LongShots

A Story Of The Imperial Guard

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"Pain is an illusion of the senses, despair an illusion of the mind."

Yasir slowly opened his eye.

He was looking at white tiles. Several white tiles. It took him a second to realize that he was looking at a ceiling. With more effort than it would have normally taken, he lifted his head off the pillow it had been on. He now saw the tan walls that the white tiles were connected to, as well as several rows of cots with grey clad guardsmen laying on many of them. Between the cots, other Guardsman with white armbands that bore red crosses looked at the Guardsmen laying down.

"This un's finally up." A voice behind him said. "Get the surgeon. E'll wanta to talk to 'em." Yasir looked to his right to see one of the Medics come into his field of view. A tall man with a scar on his chin, the Medic looked at him with an interest he found unnerving. He was about to say something when he heard a new, older voice.

"Ah, good, I was afraid we'd lost him." Another figure came into view, this one dressed in grey as well, but instead of the normal greatcoat, he wore a surgeon's jacket. An Auto Pistol sat in a holster on his chest, and white hair covered all but the top of his head. He looked nearly twenty years older than Medic standing next to him. "How do you feel Trooper?" the Surgeon asked. Yasir cleared his throat.

"Fine…I think…Uh, where am I?" The Surgeon chuckled once, amused by the situation.

"You are at the field hospital for the 902nd Vardan Rifles. You know your very lucky, Tau Pulse rifles are incredibly powerful, and they usually don't miss." Yasir blinked and shook his head.

"I don't understand. What do you mean, 'miss'?" The Surgeon chuckled again.

"Well the sniper that shot you was probably aiming for your head." He paused. "Looks like he missed and just burned out your eye instead." Yasir's eye went wide.

"Huh?" The Surgeon motioned to his left side.

"Try to open your left eye." Yasir tried to look to his left. He couldn't.

The young trooper swallowed hard and reached up with his left hand to touch his face. He felt his left cheek bone, then moved his hand up his face, feeling a wad of cloth with surgical tape wrapped across it and around his head. Slowly he lowered his hand and took a deep breath, realizing just what the Surgeon meant.

'Emperor on Terra.' he thought. 'I've lost my eye.'

~/~/~

7 Months earlier

In Orbit Above Unnamed Tau Controlled Planet, Number 1187

189 years before Broucheroc

Corporal Gazik carefully removed the small glass focusing lens from his rifle. Holding the important glass piece in one hand, he ran a spotless cloth along it's surface. Removing the cloth, he held the glass up above his head, inspecting how the artificial light from the battleship's overhead Illuminaters shone through. The Corporal allowed himself a small smile as he saw that the lens was clear. With great care not to scratch the vital piece, he lowered it back into it's proper place in his rifle.

At 30 years old, he was decently accomplished for a sniper. His keen brown eyes and slender build earning him the job straight out of his initial training. Still smiling, he sat the longlas down. His smile dropped however, when he saw the door to the Cargo hold he was in open to reveal his platoon leader. And a kid he didn't recognize.

The First Lieutenant strode directly towards him, the young Guardsman trailing a few steps behind. Gazik stood and brought his right hand up to his head in a sharp salute. The Officer returned the salute and spoke.

"Corporal, I understand that you are still without a spotter." Gazik nodded.

"Yes sir, Sikar took an Ork blade to the head a few months back." The young Officer frowned, uncomfortable with the mental image the sentence created.

"Yes, well, we've just received a new batch of Fish, so you've got yourself a spotter again." he turned to the trooper, "Trooper, you report to Corporal Gazik from now on, stay with him and do exactly as he says." With that, the Lieutenant gave a salute to the two Guardsmen, and turned on his heels and left the hold. Gazik watched him leave then turned his attention to the young Trooper looking at him.

"Trooper, Attention!" The young Guardsman practically jumped out of his skin in surprise before putting his feet together and his lasgun against his right shoulder. Gazik studied the young man. He couldn't have been more than 18, which would make him more than ten years younger than himself. He was lean, but not tall, and his arms boasted no excess of muscle. Soft features accented by blue eyes and brown hair that had only recently begun to grow back. A kid. "Your name Trooper." The Young Trooper gulped.

"Yasir Corporal, T-Trooper First Class Yasir." Gazik frowned.

"Very well than, Yasir, are you a new fish, or have I at least been given someone competent?" Yasir gulped again.

"Well, I was the best shot in my company during train-"

"TRAINING!" Gazik yelled, certain now that he'd been given a New Fish and standing so that his face was only inches from the Trooper's as he yelled. "GREAT EMPEROR KILL ME, I…" he noticed that Yasir was still standing at Attention. 'Well,' he thought. 'maybe I can still make something out of this fish.' "At ease." The Trooper relaxed. "As the Lieutenant said, stay with me and do exactly as I say." he paused. "What did they teach you training about the Tau?"

~/~/~

Navigator Kashihan's third eye hurt. For the perhaps 43rd time since entering this system, he rubbed his forehead in an attempt to relieve the dull pain. And, for perhaps the 43rd time, it didn't help. He frowned and looked down onto the planet. The pain he felt wasn't like the usual burning, shooting pain he got occasionally while in the Warp, this pain was constant, dull, and like nothing he'd ever felt before the BLUE TIDE, the Battleship he navigated and whose bridge he now stood on, had reached this planet and destroyed the Tau fleet in orbit.

He allowed himself a small smile as he recalled the battle that had happened not 14 hours ago. There had only been 4 Tau ships in orbit, and no orbital platforms. The 10 Imperial ships had taken them completely by surprise. His smile grew as he remembered the way one of the larger ships had split at nearly the exact middle, the tan colored metal ripping to shreds from the force of the BLUE TIDE'S main guns. He would have continued to smile and relive the memory had the dull pain in his head not brought him back to the present. Now with a frown, he looked down at the world below.

The world below didn't look like the home of a few billion Xenos, but, he reminded himself, none of them ever did. The forty-two year old Navigator sighed and tried to recall the report he had read about the world. Given it's distance to the star it orbited, it was estimated to have a fairly mild climate, but twenty-seven years in the Emperor's Navy had given Kashihan the ability to notice a planet's axial tilt, and the axis of this world was tilted away from it's sun. This planet would be in the last of it's Winter months. Kashihan felt the ship move beneath him as it moved closer to the planet.

Rather than built large, super dense, impossibly tall Hive cities like the Imperium, The Tau tended to build out more than up. Which was why the City that they were moving into low orbit above covered 90% of the planet. This presented an interesting problem for the Navy as where exactly to drop the Landers that would carry the half million guardsmen onto the planet. The solution shouldn't have surprised him, It was the standard way that the Imperium dealt with such problems. The ship stopped and he felt the hum of the heavy orbital guns as they began to charge.

'If there was no flat area large enough for them to set down enough Landers,' he thought as the BLUE TIDE'S guns began firing at the City below, striking the same area that 9 other ships orbital guns were also hitting.

'Then we'll make one.'

~/~/~

"Now, Yasir isn't it?" Corporal Gazik asked his new spotter. The Trooper nodded quickly. "First things first," he motioned to the ship's supply desk that they stood in front of. "Turn in your helmet, It'll just give away my position. Also turn in your Vox bead, last thing I need is for that thing to go off while were sneaking around. Oh, and loose your armor, we'll be running around and climbing a lot. Besides, Tau aim for the head and neck." Yasir hesitated at removing his body armor, but at a stern look from the Corporal, placed all the items on the table .The NCO behind the desk grabbed them with a hungry glint in his eyes. The Corporal then turned his attention to the Supply Sergeant. "And draw out a greatcoat, I don't know why they didn't give you one on Vardan. Two bandoliers of power packs, that should give you three full combat loads, a set of binos, and I'm singing out a rangefinder." The Sergeant writing down the requisitions stopped and looked the Corporal in the eyes. "You'll get this one back…I promise." The Supply Sergeant sighed and walked back into the supply room, returning with a Grey greatcoat, two bandoliers, a pair of binoculars, and a small device with a bracket for mounting on a lasgun.

The Corporal took the device in one hand and held out the other. "Hand me your weapon." Yasir handed him his lasgun. "Keep this on your rifle at all times, and tie it down to it as well." he finished attaching the rangefinder and handed Yasir the lasgun back. "Loose this, and I will advise the nearest Commissar to shoot you, understand?" Yasir gulped, glanced at the device on his lasgun, and nodded. "Good," he hefted the bandoliers. "My longlas uses the same power packs as a lasgun, but the larger bolt and the distance that it must travel means it will eat more power, so I only get about half the normal amount of shots off, hence why you will carry two extra combat loads in addition to your own." he handed Yasir the bandoliers, and the Trooper put them over his shoulder so that he could take the next item the Corporal handed him. "Binos, don't loose these either, and," he handed him the greatcoat. "I don't think I need to tell you what this is for."

~/~/~

From his view on the bridge, Kashihan watched the bombardment continue, the district of the City below that the powerful guns were pummeling was almost completely flat. The now familiar pain shot through his head again and the Navigator sighed.

With the ship safely in orbit, his job was done. He was free to return to his quarters until the Captain need the ship to travel through the warp again. A glance left towards the fleet officer on deck told him that the rest of the crew would probably prefer he left. There was no love for mutants, sanctioned or otherwise. Kashihan ignored their glares and turned his attention back to the planet. He would leave the bridge when he was ready.

Looking below he saw another salvo from the battleship strike the City. The bombardment had gone on for, how long now? Three hours? Four? It didn't matter. The entire planet would be reduced to rubble soon. He had read the reports. The soil beneath the City was expected to be very rich, and after the City has been destroyed, this planet would become a farm world. He felt the pain flare up again. This time it was stronger and he had to grab a nearby rail for support. It faded soon, but the constant dull pain he'd felt since he'd left the Warp was still there.

"Lieutenant" he called to the Fleet officer keeping watch. The Officer's expression lightened as he turned to face him. He knew there was only one reason he would speak to him. Kashihan would rather have left without giving him any warning, but protocol for Navigators was clear and left no margin for error. He would have to give him the pleasure of hearing him announce it.

"Navigator?" The Officer responded.

"I'm going to my quarters, please inform me of the next Warp jump and convey my complements to the Captain." The Officer nodded and turned away from him. Ceremony done, Kashihan turned and left the bridge. His quarters weren't far, in case they needed to make an emergency jump he would be nearby, but he still had a sizeable walk ahead of him. As he made his way down the hall he noticed several of the crew running the same way he was going. He watched more people run past him when he saw one wearing a pilot's helmet, scrambling to connect the hose from his mask to the air regulator on his chest as he ran. 'A Valkyrie pilot?' he thought to himself. 'strange, they usually just send the Landers in.' He watched the Pilot take a right turn at a fork in the hall ahead. The Navigator's own quarters were to the left, but he decided to feed his curiosity and went right.

He didn't have to go far. He followed the Pilot until he came to a large window. Looking through, he saw one of the many hangers that the BLUE TIDE had. This one filled with several Valkyrie's. 'Interesting.' Kashihan thought. He saw several ranks of Guardsman, all wearing the grey greatcoats that the regiment they were transporting was so found of. He racked his mind for the unit. 'Vostroyan? No that was months ago. Krieg? No they all wore those gasmasks. Vardan! That was it. The 902nd Vardan Ri-'

"Navigator, what brings you here?" A crisp voice asked. Kashihan felt his blood run cold as he slowly turned to see the sneering face of an Imperial Commissar. For a navigator such as himself to be outside his designated sector was a crime, a sign of Warp taint. A perfectly good reason for the Commissar to shoot him on the spot.

"I…Commissar I…Uh…"Kashihan stammered, he was interrupted by another voice.

"Kashihan, is that you?" Kashihan turned around to see the Captain himself standing beside him. His shock showed on his face as he brought up a hasty salute. The Captain returned the gesture. "I see your admiring the Valkyries." he said with a gesture to the troopships through the window. The Navigator slowly began to nod.

"Y-yes…yes sir, I was simply admiring the Imperium in action. I won't have the honor to see these men fight, so I hoped that I might at least try and see them began the landing." It was believable, at least he hoped it was. After a moments consideration, the Captain nodded and, to Kashihan's great relief, the Commissar took his hand off the bolt pistol in his holster.

"I can empathize." The Captain said at length. "Tell me Commissar, have you seen these men in action?" The Captain said with another gesture towards the hanger. The Commissar looked ahead into the hold.

"I am afraid sir, that I while I am assigned to this regiment, I have not had the pleasure of being a part of an advance party."

'So that's it.' Kashihan thought. 'An advance party.' He had heard about some regiments doing it. Sending in teams to take out targets like power stations and anti-aircraft batteries. Paving the way for the rest of the Regiments in the Landers. The Captain checked his chrono then looked back into the hanger.

"They'll be dropping in soon," he remarked with the kind of casual sense that someone in command of a Imperial Battleship acquires over time. "The Landers themselves won't hit until tomorrow, isn't that right Commissar?" Again the Commissar nodded, not looking away from the hanger.

"Yes sir, I will be among them." The Captain nodded, more to himself than to the either of the two men he was standing with.

"Good."