The Descent to the surface of Molov was as patiently stressful as any planetary assault. The fall from the position of the fleet in orbit to the surface was a process of nearly one standard hour. Although to the average trooper that could feel like it was stretched into an eternity, or as if it passed by in a matter of minutes depending on how terrified the trooper was. The sergeants did their best to still the romours and idle chatter from spreading into dangerous territory, or offered what words of motivation they could to new and clearly terrified troopers

As the dropships hit the atmosphere the turbulance began to grow, as if a comsic hand slowly gripped the vessel and tried to shake it from the sky. Faint rumbling was soon felt through every bulkhead and every seat was rumbling beneath the trooper whose butt was strapped into it. But this in reality was nothing, the lander itself was a centuries old craft whose venerable spirit had performed insertions like this a thousand times over a thousand different battlefields. It's armoured bulk and large guns commanded the skies, They did not bow to them. 

But the enemy had guns too, an entire planets worth of arms both large and small to fire upon their would be liberators from the heavens. As the descent dragged on it became less and less clear what rumblings were the fault of mere atmospheric turbulance. From inside the hull thumps and booms could be heard, along with all manner of noises that could only be assumed to be weapons fire. Even the droning propoganda message was soon block out by the growing onslaught of noise. 

“Prepare for landing in three minutes.” The message was blurted across the comms by a distinctly human voice. The pilot, even with the mechanical filter of the internal vox it was clear that he was short of breath. Though the common troopers onboard could only let their nightmares run wild with the possibilities of what that might be to cause this effect on him. 

“Say again, Prep-Fuck!” The message cut off coincidentally at the same moment the entire Tetrarch lurched violently in a quarter roll. The hull rebounding with unmistakable ferocity of an impact. There was a series of smaller rumbles that followed, which were the lander's own weapons firing in response though no guardsman would be able to appreciate that for long.

“Say again, Forty seconds, Forty seconds, Hard landing!” It was the only warning the company would receive as a second and a third impact rocked the Tetrach so hard that Artyom heard the hull rip open and the rush of ogygen as it sucked itself out of this new opening. The screams of horror couldn't even be made as the air needed was pulled from the lungs of those unfortunate enough to be closest to the impact point. Thankfully that was not Artyom's platoon, through a strange if not cruel twist of fate. Being closest to the ramp saved the rearmost platoons the worst of the attempted bombardment. In the heretics attempt to blast out the bow of the lander the platoon loaded nearest the cockpit suffered the brunt of heretic innaccuracy. What NCO's that had breath to spare were shouting for crash positions to be adopted and shallow breaths to be taken. 

In all the chaos and confusion of the impact, what was clear was the lander was going to crash, and crash hard. Nothing more could be heard over the vox which told Artyom that the pilot was either busy wrestling with the controls to save his own and everyone else's life, or he was dead. Probably the latter. Near the back of the lander the air was thicker and men could clearly be heard screaming, praying or swearing loudly at the Emperor, the fates or whatever comsic force landed them in the current shit-hole that was their situation. Some sergeants did their best to try and shout these down but Atryom knew it was pointless. They were all probably about to die anyway. What difference did a few curses make on anything?

Artyom himself was too terrified to do anything but grip his seat until his knuckles were as white as the snow crusted mountain tops of his homeworld. He braced himself as best he could, trying to recall that useless passage from the primer that once showed a diagram or two, how the hell did he know he would actually end up needing that information? He cursed himself for using the book as toilet paper years ago. 

“Sergeants! Corporals! Brace for impact!”