Lasbolts flew wildly across the landscape, though the attack was from so far from my position that even if they were well-trained karskins they would have likely flown wide of the mark. For those familiar with lasguns like any good soldier, I needn't tell you how they work. But for the layman or autogun enthusiast, there is no arc to the laser that is discharged from a lasgun. It will continue on until the beam fires past the curvature of the planet and dissipates into the cold nothingness of the void. It makes the guns accurate if you're accurate, but any degree off-point and it will increase the margin of error. 

I unholstered my autogun pistol and dove behind a rise in the sand just at the cusp of the beach. Selencia hustled over to my position and knelt beside me in a crouch, a needle gun in her hands. She gave a quick bead on the enemy and fired a shot. I had found a small curve in the sand and unloaded four slugs from the autogun, killing two of the barbarians. Even as I watched, more charged into my line of sight. There had to be dozens, shooting haphazardly and carrying crude bludgeoning weapons. 

"Coincidence?" Selencia asked with a curious nonchalance. 

"Doubtful, but I don't think they would have had the skill to hit Samara as we found her." I reasoned, raising myself from a prone position to a knee and firing another four shots. The heavy caliber gun reverberated the sand by my feet as the muzzle flashed. Three more dead, their blood splattering the forest floor and covering the local fungi. 

Selencia's needle pistol dispatched a particularly large, thuggish brute who had decided to rampage toward our position. He hadn't even had a lasgun, just a crude looking piece of steel that vaguely resembled a sword. He almost looked confused when his heart was pierced, tripping and falling into death mere feet from their position. "Well there's enough of the bastards to kill us, much less Samara." 

"True," I said absentmindedly. I looked over near the ten's where the locals had made a defensive perimeter, two of them already taken down by the mob that charged at them. Lucious was easy to spot, the thunder warrior swinging his arm like a club and sending a man flying into his fellows like he had been hit by a terran bull. I wondered where Emmaline was, but even as the thought crossed my mind, a savage crested the small rise we hid behind and raised an axe to brain me. I lifted my arm to halt the percussive blow by halting the momentum of the weapon's haft, and the two of us went tumbling into the sand. I knocked his arm with the axe behind my own arm and wrapped his other arm up in my legs to keep it immobilized. Selencia slid over to us, and she grabbed the screaming man's head and with a quick twist, snapped his neck. I had forgotten how seriously she took her close combat training. 

"The lady Emmaline is fine." She said as if she read my thoughts. "In fact I'm envious of her. She has the big astartes and I only have you." She quipped coquettishly, offering her hand and helping me stand up.