Opinión del Jefe de Proyecto

Joseph Tredinnick

"Hey Ladykiller, ya want some cak?"

Private First Class Apoch Jerrid looked over at the voice, to his right stood Lance Corporal Degstirn. In his left hand he held a round tin that he had thrust inches from Jerrid's face. The sweet aroma filled his nostrils. Jerrid silently reached up and pulled out a small pinch of it's contents. He took the shredded bits of black leaves and placed them between his bottom teeth and lip. Within seconds he could feel the tingling sensation in his mouth.

He'd never had cak before coming to Helgad, now it was a daily part of his routine, when he could get it. As far as he knew everyone in the company was an addict. Everyone had his own drug. The platoon sergeant, a weathered man who looked far older than his twenty seven years named Wyn, stayed away from cak, but he smoked as many lho sticks as he could fit in a day.

Of course alcohol was a universal favorite when it was available. Plus the officers had been handing out "greenies" since the first day of the invasion. Greenies were the name given to the green pills that kept you up for days, they made you feel great, like you could fight the entire galaxy single-handed, but take to many and things began to lose focus. You'd "lose time" as they called it. Cak was nice though it's main drawback of having to spit constantly was negated by the fact that he was always outside.

It was all for the nerves you see. Like the rest of his company, Jerrid was in the last safe zone before no man's land, they were standing or kneeling behind the husk of a building that had caught fire a few days ago. Beyond laid the shattered remain's of the city of Alcott.

Several days before the city had been shelled then stormed by elements from Taskforce Gelleck. Balo Company, that is the company that Jerrid belonged to, had moved into position the night before and now as the daylight broke he knew that soon, very soon would come his Lieutenants whistle and the lot of them would move out into the ruins to begin an attack that was to drive out the defenders.

It was Corporal Rould who had enlightened them to this fact. Yesterday before moving up they had been presented by Captain Avil, their company commander with tins of cak, some chocolate and liquid recaff. They had been delighted, since it had been a week since they'd had anything like these particular items available. Corporal Rould had then said how this was standard fare before a big push, an assault en masse.

He had been exactly right. Captain Avil had called the company together and explained how an attack would be carried out the next morning. That resistance was

"expected to be fierce, but a determined attack by motivated guardsmen could overcome such obstacles". It was explained that the city was an important position because it lay on the other side of the river Feln. The small position that had already been created on the other side was a bridgehead. It was necessary to expand that bridgehead so that the campaign could continue.

He then explained how Verkassia and the Emperor were expecting every man to do his duty.

With that the company had gotten underway and humped the next five miles across the river to where they were now.

It would be their first real taste of combat since coming to Helgad. It would actually be PFC Jerrid's first taste of combat since joining the Imperial Guard. Like everyone else in the regiment Jerrid had come from Verkassia the northern continent of Almothin. He had been born seventeen years ago, the fifth son, eigth child of a munitions worker. His mother died in childbirth. He believed that his father had always resented him for that.

Like his older brothers, Jerrid was apprenticed at an early age to work in the same factory his family had for several hundred years. Then last year it was announced that the local administrator would be reforming the 451st Verkassian Infantry Regiment. The previous incarnation had been decimated, then the few survivors disbanded three centuries before, the name had gone through the traditional mourning period and no new regiment had been allowed to bear it's designation.

Jerrid had heard of the Imperial Guard his entire short life. Everywhere on the streets of Verkassia a stern faced guardsmen would stare out at the the city from some giant mural

on the side of a building. Captions often accompanied them such as "His life is in your hands"

or some other saying urging the citizens of Verkassia to work harder. Parades would be held whenever a regiment was formed and the community would fete them until eventually the shuttles would carry them all off never to be heard from again. Two of Jerrid's uncles and his older brother had been killed fighting the Ork Wars that had been going on in the far corners of the sector for as long as Jerrid could remember. The call had gone out and the munition workers guild had been required to send some one hundred conscripts to join. The most unskilled, hence least needed and usually the youngest, were sent to sign up.

The forming had been a grand affair. Several thousand men, mostly teenagers as the other guilds had used the same reasoning as his own, filled the town square that served as the initial parade ground. There before an Ecclesiarchical priest they said the oath that bound them to service in the Emperor’s army. Afterward a small thin man who had been standing before them on a raised podium stepped forward and stated he was their new commanding officer, Colonel Erbek Shole. He also informed them that they were now under his control as he had been given pater potestas over each and every one of them. This was explained later by their Recruit Sergeant, a scarred and fierce looking man by the name of Tirrius, that the power of life or death that had previously been the right of their guild lord or father was now granted to the Colonel. He could execute any of them for any reason and it was best they remember that. As Jerrid would find out violence, although not always lethal, was

everpresent in a guardsman’s life.

This was affirmed at his recruit training where the regimen administered by their instructors was especially brutal. The slightest infraction in dress, cleanliness or disposition would be met with swift and harsh action. Jerrid learned that the short stick that all recruit sergeants carried was applied liberally to remedy any defects that the new recruits displayed as well as a few that were only imagined. Often times though beatings were done to them at the hands of a fellow recruit. One time after his bunk-mate had been caught secreting a cookie into the squad bay, Jerrid was ordered to beat the boy who slept above him with the butt of his rifle.

Hesitating for a second, Recruit Sergeant Tirrius ordered another recruit to now administer the same punishment to him. This recruit did not lose a beat and sent the back of his rifle to Jerrid's left temple. The blow had felled him immediately where the recruit

continued to pummel him mercilessly. Another punishment required the platoon to be divided into ten man groups where lots were drawn. He who drew the shortest was then beaten to death by the rest. This was particularly rare consequence and could only by handed down from the Regimental Colonel, but it hung over the head of each platoon as the ultimate form of incentive. As with most of the others Jerrid had been used to this level of violence since he was child. His father and eldest brother could be particularly belligerent at times,

especially if they were high on a local stimulant called tiff.

Many of the factory workers considered tiff an essential ingredient of the 80 hour work weeks that were a regular part of life. Both of the men had become increasingly violent after an epidemic of Tyrchic Influenza had claimed the life of his middle sister and his eldest

brothers wife and son. He had taken the daily slaps and punches with the same sangfroid that he had displayed in his pre-guard life.

Most of his time in recruit training was spent learning the customs and courtesies of the Imperial Guard. Rank structure was especially emphasized as well as an obedience to authority especially to officers. This also fit in easily with his upbringing, as his sister who had been responsible for raising him till he was seven had taught him to respect and fear his father. This deference was then extended to his guild master as well as any aristocrats, priests, or anyone else deemed his social superior that he may have encountered. Most of the time was spent learning close order drill.

Arranged four abreast they would march for hours, executing turns and elaborate routines to the cadence of their recruit sergeant. Turrius took special pride in his skill at drilling and any misstep would send him in a rage where often times he charged into the middle of the platoon swinging his fists and that short stick. The only real break that the platoon was given aside from the ten minute meals they would eat three times a day was church. Jerrid had always had deep passion for church attendance.

The bleak and dirty life Jerrid had called normal in the city of Verkassia Tertia were interrupted twice a week for one hour when his father would take the entire family to the local cathedral. There in the halls that reached up and seemed to scrape the heavens,

thousands of worshipers would hear the priests of the Ecclesiarchy holding mass. Mass was a complex and elegant ritual where a collection of priests, attended by boys and

cherub-servitors would kneel and pray before an altar in the shape of the Golden Throne of Holy Terra and attempt to invoke His spirit.

Jerrid would come away uplifted and fulfilled. This continued into recruit training often times the priest would then give a sermon where he called on the attending recruits to stay strong in the Emperor’s service. After a month the recruits began to train in the use of their lasguns, previously they had only been using them in drills. Hours were spent on the grass learning how to use the sights correctly, as usual any misuse was subject to a smash across the head from the constantly present Turrius.

A monthly occurrence that Jerrid couldn't understand was when each recruit would be taken to the side room that usually served as the Senior Recruit Sergeant's office. There a man

identified as the regimental Commissar and another untitled person whose head was clean shaven and face always seemed strained, like a man carrying too much weight for too long, would interrogate him for several minutes. The Commissar would ask him questions and the tired looking man would sit in the corner and never say a word. Jerrid couldn't explain it but whenever these interrogations were going on he felt as if someone or something else was in his mind, but he kept these thoughts to himself.

These interrogations reminded him of the ones that he were mandatory for all workers at the munitions factory. There members of the Public Safety Committee would ask him for rumors on any of his fellow workers. A few days before his eleventh birthday, Jerrid's brother Wehlan was arrested by the committee for crimes against the state. His family was used to hearing of the daily arrests by the Security and Safety Police, but this was the first time that they had ever been visited in the night by them. Jerrid always wondered if it was something he had said that had led to his brother's arrest and eventual execution.

After three and a half months came graduation, which saw the only time Recruit Sergeant Turrius address the lot of them as human beings. "You all may hate me because of how cruel I was," he said, "But my cruelty is nothing compared to that which lurks in the enemies of man. I taught you to be strong, I was brutal because you must be brutal. There is no peace amongst the stars, in the blackest reaches of space dwell alien hosts that will devour you whole. When you fight remember the anger I gave you and use it to drive out the fear."

Jerrid never saw Recruit Sergeant Turrius again.

Jerrid's platoon was divided in two, half were assigned to various occupational

specialties ranging from cooks, and office personnel to tank drivers and artillery gunners. The rest, like Jerrid were declared infantrymen. The infantry platoon then marched to the parade ground of the recruiting base. There in the vast concrete grounds amongst thousands of other recruits marching and drilling in their own platoons stood six men.

The one to the furthest right was easily identifiable as an officer. He introduced himself as Lieutenant Neer and said that they were now part of First Platoon, Balo Company, Second Battalion, 451st Verkassian Infantry Regiment. Seeing his lieutenant, Jerrid was struck by how young he looked, he would later learn that he was only 20 years of age. Like most officers Lt.

Neer came from the aristocracy and had bought his commission from the planetary governor.

After congratulating each newly minted guardsmen Lt. Neer promptly left the parade ground.

Then it came time for Platoon Sergeant Wyn to make introductions of the four men standing to his left. These were identified as the squad leaders, two sergeants and two corporals. All five of them had belonged to the Planetary Defence Force that guarded

Almothin. By Imperial edict each, as well as a host of others, had been drafted into service of the Imperial Guard to form the NCO cadre of the 451st Verkassian. Jerrid was assigned to First Squad, with Corporal Rould as his squad leader. Rould was tall, with dark brown hair and always seemed to have a tired look in his eyes.

The graduation ceremony was a studious affair where a throng of priests blessed the men and in his second appearance in nearly four months Colonel Shole appeared and declared his pride that they "had persevered and were now forged into a fine force of the Emperor's Imperial Guard". The entire regiment along with the three others that had been simultaneously formed marched down the city center in a grand parade in which it seemed to Jerrid that the entire city came out to be a part.

Afterward the entire regiment was loaded onto the shuttles that would take them to an Imperial transport ship. So began his first trip through space. Life aboard ship as a

guardsmen was similar to life on Almothin as a recruit. Except thankfully Platoon Sergeant Wyn was nowhere near as sadistic as Turrius.

He still carried around the same short stick but he used it less frequently. Although if his patience was tested by repeat offenders he could administer a beating to rival anything Turrius gave out. Every day the platoon was up by 4:00 am where it would assemble as a company and each platoon sergeant would take the roll for his platoon. Once a week the company commander, a good looking man in his early thirties named Captain Avil, would assemble beside the company standard standing before the two hundred some odd men of Balo company each platoon and section formed up alongside the other while the dozen officers of the company gathered behind the rest. An Ecclesiarchical priest would bless the gathering and the company commander would give a speech outlining the plan for the week.

While close order drill still continued it did not comprise the entirety of the day as it did in training. It was also the beginning of combat training for Jerrid and the rest of the platoon. Platoon Sergeant Wyn gathered them together and explained how the combat tactics of an Imperial Guard infantry platoon revolved around the heavy bolter. Two heavy bolter teams were assigned to each platoon.

These four man teams consisted of two men who carried the quite heavy weapon, one who carried the tripod it was mounted on, and a fourth who carried spare barrels as the rapid fire machine gun would overheat and melt a barrel if it stayed on to long. Each man was also expected to carry over a thousand rounds of ammunition, all this in addition to the kit that each guardsmen was expected to carry. Jerrid, at 145lbs had a hard enough time heaving the normal 85lbs of weight during the frequent full gear hikes. Wyn would take them on around the ship, had no envy for the machine gunners.

Each team, Platoon Sergeant Wyn explained, would set up it's position to lay down suppressive fire for the lasgun squads. The squads then would attempt to use cover and concealment supported by heavy bolter fire to close with the enemy. There the squad special weapon gunner, usually a flamer or plasma gunner would deliver devastating fire to the enemy at close quarters.

The transport ship, a massive vessel over three miles in length, held dozens of large

"battlefield rooms", each a giant empty unused storage space, filled with garbage and debris that broke up the room. There they would practice simulated assaults, forming skirmish lines and moving through cover. After waiting for weeks the small fleet finally began it's trip to Sector Command Primaris, the main Imperial Guard staging area for the sector. The monthly interviews by a commissar continued after graduation. A new commissar though, now Regimental Commissar Klaque permanently assigned to the 451st Verkassian, and another bald assistant with the same pained expression, and the same weird feeling in his mind. After entering warp space however these interviews were conducted more often, even after leaving warp space they continued for three times a month for the next three months.

It was during this time that Jerrid first began to know Corporal Rould. A young man of only twenty-two he insisted on calling the squad of teenagers "boys" or "lads". He had seen

It was during this time that Jerrid first began to know Corporal Rould. A young man of only twenty-two he insisted on calling the squad of teenagers "boys" or "lads". He had seen