Ask me about faith and I'd tell you.
I'd tell you it's where you put yourself during those few moments when you haven't the slightest inclining of power over what is about to happen. Every ounce of skill, endurance and luck were in the hands of the few and capable. That's where our lives were, in the hands of the Emperor on the Throne. My right hand grasped the glorious pendant clasped around my neck.
I reached back and felt the grav-chute on my back, and wondered for a moment if we would die here, in the personnel compartment of our carrier. The airborne vehicle shook violently as flak rounds burst in the air around us, the view ports showing us a cloud of black smoke like oil in the water in the morning sky.
The light above the door to the cockpit shifted green, and the men stood from the benches located on either side of the compartments, lasrifles stored at their shoulders and out of the way. If our hands weren't free we'd miss our targets, and there would be no need for them.
But for the men in my squad, the 42nd Harakoni Warhawks storm troopers, going last was not an option. Veteran Sergeant Mofor stepped to the carrier door and grasped the hand rail. With a flick of his gloved hand, the button blemished green. The door pushed away and slid out, the air in the compartment suddenly seemed to rush outward. The sergeant raised his foot and without a word, slipped out in the skies. Adjusting my face mask, I followed behind Cowboy who turned to me just before he zipped out, having thrown what I thought could have been a wink behind his visor.
Without hesitation, I drifted downward as air seethed around my aerodynamic carapace armor, the pride of the Warhawks. Not just among the storm troopers, but even the guardsmen used such equipment, and we needed them to fulfill their objectives if we were to survive our own.
As I passed through a blanket of a cloud, I saw the target. The large structure stood well in the mountain ranges with large domes that threw back the encroaching sunlight with their luster. The only exceptions was the single large dome to the east, where an earlier bombing run by Imperial bombers had shredded the commerce sections of the community. That was our target, our way into the heart of the mission.
I didn't look up. I knew full well that the remainder of the storm troopers and the duo squad of guardsmen had followed me out of the carrier. But as I glanced down the silhouette of the sergeant angled his body and dived towards the dome below. Cowboy had followed suit and I was right behind my sergeant and my best friend, no matter how much of a terrible influence he probably was. There was no way I could have guessed our altitude, but the dome was magnifying beyond the length of my peripheral vision at a gradual rate before sergeant Mofor threw his grav-chute. Cowboy echoed his action as did I, and above I heard the other squads as they mimicked us.
As we were swallowed into the darkness of the dome, the sky faded behind. The gaps in the domes were large, but without the care of our grav-chutes glide thrusts, we would have easily snagged the ruined edges of the domes torn openings. As we neared the landing, my fingers itched to put my hellgun in my hands. Tiny figures in the distance and darkness appeared in rested positions, often times masked behind debris.
There was a clatter below as Cowboy, who had struck the ground before me, fired round after round of smoke grenades from his launcher, the areas near the landing zone quickly becoming haze filled gray clouds as I touched down with my knees bent, clicking off the grav-chute which ripped free of my armor and grasped for my weapon. Even in the obscuring mist, I could see the figure of a coughing individual that in no way could have been one of ours. Mofor didn't have to give the command, I wrested the hellgun from my shoulder plate as the cables dangled from the force of my actions. My thumb came down on the safety and immediately I squeezed the trigger harder than I should have.
At once a beam of ruby sparkled to life, glittering with repeated pulses of energy as it lanced out and struck a figure in the dark. I heard a scream as the laser rounds found their target, though I never saw the alerted figure fall.
Although I had struck first blood in the imminent conflict, it came at some cost. My hellgun had given away my position, and although I drew attention away from my squad mates who busied themselves with landing, arming and covering themselves, I had become the focus of the enemy's attention. I threw my head low and torpedoed myself behind a few steel girders that had fallen from the damage eschewed by our bombers a few hours before. My suspicions were confirmed when laser rounds stenciled the vicinity of where I was a second before.
Mofor voice crackled through my comm-bead, "Wall-breach! On the move Warhawks!"
To my left, I saw Cowboy fire another round that detonated in an automobile sized mushroom of heated fire some 20 meters from our position. The beacon of the flames illuminated two startled targets in the smoke and with gusto I unleashed a fan of laser fire that spread through the two of them. I saw at least one confirmed kill as he leaned away from the blow, his upper chest and neck spewed the shape of liquids freed from his body.
I dashed to my left and began my advance after I switched my auspex to display heat signatures. I glanced left and right to confirm my squad mates lining up a distance of 5 meters from each other. Cowboy was to my right and another to my left, probably Jull if my estimate of his height was correct. I stepped forward, leveling my weapon both hands. With each step, figures appeared in the ruins. Each figure was caught up in a scene of wild confusion, coughing fits or general panic. Emotions that were ended with a hasted sweep crimson energy. While I could not see the damage to the individual, their jerked body language and the scent of crisped flesh that covered the smell of something ghastly told me that we had found our mark.
As I passed over the remains of one of the enemy troopers, the stench was not to be believed. I glanced down and toggled my auspex off to take a single, fast look at the enemy. The mist of gray was becoming more dispersed and at less than a meter I saw the body of a crimson clad individual, his uniform mingled with the char colored ichor of his blood. His flesh was displaced a sickly pale that blotched the colors of veins and arteries behind the pallor, and even shades of yellow and gray where skin showed signs of decay. With teeth that seemed unnaturally sharpened and eyes rolled up into his skull. Tattooed upon his brow was the mark of the enemy, a circle with eight arrows pointing outward. The mark of Chaos.
If my mask hadn't been in the way, I would have spit upon the corpse.
The smoke was beginning to disperse and the wall of hellgun fire, plasma rounds and grenades quickly ceased as we took fast cover behind the debris. A few meters behind, I heard the clicks of the heavy bolter teams who snapped their tripods on the cement ground and shoved ammo belts into the hungry chambers of their weapons.
"West by Northwest!" Jull shouted into his comm-bead. I switched off the heat auspex to make sense of the large mass of orange approaching our position. It was at least a few squads of enemy troopers, who begun to fan out and tried to seek out cover before our bolters and hellguns greeted them as hostile as ever. The mob was turned into meat in mere seconds as laser rounds pierced their flak jackets, immediately blistering skin and charring holes through their bodies. The enemy was thrown back and a few survivors, who had been graced with the alert of their allies' deaths, quickly dashed behind the walls of the gate they had emerged from. I thanked the Emperor for either the enemy's sloppy entrance or our fast weapon deployment teams.
But the enemy was not entirely stupid. There was a great screeching noise as the gates began to close, the remaining survivors tried to pin us isolated behind the massive doors of metal. Sergeant Mofor burst from cover, hellpistol in one hand as he reached for his powersword, unwilling to surrender the fastest route into the heart of the dome city.