Months Earlier.
The din of tools and the constant hiss of welding torches filled Mehl's ears as he tried to work a wire around a support beam that he could have sworn was in the wrong spot according to the blueprints. But this was part of the job, working around what the other construction workers put in the wrong places without the Foreman seeming to notice or even care was pretty much the first thing he had learned during his apprenticeship. Stretching his arm as far as it would go Mehl felt something pop in his shoulder at the same time that the wire touched the tips of his other hands fingers. Taking a hold of the wire he would pull it through enough to leave the uncomfortable position and move to a far nicer one to work from.
Several hours later and far more sore than he had been upon arriving to the work site that day, Mehl dusted himself off and threw a glance to the power switch down the hall, "Jan! Jan! Throw the switch! The power is wired up on this floor!" he yelled toward the switch. After a brief moment of waiting a man stumbled out of a different room, knocking over a bucket and some brooms in the process before throwing him a thumbs up and sauntering over to the switch.
"Any day now Jan!"
The switch flipped and the lights around the floor came on first in a slow glow and then quickly warming up to their standard brightness. Mehl smiled.
"Hamlin." came the voice of none other than the Foreman from behind him.
"Sir?" Mehl responded as he turned in place to face the man, finding a piece of Administorum parchment held out to him.
"Take it son. It's your time to serve the God Emperor."
Hamlin Mehl stood amongst the men and women of his platoon as they shuffled forward to the gear issue ahead. He mingled slightly with the other newly minted Guardsmen around him, shooting the shit as they waited, complaining about the heat slowly building as they waited, the timeframes that could have been simplified if they’d simply put everything in order rather than having each person walk to different stalls seemingly haphazardly places about the area to gather their things. True Guardsmen thoughts.
His time came and went to gather his gear and he found himself fumbling with an ungainly pack, stuffed to the brim with not a sliver of sense as he attempted to find a place to put it down and organize it slightly better. Finding a small area off behind the lines of Guardsmen still waiting, and began to unpack the ruck and lay everything out in a jumble.
Some twenty minutes later and Mehl was content with his efforts enough to bring the large and much more compactly packed ruck back over his shoulders just in time to hear the order to board the transport. His heart skipped a beat as he turned to face the gaping maw of the ship that would most certainly take him to his demise, but he composed himself enough to reach down and pull the Voxcaster backpack set up and across his chest before falling into the line of straggling men and women making for the ramp.
He clutched at the cold and now very familiar metal of the caster in front of him as he began to trudge up the ramp and into the consuming darkness of the hold.
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