Fighting With Faith- Fifteen Entry

Bukom lay on his back, breathing hard. His breathing came out in ragged, shallow gasps, as if a huge boulder was placed on his chest. He felt dizzy, light, as if he was in a gaseous state. His sense of hearing was rendered useless, only able to detect low, powerful booming vibrations along his spine. The booming was coming nearer.

He raised his head and looked at his body. What remained of him was intangible to every aspect of his human senses. He shuddered, only to the point where his deformed body could allow. He was mutilated beyond recognition; he now knew why the badly wounded solider he saw earlier in the hands of Ladin was as he was: they were fighting Tyranids, not some battle crazed Ork who only attacked moving things and not caring about the dead and dying. Tyranids were aliens, biologically tailored for efficient slaughtering of any living form. Killing machines.

His lacerated and gashed legs were ruined. There was no way he would be walking again, except with the help of augmentations which Bukom loathed.

What use is the Emperor’s blessed body when you replace it?

The Hive Tyrant was dead at his feet, bleeding from a dozen wounds and scores of las shots. It was decapitated at the head, with thick black ichor still pooling out of it. Blood was what it was covered in, both itself and its victims. Now it in turned was Bukom’s victim.

Bukom himself had suffered numerous cuts, gashes and slashes. His torso was a ripped, unrecognisable lump of bleeding flesh. Countless bioshards and hooks were still impaled in his many wounds. His arms were no better. His right arm was sliced deeply at the wrist, when the Tyrant had resisted his initial thrust of his scabbard and did a counter swipe to Bukom, targeting his hand. His left arm, eviscerated at the forearm, was becoming stiff, its senses long dead. His head was a bloody mess, acidic solutions dripping off his scalp, eating away his skin and sinew, secreted by the flailing Tyrant in its violent death throes. He may have killed the Hive Tyrant, but the Hive Tyrant destroyed him.

Bukom let his eyes peel off his ruined form and looked around. Not far away, was a Ripper Swarm. Tiny, scuttling insect like creatures surging en mass towards a Guardsman corpse. What followed Bukom decided not to witness.

He agonisingly turned his head right, and saw what he thought was himself, but in a more dire situation. Trooper Galfon, Bukom recalled dimly, was in no better state then Bukom was. However, Galfon, unlike Bukom, was not dying, but being killed. Galfon was screaming, through his blood chocked mouth, in vain, as Hormagaunts, mutants and cultists mercilessly hacked away at his entrails, eviscerating him. Soon, Galfon was nothing more then a crushed and mangled corpse amongst thousands on the battlefield.

The enemy that killed Galfon stopped their gruesome slaughtering once they were satisfied with Galfon’s sudden silence. Their eyes turned onto Bukom.

Ignoring the sharp and acute pain that immediately shot up his right arm; he raised it, along with his laspistol held firmly in his bloodied hand and depressed its trigger. A mutant fell, shot clean in the forehead. He shot again, blowing a huge chunk of flesh out of a Hormagaunt’s limb. He kept on shooting, always scoring wounds or casualties amongst the ranks of the oncoming enemy.

I lost this fight, but the fight is yet to be lost for the Imperium...Was Bukom’s final thoughts.