My name is Brother-Captain Esius Balor, Space Marine of the Angels of Battle chapter, fifth company. I am two hundred years old, and I have been a soldier in the Emperor's crusade, in one form or another, since I was sixteen. Over the course of my military career, I have fought on hundreds of worlds, killed xenos, traitors and daemon-spawn without number, and been shot, stabbed, psychically assaulted, set on fire, doused in acid, and (on one memorable occasion) beaten over the head with a plascrete brick, all in the name of the God-Emperor of Mankind. This document you are reading is a recording of my memoirs, as requested by Governor Acan of Ares IV and demanded by Lord Rudianos, fifth company commander, for purposes of education.
It is also an utter and colossal waste of time. I am a space marine, not a holo' writer, and I have absolutely no interest in changing professions. However, apparently Ares IV is presently in vogue on the inner worlds. We are now a "symbol of all that is good and just in the Imperium", and we are to be held up as an example to the rest of the Emperor's subjects.
By way of my memoirs. Which, I am sure, will have the shit edited out of them before they are published for the masses of stupid, sweaty, ignorant civilians to read, thus giving me free reign to discuss the full stupidity of this entire exercise. The fact that I was selected is most likely due to the rather fractious state of my relationship with Lord Rudianos, at present. I was aware he was annoyed with me due to my actions on Colstadd, but the degree of punishment he has inflicted upon me seems entirely unmerited. Especially considering we did in fact kill that bloody psyker.
My complaints, however, will not remove the yoke of this punishment from my entirely-undeserving soldiers, so it might therefore be best to get this bloody thing over with. Then I can get on with more important things, like actually killing something.
Best to start at the beginning then.