Watcher and Sleeper
This story, part of the community effort on the Emperor's Nightmare chapter, tells of a battle between a beleaguered PDF and a handful of Nightmare marines against the forces of Chaos.
The battle had not gone well.
The few survivors of the PDF crouched behind sandbags and the cracked remnants of an archway, only able to make snap-shots amid the storm of bolts and warpfire.
And in the middle, a point of calm in a roiling sea of activity, was the still form of Sleeper Michelak. Like a statue, he stood amid their defensive position, sleeping deep as the rounds flew.
Watcher Gavroche was all that was keeping these men together, he realized--when he deemed the time right, he'd bark the order, and the men would rise en-masse and release a great, defiant fusillade, change positions, and hunker down once again. Sometimes they lost a man in this tactical shift. Sometimes they didn't. But Gavroche was running out of men, and the traitor legions seemed without number.
If only Michelak hadn't fallen into the Dreams, he wished. Just one more brother could have made the difference over these last two days. At least he was being ignored--perhaps the Chaos marines thought it amusing. An insult, or a symbol. He supposed it didn't matter. Not any more.
He moved before he saw--a flawlessly conditioned reaction, as one of the hated enemy vaulted the pillar he had taken cover behind, and brought his roaring chainaxe down for his skull. The Watcher didn't even try to draw his own sword, instead seizing the heretic by his wrist as he danced aside. The bolt-pistol snapped up as the axe dug its own grave in the earth, snarling and howling. The berserker hadn't even had time to register surprise as the Nightmare pressed his gun to his temple, rounding out the fluid motion.
"Chargers! Over the walls!" He roared to the guardsmen as he dispatched the first of them.
If only Michelak hadn't fallen into the Dreams...
One, ten, a hundred, beyond count. In the whirl, Gavroche had taken up the sword from the fallen sergeant, and began vaulting from position to position, defending the soldiers from the assault. They kept firing into the horde as he felled them one by one, sliding in and out of cover. He dared the warp-tainted projectiles to hit him, and they sang in the air just a split-second behind him. He didn't slow when the sword broke--he jammed what was left of it into the offending berserker's eyepiece and drew his own. He didn't slow when his bolter clicked empty--he holstered it in one smooth motion, knowing it had served its purpose as he stood in a wreath of brass. He didn't slow when he felt the hit--his midsection. The tainted shot burned in his side, but to stumble was to invite the rest to do what it had not.
Finally, he had completed the move. He sank to the ground behind a wall as his body finally began to betray him. Three casualties. But the position held one more assault. His armored hands began to pull the shattered ceramite free of his side, already staunching from his thickening blood. Treat the wound, bind his side, he could keep going. He could keep going. He had to keep going. If only Michelak...
The guardsman was shouting, but he couldn't hear. His vision slid in and out as he watched the man lifted off the ground and brutally sliced in half. His right arm wouldn't move. He drew his bolt-pistol and fired. Click. Click. Click. Imprisoned in his languid body, his mind raced, trying to find an option to contest this threat. Wreathed in the fell energy of the warp, the Chaos champion laughed, advancing on the stricken Watcher, his blackened gauntlet stretching close...
...Just as Michelak barreled into the traitor, rolling and striking without weapons--they had needed his arms while he slept. Elbow, fist, helmet, anything and everything he had at hand as he battered his opposite. The horned helm was torn off and smashed through its wearer's arm. Michelak rose, bolt shells exploding and warp energy splashing over his armor, carving angry red furrows into its surface. He roared and threw the shattered remnants of the Chaos champion over the wall just in time for a second to run him through from behind.
He turned, seizing his attacker and presenting him to the gun-line of heretics, who never once stopped firing. The howling chaos astartes was ablated in short order, and with a grunt Michelak pulled the sword from his abdomen and flung it away. He kneeled a moment, and rose again with the boltgun of a fallen brother. As he was lanced through with radiant energies and exploding projectiles, he fired, and fired, and fired.
And, sometime, through the haze and the pain, it was over.
"...Brother Gavroche..." It was difficult to speak. His vox was broken. No, his helmet was flooded.
"Here, brother." The Watcher watched the Sleeper.
"Of the men... survivors?" He rasped.
"Six. You saved them, Michelak." The auspex in his hand told him what he already knew. He removed Michelak's helmet to help the man breathe.
"Forgive me, brother." He rasped. Though both knew the Sleep came as it would, they both also knew what it was to awaken to a losing battle.
"It is nothing. You saved us all."
"I saw Him. In the sleep."
"Michelak, try not to speak. You are wounded."
"He told me... you needed me. Here." They were silent for a time.
"...Brother Gavroche."
"Here, Michelak."
"I am... tired."
The Watcher placed his hand on the Sleeper's forehead.
"Then sleep, brother."