Silver began his new life already within the trenches which had been erected within a ruined hive city.
A steady stream of munitions and vehicles were passing along the cracked road nearby. Overhead the occasional valkyrie transport flew past.
Silver finished assimilating into his new fleshy body. Memories of his situation played back like a high speed movie.
Planet Huliar. A once pristine recruitment world for the Astra Militarum. Now the planet was the site of a fierce battle.
Hive cities so vast that even high speed transports took several minutes to pass from one end to the other. These cities were now ruined tombs. Every city block had traces of the battle. Cracked and cratered roads, limbs and corpses, the occasional smoking wreck of an armored vehicle.
Silver was but a tiny cog in the vast machine of the Astra Militarum, and in this case he could be considered a lucky cog. His new fleshy container was awaiting deployment orders when he merged, thus he was safe for some time from the flames of war.
This was not to say he was entirely safe. There was always the chance the front line would fall. A chance of a stray artillery shell ending his brief existence. Or even the chance that a commissar would use his life as a “motivational example” to spur the other men on.
The first two scenarios he had no control over, however the third he could at least appear to be useful in an attempt to not be considered even more expendable than the average guardsmen.
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Thus Silver spent his time helping his fellow guardsmen while not drawing attention to himself. This was in his opinion the best way to avoid an untimely demise. The nail that stick out gets hammered down after all.
While loading a few crates of ammunition into a chimera armored transport, a passing officer picked out Silver and a few other men.
“You lot, load up, you’re going to the front.” The officer said in a gruff voice gesturing towards a line of chimeras which had just arrived to transport some reserves to the front.
If the other guardsmen were disheartened or scared they did not show it, better to keep it inside than be accused of fearing the enemy or insubordination.
Silver was one of the lucky few who were permitted to ride within a chimera. This provided him a layer of armor between him and the enemy when they arrived at the front. Others were ordered to simply ride on the exterior, luckily no Techpriest was around to complain about such sacrilege.
After two hours of rocketing through the ruined city they arrived at the frontline. While Silver could not see outside, he could certainly hear the roar of battle and feel the blasts of explosives in the form of shockwaves.
The light above the chimera’s rear door shone red illuminating the troop compartment. Silver along with a few other guardsmen stood packed within awaiting their signal to rush out.
An explosion, too close for comfort, rocked the chimera. The tell tale sound of bolter rounds pinged off the armored shell of the transport.
Finally they slowed just enough for the rear door to open and the light to flip to green. This was all the guardsmen within needed to rush out, Silver was among them.
A hellish battlefield stretched far across the wasteland like planet. Silver got his first look of what he was fighting, although his memories had told him already. Heretics, traitors, the forces of Chaos.