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So I figured I'd try my hand at writing some dakka fiction. I've tried to do similar things before, but school and other pesky aspects of life interfered. So, the solution, perhaps, is to write a little every day instead of a lot a week.

This does unfortunately mean that the things I post will be small, But frequent. (no assurances will be made for quality however but I will try my best)

The story takes place in M. 42. the rest will be explained in the book , but any answers of questions that aren't answerd in the story will be posted here (probably)


I hope you enjoy

cheers

I'd like to take a chance to apologize for the poor editing job that i've done with my story thus far hopefully I've found all of the major errors and fixed the parts that were unclear.

(notes are here, they are not necessary *hopefully* to understand the story, but add a little bit of background detail that would have been awkward to expand upon anywhere else)


Ferro Steel is a basic component in the smelting of adamantium. When combined with adamantine, it makes for a more flexible, but just as durable alloy. Indeed, few artifices today make use of pure adamantine, as the metal is, alone, strong but somewhat brittle, and extraordinarily hard to work with. Most metal objects that are referred to as being made of adamantium are in fact an alloy of this Ferro Steel and Adamantine

Lombar dropped with a grunt and the sound of boiling meat, his fingers tightening around the trigger and evaporating furrows out of the mud. Tossing his lasgun into a crater the aging trooper behind him, with the strength of a man long since convinced of his own demise, dragged the wounded soldier to it. As the senescent guardsman fumbled with his equipment webbing, Lombar screamed, clutching the las burn and tearing at the cauterized flesh.The elderly trooper grabbed the scratching fingers and, pulling them away harshly, popped two bright red tablets into the wounded's mouth, and forced an opened canteen into his shaking hand. Lombar drank weakly and, in moments, ceased his whimpering and opened his dilated eyes.

"Shek!!" he roared into the soldier's face, almost drowning out the sounds of fire and death milling around them "Those dammed rebels shekking shot me!!"

He glanced at his wound and winced as the man who had saved him tightly wrapped it with Lombar's headwrap, the filthy white bandanna a stark contrast to the near black muck that surrounded them.

Lombar lowered his voice some, and was barely audible over the static tearing of lasgun fire. "thank you father" he made the sign of the aquilla. The priest leaning over him returned the gesture, and handed Lombar his weapon. Lombar checked the charge and grinned "only half empty, and still lots to go" He rose to a crouch "With me Turen! For the Emperor! For Cadia! Death to the Heretics!"

He ran out of the crater, the tourniquet fluttering as he sprinted towards the trenches. Turen followed.


"Oh most holy lord of Terra" he murmured as incandescent rounds arrowed past him, "commend this man's soul unto your radiance" Turen dashed past a new corpse, his features unrecognizable save a white bandanna tied to his shoulder, "cast him into the everlasting light that is your divinity" he dived behind the husk of a burned out tank, rust already evident.

"Praise the Emperor"

There was screaming now as he dashed towards the trenches, a howling cacophony of voices that drowned out the sounds of gunfire and pain and death. Turen lept over spiraled barbed wire where mangled bodies rested and landed in muck that devoured his boots with a foul unrelenting stubbornness. Then came the smell. Cordite, and rust, and mold, and poison gas, Blood and promethium, mud and decay, all assaulted him as one.

"They smell like our trenches" The priest thought to himself, even as it reassured him slightly the notion disgusted him, and he hurriedly unstuck his boots from the mud.

The screaming around him changed pitch and broke his reverie. Turen looked up as a huge man in almost unrecognizable worker's overalls rushed him, the man's face covered by a smelter's mask and an enourmous mining hammer raised high for a blow that was trained against bedrock and ferro steel. Turen fell away from the onrushing giant, lasgun trained on the smelter's mask in an instant, and pulled the trigger, sending a brilliant bolt of light into the faceplate of the man who would kill him. The hammer fell from calloused hands that now tried to prize the improvised helmet's melting remains from its owner's face. Even screaming was beyond the miner, instead a sick gurgling sound emanated from under the mask and Turen clawed his way back to his feet, bashed the stock of his weapon against the man's head, and silenced him with a final shot to the ear.

A flash of insignia caught his eye and Turen ran, head low, towards his fellow Cadians who were taking shelter amongst the blasted remains of now taken outer trenchworks. A small man yelled into the receiver of his bulky voxcaster, dictating the curt orders relayed to him by a figure clothed in a huge black greatcoat. The commissar's blue, unblinking, bionic eyes warped Turen's reflection as the priest saluted, a huge man in an unfathomable sea. He turned away for a moment and nodded to a Cadian who unlimbered his flamer and sent a typhoon of fire roaring down the second set of trenches.

"Father Turen, your sermon this morning was magnificent and humbling. Emperor be praised for sending you to us" The screams of burning men behind him elicited no response.

Turen vainly battled the sound "t-thank you Kayle C-commissar Sir"

Kayle nodded again, and activated his gore-covered powerfist. Turen stared as the blood slowly boiled away and sarted backwards when the owner stepped forward into the ring of those others who had survived the guns of the forward trenches.

"Cadians! Brave and bold sons of the emperor! Know that he is ever watchful! And he will be most vigilant on this day, in this hour, in this very moment!" He paused and pointed through rock, and mud, and flakboard, towards the heart of the rebel lines "And this day, we shall show our maker who his finest are! The 308th will wipe those who spurn him from this planet like the filth they are, and free those who have been prosecuted for honoring his divinity! These rebels would seek to undermine everything we hold dear for their own selfish gain!" he drew his bolt-pistol "Will you fail in your duty? Will you shirk your honour? No! For Terra! For the Imperium! For the Emperor!"

He turned and ran down the steaming trenchline, followed by the charging ranks of the 308th crying out their devotion, Turen Amongst them.

Thin wasps of light buried themselves amongst the charging 308th, slaying some, wounding others. Outdated projectiles blew chunks out of the bodies of those they hit with a wet impact and a mist of red. Still onwards they rushed, pausing their advance only when rebels presented themselves. Then it was melee, point blank, lethal shots and the jagged thrusts of sharpened bayonets against the crude hammers and clubs of the resistance. Turen fought with every ounce of his strength, his limbs long numbed by concussion and overuse, stab, block, dodge, back, shoot, move, flank, bash, duck, kick, thrust, and running. He saw Kayle, demonic in his fervor, always at the head of a host that had grown to company size, all around him bowing to his boundless righteous zeal.

The wave of Cadians swept through the trenches, fire-teams clearing out weapons pits and bunkers with grenade and flamer. It was a rout, the long months of trench warfare having crippled the rebels, and they were swept back to their artillery emplacements within an hour of first assault.

A figure in the faded fatigues of the PDF rushed Turen. A report, a concussive explosion, and the man's head disappeared in a hail of skull fragments and brain matter. Kayle lowered his bolt pistol and the priest watched as the commissar bisected another traitor with a single punch from his crackling gauntlet. Turen ran up to cover him, and fell as a woman leapt from the trench lip onto his enfeebled shoulders. They collapsed, and his enraged attacker stabbed again and again with a bayonet point, trying to pierce through the flak armor and helmet. A grunt, a scream, and the woman's dead weight pushed him further into the voracious mud. With a heave, his savior pushed the carcass off the old man.

"Up you come father" said the small man with the voxcaster, giving Turen a hand up. Turen Isaldor embraced the operator. "Thank you Gaelon my son" he breathed, exhausted. Gaelon nodded, a proud smile broad across his mousy features, his eyes going wide as Turen tackled him to the ground, las and projectile rounds whipping overhead. "FLANK!" he screamed. "They're attacking from the Flank!".

And so they did.

Scores of men and women, equipped with a ragtag assortment of weapons, charged the flank of the 308th advance. Three women, running under the covering fire of their compatriots, flew into the midst of the reeling guardsmen. They exploded. The concussive blast from the bombs flung Turen four meters and slammed him into a flakboard trenchwall, knocking the breath from his lungs. Gaelon fell next to him, screeching and clutching at the bloodied mess of his right arm, three of his fingers ending in bloody stumps, begging the maelstrom around him for a medic.

A trooper came, dodging the bullets and laser fire that knifed across the rapidly shrinking ground between the Cadians and the rebels, the white field of the medicae stamped on his helmet miraculously clean despite the filthy conditions. "Sheck!" he roared as he saw the seriousness of the wound "Turen! Cover me!", he kneeled, his back to the ferocious brawl that was erupting mere meters from his ward.

Isaldor turned back to the whirling melee that was devouring his comrades. Three huge craters were all that remained of the women who had charged them, their flesh immolated in the epicenter of their suicidal explosions. Those caught in the blast had not been so lucky. Limbs and incomplete torsos were scattered around the fortified gunnery positions, the sandbags tinged the color of rose, and tainted with angry red splotches.

Riddled with bullets, or downed by bone shattering blows, the reeling Guard fell, ambliviant to the bellows of Commissar Kayle, urging them to rally, to fight, to win. Men that he had known for nigh on a decade fell, their features contorted in rage, agony, and denial. Somewhere, the unholy tongue of a flamer wrapped itself around yet more Guardsmen, and their screams echoed those that Kayle had so easily ignored earlier.

Jaw clenched, and tears cleaning stark lines down his mud-encrusted face, Turen raised his lasgun and flicked to Auto.

Bars of fire screamed from his weapon, and he raked the spitting rifle across those that had moments ago butchered his fellows, not bothering to aim, for there was no point. Death sowed itself amongst the unarmored men and women he fired upon, the stink of burning flesh branding the priest's nostrils. He bellowed into the gathering night, helpless in his own frenzy.

Somewhere, a cannon boomed, and Turen felt himself spin as he was punched from his feet. A lean man, old, in hunting fatigues ran up, a massive, crude, two barreled shotgun gripped in white knuckled hands, and he shoved the barrel in Turen Isaldor's face. The man's grip tightened, but he shielded his face with a pauldroned shoulder as a nearby grenade showered them with metal fragments, scoring a deep gouge in his foe's face. He turned back with a start, and stared down at his stomach where the long bayonet knife from Turen's gun had buried itself. Rage filled his eyes and he raised his weapon even as he was blasted back by a stream of fire from the lasgun clutched by the man he had nearly slain.

As he stood, trembling and shaking, the chaplain of the 308th heard a deep throated roar, and watched as a wave of men, the crest of the Imperial Guard emblazoned on their helmets, charged. Their bloodied friends raised a ragged cheer, and fought with renewed vigour, and butchered the remaining deviants. Turen saw the General himself, his slim powersword bathing the battlefield in gold as it swept through those who stood before him.

As the last fell, the 308th cheered. Katyr, a tall, scrawny trooper barely out of boyhood, shimmied up one of the howitzers and wrapped his uniform around its barrel, the dark green pennant fluttering high above the blood and gore and slime.

Turen did not cheer, he did not smile as people came up to him, blank faces congratulating him for.. something.. he nodded to them, slumped against a flakboard wall and said nothing.

The celebrations went on long into the night. Drunk soldiers danced around huge fires of burning flak-board, stripped from the now empty trenches, and toasted eachother again and again for their courage, feats of strength, and loyalty to the God-Emperor. The clap of flak shells, fired from the regiment's hydras, rent the air and soldiers cheered at the display of impromptu martial fireworks. Turen walked towards one of the conflagrations, partly for the companionship, and partly because it was damned cold. A groundswell of approving shouts, clapping, and more cheering rose as he walked into the firelight. "Did you shecking see him!?" a trooper shouted, leaping up and pressing one of his three bottles of amnasec into the priest's hands, "There we were, our arses bare and facin the heretics, and he steps up, an like a shecking deamon, if you'll excuse me saying father, blows half of 'em straight to the warp with his las on auto!" Laughs and clapping "Oh shut it Machaire!" one of the troopers yelled "stop hassling the poor bastard and give him more booze!" another approving roar, and Machaire raised his bottle fisted hand.

"A toast! To Father Turen Isaldor!" he assumed as somber a face as he could manage " may he be with us always, to save our immortal from temptation, and our arses from the flank!" Machaire lowered the bottle to his lips, paused, began the arduous task of draining his bottle.

Turen drank with them, the firey spirits forcing the cold from his body, and watched those who surrounded him. He knew them all: small, mousey Dornil, the genial and unassuming Barreth, Boisterous Machaire and his lifelong friend and co-conspirator, Logan. To Turen, they were his flock and congregation. Though it was a thinning flock, he mused silently, and wondered when he would recieve new sheep...

He pushed the dark thought aside, angry at himself. "The Emperor's will be done" he muttered, and stood, excusing himself from the circle of firelight and moving back into the cold, as monstrous flickering shadows danced at his feet. He spent time roaming the camp, exchanging words with his fellow soldiers, who complained about the cold, the damp, and the darkness of the nights here. Cadia was never trully dark, the sky glowing suffusely with the undulating glow emanating from the Eye of Terror. But even something so sinister became reassuring once familiar, but the stars here were truly magnificant.