His attention was completely fixed on an approaching mass of black upon the horizon, not even turning to reprimand a soldier by him for weeping.
Men stood or sat around in the trenches, praying, or weeping, or both, all semblance of discipline having long since evaporated. The soldiers around Strank were all that remained of the planet Acer's PDF. A good number of them still stood, the mere fact that they were able to occupy the trenches attested to this, but they were but a fraction of the enemy's forces.
Strank knew what was swiftly approaching them, and even as he stood he began to be able to make out features in the blackness. Thousands upon thousands of scuttling, scythed limbs were rapidly pounding towards the PDF lines, slick carapace reflecting the dying light of the sun. Classified as Xenos Horibillis and known to the Imperium as the Scourge of Worlds, the tyranid race were converging on the last bastion of human resistance on Acer.
Strank felt something within him begin to stir, something he knew no commissar should ever feel. It was fear. He finally tore his gaze away from the approaching monsters to look upon the men under his charge. Strank wondered how these guardsmen were faring when even he, a commissar, was beginning to shake. On all of the men's faces, Strank could see the same gnawing fear of the approaching battle. Tired, gaunt faces peered from under ill-fitting helmets at the approaching wall of flesh. All knew that there was only one outcome possible.
A surge of anger suddenly filled the commisar, the mere fact that these lowly xenos could push him men to the brink of madness infuriated him.
"Get up you dogs!" he yelled to the men around them, many started in surprise, unsure of what to do. Pulling his officer's blade from its sheathe, Strank waved it in a circle above his head. The soldiers around him merely looked at him as if he were mad. Strank began to recite an old creed of the Imperial Guard, his anger reminding him of his duty.
"Habito servare Imperatorem!" The soldiers responded almost mechanically.
"Beatus est Imperatis servem."
"Sum milites Imperatem!" Strank cried, his voice carrying along the trenches. This time the soldiers around him responded with more fervor,
"Pugnamus pro Imperatem. Non timamus mortem sed adversus exitus!" Strank nodded his approval, relishing the fact that the creed had carried further along the trenches. He heard numerous prayers being raised, both in Low and High Gothic, even as the unearthly cries of the approaching xenos reached their ears. The men were ready. The fear had left them, to be replaced with burning faith.
"Imperator servat nos," continued Strank. "Libera nos a malo!"
"Sanctus est nomen suus!"
"Pro Imperator!"
"Pro Imperator!" The age-old cry of the Imperium echoed all along the trenches, drowning out the screeches of the tyranids as the artillery of the PDF opened up.