All Quiet on the Front

  It was raining. Damp pitter-patter on the mud and the tarps, pinging off the metal machines. From the sandbag trenches to the bombed out mortar holes to the barbed wire perimeter nothing stirred, a dead network of snaking passageways—the mud kept at bay only by determination and countless planks of wood and plasteel. Not a gun sounded its predatory roar nor a bullet left its chamber as the foggy rain rolled across the dirt covered miasma.

  This place has been under siege for weeks, a last remnant of humanity on this soggy grave grasping at dangled threads. But beyond the trenches was a walled complex—ceremite and plasteel reaching for the low-hanging clouds only to fall kilometers short of their goal—these human's home amidst a hostile and uncaring galaxy. Life still lingered, smoke from within the walls puffed and sputtered onwards towards freedom as the men and women of the Imperium of Man toiled for their very survival. They have grown tired after day in and day out of fighting—the waves of xenos crashing upon their ramshackle defenses with careless abandon at all hours. It would jar even the most stalwart of soul. The artillery hoarded at the last line of defense was the only thing capable of staving off the tsunami of bodies but, like the pounded down hills and valleys before them, they were silent.

  They sat—like corpses propped up to scare away a foe—under the camo netting and tarps, the only sounds the occasional sip of something hot. Gaunt sentries scanning the horizon for any sign of life, any sign of attack. One coughed, a wracking sigh filled with phlegm and weariness, and was shushed by his companion. The rain poured harder.

  By the time the larger sun's twin was at its zenith in the cloudy sky the soldiers of the Arkadian First and Last were worn out after staying still for so long. Eyes had become strained, brains overworked, limbs stiff and even the ever-present downpour of the planet somehow failed to keep them hydrated. Their last week had been a long one and the new one was shaping up to be inhospitable. This was the third day without fighting and the effects were seen in full. Each soldier was now a veteran of a hundred desperate battles—a hundred vicious melees in the mud and grime—but this new, abrupt monotony wreaked havoc on the nerves of the men and women holding the line. Soon they would either go mad or become lax, each a death in of its own.

  First Lieutenant Alexia Koros had given up trying to stay "as still as a statue" in compliance with his orders and was smoking a pipe. As the spotter for the trio of Earthshaker guns under his command the Lieutenant needed to be on the highest of constant alerts, a task he had nearly failed at twice in the past hour. He was meant to be up and doing something, anything to keep his mind and body from sinking into the very ground he was forced to walk upon. On his ship he would never have been like this—at least there manning an Augur array could be done by being in the same room rather than staring at the device like daemons were upon him. Even with the Guard's... unique motivational techniques to keep him in line the incentive to move—to exert himself—would have been too much to resist.

  He felt a thwack directly to the back of his head sending him into the spyglass the Regiment provided each spotter. His head whipped around—praying to the God-Emperor nothing had snuck past their lines—only to be greeted with the green eye of one of his gunners, Corporal Merek. Despite being a good head taller than him even without her armor, Alexia always felt like she tried to be smaller than everyone. She, unlike him, was a hardened soldier having—according to her at least—fought on a dozen worlds over a decade or more in service to the Adeptus Sororitas. How one of the Imperium's elite militant nuns was under a mere naval Ensign turned First Lieutenant was beyond his comprehension.

  "Oi, Earth to Koros, you alright mate?" Her voice had become course, rough, and foul since planetfall from all her time fraternizing with their fellow soldiers. Their relationship was... Not to say he didn't like her, of course—he didn't know a single man or woman who could say they weren't "fond" of the Corporal—he just liked to keep their relationship professional, strictly professional. Preferably within the bounds of subordinate and superior officer but, failing that, comrades-in-arms would be somewhat acceptable.