"Three day stopping of liquor ration and assignment to the next offensive patrol," Katia said, signing the paperwork with a flourish. The soldier, a scruffy looking corporal who had been involved in a brawl which had left one civilian dead and a guardsman in the infirmary, looked relieved as he was escorted out of Katia's impromptu office. She sighed and winced as her muscles clenched, reminding her of the several pieces of shrapnel she had taken to the thigh and lower chest. The thick Commissariat great coat had taken the worst of it, but the medicae had still insisted she remain off her feet as much as possible. In truth the medicae had told her she should be in bed for a week, but that wasn't feasible. She pulled irritably at the IV in her arm to free up some space for her left hand.

"Next," she said, dismissing the corporal with a nod of her chin. The corporal braced to attention and departed, flanked by two of the survivors of Zeb's little command. They had been acting as aides for Katia while she was laid up and had already earned the nickname 'The Firing Party' for their pains. Not that Katia had needed to have anyone shot just yet. In truth the handful of offenders had been given relatively light punishments, Katia having realized that every trained man was invaluable, and that no punishment she could dream up was likely to be that much worse than being cut to pieces by ravening orks.

Her office was located in what had been a primary scholam, but had been converted to military use when the routing PDF troops had fallen back here, crashing into some guardsmen who stiffened them enough to dig in. The office had been a classroom and was still adorned with festive children's art depicting burning heretics. A particularly striking poster advertised 'Our Friend Promethum!' with a number of facts about the fluid written underneath it with childish illustrations. The Firing Party had set up cots and a card table in the coat room, and were serving as aides and runners.

"Trooper Kalth of the 122nd Catachan," Paget, her vox operator announced as a bulky muscular man with an insouciant grin was escorted in between two of her troopers.

"Charges?" Katia asked, for effect, having already reviewed the slate.

"Killed a PDF trooper who woke him for watch," Paget informed her.

"Anything to say for yourself Kalth?" Katia asked, effecting bored indifference.

"He shouldn't have touched my boots, could have been anything bout to grab me," Kalth glowered. This was a sticker subject than it appeared. Katia had been asked to take over discipline of the Imperial forces currently under siege including temporary authority over other regiments, but it made for a sticky mix of conflicting agendas. Kalth was a good soldier and if he were executed the Catachan's would be resentful. On the other hand if he were let off the PDF, the vast majority of troops would be upset. They might even try to get some kind of street justice, which would be both ill advised and unsurvivable. Worse yet it might lead to a street fight between the militia and the regulars that they could not afford.

"Two weeks KP, somewhere the PDF can see, no patrol duty," Katia declared, signing the slate.

"You can't have me peeling tubers while there are oks need killin'!" Kalth blustered. Katia put down her pen and looked up at him with cold eyes, made tired by the drugs being dripped into her system.

"Skald," she told one of the members of The Firing Party who was sitting on his cot eating something from a can. "If Trooper Kalth prefers, take him out to the playground and shoot him." She arched an eyebrow at the Catachan who met her eyes for a moment before dropping his in surrender.

"Very good. Next," she called as Skald was lead back towards the kitchens, a series of refitted restaurants around an Administratum food dispensary.

"Skald, spread some rumors among the PDF that Kalth is going to be transferred to a penal legion will you, that should keep anyone from getting their fatigues in a bunch. Skald grinned around a mouthful of reprocessed meat and he tapped his forehead in salute.

"Ma'am, the Colonel has asked to see you," Paget reported before the next offender could be brought in. Katia considered it.

"Alright, send the rest back to lockup for today, we can finish tomorrow," she decided.

"Hey Zeb!" Someone called from the anteroom and the men were suddenly a buzz with good humor at the Sargent's return.

His ribs ached like absolute hell, but the medicae had done a thorough job. In fact, he had found an emblem of the Orders Hospitaller next to his bed, once the Catachan left. He couldn't have been in better hands, unless the Emperor himself appeared and healed him with a wave of his hand. He wondered what warranted the special treatment, but he felt in the pit of his stomach the reasoning. He had done some gak-brained maneuvers out there, but somehow he had been blessed with keeping his life. The Imperium likely wanted him out on the front lines as soon as possible so he could keep at it.

"I'd rather Katia find me wanting." He said, using the polite term for front-line commissar execution. He doubted he was through with the military, but they had always fed him some lines of working your way up the ranks to get a safer posting. Hopefully that was soon.

He used his crutches to vault over the doorline, entering into the scholam-turned command center. Zeb's dark thoughts fled him as soon as he saw Hagman, Skald, and Rikkard coming up the back. He wished Prax was there, but the grief wouldn't wash over him just now. At least some of them had made it out a live. They greeted him and messed his hair playfully, some acting as if they had lasguns even now, hipfiring to mock his exploits from the other day. After some ribbing, Katia approached. Zeb sobered up, clearing his throat.

Whenever Katia walked, people looked. The squeaky stand that followed her, feeding her an IV somehow did not diminish the cold, powerful look. Though without her greatcoat, she did look far more womanly. She raised an eyebrow, as if she could read his mind and found the thought unsatisfactory.

"Sergeant Connors." She said tartly.

"Commissar Petrovska." He said, and truth be told, he was glad she was alive. "You look well."

"As do you. Well enough to see the colonel, in fact."

Zeb blanched. "What?"

She pulled the IV out of her arm as if it were a small nuisance, tossed it aside and tied her long hair into a bun, before grabbing her hat and solidly planting it on her head. "We're due in five minutes. Follow me. Men? Keep an eye on the place, will you?"

Katia was relieved to see that Zeb seemed to be healing well. It was difficult, given their role, for commissars to have friends but the Gudrnite was as close as it came. It also had the practical benefit of giving her someone who could relay orders to other, technically speaking she was a political officer and outside the chain of command. That worked fine when she was back at the regimental CP sipping recaf, but less ideal out here in the field.

“Why does the colonel want see us?” Zeb asked as they exited the main school building and crossed what had once been a scrumball pitch towards what appeared to be a large gymnasium. The air shook overhead as a trio of thunderbolts crossed overhead several thousand feet up, so fast they were little more than streaks against the sky. A few moments later they felt the crump of distant ordnance detonating and the clattering back wash of anti-aircraft fire.

“I’m not sure,” Katia admitted. At the Scolam they had suggested it was usually a bad sign when senior officers actually wanted to see Commissars whom they viewed at best as a nuisance and at worst as a magic bullet they could use to deal with a truly ruinous collapse in morale.

The gymnasium was a large oval shaped space ringed by layers of bench seating. In other times students would have played sports and exercised here but the demands of war had converted it completely. The main floor was covered with a map of the town and its environs in wax pencil. Katia was somewhat shocked to discover that the scale appeared to be accurate, so much so that uniformed men and women were measuring distances and calling out ranges. There were even notations on elevation. The positions of units were marked with pieces of flack board with unit name and specialty marked on them as well as vox frequencies. Surrounding the map were dozens of chalk boards on which the staff, mostly PDF, were recording information as it was called out to them from the dozens of vox operators who sat on the first tier of benches, hunched over their transmitters. As Katia watched an aide drew a line through an inbound air strike, and then added an ETA on the next item, a flight of hellfire heavy bombers. Here and there, red robed acolytes of the Cult of Mars were at work, smearing cogitators with sacred unguents, or adding seals to the thick trunks of cables which rose from the vox transmitters up through a holes that had been knocked in the ceiling to allow a forest of antennae to be fed through. A buzz of conversation and crackling vox transmission hung over it all, completing the impression of frantic but organized export. Every few minutes a runner, either PDF or from one of the Guard remnants burst through the doors, where they were stopped by PDF troopers before the desk of an officer with captains flashes on his shoulders. After exchanging a few words the runner was routed to one of the stations, or sat on the benches to wait while juvies in school uniforms bought them water in large clay mugs.

“They are doing all this without cogitators?” Rikkard asked, familiar enough with Guard command posts to be surprised. Katia didn’t respond, the captain acting as traffic control was waving her over and she moved to him with crisp precision.

“Commissar, Colonel Brae left instructions that you were to be passed through,” he told her making a gesture to a large desk beneath a score board at the end of the gym. Some PDF trooper had adjusted the board so the score read ‘13 and not out’. Katia nodded her thanks to the captain and moved to the table, her black coat cutting a path through the thronging troops and aides as effectively as a sword blade.

“I don’t care how close they are!” Colonel Brae was snapping, “Better we burn a few of our own men then the Orks break through, tell Lieutenant Crow he is to mark his positions with smoke and take cover. The Emperor Protects.” Brae slammed an old fashioned bakerlite vox line down with a musical clang.

“What the devil do …ah apologies Commissar,” Brae muttered, pulling round rimmed spectacles from his nose and polishing the lens furiously with a white cloth in what Katia recognized as a habitual gesture. He was a small man, as bald as an egg, with an immaculately waxed moustache that seemed to compensate for his lack of top cover. His uniform was equally well presented, clean and starched to razor sharpness along the seams. He seemed an almost comical figure, a ridiculous little man who had pulled together scattered units from the PDF and a half dozen regiments to hold this salient against all odds for the last thirteen days. Thirteen and not out.

“What can we do for you Colonel?” Katia asked, formally polite. Contempt for the PDF and especially for their officers was axiomatic among the Imperial Guard. As often as not those officers were the bored sons of the local aristos who wanted a nice uniform to wear at a ball. Katia was, for once, happy to be proven wrong.

“Ork fighter bombers in sector 3, casualties…” a pimply faces adolescent fell silent as Brae held up a hand to quite the boy who seemed on the verge of swallowing his tongue as he realized his report had interrupted a real life Commissar in mid conversation.

“Commisar, as I am sure you appreciate our position here is precarious,” Colonel Brae continued, bravely blunt with what might be interpreted as a statement of weakness. Katia could well appreciate his position. The town was only holding on because of air and artillery support from behind the lines. The longer he held out however, the more orks would be drawn to the fighting. Their numbers would grow with the certainty of a crystal forming in a super saturated solution and pretty soon they would begin to contest the air, or attack other parts of the Imperial force. In either case the support that was keeping Brae in the fight would be diluted, and the odds were good he would be overrun.

“We are prepared to do our duty to the Emperor of course,” Brae continued, placing his glasses back on his face and looking up at them. He suddenly had the aspect of a well meaning school teacher about to ask a favorite pupil to redo her homework.


“But there are…” he paused and picked up a sheet of flimsy and glanced at it, “something over two thousand civilians, tech adepts, auxiliaries and the like still in the town.” Katia nodded her head acknowledging the statement.

“In order to preserve the morale of my men, and deny potential slave labor to the enemy, Id like you to coordinate evacuation,” Brae concluded. Katia could understand his predicament, the majority of the PDF here would be locals, which meant that these civilians were their family and friends. If they were still in the area when the orks began to break through the static defenses, no amount of executions would stop men from running home to try to defend their wives and children. Of course that raised the question of how Katia and Zeb could possibly get several thousand non-combatants out of the siege.

“We will see what we can do Colonel,” Katia replied, earning a grateful nod from Brae.

“If you will excuse me…Calvin, are those earth movers in position yet? We need to get those hydra batteries…”

“He doesn’t want much does he?” Rikkard asked as the Firing Party moved away from the beleaguered Colonel.

“I am open to ideas,” Kaita replied as she watched the organized chaos unfold around them.

The bakerlite vox rung with an incessant clanging that threatened Zeb's eardrums, but the colonel was too busy to grab it for a solid four rings until he snatched it up like a klohawk from Ras Shakeh. "What!? I told you I needed those batteries entrenched on the left flank... I don't care if you have to yell until the sigilite hears you, if I don't get a report in an hour that satisfies me you'll be court marshalled." He slammed the vox back down.

"Uh, sir?" Zeb asked, having not deigned to sit down due to the crutches, and he kept his ground while the others had decided to walk, until they noticed Zeb wasn't with them. Colonel Brae turned to regard him, his face hard but filled with confidence only an experienced officer could muster. Almost like Katia, just less practiced and more weather-beaten.

"Soldier, I'm very bus-...you're Zebulon Conners, aren't you?" He asked, his steely countenance slacking a hair. "Yes, I've heard of you. I should have figured you would be tagging along with the Comissar. Well don't expect special treatment. You look half dead anyway."

"Don't worry about me, sir. But about your orders, I have to ask...retreat where?" Zeb inquired. He nor Katia, nor any of the men had come from any of the 'hot zones' to the north or east, but they had still lost half of their men and barely made it to Du-retour. Even if they were to be attacked within the next 3 days, he would rather be entrenched in a fortified position rather than back on the road to an evac that likely didn't exist anymore.

"To alt-sector 206, sergeant. We can update your dataslate-"

"Dataslate, sir?" Zeb chimed in.

"...We can provide you with a dataslate. Anyway, I was informed you and your men had acquired a rough map that should have the alt-sectors lined out. 206 is southeast from here, past the flat lowlands, I believe. As of four days ago, that area was cleared by our Marauders and Thunderbolts, and major Patrick Cargill has set up a perimeter there and recquisitioned a number of Arvus Lighter shuttles to be used for that purpose that pertains to your mission."

Zeb blinked. "Are we taking them off-world, sir?"

"Not if we can help it." Brae said, letting his exhaustion show. The pockmarked youth approached again, a bit less disturbed interrupting Zeb than Katia.

"Colonel, we've lost two Hellfires to an Ork bombing raid." The boy said, clearing his throat. He seemed skinny enough to almost be emaciated in Zebulon's estimation. He wondered if the lad was with the staff or had been picked up after a sudden case of dead parents? "The casualities are one hundred and eighty seven."

It was then Zeb decided to turn, resting his weight on his good leg and turning, rapidly approaching Katia and Rikkard. Come to think of it, he wasn't certain why Rikkard followed. If Zeb hadn't been ordered, he would have preferred not to know. Still, his mind whirred with possibilities, thoughts on what they were going to do. If they were going to evacuate, they needed to wait until a bombing run. Not because the Orks would be running away, but because their green asses would be too preoccupied watching the pretty fires and wanting to be part of the fun. Honestly, the best bet for any of the civilians would be to walk unarmed and without an escort. No sport for the Orks, that way. But even then, there were likely rogue units lying in weight, or maybe a flameboy needed some extra targets for their new flammah, and none of the PDF troops would ever let their wives and children leave without an escort. But if they were going to go, they needed firepower, and a lot of it.

That or an idea...

"Well," Katia asked, "what is your plan?" They were walking back to their requisitioned offices, the firing party spread out ahead and behind to give them some privacy. Maybe more than just privacy, it was an open secret that many Commissars were killed by enemy fire a surprisingly long way from the front. Katia didn't think she had aquired that much animus yes but she had been handing out disciplinary actions to Catachans, an activity not likely to extend ones life.

"My plan?" Zeb asked as they crossed what had once been the scrumball pitch, weaving their way between a nest of cabling and vox gear that had been set up in the open space.

"I'm a morale officer," Katia pointed out, "it isn't the roll of the Commisariat to be leading troops." Zeb grinned slightly at that, given that was most of what she had done since they had met back on Pavonis. They entered the principals office. The rest of the firing party stacked gear and stat down at a table in the waiting room and began to play cards. Rikkard and another man opted to rack out, curling up in the corner against shelves stuffed with copies of the encyclopedia Imperialis. Katia and Zeb went into the main office and the Commissar unbuckled her sword and pistol and hung it off a corner of the desk. Zeb went to the corner and took a carafe of caffeine from the burner and poured them both a cup. Katia sipped at it, controling the instinctive grimace that Astra Millitarum caffeine induced in anyone with a body temperature above ambient.

"Well," Zeb responded thoughtfully, "We have shuttles, if we could knock out the greenskin AA for long enough, maybe with smoke..." Katia was already shaking her head.

"They'd rush us if we occluded our fields of fire like that. I know the colonel wants to get the civies out of here, but better they stay here and die than we rout and then they die, or go to the ork slave labor force." They were hard words, but she had no doubt her scholam tutors would approve of her priorities. Zeb nodded, his face a little tight at her casual condemnation of a two thousand or so civilians.

"Well spiking Orc anti-air is out of the question, even if it could be done, wed lose to many in the sally and we'd break," he pondered.

"What we really need is some kind of a corridor..." Katia trailed off, peering down into her cup.

"What?" Zeb demanded, pausing with his caffeine halfway to his lips.

"I have an idea."

Zeb and Katia lay on the roof of a local bulk distribution store, peering out over the ork lines through an ampliviser. It was a seething mass of rice paddies and ork field positions, a muddy hell of seething green skins. In the distance Katia could make out crude seige guns being constructed, another testament to the creatures barbarous and inexplicable ingenuity. At the precise moment they had arranged, a pair of Imperial thunderbolts dived from the low scudding cloud, howling down on angled turbofans, their exhaust cutting bright white contrails in the sky. The orks opened fire at once and the sky blossomed with dirty black smoke and the distant boom of detonating anti aircraft shells. Like stooping eagles the thunderbolts came down, plunging towards the earth at an incredible speed until, when collision seemed inevitable, they yanked on their sticks and vectored their engines, seeming to leap upward like seedpods over an air vent. The range was too far to see the bombs fall, but there were suddenly two great geyzers of flame, water and mud shooting skyward like the muzzle flash of vast guns. Katia tuned the ampliviser to observe the effect, clods of dirt were falling into the patties like rain, as were piece of greenskins unlucky enough to be close by. Water was already rushing over ruptured dykes from the higher patties.

"Two hits," Katia observed, thousands of gallons of water were rushing from the higher field filling the lower ones that bordered the town. A few hours and they would have nearly six feet of water in a few of the fields. She wriggled backwards and looked down into the ferocrete parking lot of the store. Enginessers were hard at work, welding empty promethium drums to thin metal outriggers. Dozens of boats had already been constructed. They were painfully simple, two pontoons and a powerful fan, mostly industrial cooling units with their limiters stripped out by the few tech adepts Katia had been able to scrounge up.

"It is still going to be tight, even if it works," Zeb observed, "But I think we might just pull this off."

"And this is supposed to help us transport two thousand civilians out into the fields?" Katiya asked, sliding off the roof. Zeb half-caught her, steadying her as was his duty. Her boots clapped onto the pavement, and she steadied the emblazoned coat of her office.

"If you have a better idea, sir...ma'am." He corrected half-heartedly. He did not think he would ever get used to being a commissar's comrade. He had always been taught a commissar was like a feral beast. It could allow you in it's presence, but one day it would be in the wrong mood, and it would be your head. He had a hard time believing Katia would do that to him, but old traditions take awhile to leave one's system.

"No, I do not." She said, and reached into her coatpocket to pull out a handheld military-grade vox.

"Once we're across, we'll clear the Orks out and let the convoy get through the drained portion." He told her. He could tell she didn't need convincing. She pulled the trigger on the vox, and static rose before a voice answered with a gruff "Corporal Lance Henry" was fed back. She pulled out a dataslate, and began barking orders to Henry with a voice of command that would have karskins standing straighter. She voxed six more corporals, before sliding her thumb across the dataslate and switching the transmission. Static fedback again, whining like a small animal, until another man barked an introduction, his voice baritone and his accent vaguely Tanithish. "Sergeant of the Piece Donnal! Sir?"

"This is Special Imperial Officer Petrovska. What is your current location, sergeant?"

There was a nervous pause. "417 West, Commissar."

"Good. Find me a corporal who can plant six shells at these coordinates I am about to give you. 2917 Eagle, 4869 Neptune."

"Yes ma'am! Er, sir... ETA ten minutes. Out."

"Out." She replied, and glanced behind her. Curiously, Zeb was gone. She tucked the dataslate and vox back into her breastpocket, and stalked toward the filling station they had been planted on not minutes before. She called out for Zeb, but when she turned the corner, she paused and saw he was amidst a squad of six greenhorns, field stripping and refitting a standard lasgun. Even as he replaced the stock and shouldered the weapon, the first armored cars began to arrive, and in the distance of the far street, transport cars filled with civilians and a loose assortment of guardsmen slowly approached in a large column. Katiya waited for Zebulon to notice her, before he stood to attention and ordered the other men to do the same. They saw Katiya and gaped, before roughly snapping to attention, no doubt the horror stories of Commissars still fresh in their minds.

When she gave the 'at ease' Zeb barked at them to get moving. The newfish scattered, scrambling off. Zeb jogged over to her, and grinned. That was when they both heard the high-pitched whinnying of artillery shells.