I woke up with the strange smell of dead bodies and dry blood. At first, I had this strange sensation that if I opened my eyes, I would be a dead man, but then I heard Julius voice in the distance, and more human voices.

I slowly opened my eyes, my vision was blurred and I felt a constant sting. I slowly turned my head around, looking at the place; my head was also hurting like hell. The place was a makeshift base of operations inside a semi-crumbled building; a listening post had been set up to the left of the door alongside a barracks. I was in the other side, in what I supposed was the infirmary.

"Look who woke up." Said a friendly voice right next to me, a medic "How is your arm doing?"

I tried to speak once, but my throat was so dry that I couldn't bring myself to speak. I restrained myself to coughing and giving a thumb up, but, in fact, my arm was still hurting like hell, but it wasn't a quarter of the gruesome pain that I felt before; it was like more a strange sting of a bee that burned like fire, but I wasn't bleeding. I was okay.

At least I wasn't dead.

The medic laughed a bit, as he extended me a cup with water in.

My eyes sparkled with passion, I quickly grabbed the cup and drunk the water with ferocity. I never in my life imagined water was so good, as that liquid dripped in my tongue and made its way to ma throat I felt an uncreditable pleasure, like if all my problems had been solved at once. When I finally finished the cup, it felt like all my body had been cured by mystic water. The pain had decreased, my throat wasn't soaring anymore and my eyes weren't blurred anymore. I tried to speak, but this time around things were different, "Thanks".

"No problem, it's my job to keep the fellow Guardsmen healthy" he said, moving forward to another Guardsman, right in front of me. That guy had lost a good chunk of his right leg.

I took a more comfortable position in the bed. I remembered my life before joining with the guard; I was the worst kind of scum that you could think of, a savage gang-fighter. Killing and robbing was in my daily routine, it was a decent life, and it helped me get through some hard time. Me and my gang put terrors in the street, and we were quickly gaining respect with the other gangs, but my friends crossed a line I wouldn't cross – a crime so dirty and sick I couldn't bring myself to join them or watch them as they did it, I picked up my gun and killed all of them, and when I was finished I ripped their heads apart and put them into stakes.

Those sick fucks.

I joined the Guardsmen to run from my past and to try to forget my many deeds, but mainly to try to forget what my friends ended up to become. I'm glad I put them down; I fear what kind of monster they would become If I let they keep up with their rampage of crimes, that each day became more dirty and brutal.

I was then shipped off to this planet; I received training alongside my mates. The man in charge of the training was Julius, and we quickly created a friendly relation, I don't like to use the word friendship because I don't know how would be the reaction of the others to this. At this point, I don't believe there is friendship inside the army. Just a mutual felling of "We are a bunch of normal guys fucking with the biggest powers of the universe, might as well be friendly".

We touched down on the planet as a garrison; to protect it and make sure no xeno scum would fuck with it. I was happy the two first days, we made some patrols, set some defenses and proceed to drink some ale before heading to bed. Well, the third day all this went to hell.

Those strange drop pods of the Orks came in the hundreds, we rushed to our positions. Faith in our hearts and weapons on our hands we waited for the Ork attack, and it came. It came like a hurricane; in the first few hours of combat our numbers had been halved. I only survived because I was lucky enough to be assigned to a bunker in the far reaches of our defenses, when the news of our losses in only the first wave came, we were forced to fall back into the city plaza, creating trenches, repositioning the tanks and sending a distress signal for help.

And then that all happened. I killed some Orks, took some bullets.

My vision… Before I went black. Maybe our help has arrived, the people we've been calling since the invasion got worst. I don't know, but maybe the fact I'm alive proves that they are here. I never liked those guys before, I always saw them as arrogant fucks that think they can put their dick where they please, but now I understood: they are necessary.

Well, the answer came walking through the door. The clinging metal of the power armor, I rose my head a bit to see some of the walking through the door; five of the blue ones. Ultramarines were the name of those I think.

They joined the group of guardsmen in the listening post; they were talking to Lucius like he was in charge there. Well, maybe he was in charge there; it could have happened that all superiors had died, and as Lucius would be the highest ranking officer there, he would thus be put in charge. That would be bad for Lucius; I think he never had experience in command.

They talked for some minutes before it happened. At first I didn't understood, people crowded the windows, looking to the sky, a strange expression of hopelessness filled the faces of the Guardsmen, and even the Ultramarines assumed a strange expression, fear? No, more like apprehension. Lucius shouted some orders for some nearby mans, they ran for the door – guns in hand.

I looked to the ceiling, and trough strangely shaped whole, probably caused by a blast, the truth was revealed to me. Hundreds and hundreds of those Ork drop pods, falling from the sky.

Millions and millions more.

God help us all.