A Long Way From Home

2267, September 10th: 4 days ago we linked up with the ICS Spirit and what was left of the ARN on Savannah. It wasn't a pretty sight, everyone had that look in their eye, you could tell, no one thought they were going to make it; But no one was willing to give up either. What they did to those poor people on this planet.. tore many of them to shreds, turned them into those things, mindless walking bags of blood and meat. Those who gave in to the voices were not themselves anymore, they ran off into some dark places never to be seen again, off worshipping those things like the Blood Hands. We found out that Captain Miller had made contact with some sort of, I don't know, hybrid human. He called himself Thorn and told us that the Archon's had a weakness; He was willing to help us only because he "hated them more them we could ever understand". You destroy their conduits and you destroy their ability to manifest into our dimension. So we dismantled the the nuclear warheads from the ICS Spirit's LRMS and made them portable. The first few conduits we hit bought the ICS Spirit some time before the enemy came back..our brothers gave their lives to do it. The survivors got out in time, thanks to them. We headed to Swaggah. We knew it was a suicide mission, if we were lucky some of us would make it out alive. At least the Republic has the intel they need to fight the demons, at least that's what Dobri called them. He said we were going to hit them hard, right where most've em had gathered, above the center of the city. It's a good thing we had Thorn and those Scion's from the IDI, we would've never made it past the horde without them. So we aimed for the biggest and the baddest of the conduits, it was like some sort of mothership for the rest of em. Half the guys were wiped out before we even got aboard. But once we were there, we wasted no time. Dobri told us to arm the nukes. We had no other choice, we knew that meant the city would be gone. We agreed the Scions needed to get out alive, with what they've seen, their report might just be able to convince the Emperor to agree to a cease fire, and Thorn had to return to his "homeworld". He didn't owe us anything, so we gave him no trouble for his departure. The original plan was for Disciple 2 to stay behind and simply detonate the nuke and all of us with it, but Thorn told us it didn't have to be that way. He gave us information about the Conduits, how they're linked through hyperspace. One of them can lead to any other, we just needed to find the chamber with the hyper-portals. Time was running out, we had five minutes left and were low on ammo. We agreed no matter what, if we didn't find the portals in time, no one would stop the timer. Sending these bastards back to hell was our mission. But then Dobri found the chamber. It almost looked like water, like a sphere of goo suspended in mid air. Disciple 2 took a leap of faith on Thorn's words and one by one they jumped in. I was the last one to go before Dobri, just so happens I was carrying the nuke too. Dobri asked me what I was waiting for, told me to "toss the nuke". He yelled that we were out of time. But I knew we couldn't just leave the nuke there, ticking. I had to protect the nuke and make sure it went off. I told him to "get the hell out of here", he didn't want to listen. "If you stay, I stay" he said, as we exchanged fire with the Blood Hands. I grabbed Dobri by the collar of his armor and told him, "You're a long way from home, make sure you get back in one piece" before I shoved him into the portal. He vanished into thin air, absorbed into the strange liquid. I looked at the timer, one minute left. I hadn't realized it, but I was shot, and bleeding from my abdomen. I took cover. I saw a terrifying looking Archon manifest in front of me, tall, powerful, above the rest. He reached for the nuke in desperation. "Go to hell", I said and slammed the detonation button with my fist.