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I've been working on this story for a while but I didn't know where to post it until I remember these forums. Enjoy:

Antonius Marius, a sergeant in the 10th Valerian Shock Troops, raised his lasgun.

“Ten minutes until expected the expected traitor forces arrive! Take cover!” His major bellowed. The guardsmen immediately hid behind trees, bushes, branches, or whatever they could find. The forces of chaos would be arriving shortly, and the coming fight wouldn’t be easy. Half a million of the archenemy warriors were pouring across the positions they had secured just weeks before.

The forest they were in was the perfect place to stage a decisive battle for the traitors; there was virtually no Imperial artillery in the forest, the relatively few troops stationed there were fresh, and the forest was thick with trees, especially in the snowy winter this planet was having. Antonius clutched his lasgun even tighter, and thought of his family back in their hab.

Antonius crouched nervously. His lasgun was still in his hands, held as firmly as he ever held it. Less than a mile away, the traitors were slowly but surely passing through the forest. The footsteps of hundreds of advancing soldiers was loud, although somewhat muffled by the snow that lay on the ground. It was Glory to the Emperor day, but the forces of chaos weren’t going to halt to celebrate.
A twig cracked apart in the distance, snapping Antonius and his fellow soldiers to attention. He was hidden behind a tree that had thick, leafless underbrush beneath its branches.
He heard an officer in the ranks of advancing troops shout in a guttural tongue. Antonius and his fellow Imperial soldiers, after years of waging war, the men all began to fear that voice. It was the voice of death to them but it had also become associated with the order, “fire”.

The Imperial troops, mostly from his own regiment, returned fire. The traitors were less than a hundred feet away and were rapidly rushing to meet the barely-existent lines of the 10th Valerian. After he made a quick sign of the Aquila, Antonius stepped out from behind the tree into the line fire, took aim at the first traitors he saw, and pulled the trigger.
Antonius was used to fighting, used to disorder, but this was worse than anything he’d ever done. He had no assurance of reinforcements this time. There was no back-up to assist them. There was only the 10th Valerian and the traitor forces. He constantly went from hiding, to reloading, to firing, to hiding, to reloading, to firing, on and on. It was so cold that, topped with his fear and anxiety, he could hardly aim. His accuracy was horrible, especially with the bright white snow all around.
Antonius turned to shoot once more, but this time a chaos solider fired first. He felt a searing pain in his right hand as projectile tore through his flesh and bone. Red blood began pouring its way onto the white snow like rapids splashing upon rocks. He fell to the ground. Maybe they would suspect he was dead and move onto other targets? He began praying, trying to fight the pain that began overcoming him.

Antonius squeezed his hand as tight as he could in order to not drop any blood as he crawled through the snow to a safer location. The firing died down to only the occasional, once-a-minute exchange of las-bolts and solid shots. That wasn’t good. He heard much movement coming from the traitors, but all was still on the Imperial side. He could only count a few bodies, but he knew there were more he couldn't see. He couldn't tell they were dead from any of his senses, but he could feel in his heart that many of the men he had lived and fought with for the last eight months were no longer alive. After a few seconds that seemed to last hours, he safely hid under the branches of a pine tree.

He heard a yell in the horrible voice and three enemy soldiers ran towards the blood-red coloured snow. Antonius’s heart dropped. As the trio followed the trail, they saw that the blood lead directly under a tree. A loud click sounded as they all readied their weapons in unison and aimed under the low branches. Antonius’s last thought was asking Emperor to take care of his family.

First off, welcome to Dakka!

Next... on to the story...

I liked the rather hopeless aspect of it, it was reminiscent of WWI trench warfare where you'd spend thousands of lives to get across No Man's Land simply to have to move back to your own trench lines. Purposeless gains, and all that.

As it moved along, you did a good job depicting the strain that Antonius was felt, though I think you may have emphasized a little too much how tightly he was holding his lasgun.

I don't know why, but my favorite part was probably the portion where he kept shooting, hiding, reloading, etc. It rang rather true, as oftentimes in a combat environment you get focused on the familiar processes that you know and can control.

And now for the nitpicky git in me to come out for some constructive criticism:

“Ten minutes until expected the expected traitor forces arrive! Take cover!"

Check out the underlined portion and you'll catch the error

The pacing seems off. For references, it starts out at 10 minutes, then they're less than a mile (it may be worthwhile to note that IG use the metric system, I catch this in my own writing quite often), and abruptly they're 100 ft away. Less than a mile sounds like, to me, almost a mile, which is 10 minutes at a standard jog, and it seemed like a very quick transition from ~5000 ft to 100 ft (as I said, nitpicky crap haha). I'd say "they're only a few hundred meters away" or something along those lines to give more of a sense of urgency to that portion rather than the comfort of almost a mile in a wooded area.

The forest they were in was the perfect place to stage a decisive battle for the traitors

This portion was worded a bit oddly, it's grammatically correct but for some reason it seemed to me to confuse the issue as to who had the tactical advantage until the next sentence. Could just be that I'm sick, congested, and can't really think too well, but it's something to consider.

Last thing, I like the futility of the ending, though something to make his plea to the Emperor more dramatic would be to have him actually state it, or whisper it while coughing up blood, or something like that.

All in all, a good little story. Again, welcome to Dakka!

Thank you for the feedback it was much appreciated.

That was a really neat little short mate!

Boc's feedback is valid. I would have also liked to hear a little more on his squad mates around him, perhaps witness a little more first hand how it felt to lose one of his comrades (eg. to see one of them kicking weakly in the ground and mewling for his mother while his guts spilled onto the virgin snow - or something of the like...).