System: Kaurava
Planet: Kaurava III
Type: Mining world
Date: M41.999



The bay doors opened with a hiss of pressurized air, the plasteel ramp slowly rotating on automated hinges before it clamped onto the barrel ground, lopsided. Immediately I was assailed by the stuffing stench of endless dirt and dust. I wrinkled my perfect nose, mildly dissatisfied with the stark landscape before me. An endless sunbaked desert, reflecting the light of the system's star like a mirror, I imagined. That or the dirt truly was a saturated reddish orange. The only landmarks that broke the monotony of endless desert were the mesas that intercepted the eye every few kilometers, and the promethium refineries, along with some hardy vegetation that stubborn clung to life on this waterless wasteland.

I was proud to say I looked every inch the young, enterprising officer of the Imperial Guard. My chainsword strapped tightly to my slim waist, my laspistol holstered, my officer cap emblazoned with the aquila, signifying my duty to the Emperor of Mankind. The uniform emphasized my shoulders nicely, and I wondered if I should have taken an image in my pictogram before stepping off. The colors of the new regiment were not exactly what I would have preferred, but they would grow on me.

Stepping down the ramp, my newly shined officer's boots clacking on the plasteel like clattering bones, I saw the runway before me was empty save for a few engineers carousing, chuckling stupidly from some pedestrian joke no doubt, and a short, broad bearded fellow in a worn guardsman's uniform. He stood there, at the center of the walkway that led off the landing pad, with all the animation and personality of one of the numerous rock formations surrounding the landscape. On his head was a standard issue guardsmen's helmet, and I saw the twin stripes on his sleeve that gave his rank.

"Welcome, sir." The bearded one said, giving a crisp salute.

"That's m'lord." I told him, literally looking down at him past my nose. I had wondered if I would be the most handsome man on the planet, and I knew without a doubt I was the most well dressed. My newly tailored uniform a terracotta red, buttoned tight to showcase my slim, perfect physique. I knew it was perfect because my father had demanded such perfection, from his hounds to his sons. My trousers a graveyard earth brown, tucked into my tall, black boots made for an officer. But looking down and seeing this ugly squat, as I knew it had to be a squat, I felt as if my well sculpted features and impeccable dress were a bit overkill.

"Beggin' yer pardon, m'lord. But it's sir, here." The squat remarked, ignoring the paradox.

I raised a well trimmed eyebrow. "And you are?" I asked.

"Corporal Morek Holdfast, sir. At yer service," The squat replied, not deigning to salute this time. On second look, I noticed despite his gruesome appearance, with his cauliflower ear and oft-broken nose, he was heavily muscled. If a terran bulldog could grow a beard, it would not look too dissimilar to Corporal Holdfast. The squat waited for a reply, but I gave none. He did not seem to mind. "Get yet bags, sir?"

I nodded my acquiescence, before turning my head and glancing around expectantly. For a moment, it did not dawn on me that this single squat was my welcoming party. I had been assured I was to be welcomed by a manner befitting my station. But as soon as I realized this had been a deliberate introduction to the regiment, I felt a pang of annoyance. I would have much preferred, and was well due earned, a rank of well disciplined troopers to escort me as an honourguard. However, I suppose it would have to do for now. At least Holdfast was not a private, I supposed.

Truth be told, I was nowhere near as conceited as my brothers. I much preferred a lack of ceremony. But what I could not stand was exaggeration and lying. I had prepared myself for what everyone had told me the guard would be. Discipline, duty, honour. Perhaps if I continued on, I would find all three, but judging by the empty landscape, I was beginning to think I was simply trying to convince myself. As Morek approached from behind with my bags of equipment, I bade him follow down the walkway. Hopefully the commanding officer would have good news for me on that front, and more knowledge of my assignment.

---

"Come in!" A gruff voice called.

I turned and twisted the knob, glad to be out of eyesight from the blushing young aide that had bade me wait for the colonel's summons. Luckily, Morek had deigned to wait outside of the building. He had not spoken a word since his greeting, much less made a protest, and mercifully I had been allowed to wait within with the blessed air conditioning. As I pushed the door open, I saw the colonel was not alone. He was an unremarkable man with close crossed grey-blonde hair hard eyes, seemingly in his 50's, though it was hard to tell if that was his true age. He sat behind a well-built desk of mahogany, and to his left was a tech-priest of some sort, a scholarly man in the bright red robes of Mars, a single mechadendrite pulling its pincer away from the window to rest comfortably above the tech-priest's shoulder like a loyal hawk.

"Please, close the door." The colonel bade me as I stepped in, and I complied. Once it was shut, I turned to him, standing at attention. He glanced at the tech-priest, who was unreadable behind his hood and glimmering bionic eye. I briefly wondered his business here, but it was no concern of mine. No doubt I would be told if the need arose. The colonel, his jaw square and his thick hands placed together, looked at me with a weathered eye. "You're the son of Lord Duncan, I take it?"

"Yes sir. First Lieutenant Kayden Caladwarden, ready to serve." I told him with the same sense of purpose I had been told would be expected.

"First Lieutenant," He said, dragging the words out. Whether it was to readjust his own memory or because he wished to make a point, I was not certain. "It is without a doubt the Emperor's providence that you are here, yet I am unsure if that's a good thing or not." He said bluntly. "You see, this regiment has been reformed, and requires discipline. When I asked for lieutenants of skill and good character, I did not expect to get some pampered, pretty boy lordling from the core worlds. As far as I am concerned, you're just another man I need to worry on if he needs babysitting. The men are bored, and the rations are short until we receive a new shipment by the end of the month. If I had my way, I would trade you for a good commissar without hesitation."

"That's exactly what I said, sir." I declared.

"I-...What?" He asked, suspicious.

"When command told me I would be here, acting as first lieutenant to a newly formed Regiment, and they informed me of your record, I thought it insulting sending someone of my inexperience here. This world could be attacked at anytime, by any number of forces. The Kaurava system is constantly under assault. What you need is a military officer that has already seen combat. I will do my best to stay out of your hair and out of your way, following your commands to the letter."

It was not entirely the truth, of course. The Kaurava system had been under attack in recent years, but they had been small raids. And I had never been told anything except the Colonel's name and the fact the regiment was new. But it never hurt to butter up the commander, and seeing the new look in his eyes, it appeared to have worked. He had clearly thought I was be some arrogant snob. Could you imagine?

"Well, that is good." The Colonel remarked. "But I am certain they had not told you everything of our situation." He turned to look at the tech-priest, who gave a small bleet in binary, but otherwise decided to keep quiet. I wondered how many arms he had under those robes, or if there was any concealed weaponry. I respected the priest's of mars, but I never quite trusted them. You never could when it came to those who sought to ruin the purity of humanity with random machine parts. "This world is pivotal for the promethium production of the system, but it is also a very ancient world of significance to the initiates of Mars. And so we have a dual purpose here, to keep the promethium refineries running, and to keep the adepts of the mechanicus alive."

"If anything comes, I'll make sure my men are shooting in the right direction," I assured the Colonel with a wink. The grizzled man gave a tight lipped smirk, and his comm unit went off right at that very moment.

"Colonel, the Lieutenant's transport is here."

The aged man clicked the button on his comm. "Very good. I'll send him out" He told his aide, and waved me gone. "I'll ask for weekly updates. With any luck, we won't be on the planet much longer. But just keep a low profile and do what you're told, and you'll do fine."

"Sir," I said, giving a salute that would make a cadian proud, before about facing and stepping out of the office, back into the sun.

There seemed a very good chance that Captain Rubio was about to have a stroke. Certainly the way his face was turning red and the visible throb of his pulse said nothing good about his vascular health. Sergeant (for the moment) Lorica Seldon known as 'Sel' to her friends and enemies, two classes that were both alike in both number and dignity, stood at attention her eyes focused on a patch in the tent canvas behind Rubio's desk. She was very familiar with that patch, having counted its stiches many times since coming to the Can as the informal troop slang had dubbed Kaurava III.

"You expect me to believe that you had nothing to do with this?" Rubio bit out, leaning forward to rest his knuckles on the pile of crime scene picts on his temporary desk. He picked up a data slate and activated a grainy pict feed that showed several sand grox, one of the few feed animals that could survive on this desolate ball, grazing on a rocky hillside. There was a sudden white flash and the grox scattered, save for one which lay on the hill its head missing. Several blazing tumble weeds skittered away before the pict feed went still.

"Nothing to do with what sir?" Sel asked blandly, her eyes not leaving their fixe point behind Rubio's head.

"This animal, an animal of considerable value to a local land owner, was killed with a las cannon Seregant. The very weapon mounted on you sentinel, and the only such weapon in the company. Do you have any comment on that?" the Captain raged, his laboriously groomed mustache fluffing with his fury.

"I have no recolletion of firing on any local grox sir," Sel continued with studdied neutrality.

"Your famous memory issues are known to me seargent, so do you know what I did? Rubio demanded dangerously. Sel remained silent until it be came clear the question was not rhetorical.

"I uhhh... don't know sir," Sel responded for lack of something witty to contribute. Rubio's furry increased and Sel became concerned that the officer might actually begin frothing at the mouth.

"I went to check with your squad, and do you know what they were doing?" he demanded.

"Serving the God Emperor to the best of their abillity sir?" Sel quiped unable to keep herself in check as wisdom doubtlessly demanded.

"They were having a frakking barbeque!" Rubio screamed slamming the dataslate down so hard that several items of stationary jumped off his desk and papers flew up into the air.

"If I could prove this poaching was your doing I swear by Him-on-Earth as my witness, that I would have you packed off to a penal legion and count myself lucky!" Spittle was actually flying from Rubio's mouth now. Command must have gotten a hell of an earful from whatever local land baron had owned that ranch. He stalked round the table and thrust his finger into Sel's chest but she held her gaze fixedly and kept her balance.

"The very fact that I can't prove it means you have engaged your unit in a conspiracy, falsifed your after action report, and the god emperor alone knows how you modified the navigation logs of your vehicles!"

"Well if there is no evidence against me sir perhaps it..."

"SILENCE!" Rubio roared. His eyes were entirely rimmed with white and his face so suffed with rage he looked like he had been splashed with scarlet paint.

"Consider yourself busted back to corpral, two month stopage of liquor and lho, and six months fatigues to be served in the motor pool!" Rubio snarled, grabbing the rank tab on her shoulder and ripping it off with a sound of tearing cloth. He tossed the insignia at the waste paper bin but they fluttered aside to land on the dirt floor of the tent.

"The motor pool sir? I'm a..." Sel began her anger overmastering her discipline.

"If you aren't out of my sight in the next five seconds the remainder of your service to the Emperor will consist of digging latrine pits. Do I make myself clear!"

_________________________________

Sel stepped out into the blistering heat of the Can. Firebase Yalta was a huge square atop a hill that, while extremely low, dominated a large basin for several miles in every direction. The six massive earth shakers which formed J-Battery dominated the center of the square surrounded by sandbag ravetments and lazily deployed concertina wire. Around that nucleus stood dozens of canvas tents, flack board prefabs, sensor antennae, and the other minutiae of a guard base. A shallow burm of rubble and dirt surrounded the whole area with dug in positions for 3rd company's chimeras to act as heavy weapons emplacements. Six months in the damned motor pool. Sel reached into her rolled up arm sleeve and withrew a pack of lho sticks. She lit one and put it between her teeth, then pulled her keppi from her pocket and covered her head before sunburn could set in. Five years in the guard had left her permenantly suntanned despite the fact she spent most of her time in the cockpit of a sentinel walker, but even so the sun here would put you in the infirmiry if you werent careful.

"What is the damage sarge," Boffin asked, emerging from the shade beside a neighbouring tent. Boffin was a slight man who wore a pair of wire spectacles that didn't stop him from running rings around you with his chicken, as slang termed the sentinels.

"Copral again," she told him, tapping the bare patch on her shoulder where her rank had been.

"What is this, the third time they busted you?" Boffin asked as they ambled away towards the motorpool.

"Fourth," Sel confessed running her hands through her short brown hair. She wondered if the motorpool would make her cut it back to the crew cut that was standard for the Guard. Sentinel pilots typically got some slack, but she couldn't count on that.

"Well worse things happen..." Boffin began.

"They stuck me driving trucks for six months," Sel cut in with a sigh.

"Things like that... listen Rubio will cool off, he always does, just keep your head down and you will be back where you belong in no time," Boffin reassured her.

"Seldon!" A seargent from the logistic section came striding up from the motor pool where a dozen vehicles ranging from big cargo tens to four man gun jeeps sat in neat rows.

"Need a driver for some big wig and you're it," he told her, thrusting a movement order into her free hand. Sel opened her mouth to object but the seargent was alread striding off shouting something about making way for a delivery of shells. Sel pinched the lho stick between thumb and forefinger and then flicked into a nearby firing trench.

"Duty calls," she told Boffin glumly.
@POOHEAD189

I stepped out into the blaring sunlight, and even under my cap I had to squint for my eyes to adjust. As my vision came back into focus, I saw Morek standing there, idly looking my way as if he had not even deigned to sit down or loiter since I had walked inside. I had always heard abhumans were a strange lot, but they were still tangentially related to us humans, despite the mutation. I noticed he had not even put my bags down, and silently marveled at the stamina or holding up both heavy sacks without even appearing to tire. Granted, I was not going to complain. I'd rather not have red dust caked over any of my effects.

What was going to complain about was that I had been told transport was here, and other than two military ground cars fit to transport dozens of men, and both seemed very worn and perhaps even inoperable, I was curious on how exactly I was supposed to arrive to my unit, unless Morek was set to drive me.

"Corporal, where is my transport?" I asked him.

Morek lifted his left hand, still holding my bag, and pointed at the horizon. Blinking, I followed his finger and saw a plume of dust rising in the distance, and a small black shape slowly growing larger as it approached.

"Ah, very good. Now, as we wait, what can you tell me of my unit?"

"Finest men in the Imperium," He said neutrally. I furrowed my brow, unsure if he was mocking me. "Been here four terran months. After the 12th Black Crusade and one of the largest Ork incursions in the Segmentum, a number of the regiments got remade and reinforced. This is the newest."

"Did you see any of the fighting?" I asked him.

"Aye. Killed me a nob and a few chaos lads. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get your chance to have a go, sir." Morek remarked, and spat a chunky blob of phlegm on the ground. I had a feeling this was the most delightful he would ever be. We were interrupted as the small military ground car rounded one of the small armories and screeched into what counted as the 'driveway' of military command, which was the same bland pavement as the hanger runway. The door to the driver's side opened, and out stepped a woman, which surprised me. I was not aware this was a mixed-gendered unit. She wore combat fatigues and looked tough enough. She was short, a tad on the thicker side, with close cropped brown hair and a look I couldn't quite gather. Pretty enough, I supposed, not that her looks were any consequence. What I was worried about was fraternization in my unit.

"Your carriage awaits, sir." Morek said.

"Don't be funny, Corporal Holdfast, and put my bags in the back of the car and get in." I told him, waiting for the woman to introduce herself before I did, as was the standard procedure. Morek did as he was told immediately, without the cheeky grin I half expected to see. Man was like an automaton.

Sel reached into the car and pulled her lasgun from where she had clamped it in the butt holster of the open top jeep. It was a carbine model with a folding stock, a compact weapon meant for the last ditch in the case of a vehicle prang. The weapon was perfectly clean though this was less a comment on her dilligent maintainence than the fact she had never actually needed to fire it. A guardsman was supposed to carry her weapon at all times, even to the showers or the latrine. No point giving her new commander a chance to put her on report and give Captain Rubio another chance to stroke out.

"Sir," Sel greeted, neither saluting nor standing to attention. The Chaos worshipers they had fought were not above sniping, though the orks lacked the skill and the temprement for it. Which, come to think of it, was exactly Sel's excuse for her average drill and ceremony skills. This new officer looked like he had been issued brand new as well, all clean cut and ramrod straight. Sel wondered if that was part of her punishment as well. The orders she had been given attached her to a Lieutenant Kayden Caladwarden until further notice. This one had the look a noble or highborn, though what he had done to be assigned to a patchwork shitshow like this one she had no idea. Maybe he had money, that brightened her mood somewhat, perhaps a few gelt might stick to her hands if she played her cards right.

"Im Serg...errr that is to say Corporal Seldon, I've been assigned to be your driver," she said, her eyes sliding over to the abhuman with some surprise.

This less than stellar introduction aside, I would look back on this day fondly, meeting both Morek and Sel at the same hour. The squat, and particularly the female trooper, would turn out to mean quite a bit to me. But as I had stated, I was less than impressed by her introduction. However, I supposed, albeit sardonically, it could have been worse. She could have been out of uniform or had forgotten to address me as 'sir.' I did not intend to be seen as a hardass, as that was a surefire way to get oneself killed as an officer. But still, I could not leave it as an unspoken reprimand, lest she get too comfortable. This one was supposed to be my driver too, Emperor save me.

"At ease, Corporal Seldon." I said redundantly. "I am First Lieutenant Kayden Caladwarden, scion of the famous house." I doubted she had heard of my family, but I still felt it was important to remind her of my aristocratic background. Contrastingly, I decided to approach this in a different way than was afforded my station. I stepped off the curb and took my hat off to appear more congenial, glancing at the ground car and hoping beyond hope there was cool air in those vents. "Listen, I'm new to this outfit, and if we're to be working together, I want to help you as much as you help me so we can get out of whatever the galaxy throws at us alive, but... when we're in front of the other troopers, salute me like an officer, please. It looks bad in front of the other men."

"What about him?" Sel asked, pointing at the squat. "Er, sir."

I glanced behind me as Morek put the last vestiges of my effects in the backseat of the ground car. I had almost forgotten he was there, the squat remained so quiet. "Yes... let's just pretend like he doesn't count for the moment."

We gathered in the ground car without any more preamble, and lukewarm air spilled onto my face as the Corporal cranked up the ground car. I glanced at the rearview mirror and barely saw the top of Morek's helm, looking for all the world like a buoy in the water as we began to move, bumping over scattered stones and desert debris. Leaving the command center, I saw two thunderbolts flying overhead, moving in unison like a flock of avian creatures. I had heard this world was suitable for practice due to the miles and miles of wasteland. I cranked the AC to a more tolerable degree of cool, but it was still nowhere near optimal. I decided to speak to distract myself from the heat.

"So, Corporal Seldon. How long have you been in the regiment?"

If this Lieutenant Caawhatsit wanted to be fingered for snipers by a salute, Sel supposed it was none of her business. Just had to make sure she was standing far enough away when she did it. The little jeep exited the firebase, turning onto the flatpack desert which formed most of the Jebin basin. There was no road as such but it was flat enough in most places that it was safe to use a fair amount of speed. Sel opened the throttle as soon as they were outside the wire. The tires kicked up a plumb of dust behind them like a rooster tail as she pushed the engine up to the gate. If you weren’t sneaking, you should be speeding as the saying went.

“About four years,” Sel called, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the engine noise. She angled down into a shallow depression, instinctively seeking the lowest point to minimize enemy sightlines.

“I got swept up on Kalin, packed me off as part of a replenishment tithe,” Sel explained. Replenishment tithes varied greatly in quality, often enough the authorities just rounded up a set number of people of low class and the right approximate age and shipped them off to be cannon fodder. Sel had been a juvie ganger with the misfortune to be pinched at the wrong time. In the blink of an eye she had been whisked from the two hab blocks in which she had spent her entire life, been packed onto a troopship, and hurled through the Immaterium to war. She wondered how many of those who had been swept up with her were still alive. Precious few. Fortunately an education as a petty criminal wasn’t the worst preparation for a certain kind of soldier. Years spent stealing groundcars had gotten her noticed by an enginseer who put her to use driving for the motor pool until she had been promoted to fill a sentinel slot when casualties had been heavy enough to outstrip recruits. That happened with sentinels, they were often fine after you hosed out the remains of their pilots.

The ground infront of them was forked with dry water courses choked with fist sized rocks mostly tumbled smooth by the once a year rain storms which flooded the place. On a distant ridge great promethium dericks rose and fell with stately precision, occasionally belching colossal jets of flame. On the plain before them were several small stone hills, each rising less than five feet from ground level where rocky outcrops caught blowing dust. Each of the balds was topped with sandbags and razorwire, the positions stretching like beads on a string with separations of a few hundred meters between. The formed a notional line between the dericks on the ridge and the real badlands beyond, though mostly they were just there for the regiment to practice working together. As the approached the bald where the unit Kayden had been assigned was bivouacked she reached for the jeeps vox set. Kayden reached out and put his hand on hers.

“Let’s not give them any more warning than we need to,” he said wryly. The platoon was just going to love this guy. Sel took her hand away from the vox set and slowed down as they approach the grandly named ‘Hill’ 23, following the old vehicle tracks up the side of the bald, the sand bagged auto cannon didn’t track them, which wasn’t a great sign.

They passed through the sandbags without incident or challenge from the sentries who should have been there. The camp itself was erected around a low steel shed that housed a mobile pump unit that drilled into the aquifer to provide water. It was surrounded with dozens of plasteel barrels which Sel hoped had been thoroughly rinsed of promethium before being repurposed as water butts. A sloppily dressed private, evidently returning from the latrine by his hasty closure of his fly, finally spotted them and turned to shout to the rest of the unit who were sitting around catalytic cookers heating rations and drinkin what Sel was pretty sure was grain alcohol fermented from stolen sand grox feed. There was much cursing as men tried to stash liquor or tossed the contents of their canteens as they scrambled to their feet to grab weapons and kit.

“Who fuck gave you permission to come up here without clearing it by vox,” a heavyset sergeant demanded as he half staggered towards the car. Sel killed the engine with a sigh. Sergeant Matalow was unshaven, and hadn’t gotten rid of his bottle of liquor. Sel didn’t know him well, but she knew he was an unpleasant man when he had been drinking, and he had certainly been drinking for some time.

Emperor's Teeth, I knew the platoon was in need of leadership and I figured I had not been sent to the Mordian Guard, but the state I found the 3rd platoon in was so atrociously deplorable I half wanted to avoid the red tape and shoot myself in the head right there. I did well to hide it, save a raised eyebrow as we rolled in. No sentries, a picket line that might as well have been drawn in the sand with a stick, a smell in the air that could only be described as abrasive. Even as we approached I saw men loitering and freely drinking from flasks, pushing one another in friendly gestures of comradery as if they were celebrating a victory. Granted, there was no imminent attack, but that was entirely beside the point. I had thought Sel had been somewhat lackluster, but these men made her seem like a Kasrkin.

As the woman pulled the car around, a burly looking man with a red face and bloodshot eyes approached. I could see the icon on his worn uniform that he was a sergeant, otherwise he had no source of identification. As he spoke, I saw drops of spittle hitting the cracked floor of the desert, the moisture being absorbed in front of our very eyes. It sounded like he was not very appreciative of my approaching unannounced, and I made sure to remedy that. Straightening my collar, I opened the car door and stepped out. I had to leave my chainsword in the vehicle, but my laspistol was fastened securely at my hip. A few dozen meters back, a pair of troopers woke up a man that had taken his post-binge nap atop a chimera, saying something I could not pick up with the wind and pointing our way. How the man was not burning from the sun, I could not guess.

"I not only gave permission, I ordered it." I told the lumbering sergeant, standing with my head high. My eyes glanced downward at the bottle in his hand. "And who gave you permission to drink on duty, sergeant..." I glanced back at Corporal Sel.

"Sergeant Matalow." She whispered.

"Matalow. What kind of platoon are you running here? I've seen penal legions that look more professional! In fact, if I did not wish to tarnish my first day on the job, that's where I would ship you off to immediately. Now give me that amasec." I was not asking, but the sergeant was a bit too inebriated to hear the order for what it was. His face had only grown redder, and though I saw a flicker of uncertainty, he was not about to back down. I heard a door shut behind me, and two heavy boots take three steps to reach my flank. It appeared Morek had my back at least, though at the time I was not certain just how much that was worth.

"Who the frak are you, pretty man? You've got two seconds to tell my why I shouldn't grab you by your nose and rip it off!" He said, taking a step forward, threateningly. It was at this point, I realized I might have made a mistake. The Sergeant was big, as tall as me, and likely half again my weight. He moved like a man used to others stepping out of his way, and I suddenly regretted not giving my rank immediately. Though, I had expected him to see the signs on my uniform that screamed I was his superior. I was green back then, one needs to take command, not assume it.

"I am First Lieutenant Kayden Caladwarden, assigned to this regiment and this platoon. If you do not hand me that bottle of amasec and salute me..."

I saw him grin and come at me, albeit gingerly. He did not necessarily swing, but I was certain he was about to grab me, overpower me before I even knew he was there to do so. I wanted to yelp, but my training kicked in. Not the correct training, mind, for I had my pistol I had completely forgotten about, but my self defense in case my pistol was not available. As he opened his arms, I struck his nose with the heel of my hand, breaking it loudly. Perhaps if he wasn't drunk, that would have ended the fight then and there, but it only enraged him. He swung at me with a fist that looked like it could take my head off, and in a desperate attempt to shy away I scrambled, losing my footing and screaming in the process. Falling back, I was caught before I could hit the ground, Morek having held his hands up to halt my fall that had allowed me to inadvertently dodge the punch, before pushing me back up like a spring. I was launched forward, and this time I managed to strike him in the neck right before his backswing. It was a lucky shot, I admit. I pivoted away as he stumbled, later being told I was dancing like a boxer, though in truth I was simply trying to put as much distance between me and the frightening fellow as I could. Luckily, the punch had been too much for him, and he grabbed at his windpipe, eyes opened wide. He stepped forward, somehow still on his feet. The man was like an Ork, I thought. It was then I remembered my pistol, and I hastily drew it. I heard a shout, no doubt crying at me for mercy for the rude sergeant, but they needn't have worried. I struck him on the back of the head with the butt of my gun, and the good sergeant fell to the ground like a dead grox.

All was silent around us, save the wind and Sel giving a faint whistle, though whether in appreciation or amusement, I did not know. Abruptly, my mind caught up with me, and I turned to the men that had gathered to watch. I pointed in the air and pulled the trigger, only for my gun to merely click. The safety was on...

I used my thumb to switch it off, and fired into the air again. There was a crack and a flash of red light that drew the attention of the men. A few had approached, but most watched from where they had been loitering, a few poking their heads out of the latrines or chimeras.

"I am Lord Kayden Caladwarden, First Lieutenant of 3rd Platoon in the 2nd Gendarmes Regiment! They have called me in because they expect discipline, honor, and loyalty to him on earth, and I intend to make it so!" I yelled, making sure to raise my voice in volume and not emotion. I pointed my pistol at the two closest guardsmen, who flinched at the barrel, though I was merely gesturing to them. "You two! Name and ranks!"

"Er, Private Harmak, sir!" The taller one said, saluting. The other hastily put on his helmet, and then roughly saluted as well. "Corporal Bickers, m'lord!"

"Harmak and Bickers, get some rope and restrain the sergeant. Hurry, before I change my mind and enact a more permanent punishment on attacking a superior officer!"

If I was good at one thing, it was giving orders. Yes, loathe me if you want, but it is not what you think. Well, not entirely. Yes, I was born into status and money, and yes, of course, that helps. However, I had a strong voice and a penetrating gaze, something only genetics and an undeservedly strong sense of will could get me. Where I got the audacity to feel so ready to yell commands? Well, the Emperor Wills, as they say. Perhaps I had been yelled at so much in my life from my bastard of a father and my equally strict teachers, I had learned from the best. The private and corporal nearly ran into each other to try and find a rope. I turned to regard Morek, and gestured at the prone sergeant. "Watch him for me, Corporal. Make sure he doesn't get up unless he's bound and escorted." Morek nodded, and Sel hopped over the door, her face bemused.

"Corporal Seldon, take me to where the Auspex and communications is located. I want to make sure someone is actually manning the damned thing." I said, though truth be told, I was more wanting to get out of the eyeline of all the trooper still staring dumbly at me. At the time, I took their interest as barely contained violence rather than awe. Violence always made me get the jitters, particularly if I had been in it. I holstered my gun, steeled myself as if I had just gotten back from a leisurely stroll, and walked with Sel through the sandbags and shoddy emplacements, men ducking away to perform the duties they had been neglecting.

Sel let out a slow breath and slung her las carbine. There was no way to know how the boys might have reacted to the scene, anything from meek obidence to the unfortunate death of a replacement officer and his driver just to name a few. Sel had been more than willing to spray them with full auto while she leaped back into the jeeep but she was very happy she hadn't needed too. If a platoon of pissed of guardsmen decided they didn't want any witnesses to an annoying officer getting fragged she would have been in heavy bolter range for far longer than it would have taken them to reduce the jeep to flaming scrap.

It didn't look like it was going to be a problem just now. Matalow had been drunk, but the rest had merely been drinking and retained enough of their wits not to try conclusions. Right now at least. Sel supposed if someone rolled a grenade into Lieutenant Caladwarden's bunk that wouldn't be her problem.

"This way sir," she replied, hesitating for a moment before Morek nodded to her, letting her know that he would keep watching the men if she turned her back. Feeling a little better she turned and led the way to the center of the fortified hill top were a prefab shack of flackboard stood at the base of a ten meter antenae secured to the ground by six thick guywires. Sandbags had been stacked around the hut to the height of its courgated metal roof and the cogwheel sign of the Adeptus Mechanicus had been artfully rendered on the door with a tin of spray paint. Sel pulled the handle and found it to be locked, then pounded on the door with her fist.

"Open up!" Sel called and recieved no response. She glanced back over her shoulder at Caladwarden, sighed and leaned back with the intent of driving her boot into the door jam. It swung inward while her kick was in the air and a las gun barrel jammed out and into her chest. Sel let out an unsoldierly eep but batted the barrel away by a reflex born in many a bar fight. A red headed woman held the other end her teeth drawn back in a snarl. She didn't fire, which was good because with Sel's grip that closee to the flash suppressor it would have been a second degree burn to the hand at least. Three other women stood inside las guns leveled and back lit by the auspex units and the blinking lights of the data caches. Sel realised that she only had a second before someone got twitch and blew her away. Her guts dropped into an icy pit and she did the only thing she could think of.

"'tenshun!" she shouted in her best seargent major's voice. All four women stiffened to attention lifting their weapons away awkwardly.

"Macharius' balls," Sel cursed stepping back. Confusion crossed the faces of the female troopers. "What the frak is going on here."

"Sorry sir," the red head who had jabbed the las gun at Sel said. The name sewn above her right breast pocked red 'Spade' but it had been artfully vandalized to read 'Sparks' instead and she wore the amulet of a lay member of the Adeptus Mechanicus, common enough for trooper's whose roles required them to commune with machine spirits more intimately than the daily litanies of motion and accuracy.

"I'm not a sir, since this morning I work for a living," Sel replied wrly, then hooked a thumb over her shoulder at Kayden. "He is though, this is the new CO and I'm sure he wants to know that the bloody buggering hell that was." Sparks flushed almost as red as her hair.

"Sorry Sir," she called over Sel's shoulder, "we started locking ourselves in here since the rest started getting drunk on the regular, don't want no misunderstanding you know." Sel did know and she felt her spirits sink even lower. God Emperor this assignment was going to get her killed for sure.

"Well at least someone is manning the auspex sir," Sel called, stepping out of the way and guesturing the female troopers out to present themselves to their new and doubtless very impressed commander.

My pleasure at seeing a group of relatively attractive women standing to attention was soured into guilt when I realized the implications of their having locked themselves in the prefab. I wondered briefly how long this had been going on, and exactly who was responsible for allowing such concerns. Hopefully Sergeant Matalow, seeing as I already had him in a form of custody, but I would check on that later. The female troopers held their lasguns point upward, resting against their arm and shoulder in a proper rifle salute. I nodded, pleased.

"Don't be sorry. At least you had the good sense to lock yourself in a place where you could perform your damned duty, unlike these fool drunkards out here." I remarked, indicating beyond the sandbags with a gesture of my head. "They can't even hold their liquor. I'd say their tolerance for alcohol isn't the only thing that's lacking about them."

There were a few smiles at that, which caused me to give a curt one back. I glanced past them into the small but solid structure. There was a small light flashing, painting the wall in red every few moments. "At ease, and show me the inside of your facility. I should have at least a cursory knowledge of your station, just in case. Corporal, stand by the door and keep an eye on if you see any flasks meet anyone's lips."

"Right, sir!" She said, and while she did a good job of it, I know now I should have specified she did the same with herself. However, Sel was never extremely irresponsible. She knew her business, and more besides. The women turned and strode into the structure with me in tow. For once, I did not feel unsafe entering an enclosed space within the grounds of this platoon's area, though I likely should have been. I have seen trooper Sparks break the jaw of a leering Steel Legionarre from Armageddon with a right hook that could only be described as a thing of art. I'd seen trooper Nexis, the slim woman with a shock of blonde hair that sat down at the auspex, catch a live grenade and throw it into the gullet of a carnifex with insane precision. I would have similar anecdotes for some of the men, of course, but I have to impress it upon you that female troopers are every bit as dangerous as their male counterparts.

"Hmmm, curious." Nexis said, furrowing her brow and turning a small knob at the base of the console. The other women congregated together in curiosity, and I had to squeeze my way through them to get a better look. I could not tell hide nor hair from the various buttons and switches, but whatever was occurring now could take precedence over my brief education.

"What is it?" I asked with my most commanding flair of voice.

"Sir, it's not the auspex, or not only the auspex. There an indicator that the orbital starships have picked up some asteroids on their augurs."

"And what's on the auspex?"

"I don't know, it's...it's almost like a mountain is moving." She said, but before I could inquire further, she flipped a yellow switch, and the room was filled with static that eventually coalesced into a strange, consistent rumbling, with a low hissing that sounded like sizzling bacon. I then made a mental note to take lunch soon, and then compartmentalized that for later. I squinted my eyes for a moment, something tickling my mind. I had heard something like this before...

At once, the thought struck my head like an earthshaker round. Emperor's Teeth!

"This is the comm station as well, isn't it?" I asked breathily. A few of the women nodded. "Patch me through to command. Now."

There was an unspoken question on Nexis lips, and Sparks raised an eyebrow to a trooper whom I would later learn was called Elara. However, after a moment she picked up the comm and handed it to me, adjusting the frequency as I placed it to my lips, hoping I would be clear through the vox.

"What is it J-Artillery?" A voice asked blandly.

"This is first Lieutenant Kayden Caladwarden of 3rd Platoon. I require clarification on the augur readings from orbital. Over." I declared, the static lasting a few more moments before the voice came back.

"Lieutenant, this is a feed for emergencies only." They did not even bother to say 'over.' I was not unused to being ignored, as when one is a lord, you simply get ignored by other lords who think you are undeserving of the title, or your overbearing family that thinks you're not worthy of the name Caladwarden. But it still irked me.

"This is priority, command. I am well within my right to ask for clarification. Please do so, over." I said, and the women in the room had grown quiet. Even Sel poked her head in, the building so small she could hear everything, regardless.

There was an audible sigh, before a few moments of keyboard clicking. "First Lieutenant, Star Cruiser Impenetrable spotted some small asteroids that were set to miss Kaurava III by a few thousand kilometers. They have been aware of the approach for some days. The cogboy supposed they were shifting from solar winds, but they recanted the report. Over."

My heart skipped a beat. "Command, patch me to the Colonel, now. Over."

"What? First Lieutenant, I know you are new-"

"Command if you do not patch me through to the Colonel then I will drive there and make you myself. THIS. IS. PRIORITY. DAMMIT!" My voice had risen to a barking cadence a hardened veteran would use, and the eyes in the room had grown wider. They shifted uneasily, and Sel looked like I was a madman. I certainly hoped she was right. I used this moment of pause to point at the auspex. "I want exact coordinates to the sound, trooper." Nexis was on it, recording the auspex readings. After a small breathless moment, I had believed I had simply been cut off, but then the static whirred again, followed by a familiar voice.

"This is the Colonel, speaking. Over."

"Colonel, this is First Lieutenant Kayden Caladwarden. We are about to be hit by Orks, sir. Over."

"Orks? What do you mean?" The Colonel asked.

"Those asteroids read by the Impenetrable, they are Ork Roks. They're entering the atmosphere as we speak! They are set to land at..." Nexis handed me the parchment, and I took it with a wribble of the page and held it up. "49 degrees, 3.627. The asteroids have changed course, and they are landing. Sir, I advise you place all regiments on high alert, get eyes on the landing sight and redirect your artillery."

"Lieutenant, I don't know if your high birth has made you arrogant or simply insane. However, I will look into these claims, stand by. Over."

I did not stand by. I put the comm down and pushed past the troopers, who had begun pelting me with different questions, ranging from 'what in the frak!?' to 'what are we going to do, sir?' I stepped outside, feeling wind from the west that smelled acrid and tinged with metal. Squinting, I looked into the sky. I could not tell, but I fancied I could see multiple black dots in the distance like solid dark stars.

"Sel, can you drive a Chimera?" I asked her, turning to face the women. She looked at me, dumbfounded, and then nodded. "Good. Find me two other drivers that aren't inebriated. I want all three Chimeras ready to go in 10. Trooper Nexis, tell the basilisk crew to redirect their guns with the coordinates you gave me, change for ten degrees east." I did not stop walking, raising my voice and laspistol as I walked down the hill. "REDCON! REDCON!" Once I found the laudhauser, I repeated and filled the men in on the current situation.

The next few minutes were a flurry of activity, and it looked all the world like a sale at a habmerchant shop rather than a military view of readiness, but it was better then nothing. Men who had been drinking half an hour before were now hauling sandbags to the western edge of the perimeter and reloading lasguns. Morek had found me, informing me Sergeant Matalow had been stuffed into the infirmary, still tied up. It would have to do for now. However, what Morek had in his hands had my eyes popping out of my head.

"What in the blazes is that!?" I exclaimed, and Morek looked down at the huge piece of equipment he held. It was like a block of plasteel and iron, easily twelve kilos if not heavier. Its stock shot out at a 45 degree angle from its heafty barrel, and I could not imagine its clip held what amounted to anything less than astartes bolter shells. At the end of its barrel was a broad bayonet that could spit a wild ambull. The design was simple, but brutal. Morek patted the hunk of what appeared to be a shotgun with what almost passed for affection.

"Ripper gun." He said, curt as ever.

Sel's nochalance melted somewhat at Kaiden's words. She didn't know if the green Lieutenant was right in his suspicions but she had enough experience of Ork's to not want to be taken by surprise. Unfortunately, though she knew a few troopers in the unit by sight, she didn't know any of them besides Matalow by name. That was a dead loss. The sergeant was still unconcious and in no condition to review service jackets.

"You!" Sel called, grabbing one of the soldiers by the front of his tunic as he tried to cringe away.

"Where are your Chimera drivers," she demanded.

"I drive, then there is Hoskins," he guestured to another man half slumped against one of the water barrels, delerious with drink. Sel resisted the urge to grind her teeth in frustration. It had been a long couple of hours already and she should have been relaxing and playing cards with the scout troop rather than playing nursemaid to these retreads.

"Get all three fired up," she called over her shoulder as she strode over to the semi-comatose Hoskins. A bottle rolled out of his hands as she grabbed his shoulder, spilling the acrid sawgrass liquor that the stills were turning out on this dustball. Kel kicked the bottle away and grabbed the trooper by the lapels.

"Hey. Hey!" she shouted shaking the man vigorously. Hoskins bleary eyes fluttered open, wandered for a moment, then seemed to focus.

"Y'new, wanna y'know ave some fun," he slurred hopefully. Sel's smile would have warned a sober man, but Hoskins was too drunk to do anything other than grin stupidly at the expression on her face.

"You know what? I do," she admitted, then shoved Hoskins' head and shoulders into the water barrel. The trooper began to thrash in blind panic, shouts and curses rendered into streams of bubbles. Sel yanked the dripping, spluttering soldier from the barrel a second or two before he would have drowned.

"What the frak are you doing!!!" Hoskins spluttered. Sel shoved him back into the barrel, gratified with the improvement in his sobriety. He tried to kick at her but she drove her knee into his kidney, then banged his head against the side of the barrel before pulling him free once more.

"I think what you were trying to say is what the frak are you doing coporal," she reproved him midly.

"Now are you sober enough to drive or do you need another rinse?" she demanded.

"I..." Hoskins began. Sel shoved him into the barrel for a few more seconds just for good measure before giving him a shove toward where the chimeras were already coming to life with gouts of prometheum smoke. By now she had an audience, troopers in flack jackets with expressions ranging from muzzy to concerned. Sel rounded on them placing her hands on her hips.

"First, second, third squad," she bawled, "Mount up, gear and rations for combat patrol. Move it you lice bitten sons of whores!"

There was a good deal of cursing and clattering as men grabbed canteens and weapons and kit. Sel wouldn't have sworn they were all sober, but she wagered being rattled about inside running chimeras would take care of that well enough. She climbed into the drivers seat of her on chimera, straining her mind to remember long ago training as she brought the vehicle's multilaser array online and test rotated it. She turned the trottles forward and led the chimeras out in a passable line astern centered on the communications dugout. She clicked her comm bead and synced it with the vox set in chimera, hoping that Kayden had already tuned in to the platoon net.

"Ready to roll Lt," she reported.

"Keep the engine running, Corporal. I'll be there shortly." I responded, hoping my voice sounded steady. As men ran back and forth, carrying equipment and ordinance, I had an abrupt feeling of imposter syndrome. How had I fooled all these men into thinking I was worth following? Surely command knew better than me, I told myself. Morek seemed to have confidence, at least, following my every step and eyeing every man suspiciously as he carried around the bloody Ogryn gun. Picking our way past the wreckage of a looted Tauros RAV and a rockcrete pillbox where two men loaded a heavy stubber, we saw the Chimeras at the center of the MOB, men scattering away as they roared to life.

"What I would not give for some hellfires," I said, knowing even if we routed the Orks, in a generation another wave would come screaming out of the badlands unless we burned the whole place.

My lamentations were interrupted by the first Rok hitting the planet's surface a bit over twenty kilometers away. There was a sudden flash of light to my left, and I covered my eyes instinctively. Moments later, a gale of wind and dust hit Morek and I with the force of a deep sea wave. I was knocked off my feet, though Morek, heavy as he was, grabbed my flailing (and yelling) form and kept himself steady. Squats are like square shaped boulders, I have come to find.

Despite my fear and rather embarrassing position, crying out and being held by the jacket, flailing like a ragdoll, I was actually well versed in the manner of the Orks and their landing capabilities. I hailed from the planet Avarus in the southern edge of the Segmentum Obscurus. Unlike the rest of the fleet zone, we did not get an overabundance of Chaos warbands. Only once in my life did a chaos fleet raid our world, and I was four at the time, so my expertise does not lie in that particular field, though I was aware of the stories. No, our biggest calamity was when I had just turned nineteen, and my homeworld was attacked by a one-eyed Ork Warboss creatively named 'Biggun Green.' I remembered being invited to the tower where my father and the commanders of the PDF showed me the auspex, and I heard the exact sound of an Ork Rok entering our atmosphere. I remember seeing our sister city, Saphir, burn across the expanse of few miles of pine forest. I recalled how flimsy of a barrier that was to our position. I had even seen limited combat, as our world had kept its pre-industrial traditions even after three millennia of being uplifted by the Imperium.

Noble sons were expected to fight.

However, I did not have my father here to give me orders, or my brothers to compete with (or use as distractions). As much as I had always loathed my father, there was still some manner of protection knowing he was there. Hopefully, I had half the confidence he did. The men under my command certainly needed a leader with that trait.

The concussive blast only lasted a few seconds, and despite my very manly squealing, it honestly was not that bad, after the fact. As insane as Orks are, they aren't entirely without reason. Ork roks are exceptionally tough, but even with their hulls dozens upon dozens of meters thick, the structure (nor its crew) would not normally survive hitting the planet. Roks control their descent by random discharges of modified force fields, reversing polarity charges at the molecular level. This force field, in combination with modified traktor beams, not only slows the descent, but produces a pressure bow-wave extending for over dozens of kilometers and a temperature of over 159 degrees above the surface mean during the descent operation, boiling the ground beneath the Rok up to ten metres deep and coating it in a silicon-based layer. This silicon-based layer provides additional stability for the rok, at least until its support structures, consisting of thousands of automatically adjusting spike-tipped anchors, are deployed, allowing the Rok to disperse its cargo by a series of hydraulic ramps. Even then, not all orks survive, but even just one rok can hold tens of thousands of orks, and from the readings we knew of at least two objects in the 'asteroid' cluster that fit the size of one.

Once I regained my feet, Morek and I hustled to the Chimera, it's back ramp still open like a gaping maw. I shouldered my way in, the men too scared to bother apologizing to the ranking officer. Their eyes were wide beneath their helmets, jaws clenched. I gave each man that looked my way an encouraging smile and nod, patting a few on the shoulder. I heard a few yelps behind me as Morek bulled his way past them beneath their eyeline like some lurking hormagaunt.

Sel was snug in her seat, having just finished prepping her station and awaiting my orders. I gave her a grin, looking around. "I'm impressed, Corporal."

"Once you know the lingo it all falls into place, sir." She quipped. "So, what's the plan?"

"It'll take the Orks a bit to get situated. We need to hit them hard as they're leaving the Rok. I'll get on the multi-laser," I said, and almost fainted when I realized I had just volunteered for the most vulnerable position on the Chimera. I supposed a small, irritating part of me really did have something to prove. "As they're getting off the Rok, we hit them, and when they give chase, we call in the artillery to clean them up."

"Sounds like a plan." Sel said, and grinned. "Better hold on."

Somehow, I could tell by those three words this was to be a bumpy ride, so I hurriedly took my position at the platform, half of my body sticking out above the Chimera like a target that read 'please murder this stupid git' as I released the safety mechanism on the multi-laser and placed a finger to my ear, reaching the vox for the chimera comms. "We're moving out. Follow our lead!"

Sel had not driven a chimera since training on the long warp jump to her first war zone. Well that wasn't quite true, the sentinel pilots had stolen C company's command vehicle and crashed it into that mud pool but that hardly counted as field experience. The big engine roared as she threw the throttle open and the tracks jolted it forward, over the sally ramps of dented steel which sloped to the sandbag ravetment. It titled dizzily at the top and then they were racing down the front of the bald and out into the badlands. For the first few moments she jinked unnecessarily before remembering that she wasn't in a nimble scout waker and could just plow through sparse vegetation.

"Lead, would you slow it down a little, over?" a voice crackled through her vox bead. Sel glanced at the reflectors and saw that the other two chimeras were lagging behind. The throttle gauge was ticking towards the red but she wasn't flat lined.

"Negative, we aren't running juvies to school here, if you all have sore heads from too much rot gut that is your own fraking look out isn't it, over?" She probably didn't need to be so harsh with them, they were falling behind because they lacked her natural agression which might have been an asset in some circumstances but wasn't now. They were accelerating too, vanishing into her dust trail as she tore across the terrain at well beyond maximum recommended speed. The fact that they were charging blinding into orks didn't help either but she prefered not to admit that she might be afraid.

"Move up into ..." Sel paused, realising she was about to order a redeployment without reference to her erstwhile commander. Frak it. "Move up into line abreast twenty meter seperation." If Kayden objected he didn't comment and the other two carriers moved up into the formation she had ordered putting more guns in the line and getting them out of the choking dust plume. She edged the throttle down slightly as they roared into the badlands. What little shrubbery there was vanished to be replaced with an endless stretch of dried mud shot through with heat cracks like a madmans mosaic of nothing. Auspex was returning a strong signal ahead, and Sel adjusted her course slightly to center on it. If Kayden was wrong about this he was never going to live it down, he would be lucky not to find himself drumbed out of the regiment, there was a sinking feeling in Sel's guts that told her that she wasn't going to be that lucky.

"I see heat haze in the air, but no roks," Kayden's voice announced over the comm bead. For a moment Sel thought he had forgotten to sign off but then she realized he was on the vehicle channel, something she very much doubted any of the rest of the crew was monitoring. She clicked her commbead.

"You wouldn't it looks flat but it actually shoals off in about ten clicks, impact should be just beyond that... uh sir," she added hastily, peering through the armorcrys viewslit. She could see the heat haze he mentioned, but something else besides, the greasy flicker of static charge in the air.

"Shit," she muttered to herself.

The shoaling Sel had mentioned was sudden, it was as if whatever the badlands covered dropped away abruptly like a continental shelf. It probably had been that in the distant epoch when Kaurava III had been covered with water, before an asteroid strike or a stellar flare or the Emperor alone knew what bloody thing, had turned it into the inhospitable hellhole that Sel was cursed to be standing on. Unfortunately the Bimini, as the scouts had termed this vast, lowlying, maybe-once sea was not very deep. As the reached the edge the landscape canted downwards at perhaps thirty degrees and feel for almost a kilometer to the lower plain. The desolating beyond was destroyed by a half dozen massive rock formations that seemed to errupt at the end of long trails that had been scoured in the sand. The looked distrubingly like parasites, or diagrams of spermatazoa Sel had seen in pictslates in the medical tents. The head of each trail was an immense asteroid, they were blackened and in places glowing with entry heat and the sand around them was crisped into black powdery glass. Great jointed metal legs sprouted from them at odd angles, spearing down into the ground to steady the great rocks in place. Sel felt her mouth go dry. How many orks did each of those things contain? Already she could see tiny figures tumbling from the nearest rok, a little under two clicks down range. It must be hell down there on that half molten rock, but you couldn't expect an ork to care about mere physical pain.

"All units halt in place!" she shouted over the comm, unable to keep her voice to the calm timbre expected of an NCO. The vehicles slewed to a halt and Sel felt her nostrils prickle as the wave of dust and exhaust fumes they had been running ahead of broke over them. If the heavy vehicles slid down the ridge, it would take precious seconds to climb up against the pull of gravity, and there would be no cover beyond the lip of the slight ridge. It didn't look like the orks had seen them yet, but it would be only moments before they noticed the dust up on the high ground. A half dozen orders rattled around in Sel's head but for a moment the world seemed to hang on the edge of a knife, frozen until Kayden gave the command.

I was stunned by the sight, I can tell you. Multiple roks, hitting at near approximately the same location all at once. Orks never ceased to amaze, I thought with mounting fear. It was blind luck, or an intelligence I was not prepared to admit, that would have those flying piles of stone and steel hitting a planet in unison, particularly when one accounted for the atmospheric pressure, the wind, and their efforts to slow their descent. Even as I watched, hulking green figures leaped or fell from the great husks. Some burned, some fell through the broken surface into cavernous darkness, and I believed a sizeable percentage of them did not survive the crash. Yet Roks only traveled when there were more than enough Orks to make a sizeable force even past such paltry attrition.

The exhaust and dust somberly floated past my head, and I knew I had only seconds to decide what to do before our element of surprise was dashed. But I also knew that if we went down there, not all of us would make it back up top, if any of us did. Yet the more I delayed, the more time the green xenos would have to bring out weaponry that could punch through the sturdy hull of our small chimera squadron. I then realized something that I am embarrassed to even account for.

"I didn't count on this..." I said, and inwardly cursed myself when I realized Sel could hear my voice.

"On what?" She asked. "Sir?"

"...The Rok crater...I can't turn my multilaser to point downards." I said, somehow viewing the situation in my mind of the Roks having slowed down more, leaving less of a crater for us to fire upon in a hit-and-run assault.

The silence in the next two seconds was deafaning. "What did you say, sir?" She asked with an incredulity that either barely contained laughter or wrath. I felt slightly offended, seeing as it was from my experience we had even discovered the Orks. Luckily, the two seconds she took to realize my lack of forthought had given me the time to come up with a plan. I dropped down into the belly of the Chimera, and grabbed the laudhauser, noting the sight of Morek manning the forward facing heavy bolter that came standard with the Chimera APC. Somehow the squat was chewing on a red strip of jerky, though from where, I had no guess.

Before Sel could comment, I ascended again and flipped the switch on the Laudhauser, before whispering into my vox. "On my signal, roll down the hill and make a circuit around the Rok. Don't stop." I said, and cleared my throat. Even now, there were a few piggish yellow eyes looking upwards at us, and muscled figures pointing. No bullets yet, but that would change soon. I then steeled myself, knowing I had to sound authentic, and so I drew in a deep breathe, throwing away my pride and gathering my memories of the horrid greenskins for this performance, as my life actually depended upon my voice. Strange, considering most of the time people comment how smooth and debonair I sound, but this time, I threw that out the proverbial window.

I placed my mouth to the laudhauser, and screamed.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!"

My voice as deep as I could achieve, the sound blared into the canyon, echoing across the ruined stone and makeshift structure of the Orks curious space transport. As the voice was still echoing, I flipped the laudhauser off and opened the vox. "Go, go, go! Forward, now!"

The Chimeras lurched forward, and moments later I had a sinking feeling in my stomach as the precipice of the crater very much made me feel like a canoe tipping over a waterfall. The armored transport fell forward two meters passed the drop, and I nearly lost my lunch from the verigo before we were racing down the curving wallface. I lowered my laudhauser and thumbed the safety off the multilaster. Lasbolts the width of a slim woman's torso burst out of the mounted turret at high volume, spraying chunks of debris and shearing through lightly armored Orks as the xenos wooped, confused. I placed the voice amplifier to my lips again and screamed the Orkish warcry once more. Morek's heavy bolter tore through green flesh with unrestrained violence, and as I screamed again, the Orks that had just leaped out of the Roks, their blood up from hearing their battle cry, seeing no true enemy other than potentially three vehicles shrouded in dust (that even an Ork would question on the intelligence of attacking such a large force with) began to hack at their comrades with axes made of pipes and sheet metal. Shoddy autogun fire began to ring out, and the Orks that were hit from behind turned on their comrades in anger as well, enraged and whooping. A few bullets rang off the hull, but otherwise the Orks were too busy to pay attention to us in full, as they had begun to butcher one another.

Out of the dust, an orkboy with a cigar and a flamer stepped out, and with a 'whoomp' I found a gout of flaming rushing at me. I screamed in panic and slipped, falling into the Chimera, thankfully not hitting my head in the process. Wide eyes from every trooper were glued to me, and a sturdy man with white teeth helped me up, his eyes wild but filled with hope. "You're a genius sir! A goddamn genius!"

"Just don't stop! And don't disembark! If enough of them smell human they won't be so keen on each other anymore." I cautioned, coughing from the dust that had kicked up in my lungs. Morek said nothing, merely continued his relentless barrage of bolt shells from the front right compartment. I turned to the front of the vehicle. "Corporal Sel! Turn our squadron around at the next bend in the Rok and climb back up again. Even with this, they won't fight each other forever. We need to get out of here before their armor or rokkits are out, and then we need them following us once we're topside!"

Sel's lips were pulled back in a ricktus as she pushed the throttles to the gate. Everything was chaos and confusion. The multilazer whined its deep bow lossening pulse and the heavy bolters roare in antiphonal chorus, spent brass clattered onto the deck, and las guns spat from the gun ports which could bear. Elara was screaming into the long range vox set, though her words were lost in the assault of noise and chaos. It was difficult to see what was going on through the slit in the armorcys.

"Change shooters when you reload!" Sel yelled into the troop compartment, though whether she was heard or obeyed she had no idea.

"Frak this," she muttered and pulled open the drivers hatch, yanking the seat hyudralics to lift her head out of the vehicle. She cursed and pulled her dust goggles from her webbing and slapped them on, blinking away tears brought on by hot dust and gunsmoke. Immediately Sel felt better, it was much more like piloting a sentinel when she could see what was going on, and if that meant a bullet splashed her brains over the turret facing well, this was the guard and you shouldn't have joined if you couldn't take a joke.

"All units follow me to..." she took a moment to consult the compass built into the hatch coming, "point 223 and for god sake keep your distance. Dust leaped up in twin tracks which crackled across the ground ahead of her, she glanced up in time to see some kind of ork gyro bearing down on then trailing streamers of thick prometheum smoke, she yanked the controls in towards it just as a bomb came clear of its rack. The ugly red munition crashed into the course she had been following a moment before. Amazingly it didn't detonate and the following pair of chimeras split left and right of it. The gunfire was doing terrible damage, the multilaser and heavy bolters at an rate, she saw las gun hits which blew craters in green flesh but the orks barely seemed to notice, they were doing far more damage to each other as they laid two with axes and crude bolters. Sel saw a metal jaw the size of a sentinel' top hatch get blown into the air, winking in a glittering arc. The smell of hot air, charred earth and burnt ork was intense and she wrapped her dust scarf around her mouth and nostrils to block it out.

They were around the first rok now, barreling towards the second one still spewing light, smoke, and devestation. A giant section of the second rock fell away, hitting the desert floor with a crack she could feel through the treads. It wasn't a ramp exactly, more of a controlled rockslide. Ugly armored vehicles began to raced down it at speeds which would have been insane on paved roads. A pair of rockets lit in bursts of ugly fireshot smoke. One rocket whipped between the three racing chimeras missing the rear of the second vehicle by less than a hands breath, the second curvetted in a series of crazed loop de loops until, in a coincidence not to be believed by those who hadn't seen combat, it struck the ork gyro on its return pass, detonating it in a giant fireball which showered debris for a click in every direction. This was bad, as Kayden had feared they were getting their armor, if such a grandiose term could be applied, unshipped. They would never get up the ridge with vehicles shooting at them, even ork vehicles.

"Hold on! Brace! Brace! Brace!" Sel shouted and yanked at the controls. There was just time to frame a quick, and certainly blasphemous, prayer to the Omnissiah, before the chimera smashed into one of the landing legs of the rock. The sideways impact knocked everyone off their feet and drove Sel's chest against the hatch combing, her flak armor converting broken ribs and internal injuries into a full body bruise that would be real pretty to see, assuming she survived. She fought for control of the carrier, fish tailing wildly before pulling herself back onto something resembling her original course. The dented landing leg gave a grown of tortured metal, then gave. The entire rok seemed to wobble, and then in slow motion started to topple.

"Gun it!" Sel shouted as though everybody wasn't pouring on all the juice they could already. Like an accelerated veiw of a crystal growing the rok tilted gaining speed. The legs on the oppisite side ripped free from the ground with vast plumes of dust, tossing clods of earth bigger than a man hundreds of meters into the air. It came down with a boom that shook the earth, flattening the partially debouched vehicles and several hundred orks beside. A wave front of dust blasted out and Sel ducked inside and slammed the hatch closed above her, limited visibility be damned as dirt and debris sand blasted the side of the vehicle. Elara was staring at her open mouthed, the vox handset squaking in her hand, completely forgotten. The mutlilaser was still firing, how in the Emperor's name had Kayden kept his feet? and blowing glowing traces as the beam converted the filty air to glass and burning mud. There was a sound like a buzz saw being murdered with a hammer as the whirling treads ripped appart the armored coverings which Sel had just dented to ruin. She leaned on the sticks, compensating for the drag of the injured tread, her eyes flicking from the dust obscured vision slit to the compass bearing with metronomic intensity. They burst out of the expending dust cloud in time for Sel to slew them sideways so that they didn't hit the base of the rise head on. The abused engine shriked but the began to climb. The right reflector was gone, but Sel caught first one, then the other chimera emerge from the wall of dust. For the thousandth time in her life she swore she was going to go to temple for real this time. Reaching out she snatched the vox reciever from Elara's hand.

"All batteries this is Charlie Two Three, fire on established coordinates, all batteries fire for effect, danger close!"

The pings of autogun bullets and the clattering of debris across the hull was almost familiar now. Like the acclimation of the body to cold water, time aided me in strengthening my resolve, though admittedly when I thought about it later, I very nearly vomited. However, at the time my blood was hot, and I roared as I thumbed the multilaster, cutting through Orks and even frying a few diminutive gretchen, the little miserable creatures having come out to try and assess the damage of a few of the ruined ramshakle vehicles. Even having wound a strip of cloth over my mouth, my lungs felt like they had gravel in them, and I nearly coughed with every exhale. It was by the emperor's mercy that I felt the Chimera turning upwards, and gradually I felt the brightness of the sun again as we began to ascend the slope. Both of the Chimeras with us flanked us, and we lifted out of the crater like a flock of razorwings climbing toward the heavens.

I squinted, blinking as I tore the cloth from my mouth and hacked again, driving the dust from my body and sucking in the free air. I raised my fist in triumph. Damn, I needed a woman to kiss! There were a few below, but it was not good to fraternize with the women that served under me, I reminded myself. No amasec to drink either, Emperor's Teeth!

My exhalation was shortlived, however. Just as we reached the last stretch before the cusp of the crater, a gout of flame and a roaring boom erupted from the dust cloud below. Instantly, the Chimera on our right was struck. I had never heard the sound of rending metal so close, sparks and plates of armor flying as the vehicle suddenly stalled. Moments later, out of the dust sped ork speed vehicles called wartrukks, and as the debris dissipated off them, I counted six in all.

The damaged Chimera began to slowly slide back down the crater, but the porthole opened at its top and both men and women scrambled out, their lasguns strapped to their backs and their faces filled with fear. Five of them managed to leap out of the top, but the sixth man that reached out began to scream as the armored vehicle accelerated down the hill, and from the gaping hole unbalancing the vehicle, it began to roll. I winced, glad it was not me, but mouthing a small prayer to him on earth to see his soul to the after life safely.

We crested the lip of the crater, and I opened the vox to order Sel to halt.

"What?"

"Open the back, we have 5 soldiers that need a lift!"

Before Sel could reply, whether to argue or order the hatch open, the bay door fell like an anvil. Later I was told that was Morek's doing, but at the time I was simply relieved to see it done. Covered in dirt, and some in smatterings of blood, each trooper climbed the last few meters of the crater and hustled into the Chimera. I went back down, beckoning them to hurry. The last woman on the ground, a pretty black haired farm girl, took my hand just as we could hear the whooping of the Orks. I hauled her in and slammed my fist on the button to close the ramp.

"Thank you sir," She said. I would later learn her name was Priscilla.

"Gun it!" I ordered Sel, and she did not need to be told twice. I was nearly torn out of the Chimera as it shot forward, but the other troopers kept me from flying out the back as Sel raced to catch up to our remaining comrade. I hastily climbed back to my position on the turret, and let me tell you, I would never forget the next few moments. The sight of ork wartrukks shooting out from the canyon like nightmarish mechanical dolphins while I could hear the telltale whistle of basilisk artillery shells overhead. As the first ork vehicle hit the dirt, the ground detonated in a cacophony of violent explosions, and judging from the debris flying above us out of the canyon, I knew the Ork roks were getting even more attention than our position. The third wartrukk was hit directly, ripping through the shoddy chasis and tearing through the orks unfortunate enough to be at its center. The rest of the ork wartrukks swerved and whizzed around the rain of shells, stubbers rat-tat-tatting at us. One of the wartrukks did not bother evasive maneuvers, believing that Gork and Mork were on their side and speeding up beside us, able to catch up fairly easily as we were still accelerating. I tried to spin the multilaser, but they were too close.

On the wartrukk, Orks hung like flies on a pile of dung, waving axes and autoguns. The driver, an ork with a mohawk and a steel jaw, swerved the vehicle to slam into our side. Luckily Chimeras were sturdy, but it was not an ideal position to be in. Troopers fired their lasguns from the opening vents, but their shots went wild. One enterprising greenskin leaped from the back of the wartrukk and grabbed ahold of a strip of the Chimera's hull, hauling himself atop it like a gorilla. I yelled in fear and ducked, but as the Ork got closer, Morek popped up top in my place, holding his ripper gun. He gave a cry from a language I did not recognize, and pulled the trigger. The automatic shotgun, if some a beastly weapon could be called that, obliterated the ork's jaw, neck, and chest, blood and flesh flying into the air like grisly fireworks, and the remains of the xenos fell from the top of the Chimera to be crushed underneath another wartrukk.

Morek turned his ripper gun and unloaded his clip on the wartrukk in close proximity, punching through ork flesh and armor and causing the vehicle to sputter smoke. The driver cried out in dismay as the vehicle began to slow, and Morek spat for good measure, hopping back down inside and patting me on the shoulder. I nodded, and went back up top again, taking the multilaser and sending a barrage of lasbolts at the next wartrukk, tearing through it's front grill and killing two of the green bastards.

"Frak, frak, frak, frak frack," Sel cursed as she wrestled with the controls. The orks had run through the artillery barrage now, though the shells continued to howl overhead, plunging down into the assembley area, now out of sight save for plumes of rising smoke. It would probably help if someone could spot the fall of shot, but it would be very hard to report if they were all chopped into grox meal by greenskins. The new Lieutenant was doing a good job of that the Emperor be praised. The ork vehicles were armored after a fashion, but at this close range the multilaser blasted appart crude welds and sent showers of armor plating in all directions. The second chimera had stopped firing its main gun, probably due to an overhead or a traverse issue due to the constant firing and the dust and grit which was suddenly poured into the turent rings, though its heavy bolters continued to chatter. Those had to be running very hot too and Sel prayed they wouldn't have a cook off before the ammuniton was exhausted. Given this lot had been drunk around their cookfires a half an hour ago she supposed she should be happy that the ammuniton belts weren't still in crates back at the bald.

Another truck exploded, rising on a fireball of its own burning fuel. A greenskin pinwheeled through the air and crashed into the vision slit. Sel had a momentary vision of a giganting blood shot eye before it slid off and the chimera bounced as it ran over something. The armorcrys panel was smeared with blood and Sel cursed and popped her head out of the hatch once more. The engine was starting to overheat and the pull from the track she had damaged was getting worse, gritting her teeth she kept her weight on the sticks, muscling them straight.

"Waaaaaaargh!" One of the surviving trukks came barreling in, crashing against the side of the chimera with a shriek of protesting metal. Whether by low cunning or brutal experience the orks had realized that if they didn't knock out the multilaser it was going to chew them up. Orks being orks, they opted for a boarding action as the course that would solve their probelm and fulfil their desires. The chimera rocked as a half a dozen of the brutes leaped aboard from the trukk. Sel wrenched the carrier side ways and by the series of thumps at least one went over board. The engine lugged dangerously as the sudden addition of several hundred kilos of orks, in addition to the extra troopers almost choked it. Screaming obscenities that left even Elara shocked, Sel through the mixture wide open, smoke gouted from the exahaust as she hyper oxenated the fuel mix, the air rammers in the carborator banging to life. Even so they weren't going to last much... A giant axe blade arced down and Sel ducked just in time to avoid having her skull cleaved open. A great drooling green skin stood above the hatch hammering at the ring with an axe half as big as Sel. Showers of sparks poured down and the chimera lurched drunkenly as Sel lost control. She extended her carbine one handed like a pistol and emptied the magazine in a long burst on automatic. The ork staggered as craters burst in its chest and shreded its crude armor. The weapon clicked empty and the beast grinned down, horibly wounded and with one eye shot away. It unshipped an enorumous pistol the use of which it had obviously forgottedn until this moment. Sel stared down the tea cup sized barrel for a moment and then a flash of metal batted the thing off like a scrum ball drive. It took Sel a second to realise that Kayden had deliberately swung the turent around to knock the thing off.

"If you can keep us on the track Corpral Seldon that would be appreciated," Kayden remarked in a tone of amazing calm that stunned Elara more than the ork had done. Sel gripped the controls and muscled the labouring carrier back onto something like the bearing back to the defensive line, not that any of them were going to make it if the remaning orks hacked the chimera open like a tin of corpse starch.

I was relieved corporal Sel had managed to survive, and not just because without her we would lack a driver, though at the time that was my primary concern beyond her charm. There were two wartrukks left, and to my relief and concern, we seemed to be driving out of the area of bombardment, as the shells were mostly striking behind us now. The mechanisms that spun the multilaser zipped as I moved the turret, approximating the aim as the wartrukk staggered into my sights. I fired, puncturing the front hull and sending flames and smoke everywhere, but as the wartrukk stalled, I could not finish it. Though my fingers were still on the trigger, I heard a droning sound that indicated I was out!

"I need a new power pack!" I cried, but even as I screamed it, the second wartrukk collided with us, one of the orks shoving its simian arm into the vent on the side of the chimera, firing its autogun inside. Slugs ricocheted, and I heard a cry of pain from inside. Later I learned it was trooper Hagan that took a flesh wound, but I could not be sure at the time. The Ork yelled as a lasgun's barrel poked out and fired into its arm multiple times, nearly cutting it off. It cried out in anger, but that distraction was long enough for Morek to fire from the next vent, his gun cutting through light armor and greenskins, hamstringing the last truck. Lasbolts rang out, incinerating Ork flesh. One enterprising Ork leaped, a nob with a cleft lip and just one ear. Apparently cleverer than the others, it jumped just as the lasbolts struck his comrades and sent their vehicle reeling, landing a mere two meters from my position. I pulled out my laspistol, but the brute swung its choppa, smacking the weapon out of my hand. I was just about to leap back down when the Ork's hand shot out, grabbing me by the neck.

I knew how strong Orks were, but the ease in which it lifted me out of the Chimera was chilling. I tried to pry its fingers loose, but it was like trying to insert my fingers inside an iron clamp. The xenos gave a grin that showed its teeth, and it screamed impossibly loud, drawing back its choppa to end my life. I felt then I would certainly die, and would have soiled myself had I not pragmatically gone before we embarked. Fortunately, I was best trained with the sword, and after a moment's consideration as he drew his choppa back, my right hand shot down to the chainsword, and with a very boorish blow from the heavy serrated weapon, as my arm was both shorter and I the quicker, I cut through the nob's chest and split its face in two. Blood spurted, covering my form. Even as I cut the xenos, even as it dropped me, the Chimera came to a halt. My body did not go down the porthole, but rather shot forward to hit the center of the Chimera's top from the inertia as the nob fell off, dying.

I hit the metal top hard, blinking as my vision was briefly illuminated with sparks and stars from the blow. I coughed again, now sticky with Ork blood on my hands and torso. Slowly, agonizingly, I rolled over and coughed again, wondering how on Terra I was still alive. Moments passed as I collected myself, before turning my head up from the steel plating.

"Oh..."

Before me eyes, and right in front of the Chimera, was what had to be two hundred Leman Russ tanks rolling forward in unison across the blasted desert landscape, and there must have been fifty troopers for every tank, walking in skirmish formation. Even as I watched, the column came to a slow halt, save one Leman Russ that crushed some of the bleak vegetation before stopping a dozen meters from our position. The hatch of the tank unlatched, and opened. I then saw the Colonel rise out of the tank in full military dress uniform, squinting from the sunlight as he looked at me.

"Lieutenant." He called.

"Colonel," I greeted him.

He looked past me to the smoking wrecks of the wartrukks, and the crawling figures of what orks had survived a few hundred meters behind us. Casually, he then looked back at me. "Seems your report on the Ork invasion has some merit."

---

I felt it was not entirely prudent to encourage such activity so soon, but it seemed apt to allow the men to finish their alcohol stores after the Colonel's forces surrounded the Orks before they could properly deploy, and though I disobeyed an order from the Colonel, the word had spread so quickly of our sortee and subsequent chase through both military and civilian channels that he had no choice but to commend me and my platoon. That was good, because I was very much hoping for a more comfortable position after this, one with less Orks and more women. As for the drink...

I had taken a list of names of the worst offenders over the last few weeks, making the most untrustworthy of them serve the alcohol under guard, while the ones that seemed to have promise of turning around guarded the perimeter, allowing them one small drink in celebration. I had made it known in no uncertain terms that this would be the last time drinks would be served on active duty, and I did not tolerate such behavior, but this was a special circumstance, and I felt it the better alternative than simply confiscating all alcohol and pouring it into the desert.

"Corporal..." Sel groaned and rolled over making a batting motion with her hand. It was still a few hours before dawn and she badly wanted to sleep. She had hoped that an upside of transport detail in a relatively stationary position might be that there wasn't that much to do and she could pass the time napping and playing cards. Unfortunately everyone seemed to feel that she really ought to be seeing to every little Emperor damned thing. Arrange this, inspect that, issue this, review that.

"Go away," Sel tried to call but her mouth made a sound that was more like 'gahwar'. A hand grabbed her boot and shook vigorously. Sel kicked out by reflex but then sat up, smacking her head against the canvas field shelter that she had rigged up despite the fact the last time it had rained on this cursed place Horus had been in diapers.

"What throne damn it!" she growled. The unvield stars shone overhead and a warm wind blew in off the badlands. Sel could taste the fisolene residue on it, along with the rather less appealing smell of burned mushrooms. The bald was quiet, its light out save where a few tell tales reported the status of vox sets or power pack charging units. Boffin and Sparks squatted at the end of her tent.

"If this is another question about watch rotation I swear I'm going to rip your guts out and hang you with them and then I'm going to have goats eat..." she trailed off as she saw Boffin and Sparks squatting at the end of her tent, both gripping las rifles white knuckled.

"The frak is going on here?" she demanged, scooping up her own carbine, convinced they were about to come under attack. That didnt make sense though, the orks had been obliterated so thoughrouly they might never be a problem here again, the certainly weren't in a position to launch a commando raid. Sel felt a distinct itch between her shoulderblades.

"The patrol went out Corporal, Sergeant Matalow's patrol," Boffin almost exploded, his words tumbling over each other. To everyones amazement Matalow had not been stripped of his rank despite Caradwalden's wishes. He had filed a protest but it had been ignored. Whether Matalow had friends in high places, perhaps linked by some unpleasant vice, or this was just commands way of showing their new lordly subordinate that he couldn't order the guard like his own househould she didn't know. The official word was 'too much change in the command structure in too short a period' or whatever guilt and beshit term. The bottom line was Matalow had remained sullenly in command, all the more sullenly because Kayden was suddenly the hero and he had missed out on an action that the rest of them could score drinks off for years.

"Ok fine, whatever," Sel replied, her fear melting back into irritation at having been awakened. "He is supposed to be on the patrol, it is on the schedule." Boffin and Sparks were both nodding as though this was some deep insightful statement. Sel felt her irritation flare brighter.

"If someone doesn't start making sense I'm going to..."

"He didn't take the assigned troopers, it's like you know... all his buddies, you understand?" Sparks blurted. Sel swore sulphrously because she did understand.

"You need to take this to the LT if..." they were both shaking their heads and Sel fell silent because she understood this too. These weren't just Matalow's buddies. They were Boffin's and Sparks' also. If Sel told Kayden there was a potential mutiny brewing it would tear the entire unit appart, whether it was true or not moral would be posioned and a half dozen men might go to the firing squad. Which Sel supposed was fine with her, but given that she would have to loiter about here with these people for the next six months she could hardly afford to have a bunch of heavily armed people bearing grudges.

"Frak," she cursed and struggled to her feet, pulling the laces tight on her boots and unfolding her carbine stock.

____________________

The would be mutineers were meeting in a gully a half click from the bald. Sparks had used a routine radio check and her equipment to pick up a bearing, and Sel had known at once where there were. Just beyond line of sight of the bald one of the ancient creekbeds had been scoured deeper than the other by long forgotten rain. It would have been a pool back then, but now it was a shallow depression filled with tumbled rocks ranging from the size of a fist to the size of a man. The patrol was sitting among them while Matalow stood in the center, hurranging them with invective. Sel was struck by how easily the whole situation might be dealt with if she tossed a frag grenade into the bowl.

"Stay here," Sel instructed to Sparks and Boffin as they lay against the dirt at the top of the rise.

"Where are you going?" Sparks demanded.

"To get myself fraking chilled most like," Sel grumped and started down into the bowl. She was quite open, presenting no weapon and making no effort to conceal herself. Even so she still nearly reached the dim glow cast by their half dozen lho sticks before they leaped with the startled surpsise of guilty men.

"Haven't we all heard enough of this shite?" she demanded, brazening in where no amount of stealth or wheedling would have worked. They relaxed for a moment as they recognised her uniform and then tensed again. Matalow stared at her mouth open and eyes blazing.

"It is his lordships little lackey!" he cursed her, lips drawn back to show white teeth in the moonlight. Sel held up a hand and opened and closed the fingers and thumb in pantomime of a yapping mouth.

"Blah blah blah, you men, get your shit and get back to base, my tits on a plate are you dim?! Hoof it!" several of the men who had been with the chimera attack shied back from her gaze, a few even turned as though they might simply disperse.

"Hold it right there!" Matalow yelled. "You have us all stitched up for the commisariat is that it? Going to turn us over to your lord and master."

"Throne of terror does he ever shut up?" Sel asked, rolling her eyes theatrically. That got a few nervous chuckles.

"Yeah ok, thats me, I'm a commissar and I have you surrounded with a squad of crack storm troopers," she made a theatrical guesture around the empty landscape with the flat of her hand.

"Now if there are no more stupid questions, lets hop it back to base while this was a bad idea and not a whole pile of paperwork for the only bitch who can fucking read," she snarked.

"Sparks?" one of the troopers suggested. Sel chuckled, never having felt so greatful for anyones sense of humor in her entire life.

"Right, we dont want that for poor Sparks, now get ..."

Matalow leaped down from his rock and strode towards her. He grabbed a holstered pistol at his waist and tugged it free.

"You bitch I'll..." Matalow was pitched back as Sel whipped her carbine up and fired three time. Two bolts struck him center mass, blasting him back over the rock on which he had been calling for Kaiden's murder. The third bolt missed high, scooping a handful of dirt ten meters up the rise. Matalow fell awkwardly, his skull cracking of one of the large boulders but he was clearly already dead. Everyone stood frozen, some had hands on weapons others looked ready to run.

"Guess he does shut up," Sel remarked. She lowered her weapon and turned to the remainder of the men.

"Well?" she demanded, "don't we have paper work to avoid? Get back to base and for the Throne's sake check in on the raido first in case somone got jumpy when I dropped my las rifle and it misfired." There was a pregnant pause. Then the man who had joked nodded, scooped up his pack and turned and headed for camp. One by one the others followed. Sel waited until all the troopers were out of sight, then sank down to rest on a boulder shaking so badly she could hardly stand. Throne of earth, what a fraking outfit, and here she was out in the bush in the middle of the God-Emperor damned night. What a frakking life.

____________________________

"You are telling me that Seargent Matalow was killed by an Orc straggler?" Kaiden asked. Sell stood to attention in one of the large mess tents. A table had been stripped out and Seargent Matalow lay on a table covered with a plastic sheet. Even in death the man looked hateful, his features a snarl, his muscles corded and standing out.

"He became seperated from his patrol and must have been picked off sir," Sel replied, her eyes fixed on the back of the tent above her commander's shoulder. Kaiden looked at the very obvious las burns on his chest and then back to her.

"And you maintain this despite the fact that you know I have spoken to the members of his squad? A squad that he wasn't scheduled to take outside the wire?"

"Yes sir," Sel replied. Kayden watched her for a moment, an unreadable expression on his aristocratic face.

"That will be all Corporal Seldon," he said at last. Sel snapped him a parade ground perfect salute, turned on her heel, and marched from the tent.

Three weeks on this blistering rock, it was finally time for the purified air and controlled temperatures of one of the navy's transports. Morek had packed my bags while I organized the men, and I was lucky to have an already experienced quartermaster by the name of Cromwall, the aged soldier seeing to every item being stored with a methodical precision I would have expected out of a squat. It was no wonder he and Morek got on so well, I thought to myself.

Sel had taken to her posting as my driver fairly well, which was just as well, as I found her skills were more than adequate to make up for her unscrupulous attitude. It was by the Emperor's Grace her attitude was never towards me, and because I tended to have her back as well when I could allow, it made for an excellent partnership. I had actually made a small side comment to the colonel on granting her a promotion, but that was shot down most expeditiously.

However, despite her being made to remain as my corporal and driver, she was allowed a break when the Salamander's arrived to ferry us to the shuttles. As Morek chewed on his beef jerky and Sel reclined on her seat like she was an inmate being transported to prison, I felt this next month in the troopship would be a far safer, more enjoyable time than the past month on this throne forsaken world.

---

3 days later, aboard the Cruiser "Argent Lance"

"Do the platoons give you any trouble?" I asked, casually leaning against the balustrade, only granting a cursory look at 3rd squad doing their FTL drills. It was generally accepted that light to moderate exercise was needed to keep one's health and mood at acceptable levels once in the warp, and I had volunteered to keep an eye on them so as to not only take the less stringent job of signing a multitude of papers, but also to not to appear lazy whilst I was actually doing practically nothing.

"Only if we allow them to," Warrant Officer Dahlberg said, and I caught the suggestive tone in her voice. Astrid Dahlberg was a surprisingly young officer, newly promoted from senior armsmen for halting an uprising borne of the false notion that the ship we found ourselves on, a cruiser with the designation Argent Lance was to be decommissioned within the year. I had yet to meet her before now, but as I had boarded the ship two days previously, I had deemed her rump sufficiently plump and her face pretty enough for me to take immediate interest. As usual, she seemed to think the same of me, though I am unaware if my own backside had helped myself in that regard.

"I must admit," I said, sliding a bit closer. "I am unaware of the proper protocols allowed aboard. Perhaps later you could allow me to get better acquainted with the rules?"

I watched her face flush with satisfaction, and she smiled. To my delight, her gloved index finger pressed against the hilt of my sword as she spoke in a not-so-subtle innuendo. "It is in my purview to aid someone curious about...protocol." I felt this was going to turn out to be quite the delightful trip, after all. However, my hopes were about to be dashed as Morek strode out of the corridor and onto the overlook where Warrant Officer Dahlberg and I were standing, now moving apart to a respectable distance.

"Corporal, can't you see I am on duty?" I asked the squat. He simply stared, and not for the first time did I wonder if he was slow or too clever. After a pregnant pause, he spoke.

"Apologies, Lieutenant, but a brawl seems to have broken out in the crew's quarters."

"A brawl?" I asked, just as Astrid added, "how large of one?"

"Just between four squads," Morek said, shaking his head at the warrant officer to assure her she needn't get involved. "Two of ours and two of the 74th Langeroth."

"Excuse me As- er, Warrant Officer. We can continue our discussion soon." I assured her, and as I walked away, I swore there would be hell to pay if my men started any infraction and interrupted by rendezvous with the lady Dahlberg.

Veterans develop a trick for sleeping through anything not actively life threatening. Probably because 'not-actively-life-threatening' was th best you could hope for in the Imperial Guard. Sel had learned halfway through her first deployment on Cormarant, where the damn thunderstorms never seemed to let up. This proved to be a detriment as the cup of lukewarm recaf which was dumped over her head was not an active threat to her live but a clear and present danger to both her sleep and her uniform. She launched upright, her body jackknifing almost without concious thought. It took her a heartbeat to remember that she had opted to bunk with second squad because they were still two men light and their bilet was tucked away in a seprate subcompartment, a fact which she hoped might limit the number of times pepole might be tempted to seek her out for bothersome duties. Plus it had a pool table. By the end of said heartbeat she realized a fist was flying at her head. The Langeroth blow connected smashing her head back into a bulkhead and exploding stars across her vision. The Langeroth were a rough rider unit, and the had the typical arrogance that seemed to stick to cavalry as doggedly as the smell of horse shit. In battle the wore heavy chestplates over long leather backed chain shirts. They weren't wearing that in barracks, so as Sel crashed into the bulkhead between the bunks she let it take her weight and drove foot into her attackers groin hard enough to get him a place in the choir at the next Ministorium service. The stunned Langeroth went down, clutching his regimental pride and Sel delivered two more vicious kicks to his kidneys. There were some lessons that you learned in juvie gangs which translated well to the Guard: Thou shalt always put the boot in.

The barracks room was a chaos of battle. Troops from second and third struck and kicked at Langeroth men. Some had improvised weapons, Sel saw Trooper Soto smash a bottle over the head of one of the horse fuckers, then gouge a bright red runnel along the arm of another before somone broke a chair over his back and he went down like a sack of ploins. Just to prove she was a non-com Sel tried shouting to bring the mess to a halt, but either no one heard her or no one was minded to much bother. A second Langeroth man was coming at her, eyes wide with fury. Sel whipped the bedroll from her bed and tossed it over his head. He batted at the fabric instinctively and Sel surged forward driving a knee into his guts hard enough that a spray of vomit jetted between his clenched teeth as he doubled over. Sell brought her other knee up to connect with his chin, there was a crack of breaking teeth and he tumbled to the ground mewling.

"Bastards all!" she yelled, the warcry of the 2nd Gendarmes. "Bastards all!" returned from a dozen throats. The cry had originated during an argument about what the regiment's words should be. One of the junior officer had suggested as joke, given they were stitched together from so many other units. Obviously it had not won out as the offical slogan, but it had stuck among the troops. The Langeroth were bigger on average, being all men and cavalry to boot, but the Gendarmes surged forward battering their opponents with fists, boots, and improvised weapons of every kind imagnable. Sel even saw Kirkland bludgeoning a mustachioed Langeroth with a copy of the Uplifting Primer. Out of the corner of her eye Sel saw Kolcek pull a las pistol from a webbing pouch. It was a short barreled non-issue model he must have scrounged somewhere.

"No!" she shouted and lunged across the room. A Langeroth hit her across the shoulders with a pool queue and she staggered, twisting in agony, but she managed to catch Kolcek around the waist. A brawl was one thing, but a killing was quite another. She drove Kolcek from his feet and both sides hesitated for a hearbeat to see two Gendarmes attacking each other. The lasgun went off in blinding flash as it discharged something struck Sel in the back and drove her into the ground hard enough to split her chin. She ripped the weapon from her fellow troopers hand.

"You stupid bitch," Sel gasped reaching behind her to feel blood running down the back of her fatigues. "You shot me?!" Sel could smell the tell tale stink of burned cloth and burned flesh. This is what she got for trying to do the right thing she reminded herself. The shot had stunned the room sufficiently that the only sounds were the groans of the wounded and fourty pairs of lungs desperately sucking in air.

"What is the meaning of this!" roared a voice that Sel was sure would have been audible over an artillery barage. Everyone still capable of movement swiviled to see the grim form of an Imperial Commisar standing in the access hatch. Kayden was approaching from behind him with a stern look on his face. Sel pressed a hand to the wound in her side and looked down at the las pistol in her hand. She looked towards the commissar but her eyes strayed upwards to a simple representation of the Emperor in gilt that had been affixed above the hatch, dozens of prayer slips attached to either side so that they looked like wings.

"Why?" she mouthed to the statue and then slumped back onto the floor in resignation.