Hey! This story is based in the Warhammer 40K universe. If you don't know much of the lore behind it, here's the stuff you need to know.
The T'au are a race of blue-skinned aliens, which are highly advanced and fight at long range with energy weapons.
The Imperial Guard, also know as just the Guard, is a massive, galaxy spanning army, that fights for the Imperium of Man, a huge empire of humans that worships their leader, the Emperor. Casualties are high in the Guard, and if you survive one battle, you're generally considered a veteran.
The Tyranids are a race of insectoid aliens controlled by a hive mind, with their only desire being to consume all other life.
"Xenos" is the term used by humans for intelligent alien life.
"We're being deployed." Those words, as Zeno remembered them, were the beginning of what he would look back on as the worst time in his life, and what he would look back on as the best. They led to everyone he knew dying, almost being eaten at least three times, and being holed up with a girl who would have killed him without a second thought if she had seen him a few hours before she did, but now he was living happily on a ship with a handful of new friends. He sighed contentedly. How did it come to this?
"Alright, listen up you lot!" shouted the Commissar. "You are going to get out there, and die for the Emperor against the foul xenos! If all your lives are lost and it extinguishes a single soul of the enemy, it was not a waste! Now, forwards! FOR THE EMPEROR!!"
"FOR THE EMPEROR!" The shout came back from the hundred throats of the guardsmen in Zeno's regiment. Zeno screamed with the rest of them, but wished his commanding officer had at least given them a semblance of hope. "Well, even if we are definitely going to die, at least it's for a good cause," he muttered. He whispered a prayer to the Emperor and gripped his lasgun tighter. He was ready to kill with his squadmates. "Everyone ready?" This call came from the sergeant, Gavril. Gavril was the most cheerful person Zeno had ever met. He had yet to see her without a smile on her face, and she winked at him as she checked that the handful of troops under her command were ready to do their part, serving as tiny cogs in the war machine that was the three regiments gathered here today, preparing to take the fight to a small army of T'au warriors who had landed on a farming world in hopes of colonizing it.
"Ready, sergeant!"
"I'm good."
"Ready to purge some xenos!"
"I'm excited!"
"For the Emperor!"
The team looked to the final member. Tomas was an old guard and had fought in three separate battles. He was missing an eye, an ear, and three fingers from various glancing blows and ricochets.
The veteran grinned, his scarred cheeks stretching to show his few remaining teeth. "Let's do this."
They had been marching for five hours when the Commissar in the lead called a rest. Word filtered back through the ranks that the T'au were only another hour's march away, and the tacticians wanted to set up the artillery here. "Almost time for a family reunion, eh Zeno?" Zeno's best friend, Alek, nudged him. "Shut up," Zeno replied, smiling. He did look a bit like a T'au. He was thin, but of average height, and his name made it very easy to tease him about it. It didn't help that he was the best marksman in the regiment, and everyone resented him just a little. Zeno sighed and lay down on a terraformed field, stretching his arms and legs out to rest.
"Zeno! Get up!" Alek's voice woke him instantly and he sat up.
"What is it?"
"Our squad's on a mortar and Gavril wants you as the spotter."
"Alright." He got up and walked over to the cannon, saluting to the sergeant as he approached. "Ma'am."
"You know what to do, soldier."
"Yes, ma'am." He sat in the spotter's chair and strapped in, raising his eyes to the long-range binoculars. After a cursory sweep of the horizon, he turned his attention upwards and checked the sky for any possible ships or T'au drones that could be above them. "What's our job here, ma'am?" he asked Gavril, checking the horizon again.
"We're on anti-aircraft duty. That mortar's loaded up with high-speed shells, so you won't have to lead your shots as much."
Zeno smiled. It felt good that they had enough confidence in his shooting to assign him as the marksman for the anti-aircraft cannon. He looked around once more, and noticed a speck far in the distance. "There's something coming!" he called out. "I can't tell what it is.. it looks like a huge ship."
"What's it look like?" asked Tomas.
"It's all black, has a couple of tusk-looking things out the front, and between them there's what looks almost like a mouth..."
Tomas laughed grimly. "Well, how big's the ship?"
"It's huge..."
Tomas put a hand on Zeno's shoulder. "I sincerely hope you're ready to die, son. That's a Tyranid swarm ship."
The next hours were full of wild preparation. The guardsmen milled about like a swarm of ants, constructing barricades and defensive lascannons all across the field. The officers had already contacted some authorities, and they had word some reinforcements were on the way. Rumours were spreading that the reinforcements were even Space Marines, some of the most dangerous fighters of the Imperium. Zeno gripped the trigger on the mortar. He was ready to fire at anything that came within range.
Suddenly, they were there, everywhere. The Tyranids flowed like a river, as if their bodies were simply a tool for something larger. Zeno aimed, steadied, and fired. A flying Tyranid about to swoop down on a group of medics was blown away. He swiveled again, using the mortar as a cannon, firing it almost horizontally. Another insectoid fell from the sky, a hole blown in its abdomen. Zeno fired again and again, dropping the monsters like the bugs they were likened to, until the display in the targeting goggles told him he had only a few shots left. He swiveled and fired twice more, taking out swarms of dog-sized monstrosities, before looking around, trying to find a good place to fire the final shot. He saw that his squad, a Commissar, and a few other scattered guardsmen were the only ones left in a circle around him, firing madly into the bugs as they slowly encroached on his position. Then, at the corner of his eye, he saw it. A massive Tyranid, standing three times as tall as the mortar. Zeno stared at it. The thing was just at the edge of his range, and he aimed carefully.
Drop? He raised the barrel so it would hit the monster dead-on.
Wind speed? He tested the wind, feeling it on his thumb. He corrected slightly.
Air resistance? He was using aerodynamic shells.
He raised his hand to the console, began to pull the trigger, and something black and chitinous obscured his vision and slammed into the mortar. He flew through the air, strapped into the gunner's seat, before the mortar hit the ground and bent with a horrible creaking sound down towards him.
"Ohnononono-"
THUD.
