“…Warp jump will commence at exactly 03:30. Be prepared, and in the name of the God-Emperor, we shall arrive to bring devastation to the foes of the Imperium.” The general finished his speech and saluted, leading to the astoundingly loud noise of half a planet full of soldiers snapping to attention at once. They would all be boarding the transport ship immediately, and from there they would be going… Where the general hadn’t actually specified, and then would fight an unspecified foe. As a lieutenant, all that she knew was that it would be a xenos foe, and that an Imperial vanguard was already at the planet itself.

She also knew that it wouldn’t be very far, since the general had just described the warp jump at being a ‘short one.’ Of course, this was still likely to be a number of weeks, but it was better than a long one. Almost all of the regiments here were regional, all speaking the same dialect and using similar weapons, although each of them had their own cultural heritage behind them. Alexis idly fiddled with the hammer on her revolver, waiting for the rest of the group in front of them to start moving. She was in charge of a standard ten man infantry squad, including for some bizarre reason, a psyker and a junior commissar. She turned slightly, and the vox-caster soldier, what was his name again? Matthew or something? Yeah, it was Matthew. Looked at her with an eyebrow raised. “So, Matt, where do you come from exactly?”

“Well sarge…” the liuetanant ignored the misranking, she was officially acting as a sergeant anyway, so it wasn’t like it mattered, and only the Commissar insisted on calling her ma’am, so it was fine. “Nothing much to say ‘bout me. Rancher boy, knew how to work the vox, so I signed up to use it when they got us all up in the recruitment. Nothin’ special ‘bout me sarge.” He shook his head and shrugged, watching as the ranks ahead of them shuffled onto the atmospheric craft. They would be on shortly, but certainly not in the next… Half an hour seemed reasonable judging by the speed at which the line was moving.

She also spotted that a small group was going to each squad and handing out… Boxes of some kind it looked like. One to every squad leader. Sure enough, when they arrived closer, it was shown to be a commissar, a fully-fledged one, not the junior that was in her squad, a techpreist and two servitors, the latter two shuffling along with piles of boxes in their arms. Almost without a word, one of the boxes was taken off of the pile and handed to Alexis, and the strange group shuffled along, handing out more of the boxes.

She slit it open along the side using her combat knife, and pulled out… The Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer? But, they… No, it wasn’t just the Uplifting Primer. It was a ‘modified edition for the Damocles front.’ “Any of y’all know what the fuck a ‘Damocles,’ is?” Jesus, if this was what everything was going to be like, this was gonna be a shit campaign. She leafed through the book, before stumbling across one of the pages. ‘Tau,’ it read, and it showed a picture of one of the same fuckers who kept landing on Texanis every few decades trying to claim it for the ‘greater good’ or some shit like that.

According to this, they were weak and pathetic… Although her pa had once told her how they had scythed down a ranchstead, nothing but bloodstains and rubble afterwards. Maybe he had been trying to scare her? She inwardly shrugged and rolled her shoulders around a little bit, the cavernous opening of the surface-to-transport craft widening with every shuffling step she took. Finally, they approached it after what seemed like an eon, and the almost soundless shuffling turned to a metallic clanking sound.

Time to go and do what they were paid for… After all the waiting around of course.

Don't Mess with Texanis.

---

The day after they loaded on some big ole ship, a bunch of "Don't Mess With Texanis" stickers got put on every surface the troopers could find and the awful sight of the stuff they chewed being spat right back out, reverberating against bulkheads and other steel surfaces with a *CLANG* sound made it sound like a bunch of cowbells were going off. Somehow, sawdust wound up on the decks everywhere as these ferals made themselves at home. The Imperial Navy had unglamorous jobs for its screwup ships. Hauling Texans was like hauling Attilans; the swabbies had to actually hold onto the shit from all the animals, hound, horses, and whatever else, and deliver it up to an agriworld.

"Damocles? Is that where we're goin' Sarge? I'm spoilin for a fight, and not with some Texanis Tech candyasses." Of course, when they levied up the regiment, they cleared out the squads from University of Texanis, University of East Texanis and everyone except Rise University, who were a bunch of egghead pussies, and Taylor College, because their entire bloodbowl team was picked up on rape charges and were shipped off to a penal unit by the Adeptus Arbites.

The thing was, the entire 63rd was spoiling for a fight, but since they had some ball teams here, the Colonel figured, "Hell, let 'em play ball in the hold." This led to brawling, but it was among supporters on each team and not the Texans fighting the naval crew, which was considered a win. True to his alma mater, Clayton Robert had on a pair of khaki pants and a pair of big old riding boots, and looked particularly ready to get down there and open up a can of ass-whoopin' on the enemies of the the Emperor, take yer hat off when you say his name boy.

"By the Emperor," he took his hat off, "I hope we git us some Alien Space Communists, them Tau boys. Buncha snooty pinko hoofed sumbitches run around talking real fancy and think they're all slick. They want to come Texanis and take our planet? That dog just don't hunt!"

He had a voice like a truck commercial; deep and manly. Listeners could just imagine him describing the stupid stunts a truck could pull in a commercial. Like the ones where a fella drives the truck through some insane contraption with flames and wrecking balls, just to show off how manly the truck really was, especially compared to those pussy aluminum trucks. Texans liked their trucks made robustly, to the envy of every Ork that'd ever seen one.

The truth was, Cleet-Bob's oratory made him notable in the Regiment; he could rile 'em up real good. That got the place yee-hawing. The commissars liked him; he was the dumbest sumbitch in the entire regiment, and that meant he was probably the bravest too. No worries about having to shoot him before the enemy did.

'Now hang on one gosh-darn minute, sir! Y'all're tellin' me the regiment I'm bein' posted with is green?'

'Rookies, yes. Most shortly out of training, though ideally not so incompetent. It's poetic, if you will.'

'With all due respect, I have ta question the logic in that. Ya think maybe they ain't learned the 'ppropriate respect fer any Commissar yet, never mind a Junior lacking the relevant Dimmacu- Dimmadarn... the relevant execution powers? Uh, sir.'

'Dale, they're Texan. They don't like non-Texan Commissars, they're worse than the Catachans in that respect. You, hailing from their home planet, ought to ensure they're a bit more cool-headed. Besides, the good things I've heard about you make it seem like this is a more than appropriate test for your skills... or was the Commissar-General wrong to uplift you to Junior Commissar?'

'Nope, not at all, sir, I'll tackle these folks head-on and make Dimmadamned sure they stay in line. An' that's a Dimmadome promise, so you can count on it, sir!'

'I hope so. Oh, and speaking of Dimmacution powers... son of a bitch, now you've got me doing it... click "I, Commissar Julian Jackson, do hereby bestow upon Junior Commissar Dale Dimmadome permission to, within reason, execute those members of the squadron he is presently attached to within the Texanis 63rd Regiment, until such time as these permissions are revoked or otherwise updated, as follows: any attached psykers that show signs of Warp taint or possession; any member of the squadron that assaults, attacks, or otherwise attempts to murder the aforementioned Junior Commissar, should said squadron member pose an immediate threat to his life." click Anything else- ANYTHING else- and you come talk to me or the next nearest Commissar about it.'

'Even if the squadron set traps, sir?'

'Even then.'

'Even if the trap kills me, sir?'

'ESPECIALLY then. I trust, of course, that your judgement in this matter is relatively sound, and that your squadron isn't fool enough to target you directly.'

---

And so it went that Dale had introduced himself to the squadron, Lieutenant- Louise, rather- Alexis Williams in particular, and made it quite clear that messing with him was the equivalent of messing with any full-blown Commissar, regardless of his own Dimmability to execute them for a perceived slight or failure to remain perfectly motivated to fight the foe, but that as a Commissar of sorts in his own right he'd prefer to lead by example. Time passed after that, and now here they were, just beginning to board the ship that would take them to...

'Any of y’all know what the fuck a ‘Damocles,’ is?'

Ah, yes, the Damocles Crusade, and the Tau that came with it. He huffed lightly to himself as... what was it, Clayton? Cowboy Clayton began rambling on about spoiling for a fight with the aliens, and how they were snooty sons of bitches and talked fancier than he liked, and whilst that was true, it greatly underestimated the threat that a full detachment of Tau Fire Warriors represented. Clayton was certainly heroic, or at least dumb enough to not know what fear was, but that was in Dale's mind the only good trait he'd displayed right about now. And they weren't even dead-set on taking the planet, few as their number were; the incumbent Chaos infection posed more of a threat to his homeworld than the Tau ever could, frankly speaking, and he wasn't sure why Texanis hadn't been purged of said infection a long time ago.

'Ma'am, I believe that refers to the Damocles Gulf in the Lithesh Sector, Ultima Segmentum, on the Eastern Fringe,' Dale offered the Louise, a somewhat serious tone in his voice. 'It contains a series of worlds belonging to the Tau Empire, blue-skinned bastards that they are, and it is of vital importance that we cleanse the alien contamination before it has the opportunity ta corrupt our men inta workin' fer 'em. If I'm not mistaken, they already got to some humans a while back... I trust I won't need to deal with anyone fallin' prey to their lies in THIS squad, of course,' he finished, raising his voice to address everybody else in the squad as well, whether or not they understood what he was talking about. Though on the other hand, righteously xenophobic as Texanis was, there was always the possibility of failure to uphold the God-Emperor's ideals no matter what planet a regiment was drawn from. That was why he was there, however, and in truth, if they failed, it was equally his failure at the end of the day.

He did not belong, this Virgil knew all too well, and yet he felt almost as if he were one of them simply by being around them – a sort of 'cultural osmosis' if you will. This was of course a fictitious fancy of his, but made it none the less real for him, even if he did stick out like a sore thumb what with his distinct dialect..his father's old PDF jacket (how much brighter could red be?!)...his Nova Drookian armament and non-regulation hat...indeed, it seemed as if there were frankly no more ways by which he could show that he was not of Texanis.

Already busy browsing through the Uplifting Primer, a self-taught education and curiosity getting the better of him, he turned to another of the Privates – known as 'Cowboys' or girls within the regiment – and addressed them with a smile “good book, eh?” He chuckled, pausing only to brush a bit of dust from his otherwise perfectly crisp jacket shoulder, “at least we all know what this conflicts going to be aboat.”

He listened carefully to the words of the apparently more experienced, or at least more opinionated, Clayton Robert and was more-or-less unable to understand anything but each other word. It was clear however that he held the 'Tau' in very low regard, and exclaimed in a most Texanis-like manner indeed. Next to speak aloud was the representative of the Progenium, a Junior-Commissar by the look of his uniform markings, but also just as youthful as Virgil; how that was possible he did not know, but much like Clayton he seemed to know his stuff pretty well.

“If I'm not mistaken, they already got to some humans a while back... I trust I won't need to deal with anyone fallin' prey to their lies in THIS squad, of course.”

Waiting respectfully for the Commissariat officer to finish his explanation, Virgil piped up with his own oddly specific knowledge, “the Tau call their human helpers 'Gue'vesa', auxiliary soldiers from Tau dominated worlds, the brainwashed slaves adhering to what the Tau call the 'Tau'va' or 'Greater Good' – their primarily held belief system that a utopian society can be crafted from the unification of multiple species and states each working toward a fundamental and consummate goal...” his eyes averted from all others for a moment, a cloth appearing in one hand as he began to polish the barrel of his Nooslar rifle for the fiftieth time, “...or that's what I've heard anyway.”

To say that Lolly May had abso-fucking-lutely no idea what was going on would probably be giving the tightly wound ranch hand credit she did not deserve. She had her guns, small yet well worked fingers tapped across her frame again for the 15th time to double check while some preacher type she couldn't see droned on. She adjusted the strap on the saddle bag, also for the umteenth time during a speech she guessed could have been pretty simple. City types never could tell a bit from a butt and always wanted to talk it out with the wooden Indian. From what she gathered all that was needed was, "Shoot these ones, they bad. Oh, and maybe a lil’ something for the God-Emperor, just to satisfy Mama." These people could take notes from Coach Bellahue on stirring the team up for gametime. The way they were going on she wasn't feeling any more ready, though she sure as shit wasn’t scared; fear does require a bit of situational understanding that Lolly May surely did not posses. At least she had that boon. Confusion? Maybe. Hell, the only one she’d really understood was Clayton and he had supported her own easy as pie confidence that this was just a simple rodeo. She liked that big summofabitch, he was common as cornbread to her ilk and it was nice to have something of home. Though she thought it was a crik of shit no one had told her that dogs were allowed. Maybe she’d wrangle herself some alien dog to bring home to her friends. Now that would be a story better than Grandpa Leroy's scalps.

Ugh, this was about exciting as a mashed potato sandwich. She took another pull of her moonshine and then slipped the already dwindling flask back into the breast pocket of her leather vest and tapped to be sure she still had a pack of lho’s. Bored? Most assuredly.

Bless her heart, it didn’t help that she was surrounded by a 6 foot tall wall of people and at 5’5” she’d have to stand up to look a rattler in the eye so she had no chance of eyeing anything. She looked over at the bull beacon with his nose in a book and tilted her head like a coon dog off scent. She contemplated shimming up his shoulders for a gander at this god awful parade-- she’d never thought to see this many folks all gathered together and was decidedly against it. He seemed right stable and not the type to pitch a fit. Then he started spouting what she could only gather was some Tau commie bullshit and her nose wrinkled. How the fuck did he know all this? But more importantly, why did he care? If he’d preached that little diddy during service they probably would have called him a witch and shoved a brander into his side. But, she had to assume he was here for the same reason as her. She offered him a smile to let him know someone was listening. Boy must be all hat and no cattle, and she was definitely judging his hat. But, it was the polite thing to do even if he sounded a bit off. Mama always said be kind to those less fortunate than yerselves. Her kindness came in her decision not to climb up the boy; he was kinda scrawny anyways and she didn’t want to snap him like a twig on their first day. Instead she took another sip of the shine and extended the flask towards the man. "Howdy there, name's Lolly May."

Dale's slow, rather harsh glare over at Virgil ought to have been more than sufficient to shut the cowboy up before he finished his spiel. Apparently, he didn't notice until it was over. At all, rather. He would surely notice the Junior-Commissar slowly striding over to him and leaning into his face, however.

'Well, now, that sure is a lotta knowledge about turnin' traitor for a loyal Imperial citizen to have, Dimmadon'cha think, Virgil?' he asked, his voice low and dangerous, yet more than loud enough for the rest of the squad to hear. 'Now, I'm hopin' y'all weren't plannin' on tryin' ta exercise any a that knowledge on the field, because there's only gonna be two outcomes ta that sorta thinkin': either the blue space Commies-' That was the term, right? Despite several years on Texanis himself, he'd never encountered it for living in the high-class city of Dimmsdale. '-shootcha Dimmadead, 'cause they ain't gon' distinguish 'tween a guy surrenderin' an' a guy tryin' ta kill 'em back... or, I cap all four a yer limbs an' Dimmadrag you back by the bullet holes to get y'all court-marshalled like a son of a bitch. You understand me, Cowboy?'

Frankly, he didn't need to understand. He just needed to remain loyal and committed to fighting the foes placed before him, and if that meant ordering him to do so, or at worst turning him into an example to ensure the others did in his place, so be it. Still, he reminded himself of the reputation that Commissars who did that a lot tended to have, and promptly pulled away to a more normal position whether or not Virgil responded. 'In any case, it stands ta reason that knowin' all that ain't helpful fer fightin' the Tau,' he continued in a more congenial tone, his voice still raised for all the Cowboys and Cowgirls- and the Louise- to hear (whether or not they were listening), and he himself pacing a bit while he did so. Why not pass on some useful knowledge to the Troopers whilst they could still receive it? 'What y'all do want to know is how ta fight these suckers. An' I'll tell y'all right now: they are very, very good in ranged engagements.' By which he meant "their marker drones make them obnoxiously accurate, and most of their guns will cut through your armour and mine like butter", but it wasn't their job to know that until they hit the field proper.

'So, if y'all find yerselves in a situation where your superior officers ain't commandin' y'all to march fer the Emperor, y'all'd do best ta get inta close quarters engagements with the Tau. Obviously don't charge 'em from twenty meters away over flat ground - if y'all can sneak up from behind cover, get some frags inta their groups ta confuse the suckers, an' hit 'em while they're stunned, y'all'll be doin' just fine and Dimmadandy. Or at least get 'em pinned down with coverin' fire before chargin' 'em from twenty meters away over flat ground. I think Cowboy Cleet-Bob has that sorta thing covered fer us?' he asked, looking over at the rather dense man to gauge his reaction.

"Tell ya what," Clayton said as all the language just washed over him and left him untouched. "Only word I need to know is 'sashimi.'"

When a copy of the Primer got to him, he mostly looked at the pictures as that tightassed commissar started ranting about what he'd do to the lot of them. When Cleet-Bob was brought up, he glanced up, "What? Oh, well sure. Maybe pop some smoke so we can mess with their sightin' and get in real close and flush 'em out with frags fore an assault. C'mon, Padre, we ain't that tinhorned stupid. Frontal assault? Heyyy-ll. We'll bushwhack them sumbitches real good you just wait and see." He spat into the sawdust, "Plenty'a cattle and horse stealin' no good sumbitches in Texanis need shootin' and plenty of us done it. Ain't never profited no one to go chargin' into the guns when you can take 'em unawares."

It was easy to forget that Texans loved to fight, but they weren't quite on the Ork level. Bandit raids, cattle rustlin, horse-stealin. Hangin' offenses. There weren't enough Arbites to go around, so Texanis relied on posses to do the Emperor's, take yer hat off boy, justice in his stead.

But Clayton's moment of tactical clarity came and it went, and it was a good thing -- he might be mistaken for smart in a couple of seconds, and that wouldn't do. "Say, y'all think we oughta invite them Navy candyasses into a ball game? Might be fun to watch 'em turn all kinda shades of yella."

Virgil wasn't exactly certain what the Junior-Commissar was yelling about, having gathered his information from his ex-PDF father and a number of other sources, and had assumed that it would be good to know ones enemy...but apparently voicing poignant information such as details of their xenos belief system was tantamount to some sort of heresy. It made no sense to the off-worlder, about as much sense as their speech patterns if the truth was told, so the freshly conscripted soldier decided to keep his mouth shut for the moment.

Instead of engaging his superior officer in a dialogue, he simply took of his hat and laid it across his knee, going back to polishing his rifle and making sure it was in the best order it could be. He had not forgotten about the short (well, short for Texanis folk) woman that had spoken to him before the Commissars tirade, but he decided to act as if he had anyway.

"Clayton, I wouldn't try to get the Navy guys to 'play ball with you.' Tends to lead to film scenes with massive homoerotic undertones that was never intended." The lieutenant shoved her hands in her pockets, befoe realising. "Shit, fourth wall break, ignore me." She shook her head as they boarded the plane, sitting down on one of the chairs and pulling a lho-stick out of her pocket, lighting it up and taking a puff.

"Oh, and thanks a ton commissar." She touched the brim of her cap, before yanking it down over her eyes. Alright, here's what I've got. There's already some of us down on the surface, and there's already humans on the planet, so Guard are already there. From what I... 'overheard...' the bolter bitches have a chapel there, and they're fighting the big green (insert racist insult I'm not allowed to use.) As well as this, there's the blue-skinned cunts, who can deepthroat my non-exsistant cock, plus apparently we've got our boys coming over. And yes, I mean THOSE BOYS!"

Some of the other squads had realised what she was saying and whooped loudly- seemed this fight would be a bit more interesting than they had originally thought.

---

"Chapter Master, the Adept-"
"Bolter Bitches Brother Paul."
"Sorry Chapter Master, the Bolter Bitches have established contact with us and are awaiting relief from both the forces of the Imperial Guard and of, of course, us Chapter Master."
"Very well, inform them that we shall be coming to the-"
"My apologies Chapter Master, but that is not all. We discovered that another craft was approaching this planet to lend assistance to the siste- I mean Bitches as well."
"Oh yes? Who else of our brothers are coming? More from the Scars, some of the EmoMarines? The Smurfs?"
"Not quite sir, the ship we discovered was the Fire of the Machine."
"What chapter?"
"The... Er... The Salamanders sir."

---

"I am sure it cannot be all tha-"
"The Space Rangers."
"Fuck."
"A day in the pain glove, but correct."

'Just doin' my job, ma'am,' Dale offered in response to the Louise's thanks. He wasn't quite sure what she meant about homoerotic undertones, but then he'd never really played any sort of ball game, either before the Schola Progenium or whilst in training for the Commissariat. Arguably, he was still in training, but that was beside the point. The point being, Orks. Goddamn Orks, ruining every location they show up at and infesting the area with their spores...

But, other than that, it sounded like the Guard would have a lot of backup, both from the Adepta Sororitas (or "Bolter Bitches" as they were called on Texanis - and in fairness, that wasn't a wholly inaccurate description of many of their number, but woe betide whoever said so to their faces) and none other than the Rangers, and hoooo-nelly, wouldn't that just improve everyone's survivability several times over? Any Space Marine was worth their weight in gold, and the Rangers in particular would make damn sure their own men wouldn't die needlessly. He couldn't help but smile as he shed a small tear of patriotic pride for the boys in tan power armour, though he quickly wiped it away after the fact. They still had a lot to cover, and this one was a doozy.

'Alright, 'boys and 'girls, settle down now,' he uttered as he sat down next to the Louise, working to get at least his squad quieted before he could give out yet more sage advice on how to kill the alien. 'The big green bastards have their own set a nasty bullshit we gotta talk about, totally separate from the blue space Commies... namely the fact that they're big green bastards, and about as strong as they come. I know for a fact that the, uh, the Primer's a little, ahem, out'a date on that topic,' he stated, hoping not to alert the less intelligent, more easily shook members of the squad to the fact that it was actually completely wrong, seemingly on purpose, at least on the topic of greenskins: true, they were somewhat clumsy, but that hardly mattered when they were able to cave your entire body in with the ease of a sledgehammer, and the speed of a different but somewhat faster sledgehammer.

'So, basically, all you gotta know is that they're the opposite of the Tau: they're nasty up close, so you don't get into close combat with 'em. Instead, ya pop 'em from a distance, or let the Rangers and Bitches deal with 'em. Their guns are basically garbage they clobbered together, and the bark on those things is way worse than their bite.' Again, all technically true, but that didn't mean that bite wasn't powerful nasty... it was more that, whilst able to blow a hole through your liver just as keenly as any other weapon, any given Ork gun was very unlikely to sink its teeth into you specifically out of so many other Guardsmen, with how absurdly inaccurate most Orks were. Well, the solid projectiles, anyway... he couldn't say for any energy weapons they had, for he'd never encountered them nor had the lack of common sense to ask about them in training, but he was sure they sucked just as hard.