A short I wrote trying to get back into the swing of things. Expect more as I try to improve my writing. Constructive criticism would be great.
For us Krieg there is no mercy, no regret, no anything. We are but cogs in the great war machine of the emperor, for there is no individual, no weakness. Pleasure had brought our people only pain in our war wracked past. The Council of Autocrats succumbed not to chaos as many others have, but to their own pleasure and delusions of grandeur. And that is unforgivable, we fought brothers, robbed the imperium of vital resources and destroyed our home in our attempts to undo the damage wrought by our weakness. It is by our fault that the Council was raised to such prominence and it is in blood that we atone, for we have little else left.
Under the devastated and ashen landscape of our home lie hundreds of thousands of miles of bunkers guarding our most precious resource, and our most disposable one. Every year 50 million new guardsmen pour forth into the darkest, most dangerous hell zones that the imperium has to offer. Vast underground chambers stacked to the brim with vitae wombs allow the creation of our soldiers.
We are not the Cadians, we do not fight to defend, and we do not fight to survive. We fight to atone as a race, as a people, there is no individual until we are redeemed. From the moment the glass womb birthed me every moment has been in preparation for my death. I will not waste my life, I will not die in a back alley, in a barren farm field. I will lay down my life so the man behind me gains that extra meter. Then the redemption of my people will be that much closer, that much more real.
Others find us disturbing, unnerved by our unity, our singular purpose. They are quick to condemn and even quicker to shelter behind us. We find them inferior, weak vessels for the emperor's wrath, this is our solemn duty and penance. The weak are ruined by emotion, an immaterial and capricious thing. We have no need of it, we have only purpose, and it is not much. But it is enough.
So here I crouch, my brothers around me, the rain cascading from the heavens. The tears of the emperor for the live lost today. Lost, but never wasted. Across the blood soaked mud pits of no mans land lie the heretics. Foul cultists of the ruinous powers, those who unlike us were unable to withstand the temptations and pleasures offered. I will shed no tears for them.
The sky is filled with the shrieking of Valkyries and falling basilisk shells, whilst the rough, choking roar of the Leman Russ tanks comforts us. All is ready, the last prayers are said and we don our masks. A thin whistle pierces the air.
I vault the trench lip, blood pounding and charge the enemy. Their line sporadically lights up as the survivors of the barrage fire. I'm hit, a burning pain spreading across my body. Desperate I twist my head to the enemy, even as the light fades I see the man behind me make another 3 meters. Against the vast expanse we must cross it is not much, but it is enough.