Routine.
Simple routines always helped him since he was young. When he was a boy, he lived with his mother in a small, run-down hab-block on the bad side of the city. He wanted nothing more than to stay inside; outside was disease, gangers waging constant war against one another, murderers and thieves, mutants and who knew what else. But, because his father was gone, someone had to bring in the money to survive.
Every day he ventured outside, every trip teaching him better ways to stay hidden, to move quickly, and to never expect anything from anyone. He learned all too quickly that he would never survive if he relied on anyone else. His excursions outside – to earn money, to find food, to collect supplies – gave him purpose, but it was his simple, safe routines inside, away from the chaos of the world, that made him happy.
A few weeks after his tenth birthday, his mother grew ill. He did as much as he could to care for her, but he still had to work, and she became completely bedridden very quickly. Days turned to weeks and she never got better. Weeks turned to months and her condition worsened. A week before his twelfth birthday, her heart gave out. She passed without a sound… and completely alone.
He came home from the factory five hours later, covered in sweat and grime and poison-soaked ash, just like always. He tried to shake her awake, not wanting to believe that his mother would leave him. He shouted and begged and pleaded, but even through the denial, he knew that he couldn't bring her back. And when it set in, he couldn't stop crying.
The day he turned twelve, the Youth Guard Corps "collected" him from the apartment. They didn't know that he'd just become orphaned, and likely wouldn't care regardless; they just knew from the factory where he worked that he hadn't been showing up for his shift "for the last few weeks." The adepts in charge of the factory decided that the delinquent could use some discipline, and contacted the Youth Corps.
When they arrived, he didn't answer. They broke the door down in response. He didn't want to leave his house ever again, and tried to resist at first. It wasn't until he woke up after being beaten unconscious that he realized he didn't have any choice in the matter.
His indoctrination was a life of routine, but instead of setting up a routine for himself, he was given a routine, and any deviation was met with severe punishment. Most days were exactly the same.
Zero-five-hundred: reveille.
Zero-five-fifteen: morning formation.
Zero-five-twenty: morning prayer.
Zero-five-thirty: platoon exercise.
Zero-seven-thirty: morning meal.
Zero-seven-forty: morning details.
Zero-eight-hundred: drill practice.
Twelve-hundred: midday meal.
Twelve-ten: midday formation.
Twelve-thirty: Classroom instruction.
Sixteen-hundred: rifle practice.
Nineteen-hundred: evening meal.
Nineteen-ten: evening formation.
Nineteen-thirty-five: evening details.
Twenty-hundred: directed study.
Twenty-one-hundred: free time.
Twenty-one-twenty: evening prayer.
Twenty-one-thirty: lights out.
At least once, sometimes twice a week, he would be pulled from his bed while he slept to perform night watch guard duty for an hour. At least once a month there would be some kind of drill – fire drill, air raid, battle stations – in the middle of the night. Everything they did was watched, everything they had was inspected. They were practically still children, and they were expected to act like soldiers. Failure to meet expectations was met with severe punishment.
Every Sunday, his platoon would march from the barracks to the church, and be fed the Imperial Creed by a fiery preacher. Most days were spent hearing of the Magnificence and Glory of The Immortal God-Emperor of mankind, how there was only One Emperor and there was no greater Honor than to Serve Him and Venerate Him. The Saints were prime examples of this undeniable fact: men and women touched by The Emperor in some way, carrying out His Will with acts of Valor, and deeds of Heroism. Without the guiding light of The Emperor, humanity would vanish from the stars, and it was by His Will alone that mankind continues to endure. Other days they were told parables about heretics and traitors, and taught to avoid their vile and evil ways lest they too slip into damnation and heresy – for Heresy was punishable by Death.
Every Sunday he sat in church, and listened. He could believe that The Emperor existed and was the divine ruler of the galaxy, but no matter what was said or how often he went to church, he could not believe that the God-Emperor was benevolent or, for that matter, watched over humanity. He had never seen a miracle. He had never seen any of the Emperors agents perform holy work. He had seen too much death, witnessed too much hardship, and experienced too much pain to truly believe in the power of The Emperor. Instead, he chose to believe in the trust and loyalty his brothers in arms had for one another. He had seen and witnessed that first hand. But to speak such things out loud was Heresy, and so he kept his mouth shut, and prayed just the same as everyone else.
When he turned seventeen, he was graduated from the Youth Corps. They transferred him to a unit in the Margeth Planetary Defense Force with the rank of Lance Corporal. The routine was much of the same, except instead of study it was more practice: practice drilling, practice with his lasrifle, tactical practice with the rest of his unit. Everything he did from stripping down and calibrating his lasrifle to breaching maneuvers was its own small routine, and though he kept telling himself that he didn't want to be a soldier, he still found comfort in all his routines. Without even really thinking about it, he became the best in his unit.
It was as a soldier in the PDF that he first tasted true combat; the war games he and his platoon played in the Youth Corps could not compare. That first day when the enemy tried to charge his position – he wasn't important enough to know who they were, or why they were attacking, just that they were The Enemy – he couldn't hear the bullets as they flew by his head or the crack of lasgun fire or the thunder of explosions or even the screaming of friend and foe dying all around him. All he could hear was the sound of his voice inside his head:
Establish firing position.
Align sights on target.
Hold breath.
Fire.
Adjust for recoil; maintain stock weld.
Realign sights on next target.
Hold breath.
Fire.
Shortly after his twentieth birthday, his life would change forever. That was the day that something massive hung in the sky and blotted out the sun. All eyes gazed up at the impossibly massive starship in orbit, visible both day and night. Preachers and Confessors filled the streets, yelling and sermonizing the word of the Imperial Cult even more than normal as it hung in the air like an omen of a coming apocalypse. It wasn't until a small shuttlecraft descended to the capital city – followed swiftly by hundreds of cargo vessels – did they find out why it had come to their world.
Agents from the Imperium of Man had come to the planet Margeth to collect Tithe. Every other decade or so, the ships from the Imperium would come, and demand many things of Margeth's people: foodstuffs, minerals and metals mined, materials and weapons produced, but what they wanted – what they needed – most of all were human beings. Bodies to become cogs in the massive unceasing war machine of the Imperium… bodies which the Governor was all too happy to provide. And while the servants of the Imperium were content simply to collect more meat for the grinder, the most coveted of all were the ones who could fight. Those who excelled in their service in the PDF were snatched up, so they could become "true soldiers" in the Astra Militarum: the Imperial Guard.
Of course he was chosen. He was always the best in drill, the fastest to strip and reassemble his lasrifle, a crack shot at the firing range, he'd earned more awards and citations than anyone else in his platoon. He even showed promising leadership ability: during his last combat action against rebel forces, when all the officers in his company were killed in the crossfire, he managed to rally his fellow soldiers and turn an inevitable defeat into a crushing victory. It would've been more surprising if they'd left him.
Again he was taken from his home against his will, except this time instead of his mother's apartment, he was to be taken from his homeworld; instead of kicking and screaming until beaten unconscious, he simply walked into the transport ship without question, gripe, or hesitation. He had become a soldier, whether he liked it or not, and when he was given an order he followed it.
He didn't actually know it for sure, but he could feel in his gut that he would never walk on the soil of his homeworld again. He was one amongst untold trillions now; it certainly felt that way, with how cramped the massive shuttle was, packed tightly with bodies and cargo pallets. As the hatch closed, he got one last look at his home sky.
The hatch sealed, and they lifted off for orbit.