In some no-name system, on some no-name world, there is a small hill.

This hill is only two hundred and one point 3 meters high; to differentiate it from the thousands of other hills on that same no-name world, it is called Hill 201.3N.

Hill 201.3N has a few trees on it, and is covered in grass. From time to time, though, the grass will die, because an intense hailstorm will kill grass.

Vast quantities of enemy fire will do the same.

I was on Hill 201.3N during the Merovingian operation; the sector had been penetrated by Chaos, so the Imperial Guard was ordered in to drive out the heathen scum.

My company, A company, 2nd Battalion, 35th Lutsian Rifles Regiment, was deployed to defend Hill 201.3N. It was usually a nice place to be; our hill tended to get a lot of sun, but there was always a nice breeze blowing up from the valley to our rear, so it was always pleasant to hang out there.

Of course, very little is pleasant when you?re being shot at.

I remember zig-zagging down the hill, trying to get to the fighting position the company captain was in. Don?t ask me what infantry captain?s manual Cpt. Daleton read, but it seems to say that the company commander should be front and center, guidon by his side. His fighting position was second lowest on the hill; only the position where one of the companies? fire-support squads, was lower on the hill. The three autocannons of that squad were furiously blazing away as I threw myself into the Captain?s position, narrowly missing having my upper torso being turned into a cloud of red mist from an autocannon round fired from some massive spider-looking thing the foul cultists brought with them. Panting, my back flat against the position?s front wall, I tried to speak to the Captain.

?Sir, Lt. Tolton reports that there is at least a pair of battalions coming at us! We have to withdraw!?

Lt. Tolton was the lieutenant for the company?s heavy weapons platoon. He was situated on the hill?s crest, scanning around with the monocular that?s been in his family for seven generations.

The Captain waved me off, pointing to the general direction the Enemy was swarming from. He was talking on the company?s vox-set, evidentally arguing with someone.

?Listen, we have a pair of battalions coming after us. You have to give me something, and I?m not asking for that much.?

The Captain?s calm voice stood in stark contrast with the chaos all around us. The snap-hiss of lasguns, and the lines of red lasgun shots streamed over my head. The chunk-chunk-chunk of heavy bolters, the whap whap of autocannons, the occasional screech of a lascannon, and the various other sounds of blessed Guard weapons vied for aural supremacy over the foul reports of the guns of the Enemy. At roughly this point in time, a solid slug hit Dominick in the arm, dropping him to the ground screaming. The Captain pointed at me, and gestured to Dom.

?Ok, if I ask really nicely, can I get one burst with eight tubes??..Sounds fine to me. Tango-Romeo-Papa one-niner-seven-seven-November. Emperor protects. DIAMOND-ACTUAL Out?

The Captain put down the vox handset, and looked at me when I finished putting a pressure bandage on Dom. He seemed to be pensive.

?Sergeant, did you have something to say to me?? he asked.

?Sir, Boots thinks it?s a really bad time to be on this hill.? I said, cringing as a missile flew over my head.

The Captain calmly replied, ?Noted. Keep in mind, Sergeant, Lt. Tolton always forgets to include one simple fact in his endless battle calculations. Care to guess what that is??

Frantically thinking, I replied with the first thing that came up: ?Uhh, that the Enemy is incapeable of victory as long as one member of His Holy Emperor?s Imperial Guard is left to contest it??

With a chuckle, the Captain replied, ?Good try, but no. Tolton always forgets that the Emperor protects. Now please, count backwards from twenty-five.?

?Sir?? I replied, confused.

?Begin counting backwards from twenty-two.? He replied coolly, beginning to dust off his uniform. I began to count backwards.

The Captain dusted himself off, buttoned his top buttons, and set his cap at the prescribed angle.

As I spoke ?Eight?, the Captain drew his gilded, ornate power sword, and turned it on, accompanied by a short crackle and the scent of Ozone.

At ?Five?, he spoke in his lapel-vox ?Commissar, get ready.?

At ?Two?, the Captain bellowed in the commanding parade-ground voice of an infantryman, ?COVER?. Responding to the commands drilled into us, the company threw ourselves to the ground.

At ?Zero?, the shells hit.

For any of you who have never been near an area hit by Earthshaker fire, I wouldn?t advise it. Well, I might, but only so one can gain an appreciation for the weapons the Immortal Emperor supplies His servants with. They don?t call those guns ?Earthshakers? for nothing; the ground really does shake, and even lying flat on it, you will bounce up about two finger-widths. The shock-wave is intense; a cultist was blown into our trench, picked up and thrown probably forty meters. I shot him in the face. I know that an Earthshaker hit anywhere nearby will liquefy your internal organs, but I figured ?might as well be safe?. The last thing is you have to keep your mouth open, or your eardrums will burst.

Eight rounds hit, the closest roughly fifty meters away, the farthest, one hundred fifty meters away. They impacted almost simultaneously in a cacophony of noise unequaled by anything else.

Immediately after the shells hit, the Captain stood up, bellowing, ?IN THE NAME OF THE EMPEROR, FOREWARD!? as he charged down the hill front, leading his company in a charge.

Following right behind him, I clambered out of the fighting position, and saw the absolute devastation the brief barrage had caused. The spider-tank was not only flipped upside down, one side of it was completely shredded. A pair of boots was standing there, without a sign of their wearer. Passing where the first line of Enemy troops had been, I noticed one was literally crushed, whereas another was leaking liquids of an indiscernible nature. Airburst.

The clean-up operation was easy; a large group of Enemy troops were killed in the brief strike, and of those that remained, they were either disoriented, or totally without a clue of what to do, their officers, supporting squads, and comrades disappearing in a brief explosion of blood, earth, metal, and fire. The stragglers were killed easily.

It wasn?t a major battle or anything, but Command made it out to be. We advanced about a kilometer, took another hill, sat on it, and wiped out a convoy or two. Within a few weeks, the Enemy was in retreat, and we chased them.