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There's a time in every life of a guardsman, where assuming the guardsman is a man, that :
To have NOT splurged on that rather expensive bio-engineered Hudson Pinepear Wine.
To have NOT gone to that rather enticing red-light district and to have NOT spent all his pay on that even more enticing girl.
Because he needed all that money to buy a better flak jacket as the need for one demonstrated in the next paragraph.
Dammit. I was really starting to doubt the more higher levels of concentration in my brain when I was partying in Eimpyre-1. Dammit. Why the hell, why the Emperor-damned hell did I waste my money on those things. Why not a flak jac...
But I had to focus on the bloody scrap going on in this Emperor-forsaken mudflat. I'd risk my rather short life if I didn't make sure if at least 50 of all shots zipping around everywhere missed me. I glanced around for any traitor I could take on without harming myself but I couldn't. I didn't have to. A bloody traitor runs up to me and stabs at my flailing arms with strangely enough a imperial commanders blade and severs one of the main arteries in my arm. I howl and swear instinctively and fall on the ground. I try to lash at anyone coming close to me but the traitor keeps on trying to skewer me with his blade.
It then embeds itself in a not so blood-soaked island of clay.
I can see the bloodshot eye of the traitor above me as he realizes he has lost his only chance of survival. And then, momentarily a raw instinctive human emotion, most probably fear and cruel realization flashes through his face as he understands that he's got seconds to live.
I grasp his blade and kci khis more sensitive parts before running through him with the blade but not before I catch a glimpse of his pupil's contracting.
I twist around on the spot as I hear a cry coming from somewhere. Ervin, dammit is potentially close to being administered the Emperors Forgiveness. I turn and run for the traitor trying to do so but before I do so, two words, the last human voice from the traitor I had just sliced echoes across the battlefield.
'Sorry Yvonne...'
I run towards Ervin who's pinned down by a traitor with head partially twisted. With the bayonet in hand I hack at the bony extrusions that are grotesquely jutting out from his neck. A viciously attack the exposed neck and realizing I'm just grating the bone slash underneath the neck.
A decent sized spurt of blood fountains into the space I was occupying moments ago.
'Hey! Thank's man!'
'My duty!'
'WATCH OUT!'
Another scythe of shells ripped into the now blood-soaked mud and started flinging it in great big bloody balls of it. I was caught off guard by this sudden fusillade of bullets. I tried running to the left but almost suddenly I knew I had taken the bloody route to death. The slow line of fire seemed to accelerate towards my escape route. In a futile gesture I charged towards the source of the barrage. Ervin had second thoughts about following me, cringed and turned right.
A slug punched into my flak jacket, made a mockery of the compressed but tattered plas-steel and when I thought I would be receiving the Emperors Forgiveness at a young age, the slug made a rather imposing dent in my thermos cup.
Thank the not-so merciful Emperor.
Another slug shredded my arm and the last thing I felt before the blackness took me was that this would have been what the traitor had felt.
Everything was lost to me.
And unlike a game of poker, there was no chance of taking it back.
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Lord Eraendall: HA Ha ha. That's what you get for taking MY wine.
Yet to be named protagonist: That's not nice. You know, that fake blood takes a million washes to come off and my washer has only a few more spins in it left.
Lord Eraendall: If you think that's bad...
Servitor: ExCuSe Me. PrOtOcOl SiTuAtIoN 4987654981984
Lord Eraendall and Yet to be named protagonist: o O
Servitor: DiAgNoSiNg LaNgAuGe SiTuAtIoN
Lord Eraendall and Yet to be named protagonist: o O
Servitor: Yo Home-dogs wassup!
Lord Eraendall and Yet to be named protagonist: o O
Servitor: Yo Pimp Lords are getting on this thing and aren't getting hot!
Lord Eraendall and Yet to be named protagonist: o O
Lord Eraendall: Ohh. Thankyou servitor. You may go now.
Yet to be named protagonist: Huh? Pimp lords? What? The newest bling-bling 2006 demon model from Slaanesh?
Lord Eraendall: Pimp lords! Where! Ohhhh. I mean the Inquisitors
You know, the really puffed of popinjays?
Yet to be named protagonist: groan (Goes of and buys more washing powder and a new washing machine)
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'Lord Inquisitor Dedalgus, Pysker- Ronin wishes for an audience..'
'Grant him an audience then...'
'Yes my lord...'
'Send Pysker-Ronin in...'
'Hail, Lord Inquisitor Dedalgus...'
'Greetings Pysker- Ronin...I take it that you wish for an audience? What brings you here to my chamber?'
'Yes milord, I do seek an audience. I wish to tell you that the sanctioned pyskers in my command, Pysker- Ceani's sanctioned pyskers and herself, and me included have all been experiencing an increased activity in the warp storms currently surrounding Cimerre.'
'Cimerre you say?'
'Yes milord...why?'
'Cimerre, dear Pysker- Ronin is rumored to hold xeno artifacts rather attractive to the Adeptus Mechanicus...and Ordos Xenos.'
'Archaotech forbidden by the laws of the Ordos Hereticus?'
'Perhaps...Yes it is a full possibility Pysker- Ronin. But what interests me is that you and Ceani's pyskers, and yourselves included have been experiencing, or at least feeling the presence of these artifacts...was the presence of them malicious or very powerful?'
'Lord Inquisitor Dedalgus, I cannot say truly what I felt. However I feel compelled to tell you that whatever the archaotech this may be, you may do well to assemble your stormtroopers and call in for a company of Grey Knights. Ceani thinks so too.'
'Pysker- Ronin...you full well know how serious a situation must be for the Grey Knights to be called for. And it would most probably take the life of one of our most gifted Astropaths to send the message across the warp storm we are now in. And Ceani thinks so too?...however it is true that the disturbance of the warp has been rather...odd to say the least. I shall send for a company of Space Marines...If the situation escalates...which I full well hope it will not...you maybe right. Maybe the Grey Knights must be called in.'
'Is that all Pysker- Ronin ?'
'No,
Milord.
I have also received news of a Imperial Guard Regiment
currently tasked with taking back the city situated near the southern
continent of Cimerre. To put it bluntly, there are losing.'
'Really? We may have to assist them. But it should prove worthy for us o help them. It may help us in finding the cause of the disturbance in the warp, and if necessary, eliminating it.'
'True...true...milord'
'Is there anything else you may wish to seek in this audience Pysker- Ronin?
'No, Milord, that is all. I have already ouldone my audience...'
'Very well, you may leave, but before you do, remember to inform me of the coordinates of the nearest Adeptus Astartes...'
'Yes, Inquisitor Lord Dedalgus.'
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The first thing I did was savagely attack the shadow floating across my face, only to realize that I had futilely pushed away a nurse tending to me. Dammit. She's just looking at me as if I were the poorest thing in the world. I had thought she was a traitor. I eventually realize that after glancing around me, I can see a rather small portion of my platoon in beds. I shift my attention back to the nurse. However, my drugged up mind, and the dim light affects my eyes so badly I can only see the beautiful face of an Sisters Hospitalliar. That look in her brown eyes just brings up something in me. And so, despite the fact that a dim light of the lamp is above me, I try to sit up and get a closer look.
I knock myself unconscious on the hard lamp instead.
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I wake up again, feeling positively refreshed and restored. I carefully make sure there are no lamps in the proximity of my head and after doing so, allow myself to sit up. I yawn and see the early sun of Cimerre shining through a window somewhere. Ervin is sipping away contently at a drink while Ruysho is still sleeping.
The downside to this is that most of us are probably crippled and will never fight or live life to its fullest again. But still. After what happened at the Emperor-damned melee, I'm glad to be here, lying underneath brilliantly warm sheets. Just thankful to the Emperor of Mankind for keeping me alive after that bloody slaughter.
My memory flashes back to when the pupil of the traitor contracted and his last human remnant was the last words to his wife, or girlfriend. Before I killed him.
Then I remember why I am here...the observation post, the house of cards, the friggin euphemism, and then the most probably failed assault on the traitor-held city. I know what happened to 2nd platoon.
Most of us got killed when we tried to take out some traitors near a burnt-out Leman Russ before taking the city back. But what about 1st platoon and 3rd platoon?. and the crews of the stuck Leman Russ's? They are probably dead. And the mumbling lot of Whiteshields. They wouldn't have had a chance.
Rilling, Kakarot, Gyran, Sidney...the rest of 2nd platoon dead.
Why? Why!
Then, the same nurse I saw last night, or last last night walks up to me holding something.
Now in the sunlight, as she walks towards me, I can see her beautiful features and tresses of hair that fall beneath her shoulders. And her eyes, so full of pity where they last or whatever night it happened to be are now full a mischievous yet happy nature. It's never failed to impress me how, after a battle, you tend to immensely appreciate small details like these.
Her slender form walks to my bed and holds out two familiar items.
Despite the chest pain, I let out a chuckle.
I can see a flak jacket, all sewn up with new plas-steel inserts and a thermos cup still dented but shiny, and a small but amusing smile on the nurse's face.
Maybe, just maybe, this is why we fight.
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Ok. So that was a bit short. I do have a Music Scholars recital and the camp as well as a math test and upcoming history work. And yes it was rather unconventional. I will assure you there maybe a bit of hormones here and there but as guardsmen, they're expected to be concentrated on killing traitors and not... NOT women. And Lord Inquisitor Dedalgus... you may just have to wait to find out... The protagonist will also get a name...don't worry. The weird servitor has also been summarily executed.
And as usual, review if you like, flame if you want and email if you must but it has to in some way help me improve. Even if its like,
'usespellchecker'
So on and so forth.