Chapter 2:

(Auther here, I fucked up in the first chapter a bit so uh, yeah...I will try to improve my writing with every chapter)

Several hours have passed. I try and try again to remember my mother's face, only seeing a blur, a blurry figure, with features my mind blocks from me... I have tried every day and every night but I cannot even remember my own mother's name, it had been years since I was a space marine scout, back then I could remember her face and name but now... all that is left is me.

"My lords, w-we near Chara 86..." The pilot that drives this ship stutters to my squad. All of us stand up and one of the space marines barks at the pilot, "Open the door!"

The pilot anxiously follows his order and opens the door. I dumbfoundedly ask my battle-brother, "What are you doing?"

The man responds with a tone of anger, "We jump out of the ship and we land, that's the plan."

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" I ask again.

I feel a cold hand grip my shoulder. It was sergeant Moranius, "Yes, we should be able to survive the fall."

I peer down and see our surroundings, the ship was supposedly 600 meters or so off the ground, I see cracks of trenches nailed into the planet's surface with artillery shells flying around. There was no life, only brown dirt, and craters clothing the planet.

2 of my battle-brothers jump down and I with Moranius follow them. We all plunge downwards, I look around, seeing where we were about to land. As I scan the area, I hear to my right a whizzing sound. I quickly jerk my head to the right and it was several artillery shells.

"No!" Moranius roars but it was too late as the artillery shells hit all of us and send us all flying in different directions.

I fly away, spinning and turning. I then finally crash into something in a few minutes. I grunt, seeing where I landed, I look around to see oak wood planks nailed to the dirt with sandbags atop, seeing mud splatter, and hearing the sounds of constant gunfire, I was in a trench.

I get up and activate the vox-radio in my helm to be answered with a static. My signal was jammed, the "Liberators" were smart to do that. I look up to the blackened ash-filled sky to see hundreds of drop pods, ships, and artillery barrages fluttering around.

My eyes sweep around to see that there were no guardsmen, I only see rats scurrying cans of food, hear the sound of gunfire, and smell ash, gunpowder, metal, and blood.

I walk forward, there was not even a single corpse I could find in this small trench, which was odd... I do not let the thought fester in my mind and focus on finding other space marines. Charging on, I hear gunfire and screams on my right and see an arching trench passage so I grab my bolter as I could not swing my chainsword in the trenches. As I run forward, I see a large trench passage full of soldiers with maybe 30-40 of them All of them wore black armor, and on instinct, I turn my bolter to full-auto, its machine spirit roared with me to fire.

I pull the trigger and fire hundreds of bolts, the recoil of the bolter enough to shatter a normal man's bones and rip his flesh apart. Screams manifested within the crowd of Liberators as bolts rip them to shred, a single bolt if it hits the chest destroys the entire upper-half, a hundred more and nothing left to even bury.

In a matter of minutes, all of them had died and painted the trench walls red with their blood. I look at the exploded parts, it was a large pool of blood with limbs that you can't even tell if they were even human limbs. I look at the gruesome sight, I have seen worse but then a head rolled down, it was the head of a human, it was a 15-year-old by its defining features. A tear was rolling down its blood-covered face, most would not notice but I noticed, I imagine what the poor boy felt but then I clear my head and step forward, crushing the head.

I find 20 guardsmen, they used green flak armor with a symbol of a skull, a part of the Cadian army, one of them in the front walking towards me, he was tall and young and anxiously shrieked, "Hello my lord!"

"Hello, there guardsman." I talk to him while reloading my bolter, "Where may I see your colonel of your regiment?"

"If you pass the long trench to your left, you will find a large point and another group of guardsmen if they still live..." The guardsman answers, "When you find them, head to the right of them and you should reach the plaza where our colonel currently works."

"Thank you." I gently hand a thank you to the guardsman while I walk down the long trench to my left. I run down, faster and faster through the trench, stomping on the dirt. I pass through the trench, it was most likely 40 meters but I ran as fast as I can to reach the end in 2 minutes.

When I reach the end, I hear gunfire once more and see hordes of Liberators charging in from a single trench passage. I charge in and fire my bolter, shredding them to millions of pieces. I slowly walk to the trench, pushing back all of the Liberators. They pull back, when they did, I barked loudly at the nearby guardsmen, "Give me supporting fire!"

The guardsmen behind me followed the order and fired all they had to the single trench, ripping apart the wood and destroying the entire trench yet I push on. Bolter shell drip down, I reload my bolter skillfully and throw a frag grenade to the back of the crowd and charge in, firing at close range.

Blood spilled onto my armor, smoking shading my entire body. I trek forward, I swing my bolter around to beat down a few more with my bolter. I breeze through hundreds of Liberators, shrieking and blood-curdling sounds haunting the trench. I charge forward, more lasers hit my armor yet it stands. I load my bolter again and continue, the Liberators topple over one another yet it was for naught. Guardsmen behind me charge forward, giving me more firepower to kill the Liberators.

I run through it when there was only one Liberator left, I recharge my bolter, the Liberator crawls back and screams, I hear it beg," No! No! Please! No!"

His cries only fell to my back and I fire my bolter, killing him. His entire body shatters into hundreds of pieces from the single bolter shot, I walk forward and then realize that I need to go meet the Colonel. I order the guardsmen behind me in a tone that promises death, "Get reinforcement and survey this trench, leave no heretic alive!"

The guardsmen quickly follow, getting radio and calling for reinforcement. When I see that they can vox their superiors, I try to use my vox in my helm. It was different, there was a voice now, I shout, "Hello! Is there anyone?!"

A deep and gruff voice responds, "Yes, this is Sergeant Moranius, my other battle-brothers are not seen anywhere for now, who is this?"

"Sergeant Moranius," I purse my lips, "It is Yeshamiel..."

"Yeshamiel!" Sergeant Moranius scoffs in joy, "You survived?"

"Yes, I did but I need to ask-" I get cut off and realize something, there were no space marines anywhere, no drop pods at all, "Where are the other space marines?"

"Well, it seems that they have not landed, chapter master Daetius Cybutus informed me that time is more distorted in certain areas but we were the only ones that somehow landed." The sergeant sighs.

"How is that possible?" I question like a dumb child.

"He has no idea but it seems that something is affecting it but we cannot confirm if it is chaos or not..." Moranius voxes to me but statics interrupts us. I run back through the trench, and head back, I needed to meet the colonel. A battalion of soldiers scurrying around to secure the area.

I retreat, passing some guardsmen who salute me. I head through the trench, some more guardsmen run past me. I walk down the trench, safe, I see another point with 3 trench points including mine connected to this point.

I see a campfire made by some guardsmen who watch the flames, some playing card games on a green crate. When I made a loud stomp, all of them turn to me and head up to salute me.

"Hello my lord!" One of them gasps out with death standing before him.

"Hello, guardsmen, where is that plaza where your colonel stays?" I ask them gently to lessen the fear in them. They all immediately point to a plaza, I nod at them and make my way to it.

I walk down, guardsmen salute me as if it was a parade. I enter the plaza to see hundreds of guardsmen within, most of them injured, the only ones that walk acting as the medics. I hear the mumbling of soldiers who look up to me, I look at all of those who stared at me to give them hope or fear, it depends on what they pick.

Some heat rations with hexamine stoves, others try to rest. I keep my walking pace until I hear a woman sobbing, she was pulling at a dead body with its head missing. I hear the words," Not my lover! Please!"

The lover of hers was about to be turned into corpses starch and it is what it is named for, a starch from grounded up corpses of dead soldiers. I grit my teeth in rage, corpses starch was disgusting, I have eaten worse but it was not the taste but rather...the dishonor. Guardsmen fought for their brothers to live happily and when died are not even honored...I hate it but it is a necessary cause, for war is just a sacrifice of lives for many reasons but still a sacrifice, that is what war is...just a sacrifice ritual.

I walk down the hall and see a large door that retracts itself to expose what is within and I see a tall thin woman, maybe 6ft to 6'3 ft. She wore flak armor with a yellow baggy uniform and had brown ponytail hair. I walk forward and loudly say, "Are you the Colonel?"

She turns around to expose purple eyes, she had a well-defined v-shape face, and said, "Yes, my lord."