WARHAMMER 40,000: A Thousand Tiny Suns (40k/Exalted Crossover!)

The swirling madness of the moment crystalized into a shameful knot in your belly. But you had a duty.

Chooser of the living.

You swung off Gitta and dropped into the mud. You screamed at 55. "Kett!"

He rummaged in his pack, while past you, several Kreigers charged straight at the enemies firing at you. Las-bolts sizzled and puffed into the mud, spurting up superheated splatters of black glop, which smoked and steamed on your shoulders and greatcoat. Through the thin portholes of your respirator - the thing you'd seen your whole world through - you could see 7-7. She scrabbled at her mask, trying to keep her resperator on. "Morpha," you whispered, then injected her. A bolt whistled overhead and blew against a chunk of rockcrete jutting overhead. The painkiller caused 7-7 to lapse back into the muck. You could reach up and tug the mask off, but you looked aside. No. No. This was your duty.

You forced yourself to look at her face.

Her eyes were closed and her nose and cheeks and forehead all showed first and second degree burns. Bits of the durable plastiform that made up the resperator was burned into her skin. Minor injuries. Her lips and jaw had third degree burns, splitting her lips. Her arm was gone - the lasbolts had cooked it off her body. There was no place to apply the torniquet that 55 handed down to you. Damn. You applied a gauze to her arm, and the fabric - blessed as it was by the Machine Cult - tightened and formed around the jagged stump, then plumped out with a soft hiss you swore you could hear over the screaming battlefield.

She'd live. You attached a plasbag to her shoulder, tucked it in, then threaded the wires to her throat, before performing the Rite of Attenuation - adjusting the feeders so they'd be aligned with her humors. Once you had done so, you breathed a quiet prayer.

Behind you, something blew up. You jerked your head back and saw the Predator tank was burning merrily. Your squad rode around, formed up. You called out to 55. "Help me get her up onto Otto!"

55-95 was muttering quietly and you couldn't hear his monotone. For that, you thanked the Emperor. But as the two of you worked to get the weight of 7-7 over her mount, a sudden shrieking sound filled the air. Two Valkyrie fighter-bombers screamed by at nearly the height of a house. They whipped up and a rumble like the end of the world quivered through your feet. YOu shook your head, focusing on Gitta. Your mount was standing stolidly, and you saw that several lasbolts had scored her flank - revealing burned fur and her thick, subcutaneous armor plating. She didn't complain as you swung yourself up onto her, though you had never felt more furious in your life.

"Merde, Merde, Merde!" You muttered.

Sergeant 39-40 shouted, loudly enough even you heard him.

"To me, squad! To me!"

You kneed Gitta into motion, 55 reaching back to snag onto Otto's reigns, 7-7's mount moving obediently, even if he seemed like he wanted to chomp onto 55's glove. You got to the Sergeant, who shouted. "We're going back to rearm! Come!"

You nodded.

The squad rode back through the lines - past trenches being thrown up by Calixian natives. Scintillians, you were fairly sure. They were digging wildly and you had to admit, their fortifications looked relatively passable. They had put up enough heavy stubbers and las-cannons that the enemies were staying distant. Earthshakers had rolled out and were being entrenched with a wild abandon by civilians who had made the gold list. They were less good at their jobs. You ignored them as you rode down the bunker and into the aid station that had been established. Cots were already beginning to fill up, and when you reached it, you placed 7-7 on one, while the Sergeant led the rest of the squad to the quartermaster.

You were caught in a moment of stillness, without someone to care for, feeling the numb ringing in your ears.

Laying in a cot near you was a Cadian. his face was wrapped in gauze, but he was already reading a data slate. He lifted one flint gray eye to you, then smiled, wincing at the tugging gesture. "Kreiger! You brought one back alive. I thought you fella's didn't do that."

His Cadic accent was aggravatingly common - not like the refined form of Low Gothic spoken on Krieg. You lifted your head slightly. "That is a common misconception. It is a sin to die stupidly, like Foolish 13, who died from stepping on a mine against orks, without firing his weapon once."

The Cadian snorted, then laid back. As he did so, his tunic shifted and you noticed more bandages across his chest. You wondered how much morpha he had been dosed with.

"I didn't know Kreigers had stories..." he said, wistfully. "We only have stories now."

You nodded. "My world was destroyed too," you said. "But it returned, and it returned better than it was ever before, without faithlessness or-"

The Cadian shot you a look. He had one eye to use, and it was the most withering look you'd ever received, and you'd once let your bayonet rust. You went silent.

"I have work," you said.

"What's your name?" the Cadian asked.

You didn't know why, but that rankled you beyond any measure of it. It was easily the least insulting question you'd ever been fielded. But a Cadian of all people should know better. You squared your shoulders, nodding to yourself - your squad was returning with more lances. You turned back to the Cadian.

He was looking at you with a sad expression. Wondering, almost. Wondering what?

---
What do you say?

[ ] ...41-22
[ ] I don't have a name, I have a serial designation, just like you. But unlike Cadians we don't need to aggrandize ourselves with needless affectations to stand out.
[ ] What's yours?
[ ] Write In

You were quiet for a moment. Then, squaring your shoulders, you lifted your head. "Corpsman 41-22, of the 309th Krieg Cavalry, Death Riders." You were silent, then placed your palm on Gitta's flank. Her nose whuffed through her respirator with a whirr and a click. "My assigned mount is Gitta."

"You named that thing?" the Cadian asked, sounding faintly shocked. You scowled behind your mask, then turned away from him, stalking off with your hand on Gitta's reign.

Then, apologetically, you heard his voice.

"Kit."

You turned back, looking at him.

"My name's Kit. Christopher," he said, grinning a bit at you. His one eye was sad. "All we have to remember is each other. The planet broke first, remember?"

You were silent for a long moment, then nodded. Kit. The name felt...strangely heavy in your mind, like a stone in your gut or a lance in your arm. You'd forget it by the time you were back in the battlefield, and forget how strange it was to look into someone else's eye. Forbidden, almost. It had been the hardest part of training, when the instructors had laid out how other worlds lived. There were no dark chambers, no home masks, no fair masks, no wedding masks, there was just naked, shameful faces everywhere. The first time you had needed to look at another person - an Administratum scribe, inducting you aboard the Happy Grox - you had managed to keep your eyes on their feet. But later, fascination and grotesquery had won out, and you had been forced to look at lips and eyes and noses.

So much variation.

So much sin.

Maybe that was why you'd actually talked to K...the Cadian. His face was mostly covered in gauze. It was almost proper, even.

You came back to 55, who was brushing his hand along his mount's flank, whispering softly. "No. It's not true. He's not dying. He's not. He can't be. He can't be. He's not. He can't." He lifted his head. "Oh God Emperor, how can he die? He can't die. Oh no. No! No!" His hands scrabbled at the sides of his head.

"55...what are you...uh, talking about?" you asked.

"Close your eyes, think of Earth!" he spun to face you. "Do it. Do it, do it!"

You reached down. Your injector had morpha - you could make him sleep. It would be easy. It'd be very easy, in fact. You didn't know how, but the portholes of his gas mask seemed like they were widening. You shook your head a bit. "Keep your senses, Corpsman," you said, firmly. "You're making us look bad infront of the other regiments."

He was silent for a long moment. "Okay. Sorry."

You sighed, then saw the Sergeant riding back. Your squad had three holes in it - but there was no mention made of 12-13, 7-7, or the man from the other fire team, 99-01. Instead, the Sergeant looked at your two lances, then grunted. "Good," he said.

You turned your mask down, shame burning on your cheeks. "I..."

His hand reached down and he shook your shoulder, making your head jerk up.

"I've been a Sergeant for six years," he said. "This is my second battle. Being a medic is a heavy burden - but I've seen wars won because of their efforts. You are doing the God-Emperor's work, 41-22. Don't ever let the others think otherwise."

You gulped. "Six years? You're...not part of our batch?"

"NCOs never are," he said, sounding amused. "You don't learn in a vat, Corpsman. Now, on your Gitta. We have to ride."

You felt your resolve firming and your shoulders squaring. You nodded, then grabbed onto Gitta and swung up, mounting and settling. 55 sidled his beast next to yours, and the rest of the squad formed around the Sergeant. "We're on another tank hunt," he said. "The push is going well - enemy forces are falling back. They're all scum so far - it seems the Traitor Marines are hiding on the barge. As they are no true angels of death, Command says that they lack the courage of our own blessed champions - and will allow their foolish followers to die by the thousands to defend themselves. Lets find another tank and show them the meaning of Krieg!"

The rest of the squad nodded, and the Sergeant turned his mount - and with a thunder of claws, the squad was on their way again.

The sky overhead had gone dark - but the noise had gotten worse. The thumping of artillery, the distant rumbling, the rattling of gunshots, all of them were underlaying a voice that rang out, booming from the vast voidship that remained in the sky - an artificial star burning from her belly to keep her suspended in the air.

"It is by my hand that you will rise from the ashes of this world," a melodious voice crooned into the air. "For I am the redeemer of false words - the prophet of the true dawn. I am the Dark Apostle of all your desires. I am...Cartheniax. And I bring you the Word! The truth! The truth!"

"Damn all laudhailers," Sergeant 31-32 muttered under his breath as he took you behind a ridge. The horses were moving as quietly as they could, as if they knew as well as you did that in the dark, you had to move surely and with confidence and quiet. Quiet. 55 was shaking his head.

"No, no, no, no, stop the truth, I can't hear it, won't hear it, stop, stop, stop!"

The squad came to a thick ridge. Whump whump whump whump sounded from the other side - a pair of alternating autocannons, and the rumbling sounds of their distant explosions. And over it all, Cartheniax's voice continued. "The truth is that the Emperor...is dead. The light has faded from his eyes. Do you not wonder, oh poor benighted children, why your enslaved souls and mewling astropaths have all gone silent? Have you not wondered why your astronomicon has gone dark? Have you not wondered where the Navis Nobile have all scuttled off to, hiding in despair? The Emperor-"

"Ignore his lies," the Sergeant said.

You gulped and put your hand to your chest, whispering. "Emperor keep these falsehoods from my mind," you whispered. "Emperor see we all die in glory today, in his name. Emperor...protect." You ducked your head forward.

The planet broke before the guard did.

It was a good saying, even if it came from K...a Cadian.

Sergeant 31-32 gestured with one hand and the squad rode up, forming a rough chevron. He gestured twice to you and 55, and you realized...he was asking you to take your lance in hand. You lifted it up, excitement buzzing in your belly. You were a medic, but...then you saw why. There were a pair of heavy tanks, Predators, parked with their hull down and their barrels protruding just over another low hillock. Their backs faced your squad, and their infantry screen was arrayed ahead of and to the sides - somehow the Sergeant had led you around them in the dark and the chaos.

The Sergeant gestured and the entire squad burst into a gallop at once. With the noise of the battlefield, it wasn't a shock that almost no one noticed you until you were on the tanks. You thrust your lance - and the melta-tip going off kicked against your side like Gitta had decided you were annoying her. Your shoulder throbbed and your eyes were dazzled - and then your ears were hammered by a roaring gout of flame. More melta-tips were thrust into both tanks, each horse peeling to the side as their rider spun them away. You glanced back over your shoulder, grinning behind your battle mask.

The two tanks were burning - greasy smoke rising into the air, their infantry crying out in shock and terror. As if the exploding tanks had been a sign, bolters and lasbolts started to pepper them. The Sergeant led you away.

Overhead, the voice felt easier to ignore. "-the Imperium is no more. You fight for a corpse."

No. You were a corpse. But the Imperium would-

---
What interrupts you?
[ ] Ferocious artillery bombardment
[ ] Strafing run by Helltalon fighter bombers
[ ] One Traitor Legionaries