Looking back on my life it was not the first time my younger self relished the thought of battle over the thought of retirement and lasting long enough to see that day. While my career was dotted with mishmash regiments, or proud soldiers of the emperor, none were quite the same as the rag tag band of Guardsmen Known as the 10th Cadian Siege dogs. A regiment known for holding the line and wars of attrition. They were a strange bunch of men. But they did their duty.
My first encounter with the Regiment was the liberation of the skrynee gazteer . The planet had always had a problem with orks, savage green skinned muscle bound Xeno’s , with little to no intelligence , and seem to enjoy shooting there primitive weapons off into the sky more than they do shooting them at their foe. Even if they do shoot at you the chances of hitting are very slim , unlike the Tau marksmen on Nephus Prime. I remember Salome Ironfang, a proud guards woman of the Elysian drop troopers get cut down by three pulse rifle rounds, from over a mile away with in seconds.
I had been with the Regiment only a few days, after being reassigned from a Catachin jungle fighter regiment. I was stationed with five other Commissars, in that thousand strong regiment. The reason for so many? well long story short the Regiment was mixing of two under strength groups and had been shoved together to form a full strength fighting force, but all those little traditions and quirks each regiment have seemed to clash. Though once things had settled down I was quickly moved to a different part of the ship We were riding to meet the 10th. To be honest I had no Idea what to expect, they were Cadians I knew that, But a newly formed regiment, full of green soldiers was almost a Commissars worst nightmare.
The Story with 10th really started in the Skys over Skrynee . Descending in the shuttle I was doing the standard thing of encouraging the men on board our transport shuttle. While there were sitting snug in their seats I and my fellow Commissars patrolled the rows giving our voice of encouragement and praise. Keeping up moral is one of the main jobs and the most challenging a commissar faces. Everyone assumes with your black suit off office, and your bolt gun as a badge that you are there to execute anyone who flees , but the truth is, that most of the time, when you need to execute a man it’s often the officers that taste the barrel of a bolter, rather than the guardsmen himself.
A guardsmen known two things and two things very well. How to kill in the name of our holy emperor and how to die. Most will die at the hands of the enemy ,a lot will die to the incompetent leader ship of others , and a very few will live long enough to die of old age. They say a guardsmen’s average life span is fifteen standard minutes . I mean think of all the things you could do in that time span. Eat a nice meal, read a chapter of a book, build something , create life, ****. Despite all the horrors of the wrap, and the countless ways a guardsmen could die, Solomon "Sarge" Praetus was one man that did not seem willing to go to the emperors light, like a good guardsmen. I remember Seeing him for the first time on that shuttles. Dancing around the shuttle with all the grace of an Ox-fang , as it bucked and roared into the atmosphere.
The shuttle was big enough to house thirty men, not quite the size of a platoon, but three out of the five squads that generally make up a platoon. For my readers who do not know a company of men in the imperial guard is generally made up of two hundred and fifty souls, each company houses five platoons each platoon command by a officer, generally a lieutenant, while a company is commanded by a Captain. Each platoon has around fifty men, divided into five squads of ten souls. Though the make up and sizes of company's generally change . Most of the regiments I have been attached to range from a thousand men to three thousand, which is generally standard, though I have heard of line infantry regiments and siege regiments mounting up to Ten thousand souls.
The shuttle it's self seemed to be a civilian model designed to transport colonists to and from the surface of worlds. Though it had been quickly revamped for the guards use, with webbing hanging from every which corner to hold supply's and ammunition. The seats were bare metal with a multi strap harness, to hold you into it. I have to say, I have sat on more comfortable stone pavements then the chair, though the flight would be relatively short.
After making my rounds and reassuring the men that a loaded lasrifle and a prayer to the emperor is the best they can do for them self’s , I decided to take my seat, Solomon seemed to agree. Do not take my sitting as laziness, the shuttle from what I could guess was sustaining heavy incoming fire. Strapping myself in and informing my charges to do the same , I braced myself for impact. Causing at the pilot for being unskilled, for getting hit by ork anti-aircraft fire, if I had known the scale of the infestation I might have changed my mind.
Ever way we did indeed crash , sending whoever was standing ,and any lose equipment flying over place. Quickly unstrapping myself, I made for the exit, turning to rally the men , drawing both bolt pistol and chain sword, I opened the door, and flung the first man I could get my hands on out. Solomon’s squad seemed to follow suit, and did not need any encouragement. Though guardsmen Mikas Sevrent quickly zipped out before I could even make eye contact, ever he was fearful of my hand, or wanted to get into the fight, it was unknown. After a good few meet shields were in front of me I stepped out, almost knocking myself out on the low door frame of the exit. Shuttles were not built for Nephusians . I was meet with the smell of a jungle and the heat. Of course I had been brief, but I had never visited a death world before, and none with a jungle like this. I suppose the Catachian Regiment I was once stationed with would have loved it. The place was too humid for my liking.
Before I could fully take in the sights it was made clear to me that shuttle would soon explode, most likely the resulting fireball would have taken out a good portion of the natives defenses. Sparks were flying ever which way, and the smell of fuel was slowly growing stronger even over the native plant life. My fellow Commisars and a few guardsmen had not made the landing their twisted body's lay across the floor of the shuttle, whole the guardsmen strung up in there harnesses and the webbing.
I ordered a member of Solomons squad a guardsmen Halfron. He would become a thorn in my side, and one of the few men I would want to execute, but would never find a good enough reason to. Well not for the mean time anyway. Though I suppose I could have just shot him, without a reason, but that would tempt corruption in my heart, and turn me ageist the emperor and his teachings. But For the time being he was not my problem, I led the men not in Sololmons squad into the nearby building, while his own men laid down suppressing fire. I sent five man fire team as runners due to the lack of a long range vox caster to communicate, if it was damaged or left in the shuttle i did not know, but for what ever reason we needed to make contact with the local forces.
After breaching the structure the men took up firing positions by the windows. The men took up position at the windows, one on each side. I had never seen a ork before, I had read reports about them and seen Picts but never one up close, and here they were, muscle bond green angry Xeno's charging at us, shouting "waaaaagh!" which I do not have enough flem or lung capacity to quite replicate it. They sustained hit after hit, after hit, and only a few went down, the smaller ones seemed to be better shots then their bigger masters but went down easier.
During the course of the battle, a Pysker somehow managed to summon the warp it’s self around us, I had not noticed It was on the shuttle, and what it was doing but ,I could not tell if it was real, or an illusion, if it was meant to happen, or if it was the pskyer losing control. I realized his comrade in arms was attempting to feel. After shouting at him to stand, and seeing the others question the horrors they were seeing too I had but one option.
Leveling my bolt pistol at the traitors back, my trigger finger tightened, suddenly the man burst into flames , seeing no point in executing the heretic, knowing full well the psyker had punished the man I turned back to combat, still visibly shaken by the twisted reality spawning up around us.
More so not knowing what was real and what was not. A life in the guard, does tend to make one Paranoid To all things , it generally makes it hard to shoot at a given foe, when you see thousands illusions of them around you. Still I held my ground managing to suppress my emotions and the longing to shoot at the phantoms that moved around me .
After anther brief exchange of fire with the orks as they came into range of my gun , I found my bolt pistol had jammed. As I preformed the holy unjamming rights , a large explosion shook the building, the cries of the guardsmen in the windows quickly faltered as the dust started to settle. Leaning around the corner, I could see they were all dead , at least they died with honour and as good guardsmen. Im happy to say that I was at least intact.
It was at this point I saw the pskyer chanting again before I could have stopped him, but something went very wrong, it felt like my soul had left my own body, and had transferred over to anthers, I did not feel as strong or as tall , I could see myself standing across from this new plain, and I had feared that I had been pulled into the warp itself, it was not till I realized that this new body was the psykers that rage brewed with in me.
Soon though I found myself back with in my own body, just to see the Idiot Halfon turn the shuttles heavy stubber’s on his Sergeant , who at this time was in hand to hand combat with the orks. The stubbed braked as it sent it’s deadly projectiles towards the group, killing the Orks but wounding the sergeant,. The sounds of battle soon subsided. A short time after as the orks fled, I drove my chain sword into the neck as one pulled back from the fighting lodging a bolt into his spinal cord. Looking around the battle field it was clear we had lost every one but Solomons squad, the runners I had sent had been cut down by an ork warmachine of some kind, which I could see burning in the distance.
A Ratling sniper was scurrying around looting the dead, I would have stopped him, but from reports he had taken out the driver of that war machine with a single shot.
I quickly ventured over to the Shuttle to deal with my fellow Commissars remains, knowing full well that their equipment would be tampered with. I laid their bodies in a respectful manner, muttered a prayer to the emperor, and headed off with the extra ammo, bolt pistols and chain swords, determined that no common soldier would have these, and I could always do with spares
A squad of men who's uniforms i did not recognize ventured over They introduced them self's as the Brontian longknives. It was at this time I had managed to retive a com bed and set about organizing what was left of the shuttle, the longknives seemed to quickly start looting the rest of the
.
After meeting the locals, and introducing our selfs we managed to get ahold of a long ranged Vox caster. I Voxed Command and requested a couple of squads to help move the bodys and supplys we had brought . After I handed in my report did the rounds, and grabbed a meal I thought it would be best to turn in for the night. Slumber Took me quickly , and dreams of Nephus prime and it's lush landscape filled my thoughts.
Ordo Xenos Report 109 – Planet Nephus Prime – chapter 7 – local wild life, paragraph 15. – An Ox-fang is a relatively harmless cow like creature with razor sharp teeth, spiked barbed tail , and a coat of fur to match a valhallan native . It feasts on small animals, fruits and grass .
The creature is often seen in large heards on Nephus’s primes yellow flats. While they are found all over the planet , they are found in the largest numbers there. It’s large five foot long spiked tail is often used to fight lighter predators, and knock fruit from trees. These creatures are often used as livestock, and low cost farming tools.
Ordo Xenos Report 109 – Planet Nephus Prime – chapter 1 locals and mutations - Paragraph 34.
While all Nephusians are taller then the average Citizen of the Emperium standing around six foot five on average, the Haddaway Nobility and there subjects have a average height of six foot seven.