Urban Jungle

Night fell over the city, and with it came the Sniper's greatest fear. His own night vision goggles had been destroyed the day before, shorted out by the electrical storm the Eldar psyker had thrown in his general direction. Without them, he was at a clear disadvantage. The cold didn't help much either.

The Sniper kept his long-las close to his chest and tried to control his breathing. Over the course of two days, the city had been almost completely destroyed. The only buildings still intact was the PDF complex, and that had fallen to the first Xenos attack and turned into their forward base. As much as he hated to admit it, he was fairly sure that the Xenos were winning the fight for the city. From what he'd heard over the abandoned and crippled vox-set he'd found lying in this building, the reports from the rest of the planet were rather grim. Tanks that could destroy Baneblades, psykers that overwhelmed entire squads of Imperial Sanctioned Psykers, fliers faster than their tools could read and a demon made of fire. Requests for reinforcements were coming in from every channel, but none were coming.
The Sniper groaned and caught himself almost falling asleep. If he did, one of the Xenos scum would find his sleeping body and slit his throat.

He downed a swig of day-old caffiene from his thermos and, grimacing at the foul taste, busied himself with cleaning his long-las. Two hot-shot packs remained, meaning only around fourty more shots – and that was assuming they were fully charged. He vaguely remembered switching one pack out for another just to be on the safe side, back when the Imperium had a clear upper hand in this fight.

Then the Xenos deployed their air force...and a titan. The Sniper looked through a nearby window and scowled at the rapidly moving behemoth. Nothing that big should move that fast – foul Xenos technosorcery, to be sure. Catching something in the streets below, he quickly re-assembled his long-las and snapped one of his remaining power packs into it, slipping the other into his belt.

It was the Xeno psyker from before, and he had been looking right at him.

**
The Warlock frowned. His telepathy net that Farseer Qulloth had taught him how to create before departing alerted him to the thoughts of all living beings in a decent radius, and there had certainly been something in that building. Its thoughts were too wild to be a Ranger, yet too structured for a civilian. In fact, there was something about its focus on survival that reminded him of...

Yes, this was the same Mon'keigh that had destroyed the two War Walkers the day before. He waved his Guardian squad forwards and raised his Witchblade to his mouth, whispering a prayer.

"Khaela Mensha Kaine..."

**
The Sniper burst onto what was left of the building's roof and ran towards the edge. He just managed to make a jump to the adjacent building, its roof crumbling beneath him and dropping him down a floor. Coughing and wincing, the Sniper pulled himself back up.

"So much for subtlety..."

If the Xenos hadn't noticed him, he would have heard that for sure. Time to get out of here. He burst out of the residential complex's balcony onto the emergency staircase leading down to the street, and ran as fast as he could. A loud shout alerted him to a presence, and he turned around and dropped to his knees, raising his long-las to a firing position. A burst of small metal stars, launched from the Xeno's strange rifle, slashed through the air where his head was a few seconds ago. His return shot smashed through the Xeno's chest and sent him flying backwards several paces. He was already running again before the Eldar's body had even hit the ground. Another volley of shuriken scraped his arm, causing a brief gasp of pain as the Sniper turned a corner, hoping beyond hope for something to go his way for once.

He saw an abandoned Chimera, scorched corpses of fellow Guardsmen everywhere, and he grinned. Perfect.

**
The Warlock and his men turned the corner, and were greeted by the sight of many dead Mon'keigh and a crippled vehicle. He frowned – these corpses were old, and his telepathy net told him that the Mon'keigh was still here. But then where-

The Sniper grinned from underneath the most intact corpse he could find, and took aim at the pile of grenades he'd left on the city corner. His long-las bucked pleasently, and the resulting fireball enveloped the Xenos squad. He scrambled up and ran away, knowing that if any lived he wouldn't stand a chance in straight combat.

**
The Warlock had barely manged to get his kinetic barriers up in time to save himself from the explosion, and he was still knocked off his feet by the shockwave. His squad wasn't so luck, with most incinerated by the fireball, some with their ribs crushed by the air pressure and the last with a piece of shrapnel through his eyepiece. He staggered to his feet and swore vengeance upon the Mon'keigh sniper, and began to collect his fallen comrade's spirit stones to return them to the infinity circuit.