# Time of Night



## JoeGuardsman (Jul 22, 2008)

I started writing this long before the Planet Fall supplement was even being talked about. When I write for 40k I try and thing about times, places and people that are not often considered. Planetary assaults have been written about but never an assault on a defenseless planet. That is usually something that happens before our gallant space marines come to life on the page. Here is a story of you or me when our hive world is attacked shattering our lives.

Planetary Overthrow (-1day)
I remember it very well, even now that it is all dust. Perhaps I remember it all better because it is gone and it was the last of the life that I knew. I was sitting down on the couch/bed of my one room hab unit with my two daughters, eating a very exciting plate of protein while watching the afternoon hololith programs. During a commercial break and the predictable playing of a workforce inspirational announcement I slipped out of the room and and down the hall to the emergency balcony. I'd be damned if during my first day away from work in 3 weeks I'd be watching one of those damned inspirationals. I stepped out onto the corroded and rickety balcony and tried to steady the shake in my left hand as I slid my lho-stick out of my pocket and began to empty it. I took a deep breath to steady myself and then took the Obscura out of my sock and packed it into the stick. As I lit the end and inhaled the world swam for a second and snapped back allowing me to finally feel at ease again. Now that my mind was focused I took a moment to look out upon the soot pumping manufactorum of my fine city Acorum and seeing noting but deep darkness I realized something was very very wrong. The air pollution above the city never allowed for any real light to reach the city so the city was always lit up artificially even at night, the only respite being to go to your windowless hab unit but for the first time in my life I saw night. The insufferable night that started that day. Emperor how I hate the night.
Unfortunately I was still very much ignorant to the actual events that the night was precursor to so I imagined that there was merely some kind of terrible breakdown in the lighting that would be fixed sooner or later. Eventually I just let it slip from my mind and tried to pick out the Governor's palace through the blackness. That is one of the things I remember about the inspirational videos, we were supposed to be considered lucky to live and work in the most productive city on Kailn with the planetary governor looking over us. Living in the capitol only lead me to be drawn into the epicenter of the terror that would be unleashed upon this dark unlucky world.
I gave up looking at nothing once my obscura was tapped and went back inside. The girls calm and well behaved as ever were still watching their hololith programs as I walked back into the room laid down next to them. It was the last day I would lay next to them, the last day I would sleep calmly, even the last day I would eat a prepared meal. The only last that I don't regret is that it was the last time I would disappoint the girls by smoking obscura.
Planetary Overthrow (-5 hours)
I woke up the next morning the girls still beside me. There was barely enough room for the three of us on it anymore they were growing so much but with their mother dead there was only one viable worker in the family and that meant one room and one bed. As I began to pry myself free without waking them up I noticed that the hololith wasn't on, which was a first since my youngest Oila couldn't sleep without it on and it was always on. It was beginning to worry me that a lighting grid that hadn't so much as flickered during my first 34 years of life was failing so thoroughly now. I ignored the near complete darkness and got myself ready for work. As I fastened my work belt the hololith screamed to life in a horrible cascade of white noise and high pitched screeches. My daughters woke up in a terrible start and Oila at only 6 years of age began to cry while Frela held her ears tight and began screaming back at it with the defiance that 10 year olds have. I got them up and got their shoes on and walked them out of the door only to be greeted with the sound booming out of every room in the hallway. Everyone in the building was a confused half asleep wreck and everyone was funneling toward the stairs to get outside. Rather than get stuck in the press of bodies and risk getting trampled I led the girls to the emergency stairwell. It was practically their play ground so I wasn't worried about being able to get down its faulty stairs and railings. When we reached the balcony I looked out and despite the darkness I was able to see Governor's palace this time. I was only able to see it because of intermittent flashes of light that were followed by distant booms. It was almost like watching fireworks but no matter how uneducated and ignorant I may be there was no mistaking the explosions as what they were. The explosions of munitions just like the ones that I helped to create everyday in the heat of the manufactorum.
Finally realizing there was a serious problem of some kind I tried to set myself on a reasonable course of action. We had to seek protection and so I headed towards the Adeptus Arbites Precinct Fortress the nearest bastion of safety. It was a long walk but we had to try, even as the speakers on every corner that normally played placid hymns and inspirationals of the Emperor instead blasted the infernal racket that I would later find out was named "The Cacophony of Kruze".
Planetary Overthrow (0 hours)
With the sky completely grayed out and the sounds of distant explosions bouncing off of the walls around us, we made our way as fast as possible to safety. If I could only get them there, the Arbites would protect us. I wasn't the only person with this idea however and as I reached the opening in the streets in front of the precinct I slammed into a wall of bodies. A sea of humanity was seeking sanctuary and a few Arbites were holding the walls and gates against them. Some where allowed entrance but it was obvious that most would never be allowed in. Despite the hopelessness of the situation I decided that I needed to forge ahead. This was the only way I could think of to save my girls and I would not fail them. I scooped them both up and began to push my way through the crowd. Slowly I made head way and I was more than half way to the gates when we heard the first of the shrieks that would haunts us forever. Everyone in the square looked up to see a pack of winged creatures circling high above us and there was no doubt that they were the source of the noise. I had never seen a living thing fly before and before that I had imagined it was a thing of beauty but there was nothing but wrongness in the way these things moved through the air. The threat was apparent and the press of bodies became worse than ever as people fought to get themselves to the gate but as suddenly as the press grew in strength it suddenly disappeared. The creatures dove towards the mass of bodies and the screams of people mingled with the screeches of the creatures in a horrible crescendo. People scattered in all directions and I fought to keep my footing while I continued to push toward the gates and hold onto the girls. Heavy stubber turrets opened fire on the creatures as they dove into the crowd but very few of the creatures seemed to have been felled at the time. They didn't slow down at all before landing, merely using the bodies of the people they attacked to cushion their fall. I was very near the gate now with only a few dozen people who were willing to risk waiting at the gate. The Arbites had fallen back from the main perimeter and we were trying to break through the chain link fence as we watched the heavy mechanical gates of the compound begin to close 40 feet from where we stood. A man had just finished breaking the door to the fence open when a screech and rush of wind passed my head by mere feet and one of the creatures smashed into his chest and pushed him through the gate. I turned the girls faces away as I sprinted past the man who was now being evicerated by the creatures. With the girls weighing me down I saw that the gate was closing and I didn't feel that I would make it. I pushed forward with all the strength I had left and I pushed the girls through the door. I made eye contact with them one last time. There was no way that I could fit through the space that was left.


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