"Hold the line you dogs, we hold this damn line until the end of time!" screams the Commissar as the shells and lasbolts of the hordes of Chaos scream over our heads, impacting upon the walls of the broken redoubt with such force that the fragments of wall shoot backwards towards the Chaos lines, turning the front row of… things into shredded piles of meat. I hear the screaming of a mortar shell as it flies skyward, ready to rain but a small bit of death upon one of the two sides. I look up, hoping to see the shell come from our lines.
Time slows to a crawl as another shell narrowly misses me and impacts on a nearby trooper's face, causing a fountain of gore to spray from the ruined corpse. I can pick out the littlest details on the bolter shells flying from the turrets and autoguns, the manufacturing stamps and catechisms of the Emperor scrawled hastily upon the krak missiles as they hurtle towards my foe's armored units.
Funny, how things like perceptions can change so fast. A few weeks ago, Chaos was our enemy. The enemy of my people, the enemy of the Imperium of Man, the enemy of Cadia, The enemy of all life as we know, or rather, knew it. It was a few hours after the first attacks when the explosive shells raked through my home, butchering my mother and father where they stood, their flak jackets useless against the high velocity shells, the power packs on their lasguns igniting into small suns as the munitions detonated their energy clips. And for what?
Me.
I should probably start at the beginning.
My name is Nicholas. I don't have a last name, not since the attack robbed me of my family. At least, not to the clerks over in the Administratum. Yeah, that's me, Whiteshield Nicholas, squad four, platoon delta, company thirteen, 13th Cadian Regiment. In fact, I'm not even sure there is a squad four anymore. Last I saw of anyone from my platoon was a few hours ago, right before a big fething explosion knocked me the feth out.
Funny word, 'feth.' I'm not even sure where it's from. My father used to say he heard it from a man, who heard it from another man, who heard it from some colonel in some campaign a while ago, halfway across the whole fragging galaxy. But I'm getting distracted.
Hard rounds impact along the burned out tank shell I'm taking cover behind, smashing holes clean through the armor. Damn, that's grade A armor plating. What the hell do they have out there? I decide I should pop off a few rounds, make it look like I'm putting up some sort of fight; impress the commissars and all that before I my brains blown the feth out.
I jam the lasrifle's barrel into one of the holes near my head and hold down that trigger like it's the last damn thing I'll ever do. The recoil isn't much, but it's enough to shake my broken wrist on the other side of my body. Sweet Emperor, does that hurt! After the rifle stops shooting and the magazine lock opens with a loud clink, I reach down and pop open my rudimentary first aid kit and pop a couple of pain suppressors. I swap out my magazine when a whole squad of Kasrkin dive into cover next to me, the heavy bolter shells forcing all living soldiers into cover, except for the occasional commissar who makes a point of getting his ass killed in order to "show the worthless dog-soldiers of the Imperium what true courage is!" Yeah, right. They can have fun doing that. I look over and read the nearest trooper's ID tag. Darius Montarian, Cadian 44th Kasrkin Regiment. I look up at him, a frown appearing on my face
"You guys from the forty-fourth?" I yell, my voice carried away by a nearby foxhole exploding from artillery fire. The soldier looks down at me and nods.
"That's right whiteshield. What unit are you with?" he asks me. I look down, noticing for the first time that my ID tag is gone, torn off by a piece of shrapnel or fire, I don't even know. I look up at him.
"Sir, Whiteshield Nicholas, thirteenth Cadian, sir!" He looks over and motions to what I believe to be his logistics and communications trooper, judging by the vox-caster on his back.
"Jarrelson, wasn't the thirteenth supposed to be over in sector alpha-six?" The vox man nods.
"Yes sir, they were." He looks over at me. "Do you know what sector you're in, whiteshield?"
By the blank look on my face I can tell that he can tell that I have no fething clue where I am.
"Whiteshield, you're in bravo three." he says, sending a chill down my spine. Feth, but I'm over two kilometers from where I should be! How in the name of the Emperor on his Golden Throne did I get all the way over here? He shakes me, bringing me back to reality. "Did you just hear what I said, trooper?" I look up at him, shaking my head slowly. He sighs, a frown appearing on his face too.
"You're in the main advance of the enemy, we need to pull back to phase line Raptor so the artillery can continue their fire without having to worry about hitting us!" As my mind processes this, the communications trooper, Jarrelson, screams "Look out!" and hurls himself onto Montarian and I just as a mortar shell hits just to the right of the tank, vaporizing the rest of the squad. I blink as I realize that eight men just vanished as if they had never existed right before my eyes. Jarrelson picks himself and Montarian up, heaving me to my feet as soon as he realizes that I'm too stunned to react in any way. Montarian looks at me and grabs my shoulders so that our eyes are meeting.
"We have to go, now. If we don't we're going to end up like them, do you understand?" The adrenaline and the pain suppressors finally affect my brain, allowing me to think clearly. I nod, his words making sense to me at last. The briefest of smiles flickers across his face. "Good. Jarrelson?" he asks, looking over at the vox-operator. Jarrelson looks up, one ear pressing the vox-horn to his ear intently.
"How far back is it to phase line Raptor, and how long do we have until the big guns start launching?" he asks. Jarrelson closes his eyes and listens to the horn more intently. After a few seconds, he looks back up, a grim look on his face.
"Sir, we have about five minutes to push back a kilometer or so, sir." Montarian nods and looks back at me. "How fast are you trooper?" My response is almost instantaneous, having had to repeat it to the company commander over a dozen times by now.
"Sir, I can cover the standard warzone training course in approximately 6 minutes, sir." Montarian nods. "Good. We only have to cover a little less than that, let's get moving." I nod, chasing after him and Jarrelson as the sprint off towards the relative safety of phase line Raptor.
As we sprint across the warzone, with tracer rounds and lasbolts flying all around us, I begin to see large hulking shapes at the edge of my vision. I turn, but there's nothing there. A nagging sensation grows in my mind as we press on, the phase line drawing ever closer. Montarian and Jarrelson are just a couple dozen meters ahead of my, their legs able to carry them much farther than mine can. They disappear behind a burnout Chimera transport a few meters ahead, causing me to, obviously, lose sight of them.
Another hulking shape appears at the edge of my vision, prompting me to turn as rapidly as I can. As I see what it is, through the smoke and flames, my soul chills and my blood turns to ice. I recognize it from the woodcuts that were on display in the atrium of my scholam back in my hometown. It is even more fearsome and horrifying than those stylistic woodcuts would ever be. A Traitor Marine, one of the infernal champions of Chaos, stands a few meters away, the marks of his infernal gods writhing upon his armor, seeming to burn the very air around him with their unholiness.
The sigils and markings burn my eyes, so I divert my gaze away from them, toward his massive helmet, taking note of the daemonic horns and features that adorn the faceplate of his helmet. As I do, his head turns towards me, out eyes meeting. Terror grips me and he laughs, sounding as if he were a daemon himself, made flesh. He swirls his hand in an intricate manner, causing the air around him to twist and writhe as a portal of the foulest energies opens before him. As he looks at me, I see the long scar that bisects the face of his helmet. The image is burned into my brain forever and I begin to scream. He keeps on laughing and steps through the portal, causing it to disappear as soon as the last bit of him is through. I almost manage to regain my composure when an artillery shell, an earthshaker judging by the force, smashes into the ground a few dozen yards away, hurtling me through the air and smashing me up against the battered stump of a tree. I pass out after Imperial troops begin to move back through the area, the artillery barrage now nothing but a memory.
Montarian and Jarrelson are the ones to find me, calling in a medicae team as fast as they can. I'm vaguely aware of the team lifting my broken body onto a stretcher and loading me into a Chimera waiting to take me back to the HQ. Montarian and Jarrelson stay with me, acting as guards for the wounded on the transport. I hear Jarrelson call me "One lucky son a bitch" right before I pass out. I guess so. After all, today is my birthday. I guess wishes, even the untold ones pleading for life, do come true. Blackness envelopes me.