The dark skies of Porifax opened up and rain poured from the dark clouds above that blotted out the sun and made the middle of the day seem like night. Along the trench that quickly became mud, the soft ash of a lho stick lit up the face of a Guardsman. His companion nearby on the opposite wall of the trench, looked over at him.
"We did it... We held the line." Pio said. The man looked across the trench to his sergeant, puffing on the lho stick. It was a narcotic substance, but common for the Imperial Guard to use them. But there was Sergeant Carridan, taking a deep long drag on the stick. He rested the stick in his lips as he nodded a bit and spoke from the corner of his mouth.
"Yup." Carridan replied. His las rifle, muddied, scratched, and low on ammunition, was propped up against the trench wall.
"Fourteen hours..." Pio recalled, speaking to no one in particular.
"Fourteen hours of hell son. Fourteen hours of staring death in the face... But we held the line. Sons a bitches never made it past us." Carridan agreed as the rain slapped against his poncho that he wore over his Imperial Guard armor.
"We held the line... We did our duties... For Terra. For the Emperor." Pio spoke quietly.
"And that's all you can ever ask of a man son. That he does his bit for the Emperor." Carridan nodded. An eerie howl made both men start and look down the trench. The unmoving shapes of their comrades down the trench line reassured them that there was nothing the matter. Settling back against the trench line, they sat back down and relaxed once more.
"They're getting closer." Pio remarked.
"Yep... Matter of time now." Carridan replied softly.
"But we held the line." Pio reassured himself. The howl echoed again and this time neither soldier bothered to look. They lifted their eyes to each other.
"How long until they get here?" Carridan asked. Pio looked at the voxcaster that sat beside him. The small screen read out the time of their last received transmission.
"Few hours." Pio answered.
"We won't be here by then." Carridan said with a touch of sadness in his voice.
"But we held the line..." Pio said.
"Yep. Just wish we could have done more." Carridan said quietly, expressing that regret. "You tried that thing lately?" He asked, nodding to the voxcaster.
"No point. No one there to hear it anyways." Pio said softly. Carridan looked down the trench. The motionless forms of their dead Imperial Guard comrades were all that kept the two survivors of the Porifax massacre company. The rain slapped against their ponchos and Carridan finally put out his lho-stick. He contemplated lighting another, but decided against it.
"So what now? Just wait?" Pio asked. Carridan looked at the young Guardsman. He was Private Pio Gianeri. Twenty two standard years old. His Mars pattern las-carbine rested on the opposite side of him as the voxcaster. Too damn young to be in this shithole.
"Nothing else to do really. Nothing else to do but hold the line." Carridan replied softly after a while.
"We did that... We held the line... What about more?" Pio asked almost innocently.
Carridan looked at him and slowly nodded. The menacing howl pierced the rainy night once more, much, much closer this time.
"We could... We won't be around when help arrives anyway. We could do more." Carridan reasoned as he spoke to his companion.
"We should do more... For the Emperor... For our unit." Pio said with a nod. Carridan reached over and grabbed his las-rifle and checked the power cell. Half a dozen shots. Maybe a few more. His las-pistol was full. Pio took the cue and checked his own carbine. Mostly full.
"When we do this... We'll die. The Emperor will know we held the line... But no one else will." Carridan said quietly.
"The Emperor is the only one who matters... And they'll know we held the line... And that we did more than just hold it. They'll know we died making those cultist bastards hold their line." Pio said, a glint in his eye. A bit of fire lit in his belly. Carridan nodded and felt himself smile.
"Up and over then." Carridan said.
The two crept up over the side of the trench and searched about, stepping carefully and quietly as they walked through the filthy no man's land. The no man's land where the weather and the most recent cultist artillery shelling had mixed the corpses of Guardsmen and heretic alike in a gory mish mash of mud, blood, and flesh.
Carridan and Pio stepped quietly toward the cultist lines and heard the low voices of several cultists behind the makeshift earthworks they'd dug up to prepare against a counter-strike. Though now that there hadn't been an answering salvo, the cultists were merely waiting for the rain to stop and their patrols to return. At least that's what Carridan figured as they crept up. Shifting up over the berm of the earthworks, they saw half a dozen cultists standing in a group, talking excitedly, holding a hodge-podge of weaponry and covered in rags of clothing.
Pio turned and looked at Sergeant Carridan Blake. His company sergeant. The only one left of their entire defensive line... their entire Guard unit. And as far as they could tell? The only two Imperial Guards left guarding the astronomic array unit situated on Porifax. Pio watched and saw Carridan turn to him and give a nod.
Both Guardsmen stood and leapt over the berm into the midst of the cultists, firing their weapons.
"FOR THE EMPEROR!" Shouted Pio.
"FOR TERRA AND THE GOLDEN THRONE!" Carradin cried out.
The cultists were taken off guard, and in a short matter of seconds, the six of them were dead. Shouting and alarms were raised as their presence had not gone unnoticed by the rest of the cultists. Rushing down the trench, firing and cutting down surprised cultists who were fumbling for their weapons, Pio and Carradin raced along. Neither sure what they were doing except to know that they were causing as much trouble for the enemy as possible. Every cultist they killed was something they did beyond merely holding the line. Every enemy they destroyed in the name of the Emperor was one less to threaten the Iron Hands Marines when they arrived. Every heretical bastard that bled out on the field was one more kill for Pio and Carradin and the whole of the 9th Nareni Grenadiers.
Racing through the earthworks with shouts and las shots echoing from behind, Carradin and Pio found themselves trapped. A makeshift bunker at the edge of the cultist lines, holding equipment and ammunition for the Chaos heavy guns. The las fire stopped and a burly figure, a giant almost twice the size of a man stepped forward. His bald head was sickly and pale looking. His armor grey and his eyes were pure white. The stench of death and decay and fetid rot permeated the air around him. A disciple of Nurgle... A Chaos Space Marine of the Deathwatch Legion.
"Come forth... Children of the False Emperor." The rotting, putrefying Chaos Marine spoke. Flies, braving the rain, scurried over his face, drawn to the dying flesh.
A pustule throbbed on the Chaos Marine's cheek. And Pio watched in horror as it erupted and the pus that ran from it seemed to wriggle of its own accord... No... Not pus... Maggots.
Carradin was transfixed by the horrific sight. If the Space Marines, the Emperor's finest, were glorious and awesome, then the Chaos Marines were equally terrifying and grotesque.
"Come forth... And surrender to the inevitability of death." The Marine whispered once more. It stretched out a power armored hand and beckoned them forward.
Against his will, Pio took a step. Carradin stayed frozen. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed overhead, causing the Chaos Marine to look away. Pio and Carradin did as well and both snapped to their senses, retreating further into the ammunition bunker.
Carradin checked his las-rifle. The power cell read empty. Tossing it aside and drawing his las-pistol, Pio looked at his las-carbine. Half charge. He looked to Carradin.
"We held the line didn't we?" Pio asked. Just outside the cultists stepped closer, the Chaos Marine moving nearer and nearer, calling to them, asking them to come out. Hiding amongst the ammunition and supply crates, Carradin nodded over to Pio.
"We held the line... And more." Carradin replied.
"Here then?" Pio asked. The young man had a resolute look in his eyes.
"Aye... Here... Here and now." Carradin said. He fiddled with his las-pistol, overcharging the capacitor on the power cell. He found a large artillery shell and unlaced his boot while the power cell began to charge up. He reached down and took the laces from his boot and tied the pistol firmly to the shell. The capacitor began to whine as the Chaos Space Marine stepped into the bunker and snarled at them.
"You will die! Children of the False Emperor! You will be fitting sacrifices to Grandfather Nurgle! The Daemon God of Putrefaction! The Daemon Lord of disease! Your corpses will spawn new life for Nurgle!" The Chaos Marine roared.
"Speak your final words mortals! And prepare to die!" The Chaos Marine sneered. Pio nodded to Carradin from his hiding place. Carradin drew a combat knife and Pio stepped from cover.
"Die in the name of the Emperor!" He shouted, firing off blast after blast of his las-carbine. The thick ceramite power armor that covered the Chaos Marine's chest jolted and sizzled with the impact, but otherwise did not give way. The Marine sneered and produced a bolt pistol, firing at Pio. The bolt round caught him in the midsection. The mass reactive ammunition tore him apart in a miniature explosion. Pio screamed in agony as he fell back, blood pouring over the ground of the bunker.
The Chaos Marine charged forward to find his compatriot and Carradin stepped out, armed with his combat knife.
"FOR THE THRONE!" He shouted and lunged. The Chaos Marine was quicker, despite his rotting appearance, and far stronger too. The evil one caught Carradin by the arm and twisted it, raising him by the forearm.
"Speak your last words before I do away with you." The Chaos Marine spit on his face, disease ridden saliva spattered over Carradin's face and down his neck. The stench of his breath made the Guardsman retch.
Carradin stared for a moment... The only two sounds in the bunker were Pio's final wailing, mewling cries as he died... and the ever increasing high pitched whine of the overcharged capacitor on his las pistol.
"Burn in the warp you treacherous son of a bi-" Carradin began.
With a tremendous explosion, the bunker ripped apart. The heavy gun ammunition erupted and each explosion compounded the force, sending shrapnel and fire and the concussive force of the shockwave rippling through the earthworks.
Iron Captain Alexandros Obol surveyed the retreating cultists as they ran from the field in terror. His company of Iron Hands Space Marines pursued, cutting them down as they fled. Guard units, sent by the Adeptus Administratum and the Imperial Guard, landed to reinforce the astronomic array. As Alexandros stepped along, he looked at the dead Guardsmen. The guardsmen that had perished holding the enemy at bay. The fires from Carradin's jury rigged explosion smouldered and flickered. He leaned down and picked up up the charred and half melted remains of a las-carbine and examined it in his hands. His cybernetic left hand touched the metal and registered the heat.
Iron-Father Nemos stepped up to his side.
"The Guardsmen of the 9th Nareni Grenadiers did their duty... most admirably." He said, his voice obscured by the metallic whine of the voxcaster that had replaced his vocal chords. The Chaplain and Chief Techmarine of Obol's company looked about.
"They did more than that Nemos... They held... And they pressed on when they could hold no longer. They made an accounting for themselves." Obol said as he turned the rifle remains over in his hands. He turned and handed the charred half melted piece of equipment over to the spiritual leader of the company.
Nemos looked surprised as he saw what it was.
"The Emperor can ask for no truer servants." Nemos spoke quietly. The rain that had been pounding the ground for hours, began to let up.