Written by Apothecary Meros – Inspirational artwork by Grootekloet
"You dare defy the will of the Emperor!" He growled, sending the knee pad of his Carapace Armour suit into the cranium of a kneeling marine – clad in the blighted pink and black worn by the Emperor's Children.
"You make this all so fun, General!" It slithers through the grille on the front of its Mk7 helmet, now contorted into a wide grin to match the blaring yellow light of its eyes.
Ignoring the heretic's slur as it stands and faces him, drawing two glinting silver bolt pistols, dripping with a thick purple slime from the holsters, the Guardsman raises his own Laspistol to his side. "Would one so damned and cursed be inclined to a duel?" He rasps behind gritted teeth.
"Why, we are simply euphoric at the idea!" It stutters, its voice shuddering with each twitch of its neck.
"We?" The General replies, standing upright on two firm black boots, within them tucked a pair of medium grey combat trousers, slashed with the occasional stripe of blood or a patch of mud.
Over each shoulder, come bright flashes of pink lightning that whip at the air with slithering grasps of warp energy. Striding from the widening ethereal realm are a dozen more Space Marines, each with the same twisted expression moulded into their helmets and brightly decorated bolters. Upon their grim pink and black armour are dozens of tiny mouths, each with barbed teeth and tongues flicking out and hissing in anticipation for bloodshed.
"The Emperors Children accept your duel." They chorus in whining tones.
"Pistols at dawn?" The lead one jokes.
The General grins. "We are ready whenever you are." He exclaims, a large breath inward moving his slate chestplate upward, closer to the silver epaulettes that dangled from his shoulders. Below the thick, well-groomed brown handlebar moustache sweeping from side to side on his aging Caucasian face – beneath calm grey eyes.
"We?" The lead marine replies, cocking its head to left.
Within the large church-like structure, the faintest wisp of dust fell from the ceiling. Slowly the stained glass windows began to slowly rattle – depictions of the Emperor and the Imperial Saint Ollanius Pius shivering as the bright flickers of distant explosions refracted through to bask the room in a dull wine red. Suddenly it became apparent that the shudders were increasingly prominent. The marines glanced around, the lead heretic simply glaring at the General, a sly grin emerging on his face. A brick clattered from above and glanced off one of the marine's shoulder pads. A candle stand on the altar collapsed and rolled away, followed by an audible roar – distant, but its source was still clear to both the General and the marines. The guardsman didn't need the abilities of the Space Marines' acute senses to identify the noise however.
"Draw!" He yelled as the roar climaxed. His eyes widening and his grin at its widest - he did not raise his pistol though, instead ducking down and lowering to one knee.
From behind, the wall collapsed in a blaze of searchlights and Lasguns, sending bricks scattering and windows showering razors of glass down into the structure. The quick, heavy alternating pulse of a pair of multi-lasers – reflecting the heartrate of the General's own raised beat. He smirked at the guttural shouts that bounced from the tumbling walls, his guardsmen leaping into the fray with their Lasguns spewing high intensity beams into the power armoured hides of Slaanesh's minions.
They tumbled, grunting and yelling in surprise as all collapsed to the ground with searing wounds across their flesh, seeping a murky crimson fluid onto the floor. Their masks shattered, chestplates peppered with fizzling holes and one even severed in two by a multi-laser round to the waist.
The Chimeras rolled in and ground to a halt, twenty or so guardsmen filtering in around the general and sweeping the room with their rifles.
As all returned to silence, and the painful din of swift combat brought to an end, one of the tanks opened its turret hatch, the screaming metal clearly in need of oiling, presenting a young man with a backward facing camouflaged cap, the fine trail of cigarette smoke floating from his mouth and a Laspistol twirling in his free left hand.
"Mornin' William." He shouted, smiling.
"A good day to you too Corporal Schevitz." He replied as he returned the gesture.
"No need for formalities," The tank commander takes a heavy puff from the slowly shrinking cigarette "just call me Mickey."
General William Dixon didn't mind the Corporal's brash and improper manner. Unusually, he found it comforting. Not that he'd allow any of the other guardsmen – now running back to their chimeras in orderly lines – to disregard protocol in such an absurd way. Mickey Schevitz was an exception perhaps, having begun as Dixon's commanding officer many years ago, the two had a comradeship beyond that of any other soldier he knew. "Very well Mickey. Let's mount up. Commissar Grohl would want us on the field, not chatting in half demolished churches.
"Aye, aye!" He yells, descending into the turret of the tank and the hatch squealing to a close. As the last guardsman climbs into the rear of the Chimera, it reverses, as does the one beside it. Dixon jumps a step forward, grabbing a hold of an iron rung protruding from the side of the Chimera. His cape flaps in the wind, hard soot and mud brushing past his face as the transports roll out into the nightmarish sky, the horrors of battle echoed throughout the planet's despairing atmosphere. The small cohort of Chaos in the church had been quickly removed by the 3rd Platoon of the Sudanos 7th Astra Militarum, but there were an infinite number crawling their way into reality through the warp, and although Dixon liked to think there were an infinite number of loyal guardsmen at his disposal, his dreams were far from truthful.
Sudanos had been under siege for a matter of hours, and already the Militarum had suffered irreplaceable losses. Dixon – as one of only seven remaining generals from the twenty PDF regiments on Sudanos, was third in line for command, behind General Boston of the 4th and the esteemed Colonel Lawrencia of the 1st – the Sudanos veteran regiment.
Indeed, they were veterans, but Dixon saw their bodies littered in piles – slumped in foxholes and impaled on barbed wire. Arching his sight over the hull of the Chimera, having to hold his cap to stop is flying away in the near toxic winds, he even saw one unfortunate soul skewered on his own platoon standard, the stained fabric fluttering aimlessly from his terrified corpse.
Amongst the bodied there was something else standing out against the gravel, mud and drab buildings. Although mainly consisting of a matte black, the form was easily distinguishable from the flat ground around it. The dark ceramite lay sprawled across the floor face up, wearing a suit mainly of standard Mk 7 Aquila pattern armour, but General William knew enough about the Emperor's Angels, or the 'Adeptus Astartes' to pick out the Mk 6 Corvus pattern shoulder pad at the top of its left arm. The head faced toward the passing Chimera and aimed its empty turquoise gaze across the grey shaded hull. The tips of its fingers, and the trim of the shoulders matched this turquoise colour, bright against the black, and vibrant relief to the harsh environment the Space Marine met his end. His face mask was coloured a bright scarlet, the same as the Lascannon that sat idle beside him.
Noticing this, Dixon thumped on the Chimera and caught the attention of Mickey. "Ah, yeah? What's up boss?"
"Halt, and get another couple of men to help me out here."
"Aaaaaalrighty."
The vox earpiece crackled into silence as the tank rolled to a steady halt. Dixon jumped down, his heavy boots kicking up a mixture of soot and bone dust that made him recoil in disgust. The rear hatch was pushed open, smacking the ground and thrusting up yet more dust. The General felt sorry for the two men who exited into the cloud – even more so for the other guardsmen inside who, as the door closed again, were now sealed inside the metal box (or as Micky regularly referred to them: "METAHL BAWKSES") with the vomit inducing substance.
"S-sir, we are yours to command."
William whisked away the mischievous smile and faced the guardsmen with straight lips and stern eyes. "Alright, I need you to move this Astartes – we can't let one of the Emperor's holy saviours rot in this slum."
"Aye sir!" They chorus, seeing the marine and rushing over. They struggle to lift the hulking mass of modified genes and power armour, but these – luckily – were two particularly strong men and soon the marine was carried… or dragged… into the nearest structure to hopefully be recovered when the Space Marines advance once again. William was unable to name them – the memory had slipped his mind – but they were surprisingly broad with their tactics. Not like other chapters he had served amongst, like the assault crazed Flesh Eaters and their suicidal Master, Orloc or the tank heavy Aurora Chapter who even put the Sudanos armoured divisions to shame.
The scarlet Lascannon was fixed in the General's gaze, calling to him.
'I don't think they would mind losing just one…'
'It's old wielder doesn't have a use for it anymore…'
He marched over, and pulled the heavy weapon over his shoulder, the ammunition storage slung under his shoulder, and hobbled back to the Chimera. With a satisfied grunt he planted the weapon down on the top of the transport, and sat up with his legs dangling down. The guardsmen, rather exhausted, walked by, saluting as they panted and begged for breath, and returning to the rear.
"Let's get going. Lawrencia wants this scouting mission done quickly." Dixon grumbles into the vox.
The tank trundles on, advancing tenaciously through no-man's-land as a hazy shadow emerges on the horizon. A hundred metre tall silhouette emerged as a shadow that shook the ground. Distant noise pierced the veil of silence over the land, with far away screams and hisses that turned Dixon's blood cold. Shadowy tentacles spewed from everywhere, slithering and writhing in the smoky air.
The turret hatch opened up, and Corporal Schevitz' pale face emerged. "I think… I think its best we cut our scouting mission short… sir…"
A foot stomp, the Chimera rattled even from such a massive distant away. The Corporal's cigarette flew from his gloved fingertips and buried itself in the soil. The General grappled his grip onto the turret, barely avoiding falling from the tank. "Radio the Colonel and Commissar Grohl, the heretics are on the offensive again."
"A-aye." He looks down and barks an order to the squad in the Chimera. "What should we do sir, retreat?"
"No." He grunts, standing on the tank and looking with steely determination to the approaching darkness.
"We are the Imperial Guard." Schevitz looks at his commander with dread, taking off his hat to unleash a space of crew cut blond hair, wet with sweat.
"Aye, Mickey. We are the Imperial Guard, and we hold the line!"