Ok so, something I forgot to mention, the full designation for the Cadian 308th infantry company is: Cadian 308th Infantry Company, 12th Infantry Division, 90th Infantry Regiment. I think I might have made them up, but with the way Warhammer 40k's lore is who knows.
You see I got into painting the mini's for Warhammer 40k and the first set I bought was the Cadian Shock Troops, then I actually got the start collecting for the Cadians, then I got the Orks start collecting set, then it was the Ork Boyz box set, and now I am looking into getting a Cadian Command Squad, White Scars Space Marines, maybe some Drukhari, and a Tau Pathfinder team.
Anyway, that being neither here nor there, I hope you all enjoy this chapter, bit shorter than the last one not gonna lie.
After what he was assumed was a month, he had finally been permitted to get out of the bed. Now that he was able to walk on his own he had been informed that he was to train with the detachment of the Imperial Guard, what he assumed was either a Planetary Defense Force or the actual military to 'bring him up to snuff', at least that's what he thought they said. So that how was how he found himself in his current predicament, running an obstacle course, crawling through, what he hoped was, synthetic mud with barbed wire snatching at his uniform, what he hopped were tracer rounds crisscrossing over his head, and Sergeant Muldoon yelling at him to 'get the lead out'.
He once again completed the course, bent over, and panted for breath, and then Sergeant Muldoon started yelling.
"Five minutes," he bellowed, shoving Michael in shoulder which caused him to fall over and continuing to suck in one lungful of air after another, "it took you five minutes to complete the course, do you know what that is?"
"Five seconds better than last time," he answered between greedy gulps of air. That was the wrong answer, because the next thing he knew he was bellowing about how he was going to make him run the course another three times, one of those times he swore he'd have him dragging a pack that would, in his words, 'have an Astartes groaning in pain when he was done', whatever an Astartes was. Groaning, he got on his feet and made to go back to the start line, having learned that there was no reasoning with the sergeant when he got this way.
"I didn't dismiss you guardsman," the sergeant bellowed, before shoving him in the shoulder again. He tried to stand up straight, though judging by the tension in lower back he was only partly successful.
"Get some rest," Sergeant Muldoon said, his voice now at what could be considered a normal pitch. After which he pulled out a cigarette, which he insisted on calling a tobac stick, from a pack in one of the pockets in his fatigues and lit it.
"Got any family Rollins," he asked, which took him by surprise. Shaking his head, Michael took in another gulp of air just before the stench from the tobac stick caused him to cough.
"Not anymore," he answered between coughs.
"Dead," Muldoon asked, getting a nod as an answer he just puffed on the tobac stick, "got a home?"
"Nope," he answered, "at least I don't think so."
Sergeant Muldoon hummed in his throat and tapped on the tobac stick, causing some of the ashes to fall to the floor.
"Where did you learn to shoot," he asked.
"Dad taught me," he answered, his voice sounding suspicious, "is there a point to these questions?"
"Just getting to know a soldier under my command," he answered, he then threw the tobac stick on the floor and ground it into the floor, "back to the start."
Rollins nodded, and walked back to the front of the line, waiting for the starting signal.
One week later…
He had been cleared from the hospital wing, and now he was being moved to the Imperial Guard Barracks, specifically the barracks belonging to Cadian 308th Infantry Company. Sister Joan had not been happy about that, but she ultimately had little say. Ultimately, she just told him to keep up with his lessons so that he wouldn't be totally useless. Which currently explained what he was doing at that moment, sitting outside the ward going over his letters and sentence structure, when a fresh faced young soldier walked up
"Michael Rollins," the soldier, who was a female if the voice was anything to go by, asked.
"That's me," he answered, looking at women and noting her eyes were brown, although they had an odd purple sheen to them.
"I'm Private Sasha Reynolds," she introduced herself, before shaking his hand, "I'm your new squad mate."
"Pleasure," he replied.
"Got any gear," she asked, her eyes sweeping over the nearby area looking for a duffel bag or footlocker.
"Just what I am wearing," he responded, which what he was wearing basically amounted to a set of plain fatigues.
"Let's get moving then," she stated, pointing a thumb back the way she came. Nodding, he began walking with her. The whole walk back she began filling him in on the squad, what he could expect, the rest of the squad mates, and what general life was like. After about twenty minutes of walking, and him asking questions that ranged from any tips for firing a las gun to what and when his first duties would be, they finally arrived.
"First formation is at 0600 hours," she stated, "from there we're generally told what we'll be doing that day, patrols, combat drills, and the like. So don't be late."
"Roger roger," he replied, doing his best approximation of a mechanical voice, he got a scrunched nose for his efforts. Sighing to himself, he walked inside and found two rows of bunks, he began looking around and found one with an open footlocker and made his way over to it.
"Whelp," he announced to no one, kicking the locker closed, "better see who I got to talk to about getting gear."
One month later…
It had been slow going, but his new squad mates now tolerated him, and it had taken about half the time he'd been there to get the ball rolling on that. Currently they were undergoing Urban Combat drills, to prepare them for any future assignments or engagements. His squads current assignment was to clear and secure a building, the targets consisting of dummies panted with crude faces, overly large, jagged teeth, eyes too big for their faces, and holding comically large wooden axes. After shooting the last one in the face, they began sweeping the rest of the room for any surprises, a bucket with a face on it and triangular pieces of metal attached at the sides, with the word "boom boom" written on it, paint bombs that would have you scrubbing your kit for hours to get it out, and that kind of thing.
"Clear," Private Huskar shouted, after having spent 30 seconds checking an adjoining room.
"Is it really clear this time," Rollins asked skeptically, "or is it the clear where I am going to be spending three hours scraping paint off my armor again?"
"It's clear," he answered with a whine in his voice, "besides how was I supposed to know that bomb was hidden in the refresher station?"
"Cut the chatter," Sergeant Muldoon bellowed, "remember we're still in a combat zone."
Fixing his squad mate with a brief glare, he moved to go to the door leading further into the building. Sergeant Muldoon took up position on the other side of the door and behind him was Private Reynolds, so that meant behind him was Matthias Huskar and Iskendar Logren, oh great this exercise was going to go swimmingly. The two of them weren't bad people per say, but Huskar tended to not notice things that were obvious, and Logren just did not like him, which often lead to him acting on his own or just outright ignoring anything said to him by Michael, unless Sergeant Muldoon was within sight.
"Breach," Sergeant Muldoon bellowed and charged through the door, after a quick three count he rushed after him.
'Hopefully the new recruits we're getting act right,' he thought.
Later…
"Any questions on where we went wrong today privates," Sergeant Muldoon asked rhetorically, the pink splatter on the front of his armor and on most of their armors said everything.
"No sir," they answered in unison.
"I expect better from each and every one of you," he admonished, the pink on his armor doing nothing to alleviate the fierce glare, "so we're going to spend the next month doing extra team building exercises."
"Now go get your armor cleaned," he ordered, "any questions?"
Michael raised his hand, feeling a blush of embarrassment creep up on his face. He could feel the eyes of his squad mates staring at him. Nodding, Sergeant Muldoon dismissed the others, who promptly left to do as they were told, Logren took the time to fix him with snarl before leaving, and then he walked up to him.
"Yes Private Rollins," Sergeant Muldoon asked, "what's the issue, Logren acting out again?"
"He's certainly doing that," he answered with a sigh, "but I'll deal with it, if it gets any worse."
Sergeant Muldoon hummed deep in his throat, indicating his skepticism with that statement.
"Then what is it," he asked, already tiring of this conversation, and just wanting to get his armor clean.
"I need a favor," he answered, putting his hand back on his las rifle to give it something to hold on to. Sergeant Muldoon grunted, signaling for him to get on with it, taking a deep breath to steel himself he prepared to ask the favor that he had been trying to word right for the better part of a week.
"Can you give me extra training in hand to hand fighting," he asked, feeling his cheeks heat up.
"Still got the bruises Reynolds gave ya don't ya," he asked with grim humor. It had caused him no end of embarrassment to get pinned by a woman about half his size and about a half foot shorter than him, within five seconds of the instructor saying go no less.
"Just the one on my shoulder," he answered with embarrassment.
"I will see what I can arrange," Muldoon answered, "but you do understand that any extra training will need to be done on your time right?"
"Yes sir," Michael answered despondently.
"Good," he responded, "now go get your gear cleaned."
"Yes Sir," Michael said, before running off to do just that.
Three weeks later…
He was sore in places he didn't think could get sore, the sacrifices he had to make in the name of self-improvement. Sergeant Muldoon had made good on his word and managed to talk one of his fellows, who was considered an expert in hand to hand fighting, into giving him extra lessons. Now combine that with the last three weeks of "team building exercises", which he was beginning to think was code for "putting all of you through the grinder", and he considered himself lucky to be able to stand most days.
The new guys, who were named CPL Herschel Goren, Specialist Jazira Rommel, and Private 2nd Grade Lukas Jergin, didn't take too long before they started hating the extra training the squad always seemed to be in. But they were at least smart enough to keep their complaints to themselves. Logren however, was steadily becoming more of an issue, at first it had been just him ignoring Michael, it was beginning to turn into open hostility, though he had been smart to keep it out of sight of Sergeant Muldoon and Corporal Goren, to an extent. That wouldn't last long much longer though, something would need to be done to deal with issue soon.
Meanwhile…
Captain Mikhail Laptev and his Executive Officer 1st lieutenant Ezekyle Thrantus were sitting in a meeting with the Lieutenant Colonel Orrin Melton and the rest of the officer corps of the battalion, the topic was the units next assignment.
"Our current orders are to reenforce the garrison on the Hive World Macharia, more specifically in the sector of Gestalt ," Lieutenant Colonel Melton stated, "the three-oh-eighth will be responsible for reenforcing the garrison responsible for maintaining order in the Underhive, the two-oh-second will patrol the Generatorium levels, the four-seven-seven will assist with patrols on the Manufactorum levels, and the five-eight-two will be responsible for security in the upper hive. Any questions?"
With utter silence as his answer, he dismissed the gathered officers and once again went over his files, getting an idea for the layout of this particular hive city they were to spend who knew how long in before they would be needed at one of the many fronts across the galaxy.
Ok so this is a bit of short one…because I kept running out ideas to keep it going at a believable, steady pace.
So anyway, this should be either the last or second to last bit of Michael's slow burn adjustment before he gets thrown into the galaxy wide deep end.
Till next time, Ave Imperator!
