Author's note: This is only a short story - it's less than 700 words - but its' something that I wanted to share.
The Emperor Protects.
The last sound that Guardsman Vollan heard was the sound of the discharged bolt pistol pressed against his head.
His death had not been quick and painless, nor was it because of a weakened spirit breaking under the pressures of bloody combat that he and his unit had been unceremoniously dragged through these long past months. It was of necessity. A mercy, perhaps.
Gellick had the unfortunate fate of discovering him. The trooper was found in the mud of a hastily dug trench, a mangled pile of the enemy dead among him. The standard armour of the Astra Militarum he was clad within stained in his own viscera from the waist down, yet he was still drawing breath, heaving through his dirtied and bloody mouth. His stiffened hands were frozen in a death grip over his battered las-rifle; the bayonet affixed to its barrel, according to the startled recruit, was apparently well used on account of it being suitably covered in dark fluids that made the bile rise to his throat.
"Throne almighty..." The boy had said upon laying eyes on his squadmate. He was a younger member of the regiment, never tasting the ichor of battle prior to this moment. He had yelled out down the line for help, demanding some form of assistance his comrade out.
There was nothing that could be done to save him. He was crippled, broken in all but in spirit, and he could have done no more to service his regiment. The Commissar knew that upon immediate inspection. There would be no relief for his pain.
Vollan was dragged from the pit he was dying in to a surface level. The fierce odour of discharged las-fire and acidic fuel burning stung the hairs in his nose as he gasped for the air that escaped him. Debris and burning shell holes were littered around him as he found himself resting upon the remains of a shattered Valkryie wing, coughing and looking down towards his squad.
It was only then, he realised, that his legs were gone.
The muscle was shorn shoddily from the hip, mauled into damp bloody stumps. The ork bastard that had done that was lying dead back there somewhere in the murder hole where they had found him, a charged shot through the head putting the pig-faced xenos beast down. Vollan's face curdled into a sour smile at the thought of his enemy's execution. It was a shame that he had no memory of the precise one that took his legs, but it was satisfying all the same. Vollan got them before it got Vollan. Although that didn't matter anymore. He couldn't feel the pain where there should have been plenty.
He had cried when he was silenced. A single tear, nothing more. The Commissar had placed the weapon to his temple, and granted him a prayer before giving him the Emperor's peace. It was not the fact he was dying why he shed that tear.
When the job was done, the boy who tried to save him turned to the Commissar. His eyes, glassy with emotion, burdened his pale face.
"He was a good man."
The Commissar nodded. "Yes, he was." Gellick found no comfort in this.
"Why did he shed a tear, sir?"
The Commissar sighed, glancing down at the vacant corpse of Trooper Vollan, and kneeled. Gracefully, what remained of the Guardsman's eyes were closed in a fluid motion. He turned to the trooper, his face creased to one of pity.
"He cried because he wanted to do more."
A roar came from the distance. The regiment picked their weapons once more, and looked towards the directions of their foes. The order did not even have to pass the Commissar's lips; they knew what to do.
Hold the line.