He was an eighteen-year-old killer, the sniper rifle heavy in his hands.
He observed for a very, very long time. He had been trained for this, he knew how to slow his heart rate, how to control his breathing and the natural tremors of his body, until his entire being was as still as a statue.
The predator.
The prey.
His mind gradually grew cold, his concentration absolute, and the prayers he silently recited became the only way to perceive this world.
The predator.
The prey.
With no other thoughts, he pulled the trigger, and two thousand meters away, a life was extinguished.
The hunter.
The hunted.
"Target eliminated."
He said to himself.
— — — — — —
He was a twenty-year-old man, lying on the same operating table as before.
The chemicals flowing through his veins plunged him into a coma, and he dreamt of that scene once again.
His mind hung suspended in silence, entering the dreams of two worlds.
In one world, his brain was sleeping, while his thoughts rolled and echoed through condensed memories.
In another world, his eyes observed the crossroads of the corridor, his thoughts slowly pulsing like his blood.
His eyes were open, pupils dilating and contracting as if seeing something move before him, but there was nothing in front of him, only three long, dark corridors.
He had been like this for fifty-six hours, more than half the time awake, the other half in a semi-conscious state and the sleep he could now control entering.
In the real world, needles and medical probes drilled into the flesh of his back, injecting various liquids directly into his spine.
He coughed, his sleeping body reacting to the intrusion of foreign objects, and the acidic saliva that spewed from his mouth hissed as it landed, corroding several deep pits into the tiled floor.
When he awoke, it was several days later.
He could feel the slots arranged along his spine, and the scars, those metallic nodes…
He knew that in a universe of endless war, only by infinitely approaching death could one ultimately achieve sainthood.
The gray-eyed Apothecary watched him, like an artist admiring his most perfect work, and for the first time, a heartfelt smile appeared on his face.
— — — — — —
He was a New Recruits, staring into his own eyes.
He stood naked in a dark room, lined up with a dozen others, the other New Recruitss beside him also naked, their pale skin covered in surgical marks.
*** was a forgotten concept, not existing in his mind, and that was merely one of tens of thousands of human desires discarded by his consciousness.
He could no longer recall the faces of his parents; he only remembered his name, for the Legion's instructors had never changed it.
He gazed at the eyes that now belonged to him, and those deep, slanted "eyes" gazed back at him—a pair of eyes set in a helmet whose faceplate was painted off-white.
As he looked at the battle helmet, stark white like a skull, the helmet looked back at him with its grim reflections.
This was his face now.
Through these eyes, he would witness the entire galaxy.
Through this helmet, he would unleash his wrath upon the traitors and xenos who dared to defy the Emperor.
"You are Soshian Alexey."
A Chapter instructor said to him.
"Attached to the Seventh Company."
— — — — — —
He was a champion, born for victory.
"Status confirmed—"
Soshiyan sent a message to the other two through the comm-unit.
"Intersection twenty-one stable, no movement, same as before."
"They're right outside."
Aksai, his squadmate, responded, his voice a low growl over the comms.
"They're coming. Didn't that Hive City cesspit you were born in teach you patience?"
"Oh, it did, but somehow it didn't teach me to enjoy floating in a vacuum waiting for unknown enemies to appear. Besides, where I lived wasn't a Hive City."
Soshiyan's voice carried little extra emotion, but the other man burst into laughter, the sound echoing in the silence like a series of sharp barks.
"This won't end like this—"
The cautious tone of the other person in the squad came through. His name was Nader, and he was from the same planet as Soshiyan, and also from the same batch of New Recruitss.
"If we're here, then the enemy is too."
"What if that's not what's being taught?"
Soshiyan said, shifting his body to peer into one of the three passages.
Several cables dangled from the upturned inspection box lid, and lines leaked from their conduits like severed blood vessels. They were in a dangerous area within a transport ship, left open and adrift in the void. Other reconnaissance teams were scattered throughout the hull, each with a different mission, but no one knew where the other teams were or the details of their tasks.
Soshiyan, Aksai, and Nader's mission was to monitor a dead-end passage. All of them wore only a single space suit, equipped with a Bolter and a Chainsword.
"What do you mean?"
Aksai growled. Soshiyan carefully took a breath before answering. This youth could go from jovial to furious in a heartbeat; all the transformations to his mind and body had not polished away this trait, but rather made his temper more pronounced.
"What if, say, waiting is the wrong thing to do? What if there's no danger at all? The only thing keeping us trapped here is our belief that there's a threat."
"No, Soshiyan."
Nader retorted, cutting in before Aksai could even speak.
"We have a mission, and we're going to see it through."
"But what is the mission?"
Soshiyan continued to question, turning to look into the second passage, a movement that caused him to lose his balance, forcing him to grip the safety line connecting him to the wall to steady himself.
The second passage was empty, just like the first.
"What if we've misunderstood it?"
"This…"
Nader tried to speak again, but Aksai interrupted.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean maybe there are no enemies here. Maybe they're somewhere else, and our standing guard here is causing a hard fight elsewhere."
"This is diligence, not fear."
"Is it?"
Soshiyan questioned, unable to stop himself, but he regretted it as soon as the words burst out.
He noticed this happening more and more often: emotional outbursts and impatience would suddenly appear from nowhere, as if another person lived in his mind, some cold-hearted, short-tempered fellow, and he had no idea why.
"I'm sorry…"
"It's fine."
Nader's voice was calm; he seemed not to have such troubles.
"We are brothers. You don't need to say anything more, just don't speak like that again."
Brother, the word was still as foreign to his world as the organs added to his body.
— — — — — —
He was a demigod, a complete superhuman, ageless, immortal.
He looked at the surface of this world through crimson vision-lenses, a series of data represented by sharp, clear white runes scrolling across his retina. He watched the lives of his brothers displayed in numerical form, he felt the temperature outside his sealed battle armor, he watched the target lock-on reticle flicker with the movement of his eyes.
He felt his hand, the one gripping his Bolter, the tension that came with trying to follow every target lock.
The ammunition counter let him know how many enemies had died today.
Xenos fell dead around him.
Ten, a hundred, a thousand, his brothers cut a bloody path through this garbage-heap city.
"Brothers!"
He shouted the word as he fired a Bolter round into each passage, the recoil strong enough to shatter a normal person's arm feeling light as a feather in his hands.
"I'm coming to you now."
Aksai was roaring.
"I'm moving towards you!"
Nader's voice was filled with electromagnetic crackles.
He fired again, cycling between shots, and he saw the enemies now.
They crawled on the walls like spiders, articulated metallic limbs replacing arms and legs, heads raised on necks made of steel rings, weapon pods extending from their spines on scorpion-tail-like apparatuses, and there were dozens of them.
"I see you!"
Aksai's voice came through.
"I have some targets to shoot."
Flashes of gunfire lit up the distant passage, shimmering as shrapnel tore through the air.
Soshiyan fired again, three shots out, four explosions of metal and flesh. He glanced over his shoulder; Aksai was ten meters away, caught between a wall and a group of machines, firing at the xenos closest to Soshiyan.
"Hey!"
He even had the presence of mind to yell over the comms in a lull in the fighting.
"At least this time we found the enemy."
Soshiyan laughed along with him.
Bolters roared, Chainswords screamed, and in the symphony of battle noise, Battle Brothers roared their fury at the enemy through their helmet comms.
The sound was always the same.
Bolters always roared, Chainswords always screamed, and Astartes always shouted their fury.
He shouted the words etched deep into his brain, words that would soon become his life's purpose.
And now, he and his brothers shouted together, words unthought, words unfelt.
For the Emperor!