Despite my frustration and anger, as soon as I saw the Commissar, it dissipated like mist. What was initially going to be a lecture and latrine duty became an incident that could lead to multiple instances of incarceration or worse. And, of course, when I saw Sel was shot, I rushed passed the Commissar and called for the medic. I likely did not endear myself to him, but I did not quite care at that moment.

Hours later, after myself and a few of the troopers had helped Sel get patched up, I escorted her to my office with the condition she do nothing strenuous for a fortnight. I sincerely hoped it was not going to be strenuous, as the Commissar was accompanying us, as was two other troopers, Kolcek and Pvt Boffin, alongside Morek, of course. I had walked there despite the Commissar's insistence to take me and the others aside to speak, as I wished for the home field advantage.

Once everyone was seated in my office, the Commissar, a fellow named Sobek, began speaking as I had expected. The political officers enjoy their own voice, and think shoving their weight around is the Emperor's Gift to the masses. To be honest, I almost faded out for a moment or two. He seemed to be reciting some edict from one of the endless manuals they have to memorize to laud over the rest of us. But thank the Emperor, I sobered up at just the right moment.

"...it is within my authority to see Corporal Lorica Seldon held and tried for conduct unbecoming a trooper of the astra militarum, and attempted murder."

"Why?" I asked, and the man blinked, clearly unused to being questioned, even by officers. I admit I had a deep-seated distaste for wanton authority, but more than that, I could tell from the numerous whispers I had been told over the past few hours that Sel was innocent. "She has served this unit with nothing but commendable loyalty since I came aboard."

"And she was placed under your care because of numerous infractions-" The Commissar rebuked, voice rising.

"She is serving her time as my liaison as ordered-" I began, but the Sobek cut me off.

"and continuing her unabashed contempt for command by brawling with another squadron and utilizing a live lasgun-"

"Did you not see the lasgun wound? Do you think she shot herself?" I retorted, almost smiling with incredulity at this ridiculousness. The accompanied men, and Sel, followed our back and forth silently.

Commissar Sobek scoffed, shaking his head as if I were a particularly stupid Ogryn. "Sentinel pilots are known for their...rambunctiousness, and I doubt she even knows the proper safety protocols of handling arms."

I paused, merely staring at the Commissar for a solid length of time before I cleared my throat. "I am afraid I think that is entirely baseless, Commissar. However, you are in your right to do what you will. However, I am in my right to make it very difficult for you, and throw myself in there with her if need be. This is not a road that serves the purpose of the Imperium, which means it is not a road you likely wish to tread."

The Commissar glared at me with a look I still think about today. It was quite a beautiful sight, as he looked so surprised and with such a lack of comprehension at my doggedness, he nearly gaped. I was so unintelligent, despite my bluff working, as I was so very close to being thrown onto the chopping block. I wondered if he would pull out his own laspistol and gun me down then and there. However, as he opened his mouth to rebuke me hotly, Kolcek spoke up.

"I did it, lieutenant!" He barked, and all eyes turned to him. He looked nervous, but kept his nerve by staring forward, focusing at the corner of the wall. "I withdrew my laspistol. Corporal Sel took it from me, but not before I accidentally shot her. She was just trying to keep me from killing someone. I was... I was disoriented, not thinking. I didn't know if the Langeroth men were going to hurt us more. It all happened so fast..."

The Commissar looked at Kolcek with a look of distaste, clearly unhappy with this confession. I knew what he wanted. He wanted someone to blame and stick on a pike, and it would keep the squad at maximum capacity to punish the trooper who was injured, rather than incarcerating a healthy man or woman and keeping them from active service. With all of Sel's marks of insubordination, it would have been easy to stick. He was no doubt going to visit the Langeroth regiment next and give them a similar once over, but that did not fill me with joy, either.

"The fact of the matter is, Commissar, my men were attacked in their bunks. If anything, they were acting in self defense. I can assure you by the name Caladwarden they were upstanding servants of the Emperor to a man." I glanced at Morek, who was chewing on another piece of jerky. Where the blazes was he getting those? "-and abhuman." I added to include him.

Commissar Solbek growled, and then turned on his heels. "I will return to speak on the sentencing of trooper Kolcek, if any is required." He said, and then strode down the corridor, leaving us to sit alone with one another for a few moments of awkward silence. As I would later come to expect, Private Boffin looked at me with wide eyes, mouth open, aghast. "Lieutenant, you were going to throw yourself in front of the lance for one of us!? You're an inspiration!"

Well, it had been more of a factor of my own ego, but if it worked for me...

"Throne of Terra Kolcek were you born an idiot or did you do a rotation after basic!" Sel exploded once she was sure the commissar was out of earshot. Her back and ribs throbbed mightily and though she was aware that she was lucky to be breathing at all, that knowledge did little to cool her temper. Kolcek grimaced and gave her a rather sheepish look. Bad enough to get caught with a weapon that should have been in lockup, but he could have easily said he dropped the damn thing and it went off. Sobek had been temporarily molifed perhaps, by the Lieutenant's heroics and so he might get off with stoppage of liquor and extra watches, but he might just as easily have been shot for admitting to shooting her.

"Uhhh... thank you sir," Sel said turning to nod her thanks to Kayden. It wasn't that he ever stopped acting like an Aristo, it was just that it seemed to flip between useful and dangerous with alarming regularity. Never the less, with her record and without the protection of a scout company commander a sentinel pilot could expect to be on the shit list from the Commissariat plenty without actually getting involved in brawls. She rubbed her eye and grimaced, she was developing a spectacular shiner where that Langeroth fraker had clocked her while she was still waking up.

"How did the fighting start Kolcek," Kayden asked after giving Sel a quick nod. Kolcek shrugged still smiling the same idot smile that Boffin was wearing.

"Those Langercocks came in and started throwing their weight around, saying that seeing we spent our last tour polishing our balls while they were really fighting. Said we didn't deserve such good quaters if we weren't actually going to fight. Some of the boy started talking about taking out those roks ourselves and how it was better than beating up on a few rebels...."

"... and it escalated from there," Sel finished. Simple resentments like this could escalate quickly, esspecially if they were emboldened by a Commissar like Sobek who might be looking for an excuse to unite his own men at the expense of other.

This situation was irksome to say the least. I was not arrogant enough to think my presence here had caused it, but a lot of talk had been circulation about my platoon. Kayden's Conquerors the whispers had said, at least from what I'd heard. Had a ring to it, but it was also the thing to make petty men jealous, though as I said, I was not so full of pride I thought that was entirely the case. There was something else going on there, I gently warranted. Maybe if I did some digging I could find it, but first I would need to attempt to smooth things over with their CO.

I stood up, my chair sliding back from the movement. My face was neutral, and though Sel would later tell me she knew I was mostly making a show, I admit I also had an inkling of truth to my meaning. "Don't get the wrong idea, Corporal." I said to Sel. "You did a bloody damned noble thing, but you're not assigned to do damned noble things, you're assigned to me! If Kolcek wants to get himself killed, don't die trying to stop him! If he's an idiot, it's his problem. Besides, you won't do that again, will you Kolcek?"

My words were icy, and his smile faded. He shook his head vehemently. "No sir, not again."

"Good, and you better make sure of it, or you'll be a liar as well as an idiot." I barked. "I can handle idiots, I can even handle liars, but there's no room for idiot liars in the platoon. The Commissar wouldn't even get a body by the time I was done with you. Are we clear?"

He nodded, too nervous to speak. I took it as the best answer I would get, and drew my officer's cloak about my shoulders. "Dismissed." I told them without further ado. "Not you, Corporal. Stay behind." Sel gave me a look but stopped, Boffin and Kolcek almost tripping over themselves as they tried to squeeze out the door at the same time. Morek waited, knowing he was exempt. Sometimes, I felt like the squat only nominally followed my orders because he felt like there was nothing better to do. Either way, he had proven loyal so I'd take it for what it was.

"You're on light duty." I told her, grabbing my sword belt and strapping it to my slim waist. She raised an eyebrow and tilted her head.

"Is that all, sir?"

"No. To your earlier thanks, no need to. I know you've saved my life, already... Word travels," I explained, and I could see it dawned on her that I had heard she had halted a coup before it had even begun. Though before it got awkward, I continued. "I am going across the ship to meet with their lieutenant, see if I can find a solution to all of this. Be careful around here, and keep an eye on anyone not in our outfit. Now, you're dismissed."

She gave me a crisp salute. "Sir," she said, and left. Of course, at the time I had no idea what activities she was in to, nor what she was about to do. If I had, I would have confined her in the office with a welding torch.

I turned to Morek, who already had my chainsword in his hands before I even had to request it. I took it and slung the weapon onto the swordbelt already snug on my waist. "Wear the ripper gun, but on your back. And bring a dataslate. Make sure you look like you're busy when I need you to." I told him. Morek pursed his lips, his large dark beard shifting, and he shrugged. Good enough for me.

Sel caught up with Kolcek as he paused to try to decipher a crudely marked plackard which directed the troops around the mazelike internal compartments of the ship. They were all still new enough to the ship that unfamiliar areas, like officers country, could throw them. Kolcek glanced at her a little warily.

"Let's have a chat," she suggested, propeling the trooper into a side compartment by force of presence. Kolcek wasn't scared exactly but he wore the instinctive blank face that private soldiers had learned to turn on NCO's since before humans ever left Terra.

"The gun, where did you get it," she demanded, glancing down the hallway to make sure there was no chance of being overheard. Koleck looked around evasively, his eyes falling on arcane pipes and fuse boxes covered in Mechanicus prayer slips.

"Just... you know battlefield salvage," Kolcek answered, not at all convincingly. He had every appearance of a man whose lover is about to find him in bed with her sister.

"Kolcek, this is clearly an officer sidearm and it is brand new, do you know how I know?" Sel asked mildly.

"H..how?" Kolcek asked.

"Because I am not a frakking idiot!" Sel snapped tapping Kolcek three times on the head with the barrel of the unloaded gun.

"They'll kill me, Emperor's teeth Corporal I ..."

"They?" Sel interjected, "That is a promising start."

_____

E Company's billet was several decks down, close to the small Adeptus Mechanicus shrine which the regiments few actual Tech priests had claimed, or been granted some arcane visitors rights too. Many among the engineers were partiall to the cog boys and their strange rituals, a few even wore the hollow cog medallions of lay members. They were billted on a vehicle deck which dwarfed the present need, stretching so far away that the far walls were lost in the gloom, the luminators beyond the immediate are having been turned off to conserve power. A small island of human activity remained, centered around the scores of vehicles that the 2nd and perhaps some other regiments had embarked but the gloom beyond gave Sel an uncomfortable feeling that something hostile lurked just beyond reach. Old hive world instincts prickled and made her more queasy even then the smell of hot welding torches or the screaming whine of cutting tools at work on metal. Seargent Greer proved easy to find. He was sitting with a few of his men beside a flaming barrel filled with gravel and prometheum. There was a bottle being passed around but it vanished as Sel approached.

"You lost corporal?" he called in a nasal voice which put Sel in mind of a more than usually mean sump rat. Sel shook her head, coming to the edge of the firelight. Greer's face reinforced her impression, pinched and hungry looking it had been burned in the past by a flamer so that his right side had the look of a candle which had been held briefly to a hot griddle. The eye on that side was a crude augmetic which blazed in the firelight. He and his crew were some mean looking bastards no mistake.

"No, come to see a man about a gun," she told him. An icy chill went through her guts as the laughter and conversation ceased. Greer himself lifted a partially finished lho stick and tossed it into the barrel.

"Reckon that if your not lost coporal, you should get lost," he said with dangerous calm. There was a sound of wood scraping on the deck plates as several men stood up, clearly willing to enforce the order if she didn't obey.

"Trooper Kolcek told me that if I wanted a gun, you were the man to see," she tried with bright innocence.

"Trooper Kolcek better watch his step the next time he is walking alone, and you... well you are already alone aren't you?" Greer grinned. A man burst from the shadows, a pry bar cocked to strike. Sel whipped the pistol from her pocket and shove it into the man's eye, almost blacking out with pain from the sudden movement as it agravated her wound. The whole scene froze comically, Sel's stolen pistol a foot from the chest of her would be attacker, Greer and his mean stopped in their tracks.

"He better," Sel replied, struggling to keep her voice level through fear and pain.

"Because if he falls down a shaft one dark night, that note I put in his file will go to Commissar Sobek and who knows what might happen? Come to think of it I better watch out too, no telling who might hear what if I were to turn out to be terminally unlucky?" There was a diffuse growl of anger and Greer's features twisted with fury for a moment before resolving into cruel amusement.

"What is this, just wanted to take a look before you turn us over to your commissariat buddies?" Greer demanded. Sel felt a rush of relief that made her giddy as she realised they werent just going to kill her and take her chances.

"You know, that is the second time this week someone has accused me of being a Commisariat agent," she replied, lowering the pistol and thrusting it into her belt.

"I might almost feel offended, but as it happens, I want in."

____

"So how does it work, must be pretty slick to avoid all the Munitorum bean counters?" Sel asked as she took a mouthful of the joyliq that had been offered to her. Greer puffed on a fresh lho stick, blowing the acrid smoke out through his nose like a dragon of legend. Both the liquor and the smokes were of higher quality than was usually found in the regiment, which confirmed Sel's impression that there was money to be made on the black market.

"Well..." he began, his desire to keep secrets warring with his desire to show how very clever he was. It was a one sided battle, the Emperor save her from idiot men.

"We got a way of forging requisitions see, so we just ask for what we want, few extra crates arrive and they are delivered to my boys, once we get it, we take the stuff, pack them expendibles, smoke cyclinders, expended las packs, stuff like that, then send them back claiming there was delivery mistake. No one gets wise because we swap out orders with other legitimate cargos, maybe some administratum drone is looking, but if we do it just before we ship out some place, theyd have to chase us through time and space to actually check up on it, and once they get here..." Greer trailed of in a snicker, placing two hand across his chest in the sign of the Aquilla.

"We sent it back as soon as we saw the problem y'honor," he mocked, playing the part of a piebald innocent protesting in confusion and dismay. Sel had to admit that as fiddles went it was pretty smart. Nothing came out of regimental stores, because it wasn't supposed to be there in the first place. How he was forging requistions was a more interesting question, blackmail likely, or another conspirator. It also meant that Greer wasn't really harming the regiment, it wasn't as though he were stealing food or ammunition that anyone would likely need, and she knew for a fact that guardsmen would pay for extras. Food, weapons, gear, any little extra that might make the difference between life and death, or might be traded to an enterprising local girl who would make life a little more worth living.

"Alright, so deal me in," Sel demanded, "ten percent cut." Greer sucked at his teeth, glancing at her sideways and considering how much cheaper it might be just to have her killed.

"A ten percent fee for you silence? he demanded. Sel laughed and took some more liquor.

"No ten percent fee on top of the ten percent for silence," she demanded. Greer's eyes widened in horror at this naked greed.

"What that other ten percent buys you is access to F companies requisitions," she hurriedly explained. Greer gave her a long look.

"Your B company arent you?" he demanded. Sel turned her collar inside out to show her scout insignia. The scouts were part of F company and so was she even if she was on secondment.

"F company is logistics, so they can get anything and no one bats and eye, it is going to look suspicious if a bunch of Engineers start ordering say pharma, or tech, but no one is going to bat an eye at the confusing mix of shit F has to order. You got so many specalties jammed together there, medical, scouts, training, everything."

Greer's eyes widened as understanding went through him then settled into a greedy smile as he calculated how much more he could get for such exotic items. The answer obviously pleased him and he clapped her on the back.

"It is a deal, but don't be having no real accidents before we get to the sharp end," he warned her.

"Glad to hear it," Sel gritted, the blow to her back making her wound throb in a way she hoped wasn't an omen of disaster to come.

Lieutenant Marcone scribbled a handwritten note silently, the ink pen eliciting soft scratching noises as I waited impatiently. We rendezvoused five minutes ago, by my reckoning, but I had been under the impression he would have been ready to receive Morek and I immediately considering the blatant disorder of the troops and the near death of a handful of them. Whatever he was doing, I found it strange he did not have an aide to do it for him, or that he had not requisitioned a datapad, which might have made the task more expedient.

Finally, with a flourish of his pen, he set the quill down and aired the parchments, before rolling it up and planting his seal on it. Very old fashioned, my father would appreciate a man of his tastes. Perhaps I could too, if he had not kept me waiting.

"Now, as to the matter at hand." Marcone said, handing the parchment to his second, who had approached at just the right time to take it before leaving, as if they had been waiting, watching a picscreen just outside the door. "My apologies on the wait."

"That's quite alright," I temporized, granting an amicable smile as Morek stood behind me, chewing on something as usual. After giving a small glance the squat's way, he looked squarely at me. "As you called the meeting, I assume you would like to speak first."

"That would be acceptable," I said, clearing my throat. It was clear this Marcone was more of a desk officer, and so I appropriated a similar persona, holding myself with an air of professionalism. "At around 0618, there was an altercation in the barracks cordoned off to my platoon. I arrived at 0626, along with the Commissar, and halted the melee before it truly got out of hand. I am here to discuss how justice should be meted, and how we can avoid such conflict in the future, as we are all children of the emperor. We will be arriving to our destination in the matter of a month, and we must be unified before we land." I felt I had laid it out in plain terms, my words only partially dismantled by a soft belch from Morek.

"I agree completely," Marcone responded crisply. "We need to be united before we reach landfall."

A smile bloomed on my face. "That is good to hear. It would not require much harsh punishment for your men, of course. I can provide lip service to my unit to make it seem less congenial."

"My good man, it is your troopers that should be punished." Marcone said without a hint of irony. That stopped me in my tracks, and it took all of my willpower not to give a snort of derision or burst out laughing from the ridiculousness of the statement. I held myself well, leveling my gaze to meet his.

"Lieutenant," I began, emphasizing every syllable. "It was my men that were asleep, when yours attacked. It was my barracks that was assailed. I fail to see how, in any way, shape, or form, my troopers are to blame in this specific scenario. I severely doubt a colonel would disagree with me, either."

"On the surface, you are correct. However, in order to keep further conflict from arising, we must inquire upon the 'why.'" He responded, and cleared his throat. "Are you aware your men have taken more than their fair share of medpacks, equipment, munitions, and ammo?"

"I am aware that we were at the forefront of the engagement with the xenos, and therefore acquired more wounded and lost more munitions, therefore we were more desperate need for resupply. I am also aware it was my deductions that saved the regiment from being blindsided by a waaagh of Orkoids." I reminded him, and Marcone took that as the proverbial nail in the coffin. He gestured, as if it was as plain as day.

"That is precisely my point! It is your...reputation-" As he spoke, I could almost hear the word 'undeserved' during his brief pause. "-that has garnered your men to act so arrogantly. I hear you also disobeyed our Colonel in order to advance upon an enemy without proper reconnaissance."

"We were the reconnaissance," I assured him.

"And now your platoon has taken it upon themselves to requisition almost double what my platoon has received, bragging loudly whilst they do so. I have also received reports of your platoon's nickname."

I glanced at Morek, who looked as neutral as ever, before turning my gaze back to eye Marcone. "So...because my men were wounded and had some bluster for saving the regiment and perhaps the planet, the answer to that is violently attacking them in their beds?"

"The answer is discipline, Lieutenant."

"I'd prefer you call me, 'my lord.'" I said, admittedly with more than a bit of petulance. Truth be told, I did not prefer that even in the best of moods, unless it helped me bed a woman or gain some advantage. However, I felt this man had a massive inferiority complex, and I thought it satisfying to make it worse. I saw Marcone's jaw tighten, and his nostrils flared gingerly. I made sure not to smile.

"Discipline, my lord." He responded.

"I completely agree," I assured him, taking my leave of my seat and clearing my throat, mirroring a number of his mannerisms from earlier. "I shall endeavor to make certain my men do not brag too loudly for their deeds of heroism, and I will do my best to make certain they conserve ammo and bleed less. And in return, I expect you to enact a new standard to your platoon, most notably to keep your men from acting like ravenous dogs. If not, I will put them down. Good day, Lieutenant." Without another word, though I could feel him glowering at my back, Morek and I walked out into the hall and made our way back to my office so I could ponder at this strange conversation.

“Why are you not training with the rest of your platoon Corporal?” Commissar Sobek seemed to appear from nowhere as Sel rounded a corner. She had her first pocket full of credits from the blackmarket deal and managed to avoid jumping out of her skin only by dint of the fact that this was the third such ambush in the two weeks since the fight. She still flinched but no guardsmen was so pure that the sudden appearance of a Commissar wouldn’t unsettle them.

“Sir!” Sel replied, stiffening to something like attention but not attempting a salute. The distant thump of boots on deck plates told her that the platoon was running the assault course in a nearby hold. Distant strains of cadence song echoed through the cavernous steel haulways.

“You ask my why I’m a guardsman,
Ask me why I sleep in a ditch,
It isn’t so much that I’m stupid,
It is just I don’t want to be rich.”

Sel brought her heart rate under control and straightened up, trying to ignore the roll of credit notes in her pocket which suddenly weighed about a thousand pounds. Sobek glared at her, eyebrow arched, awaiting explanation.

“It isn’t my unit Sir,” she explained, “I’m temporarily attached…”

“As a driver, yes I know,” Sobek interrupted. “So I can expect to see you training with your… sentinel pilots?” The words sounded like a curse. Sel ran her hand through her hair and affected an air of confusion.

“You’d have to ask Lieutenant Caradwalden sir, I’m supposed to be at his disposal,” Sel replied. Sobek glowered at her, his lip curling in contempt at the mention of Kayden’s name.

“Perhaps I should speak with him regarding finding you some duties?” Sobek suggested.

“Sir,” Sel responded, neither agreeing or disagreeing, while politely suggesting he get the frak on with. Sobek glared at her for a moment longer, balked by the lack of engagement, then stepped out of her way.

“Continue with… whatever it is you are doing Corporal Seldon,” Sobek ordered. Sel considered it a very bad sign that a member of the Commisariat knew her name but she merely clicked her ankles together and headed off down the oily smelling corridor. She turned a corner towards Kayden’s office and paused. Her eyes caught a flicker of movement in the shadows ahead. It might be rats, but her hive instincts found it easier to believe that a couple of Langeroth troopers with pipe wrenches or entrenching tools. Had Sobek been deliberately holding her in place while they got in position. It seemed far fetched but Sel hadn’t survived these past five years by taking an unnecessarily rosy view of the situation. There had been several fights already, jostling in mess lines, collisions in the showers, that kind of thing. Sel felt a sudden conviction that she should look in on her unit. She turned left and jogged down the hall. This was going to come to killing before the voyage was out or she was a Catachan.

I might have been a highborn, but I was no fool. I knew enemy maneuvers when I saw it, even on a relatively small scale. Morek's constant mumbles were also a telltale sign. If I learned anything from the old squat (considering they could live as long as an astartes, this was quite notable), it was that he had a sixth sense I should pay attention to. And so he and I decided to make a temporary headquarters a few doors down from my main office in a requisitioned broom closet, where I kept a few communique items and a small desk. My vanity was not so great that I could not trade it for a tactical advantage, even though the smell could have been better, admittedly. I held meetings in my assigned office, of course, but otherwise busied myself in my diminutive headquarters. Redirection was a useful tool, after all.

It was from there I was able to step out into the corridor, to find three men of Langeroth platoon skulking through the corridor past my position. A quick look over betrayed their intentions. One of them held a syringe, held behind his hand so as to be concealed in the front. Another had a small shock baton slipped up his sleeve, and the third seemed to be walking openly, but judging by the small bulge in the back of his pants, he was likely concealing a sidearm. All three items were prohibited to men of the line, except perhaps the sidearm, though that was generally marked for officers. It took me the matter of a single second before I nodded Morek to accompany me, and I saw the squat grab his ripper gun and step out with me as I casually cocked my hip and rested my hands on the hilt of my chainsword.

"Aten-SHUN!" I roared.

The men, so focused on keeping a low profile as they walked, yelped at the sudden sound behind them. Yanked out of their mission of ill-repute, they stumbled as they spun in alarm. The syringe clattered to the floor, and I spied it was filled with a strange red liquid. The baton had inadvertently slid out of the man's sleeve, hopelessly exposing itself before he could recover it. I felt as if the three of them had either come for me, or multiple members of my platoon. Their faces were white, their bodies frozen once their implements were revealed. Morek hefted his weapon, not aiming at them particularly, but ready nonetheless.

"L-Lord Kayden, sir." The one that held the baton said, having slipped it back into his coat.

"Interesting choice of recreational items, men. Anything you wish to tell me?"

"No suh," the 'unarmed' one replied, keeping his hands to his sides. If there was the three of them surrounding me, he might have went for his gun, but with Morek and his ripper gun in his hands, he was not that suicidal. Their body language screamed wild indecision. One might break while the others begged or merely stood there, and the possibility of them attacking was not completely gone. I hid my thoughts and tension well, however.

"That's too bad, because I'm quite curious on a number of things. I know you're not planning on using any of those weapons on this ship. We're all Emperor fearing men here, aren't we? You seem to be lost, if nothing else." I remarked casually, looking past my nose at them. I caught the faintest flicker of the eyes of the man that held the syringe going to the fallen instrument. I knew what he was considering before he could move. My fingers tightened on the hilt of my chainsword.

"Trooper, if you even entertain the notion of breaking that syringe, my aide will blow a hole in you wide enough to stick an Ogryn's arm through." I warned, so deathly calm, they knew I was serious. He stepped back, wisely. My eyes whipped to the other two. "You will drop your weapons on the floor. All of them. The pistol too. If you comply, you might just get off with a contraband charge and a dereliction of duties."

"With all due respect sir," the baton wielder said, though I noticed he did as I said and placed his weapon on the ground in front of him. "you can't reprima-"

"I can and I will!" I snapped, eyes baleful. "Oh, at the end of the day you answer to your own CO, but I have leave to kill you where you stand. I don't believe incarceration is out of the question. Now do as I say!"

Lastly, the seemingly unarmed corporal, if his uniform was any indication, withdrew his sidearm (which was a bolt pistol, to my surprise) slowly and placed it on the floor. I noticed one was shaking, but the others just looked guilty as if I had already sentenced them to the firing squad. I made a 'tsk' and motioned for Morek, who stepped forward, his ripper gun trained on them. The squat was chewing something, as usual. I also noticed he needed a bath quite badly. I made a mental note to put that on the schedule for tomorrow.

"Face the wall." Morek ordered them. "On yer knees. Hands behind yer back."

It was while the men were being cuffed that, of all people, corporal Seldon came upon us. I had the syringe in my hand, appraising the instrument curiously, before noticing her standing there. I raised an eyebrow. "Ah, corporal. I was just about to send for you. I feel as if we should check on your squad while Morek runs these men to the brig. I hope you aren't too busy, are you?"

Sel peered at the handcuffed troopers with a leery look. They glared at her but with no more venom than they had for Kayden and Morek. Had Commissar Sobek really been delaying her or was it simple chance? It seemed unlikely that a man as fanatical as the Commissar appeared would be involved in such a thing. Maybe he was just predictable enough that these troops had taken advantage.

"Uh yes sir," Sel agreed, falling in beside Kayden. Neither of them mentioned the Langeroth's as they walked the few hundred yards to the training bay. The cavernous cargo hold had been converted into an assault course in which shipping crates formed walls, rope climbs, and other obstacles over which the troops of second platoon were currently scrambling in full battle gear. It had clearly been going on for some time and the troops were haggard and exhausted. When they reached the end of the course, they unslung their las guns and fired across the bay at improvised targets made from discarded rubber tires. The troops had five rounds to score a hit, no easy feet with hands shaking and lungs heaving from the course. After they managed a hit, visible by a puff of black smoke, they slung their rifles and jogged back to the start of the course, a shipping container filled with cold water to improvised a bear pit.

Sergeant Crispin stood beside the container, screaming abuse and encouraging the troops with blows and curses. He grabbed a particularly laggardly soldier, one of the half dozen replacements they had been assigned, and physically pitched him into the water with copious and unflattering commentary on the unfortunate troopers parentage. As a replacement for Mattalow, Crispin was a definite improvement but he swung a little too far in the other direction. He was a disciplinarian, almost a martinette, always willing to pile on the punishment detail for the smallest infractions. Crispin seemed to view Sel as an irritation which had to be endured, which was close enough to how she felt about him as made no difference.

"Move you sorry bastards! I want you to cut ten seconds or we will be running this for the rest of the cycle!" he screamed, slapping another trooper over the head as he staggered past. Sel resisted the urge to reach for a lho stick deciding that on balance she would rather stay in to good graces of the common soldier. Crispin might win the respect of the troops before they got into action, but if he kept coming down on every infraction with the proverbial wrath of Macharius Sel was going to make a point of not standing near him when the bullets started flying.

"These Langeroth pricks are going to be a problem," Sel confided, leaning on a bollard as she watched the platoon run the assault course.

One of the ship's servitors whirred past us as they watched the troops drill. I felt a tinge of sympathy for the men as I watched their red faces and the sweat staining their uniforms. Crispin was working them ragged. I did not want to call the man out publicly. If they knew the Lieutenant disapproved of his methods even by a hair, the men would eat him alive. I decided he might have a small talk with the fellow. There was very little I could not alter with a quick talk, I generally surmised. Though the Langeroth Lieutenant was certainly an exception to the rule.

"They're already a problem," I confided to Sel, foolishly using a casual and less than austere tone. Luckily there was not many days left en-route, but there was enough for a powder keg to explode if the right (or wrong) circumstances came about. I sighed silently, through my nose, and fixed my hat before I really let my appearance slip. "I think it would be best if you accompanied me daily. I don't believe you are helpless. Nor am I, but together we can make sure to watch each other's backs."

Admittedly, I mostly wanted an extra pair of eyes to keep myself alive. However, we had only known one another a month and had saved one another's life multiple times. I would like for Corporal Seldon to continue to rough her way through life with her usual, endearing style while I did my best to survive. I heard the clanking zipping of the servitor once again as it made its rounds, and casually turned to regard it, making certain I was not in its path.

I saw a clawed hand reach for me, and I stumbled back, the metal appendage ripping the hat off my head as I ducked. At the corner of my eye, I saw Sel shoot up, instinctively crouching, then moving toward me. She wouldn't make it, I realized, as a buzzsaw from another arm shot toward my chest. I planted my back foot on the floor, and my sword was in my hand as if I had plucked it out of the warp, shoving the arm aside and riposting in a brilliant move; two flashes of steel and my blade skewered the servitor center mass. I twisted my blade, hoping to ruin enough organic matter and wiring to take it out of action, but it kept coming, trying to bowl me over with its weight as the hand, and a stabbing appendage I surmised was used for screwing on second notice, aimed for my eye. I jerked my body to the side, turning my chainsword on and slicing the arm of the hand off as the drill slipped past my face, cutting a bright red line across my perfect cheek.

Spinning, my sword leading in the circuit, I cut the main wiring along its spinal cord. The monstrosity began shuddering, but I grit my teeth and pushed on, my chainblade grinding into it, sparks flying and metal snapping, until the servitor spasmed and collapsed onto the floor.

I stood over the thing, panting softly. It took me a moment to realize Crispin's shouting and the groans of the men had stopped, and I turned to see the entire platoon standing stock still, looking at me. To my left, Sel approached, her gun out but no shots fired. She looked from the servitor to my face. I held my hand up to signify she lower her weapon.

"Don't damage it. We need to check its synaptics." I said, and it was good she was so close to hear me. The entire platoon roared that moment, rushing over to me in a wave of enthusiasm.

"Unit was within normal paramaters at time of disconnection," the tech adept declared. The being, its sex was rendered indetermite by the encrustation of augments and mechadendrites. His crimson robe was augmented by a white plastec apron which kept the majority of the biofluid and lubricants from him as he disected the servitor. Magos Panageas was the master of a dingy servitor servicing bay that Sel had walked passed every day but never actually noticed, so ornate and festooned with chambers was the voidship. The corpse of the servitor was laid out on a large grillwork table that allowed blood and biofluid to collect in slucies below for the Mechanicus to reuse for Sel knew not what.

"Normal parameters?! It tried to kill me," Kayden growled.

"Termination of a biological unit is within normal parameters for this model," the the Magos replied through his voice synthesizer, still managing to convey the slight hint of contempt for the unchurched in these matters. Sel arched an eyebrow.

"Uhh ok so can you tell us who sent it?" Sel asked, perplexed.

"Cyber autopsy has has deleted that function," the tech priest replied.

"So why did you do it?!" Sel demanded as she realised that the priest had destroyed the very information they were looking for.

"Your request was to determine why it was acting strange. I have determined it was acting within normal parameters as per your request," the priest responded flatly. Sel and Kaiden exchanged a look and she opened her mouth to say something that one really shouldn't say to an adept of Mars. Kayden cut her off with a look.

"So who could have given such an order?' Kayden asked. The techpriest cocked his head to the side.

"Any holder of theta level clearence on the ship, such individuals include but are not limited to: the captain, the Chief Technomagos, the Navigator, the Helm..."

"Anyone in the guard, uh starting with the lowest rank," Kayden cut him off.

"A lieutenant with an administrative clearance of theta-one-seven, or a commisarial over ride," the Magos supplied helpfully. Sel and Kayden exchanged another look.

"I think that is as much as we can hope for," Kayden admitted as they left the servitor morgue and headed back towards Kayden's office. The problem was it didn't prove anything. It seemed likely that at least the Langerok Lieutenant was involved, perhaps even Sobek himself.

"We need a way to prove it, perhaps I should just call out that cur," Kayden mused. Sel gave him a look, then realised he meant challenge the other man to a duel. Bloody officers and bloody aristocrats.

"Commissar Sobek would never let it happen," she told him dashing the plan.

"Do you have any better ideas?" Kayden asked, a touch of offended hautre to his voice. Sel wracked her brain for a few moments, then a slow, and singularly unfriendly smile, spread across her face.

"How would you feel," she asked, "about getting shot?"

I longed for the bars and the elegant company of local women. This trip, which I had hoped would have proved uneventful and even relaxing, had so far been positively murderous in its treatment of my person, not to mention my men. The sheer unbridaled ridiculousness of the tech-priest almost made me question if everyone aboard wanted my head, but I knew that was my overeager paranoia. It was not curbed somewhat by this ploy we were about to play. I felt as if I was about to lose my life over a hunch, though I supposed that was par for course when it came to the guard. I just imagined it would happen to me less than most considering my rank.

The day/night cycle had shifted two terran hours before, the men already having eaten a hearty breakfast and gotten their warm ups done. I inquired to Crispin if I could take over for the day, hoping to showcase my leadership to the men. They were impressed with my skills, as they should be, but I felt I was becoming detatched from them truth be told. I used a convenient truth to create the lie, and before long I found myself in the vast drill gymnasium, huffing it with the men, working up a sweat like I was a common soldier. It felt good, if one considered the spirit of the act. I never did like lording over people, my family's arrogance a larger repellent than the mud and the mire of the average man. It's why I joined the Guard, and refused my father's "offer" of pulling strings to grant me the rank of major. I was smart enough to know he was trying to make himself look more extravagant, and cared little for my sake.

By noon, we had a live fire exercise scheduled. I received the go-ahead from the colonel, cordoned off the space (and made damn bloody sure no servitors were around), and began our drills. Our targets were polycrete mock ups of orks, able to absorb the lesser powered lasbolts without igniting. I lead my men for a quick target practice before I decided to try something more stringent. I reformed us into two teams, and had us perform a skirmish, informing Crispin and Sel to command squads 2 and 4 whilst I command 1 and 3.

Four platforms were raised in dispersed locations across the range to act as 'hills,' and when the buzzer sounded, we began. Sel was in on our 'scheme' obviously, it was her idea. However, Crispin was not privvy, and moved his men in what I correctly surmised was alpha maneuver, attempting to lay down suppressing fire as Sel and her squad spun to envelop. I commanded squad 3 to hold fire as Sel's men approached, laying in wait behind a hill, outside of the traditional cover but keeping hidden from where I believed the enemy was approaching from. I moved with squad 1, using a hill as cover and wheeling left, suddenly harrying Crispin's position. Lasguns firing from over my right shoulder informed me of squad 3 and Sel's squad engaging.

I raised my lasgun, deciding to lead by example, and charged over the hill in what I knew would be a suicidal charge to goad what I knew was to come. Surprisingly enough, the lasbolts flew by, leaving me unscathed as none hit me. I raised my lasgun and fired, the weapon cracking, striking Crispin in the chest. The verdant man cried out, and he fell out of the fight. A handful of his men scattered, but a few kept their positions as we swept in. I wondered exactly what was happening?

But then I felt an immense weight strike me in the back, and my world went dark as I fell onto the floor, the scent of burning cloth emanate as I lay motionless, and all the firing stopped as men shouted and ran to my position, but I was unresponsive. It was out of my hands, I knew. I just hoped I was not truly about to die.

“The court will come to order,” Commissar Petrovska snapped. The background russel of conversation died immediately and the chapel in which the drumhead court was being held grew eerily silent. The chapel had been decommissioned at some point and much of the devotional art had been removed, giving it an unfinished but severe look. A large table, perhaps the original altar, had been draped with a red cloth to create a bench for the three judges. A copy of Imperial Field Regulations, battered and much thumbed through, lay on the table, alongside a bolt pistol and an honest to God-Emperor powersword. Together the three items represented Petrovska's right to serve as judge and executioner. There was no jury in a case like this, two other commissars were empaneled to aid her in her duty. She was bound to take their counsel although regulations imposed no requirement for the senior woman to follow it. One of the commisars was a bald fussy looking man attached to the 68th Straken Armored, the other was a very irritated looking Commissar Sobek. Sobek no doubt thought he should be handling this case, and indeed he would have been, had the accused - scout-sniper first class Browning, not requested the trial be held by the Fleet rather than Sobek. A request he had been politely encouraged to make when Sel visited the brig one night after paying the naval ratings to be someplace else. It had been an easy case to make, especially when accompanied by both the pistol in her hand and the unrelated observation that they would soon be alone together in a warzone.

Petrovska waited several heartbeats before settling, straight backed, into her chair and adjusting the cap on her head. It bore the winged sword of the Imperial Navy rather than the Guard equivalent. The rest of the room followed suit, judges first, then the rest of the assembled officers and NCOs. The Fleet Commissar opened a folio of notes and flicked through it. Then closed them and addressed the shackled Browning who sat to the side in a witness chair. The sniper looked terrified, as anyone would if they had spent the last several hours hearing testimony about how he had negligently loaded a live powerpack into his long las for the exercise, then fired a shot which might well have killed a superior officer. Kayden remained in the med bay, sedated under doctors orders which Sel suspected had as much to do with Sobek and Lieutenant Marcone as they did with any medical necessity. How the foppish Lieutenant had predicted that might happen she had no idea. Sel had little respect for officers, but she was grudgingly coming to feel something very much like it for Kayden, who it seemed could operate despite the silken latrine paper he was used to.

“Trooper First Class Browning,” Petrovska began. Her voice was clear and carried a hint of Valhallan chill that seemed to lower the temperature in the room.

“We have heard evidence from the armorers and range masters that yesterday, being the one hundred and thirty sixth day of the year 999, you illegally brought live ammunition onto the training field in contravention of the orders of the range master and your superiors. You then used said ammunition to shoot, and grievously injure, Lieutenant Kayden Caradwalden, commanding officer of the second platoon, second company of the 2nd Imperial Gendarmes. The previous action being considered the assault upon and attempted murder of a lawfully appointed superior,” Petrovska’s word were crisp and precise with the ring of legalese which was the mark of a court martial, which this wasn’t technically given that the judges were Commissar’s rather than Guard Officers. The legal distinction was no comfort to Browning who looked as though he were about to either explode or collapse depending on how the light caught the sheen of sweat that slicked him.

“Do you have anything to say in your def…”

“SELDON!” Browning shouted in a voice so shrill with panic that he sounded like an adolescent girl. Petrovska’s lips compressed to a frown of puzzlement.

“Seldon?” she repeated, as though trying to make sense of it.

“Corporal Lorica Seldon!” Browning shouted, imbuing the name with all the desperation a drowning man spares for the slender root which he snatched for. A few eyes from the 2nd had already turned to Sel, and the rest of the court room followed as she stood. Much like a marriage ceremony, the chapel was divided into Gendarmes on one side and Langeroth on the other. The fact that the Gendarmes had so recently been amalgamated meant that four different dress uniforms were in evidence, a marked contrast to the solid red and gold of the Langeroth. Sel had never owned a dress uniform that she knew of, and was dressed instead in the neatest, cleanest set of fatigues she could scrounge. Captain Rubio, seated a row in front of Sel, looked nearly apoplectic, his eyes bulging and his complexion almost exactly the same shade of scarlet as the Langeroth uniforms. Before he could shout at her to sit down however Petrovska extended a black gloved hand an and beckoned with the twitch of two fingers.

“Come forward Corporal, the Court recognises you as a witness,” Petrovska declared, nodding to the robed Administratum adept seated opposite Browning. The man flipped a pair of inbuilt looking glasses infront of his eyes and began to clack away on an archaic dataslate. An implanted unit where his mouth had once been began to express a roll of parchment that looked grotesquely like a tongue. Sel ignored the hard looks that assailed her from all side as she approached the bench. Very slowly, she had no weapon but it never paid to make a killer like Petrovska jumpy, she reached into her jacket and produced a very expensive holoprojector, set it on the desk.

“What is the meaning of this?!” Sobek demanded, “Corporal Seldon is a known trouble maker and her…” Petrovska silenced him with a raised hand and nodded at Sel to continue. Reaching forward, Sel toggled the unit on and a grainy holo pict appeared to hover before the judges. She waited the sacred three seconds, then pounded her fist on the table in the ritual of invocation. The picture cleared to show an armory with racks of power packs marked with the white stripe of training munitions. For a few seconds nothing happened and then a man in the field kit of the Langeroth, complete with Lieutenants pips, stepped into frame. Marcone looked around, then drew a power pack from his jacket. It looked identical to the training pack, complete with the white stripe of low power. He put the long las pack into the rack and hurried out of frame. The holo sped up and the time numerals flew by for a few seconds before slowing to show Browning, joking with his mates, take the disguised pack down and slot it into his rifle. The recording froze artfully on the innocent expression, Browning looking for all the world like the innocent dupe he was.

“It is a lie, this is a fraud!” Marcone screamed, leaping to his feet amid his fellow Langeroth officers. These later seemed to open around him, as though fearing fire or contagion.

“He cooked it up! He must have…” Marcone’s head burst like a ripe melon as a las blast punched into his mouth, spraying those nearby with blood, brain and teeth. Sobek lowered his smoking pistol. Petrovska hadn’t moved, though now she reached down and took a sip of water from a battered tin cup.

“I suppose that more or less terminates proceedings,” Petrovska said, and the words seemed to free everyone from a spell that had lain over them. Men yelled and cursed and backed away from the grisly corpse. Sobek holstered his pistol and smoothed his coat.

“My apologies Commissar,” Sobek said to Petrovska. The Fleet Commissar gave him a long look that seemed to suggest that this matter wasn’t over but didn’t immediately respond to him. Instead she turned to the court.

“Trooper First Class Browning, you are free to go. The case is dismissed,” she declared and Browning slumped in stunned relief. Sel reached for the holo unit but Petrovska leaned forward and pinned it down with a slender finger.

“Leave that Corporal, I’ll see it is returned to Lieutenant Caradwalden when the Commissariat is done with it. No doubt it is on loan from him as it would be far too expensive for a corporal.” It wasn’t a question so Sel saluted as best she could, performed an about face and marched from the room.

Sobek caught her on her way to the hospital wing, stepping out of the shadows and straightening his cap. Sel had been drinking and was pleasantly buzzed after a number of toasts from the Langeroth, all of whom were delighted that a popular trooper like Browning had been snatched from the hangman. That act alone had done more to heal the enmity between the two regiments than anything the officers or Commissars could come up with. That too had been part of Kayden’s plan and Sel had to admit that it was working better than she had hoped. Her intoxication might be a problem, but she was off duty so it wasn’t technically improper.

“Sir!” Sel shouted, coming to attention but not attempting a salute. Sobek glared at her, his eyes searching her up and down, perhaps suspecting a pict recorder or some such.

“I suppose you and your master think you are terribly clever,” he half snarled.

“Sir!” Sel repeated, eyes focusing a practiced three inches above Sobek’s right shoulder.

“I don’t supposed it occurred to you that I might… redress the situation?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous. Sel had been almost certain he had killed Marcone not as justice, but to cover up his own involvement with the business.

“It occurred to Lieutenant Caradwalden sir,” Sel responded woodenly, “He said to consider the fact that a trooper under your charge asked for trial by a Fleet Commissar rather than his own. He also stated that his favorite regicide gambit was the Hooded Yael.” Sobek’s face went pale with rage at the words and his fingers flexed on the hilt of his chainsword.

“And what…” Sobek forced out through clenched teeth, “Does he mean by that?”

“The hell if I know sir,” Sel replied truthfully, “What the frak does a grunt like me know about regicide?” She left the spluttering Commissar without a further word and headed for the hospital wing to check on her Lieutenant.

I had to act the part of an injured man for the remainder of the journey. Well, a slightly more injured man. However, with the aid of Morek and Sel and two weeks of rest, by the time we entered the Charadon Sector, I felt well enough to walk on my own and even laugh without doubling over. Emperor curse my wit and plans.

Speaking of curses, the more I learned of Balor, the planet we were to make berth at, the less enthused I was. Balor was almost that of a class L planet, which meant nearly all year round it was either chillingly cold or freezing, yet due to the fact that most of the planet is covered in less than 97% water, it fits into the N category according to the administratum. A mining world rich in mineral resources, it's fortunate the cities are situation amongst rocky outcroppings of volcanic activity, keeping the urban zones (relatively) warm and habitable.

I was aware there were a small collection of Valhallans aboard, and after Corporal Seldopn gave me a full report of the trial, I asked Morek to call upon Commissar Petrovska to inquire on how to better equip men for winter conditions and to thank her for presiding over judgement dutifully and without bias. Perhaps I laid it on too thick, for I waited a standard Terran day, only for Morek to return with a carefully sealed letter. I broke the commissariat seal, opened it, and read it aloud.





Fortunately, we arrived in the material plane with no incident, and began our slow descent to join the Merchant Fleet ships of Carracks, Tarrasks, and Clippers orbiting the planet. By this time, word of my miraculous survival had spread, only further enflaming the rumors of our victory on Kaurava III. This ran through my thoughts as I stood there, joined by Corporal Seldon by the observation window on the portside recreation deck. Morek stood with us, chewing some jerky as always, though today he must have felt festive, for he had a mug of Raenka in his hand. Squats were known for holding their liquor like no other, so I allowed it, at least in the recreation area.

"Another mining world..." I mused aloud. It seemed I was destined to be nothing but a guaruntee of the imperium's corporate interests. Granted, I suppose it was better than getting my head sliced off by a nob's choppa, but it did give much room for the romantic or the glorious.

"Cold, not much to do..." Sel said, and to my surprise she was chewing a bit of jerky too when I glanced at her. Seems she and Morek were friends, or implied ones. He doubted they had spoken more than three sentences to each other.

A faint vibration shook the deckplates beneath our feet, too familiar even to register consciously, and we watched one of the shuttles break off from the troopship and approach the planet. Engines flared brightly and corrected its course, before it disappeared amongst the thousands of other shuttles traveling to and from the starport below. Oddly enough, despite its frigid conditions and industry, it was quite a populous planet. Twelve billion souls lived on its surface, either in the cities or in underground hab-blocks, or more rarely traveling nomads that scratched a brief living amongst the snow and rocks. I was curious on what it looked like landside. Our regiment was second in line to go, in four standard hours from now.

"Better go collect the men," I said, turning and tapping my cane on the ground. I had requisitioned one be made for me, mostly for appearances, but I found I liked it. An imperial eagles head at the top, it was made with durasteel and fashioned with the blue and green of my office, courtesy of the injustice done to someone of my stalwart reputation. Together, we made our way to the barracks to make sure all the men were ready to move out. We were known for being over eager. I was not about to ruin that reputation but us lagging behind.

Prometheum fumes made the sky above Landing Field Bravo shimmer in the pale light of Balor's distant star. The upper atmosphere was filled with scudding cloud and a light snow would have been falling had it not been for the constant jet wash of Imperial Landing craft as they ferried the 2nd Gendarmes and the 91st Langeroth down from orbit. The lift engines created an almost constant background rumble which made conversation difficult without raising ones voice. The landing field itself was better than many the guard employed. It wasn't unusual for combat deployments to take place on empty fields, but that always ran the risk of accident and delay, particularly for heavy equipment and armore. On Balor however the problem was obviated by the need for the mines to lift out their product to orbit or to the hungry factory hives that ran along geothermic faultlines like pearls on a string. Landing Field Bravo lay beside a vast open cut mine which sank dizzyingly in a series of concentric ovals cut into the rock. The pit was so deep that the only way Sel could establish scale was to compare the tiny toy like vehicles she saw at the bottom to the hulking two story monsters that lined the north end of the field. Towers of girders and wire netting rose from the pit forming vast lifts which could haul tens of thousands of tons of vehicles and ore up to the pads where bridges of reinforced metal and rockcrete linked them to the landing field and outbuildings. The scale of the thing gave Sel the creeps. An open sightline that stretched over a kilometer wasn't something any scout felt too happy about.

Not that the view beyond the landing field made her feel better. At all lattitudes Balor was cold, but at this lattitude it was cold and dry for the vast majority of the time. The landscape rolled away in a series of low hillocks cut with gulches and ravines. A faint greyish powder that was a combination of snow and permafrost dusted it though it didn't seem to impede the growth of tough looking grasses and large patches of moss and lichen. Skeletal looking trees with long dagger shaped leaves grew in groves dictated by a logic that would take a Magos Biologos to explain. Sel sat behind the wheel of the cargo four she had been assigned to, slouched into her jacket against the constant enervating wind. It wasn't cold exactly, though it certainly would be once anyone went out beyond the thermal washed ferocrete of the pad. Sel considered their meagre cold weather gear and scowled.

"Corpral Seldon!" Sel hunched down lower into her jacket, hoping against hope to avoid notice, but the call was repeated a second time and she was forced to look up to see Sparks and Elara hurring across the ferocrete, breath steaming in the chill air. Both women were smoking lho sticks and the lit tips bobbed like will o whisp as the approached.

"Ladies," Sel greeted them as noncomittaly as possible.

"We were wondering..." Sparks began but Sel held up a hand to cut her off.

"That sounds like a question for Seargent Crispin," she retorted and Sparks blinked in confusion.

"You don't know what I was going to ask!" she objected. Sel plucked the lho stick from between Sparks' lips and took a drag, grinning around it in a way that suggested that this was entirely her point. Despite the fact that she was only attached as a driver, and that as a punishment, the entire platoon seemed hell bent on making everything her problem, as though the only way they could relate to a non-com was to force her into the chain of command as quickly as possible. In private moments Sel had to admit she was slowly losing the battle but she was no quitter.

"Anyway we can't ask Seargent Asprin because he has been yelling at Vane and Kelkin for the last twenty minutes about not having their boots laced up properly," Elara put in with a frustrated shake of her head. Sel took another long drag of the lho stick then passed it back to sparks as she breathed out a long, thin, trail of smoke.

"You know, using an offensive nickname for a Seargent might be a bad idea if you were talking to an officer," she suggested.

"Fortunately, as I have already mentioned, I'm merely an assigned driver with no command authority what so ever," Sel pressed, attempting to beat the hint into the two women.

"We just need to know where you want the chimeras parked until we get orders to move out," Sparks added with a nasty grin. Sel lay a chilled hand across her alread wind chapped face.

"Fine, fine, get them up by those prometheum tanks and top them up before anyone thinks to put a guard on them, then get lagered up on the northen approach there. Ill try to find out from the LT..." Sel trailed off as Kayden came striding out of the command tent.

"Sorry, duty calls," she told the other two women and waved at Kayden as he tapped his way across the ferocrete with his cane.

Balor was cold as a Drusian.

The 2nd Gendermes had been carried off the troopship by two shuttles, carrying roughly 5 companies, each with their own associate and auxiliary forces, along with what armor we had. The ride down was shaky, but we landed safely and disembarked in relatively good order. However, as soon as the doors open, I knew I was not built for this weather. I felt like I had stepped into the void of space, except it might have been a mercy, because at least amongst the stars I would not have to breathe in the translucent ice they had the temerity to call oxygen on this world.

The Colonel awaited with his aides and top Commissars in a Salamander as each individual captain and lieutenant brought their units forth from the shuttles' gaping maws. The starport was small, and luckily for us, merely gathering out of the shuttles brought us to the precipice of it, just before the short highway that led to the city of Batranle. I had my chainsword out, more to make myself visible than anything else, and had my men and women form up and follow until every unit was neatly tucked into formation, our chimeras rolling up right behind me. The sky was grey, but I could see a small sliver of the local sun through the hole our jet engines had ripped through.

"Reporting for duty, sir!" Sel had announced with a clipped salute after her wave. I had waved back, but quickly sobered up in front of the men. It hurt to look at her, because she was my driver, and I had been bade to present myself in a different fashion. Instead of being allowed to stay in the relative warmth and comfort of the three Chimeras, my injury along with my reputation had given the colonel a fascinating idea. He had suggested that I lead what footsoldiers I had by use of one of the few equines we were granted as a regiment. It was an honor, he had declared to me. Normally I would have quite liked the idea. I was quite a rider from my earlier years, and the warhorse was a beautiful thoroughbred. But the cold and my injury caused half the jerks and clops of the steed to make me ache. And so here I was, the only man in the regiment not on foot or vehicle, directing my men to keep in formation. Private Harmack and Corporal Bickers had been too busy gossiping over some damned thing, but when they saw my gaze they snapped to attention.

"Move out!" The Colonel said over the Loudhauser.

An entire regiment moving was not a simple endeavor. There were hundreds of officers and units and thousands of men working in unison to make the small army into a single, moving beast. Cries in a dozen different accents of low-gothic rose up, and men and women stepped to. It was a two mile march to the city proper, and though it was cold as a spurned lover's heart, it did the men and women good. They had been bored after the whole ordeal with the Langeroths had been settled, and the fresh air tasted sweet. Even I felt my spirits raise as we moved on, Morek and Seldon in the Chimera to my left, the first of the three in a short line. I felt eyes on me all around, and the feeling only grew once we reached the immense archway at the cusp of the city. The streets had been cleared, but the civilians flocked to the towering, thick minarets that reminded me of some odd, industrialized beehives. They watched from every window and orifice, some towering above us hundreds of feet. The horse I rode was a trained stallion, and I decided to show off a bit, maneuvering the horse so it raised its legs with an exaggeration, giving own goose step with the men. I heard laughter and whispers even outside my platoon. To the civilians I waved when I could, but periodically I looked back at the men to make sure they were keeping their steps rhythmic and in line. Their eyes were either forward or on myself, looking at me like a dog would wait on its master. I caught the eye of Private Elara, who gave me a smile I had seen before and a subtle wink. The audacity almost caused me to blanch, but she turned away as if ashamed. It was only later from overhearing the troopers talk that I was told Corporal Seldon was giving her a look from over my shoulder that I had not seen.

The cheers and clatter of the civilians rose, and normally my pride would let me bask in the moment, able to cut through the cold. But my paranoia was rearing its ugly head again, and I felt completely exposed. My reputation, my equine, my incredible looks and fashion sense, I wondered how many of the eyes I felt on my person were looking through the scope of a rifle aimed at my head...

The cheering of the crowds was somehow more disconcerting than gunfire might have been. Sel watched the word through the chimera’s driving slit, which continually occluded with condensation. She reached into her back and withdrew a tube of tooth cream and smeared the white paste on the armorcrys, then began buffing it off with the cuff of her fatigues.

“Preventing cavities Sel?” Elara asked with amusement.

“Old sentinel pilots trick,” Sel responded and she felt just a bit smug when the window ceased to fog up.

The regiment came to a halt in a broad plaza flanked on two sides by impressively porticos carved into the likeness of heroic laborers and miners supporting a two story tall mosaic which depicted priests, nobles, and soldiers all reaching up to shield the populace from some threat beyond the stars. Judging by the relative lack of soot deposition this was relatively new construction. That was common on worlds undergoing internal troubles like this, the local authorities being keen to demonstrate their loyalty and piety in case anyone might ask how discontent was allowed to grow to open rebellion. Of course the same expenditures on the actual war effort might have been a better use of resources but such concerns tended to escape a nervous aristocracy. Something about the mosaics bothered Sel, perhaps a distortion of proportions of the towering figures of the nobility, or perhaps it was a juvenile desire to find some reason to rake the thing with multilaser fire.

Despite the cold, the crowd was raucous. They thronged the streets on both sides shouting and cheering, their breath steaming like so many dragons. The more well to do wore long coats that seemed heated by portable lumen packs while the poor simply wrapped themselves in thick coats and multiple layers. Priests paraded back and forth with portable braisers, literally bringing heat as they called the prayer of benediction on the offworlders. Servo skulls, picters and sensor units floated above the crowd above the clouds of hurdle confetti and sanctified prayer rice.

Sel pulled the chimera into the position indicated by a local magistratum officer with a pair of light wands and shut down the engine with a grumble. The lack of background noise allowed them to hear the cacophony of the crowd competing with the rumble of following engines and the shouted commands of officers.

“Squad, dis….mount!” A voice yelled from outside and the troopers dutifully filed out. Second platoons carriers formed the points of a square within which the platoon was being formed into four ranks in something resembling drill. Sel ignored them, not officially being part of the platoon, and headed forward. She could see Kayden astride his ridiculous horse. The Lieutenant was heading towards the rest of the officers who had just arrived in open topped command cars or disgorged from their own chimeras. Before he could reach them however, there was a brassy blair of trumpets. Sel realised, with a combination of amusement and horror, that Kayden was exactly in the center of a large set of stairs that ran up towards the city hall, a vast edifice of soaring spires and crumbling gargoyles. Worse yet, Kayden instinctively wheeled his horse to face the hall, seeking the source and cause of the sound. The beast even reared to the roared approval of the crowd. Before anyone could say anything two files of ceremonial guards strode forward and between them a delegation of local nobles. They had mistaken Kayden, the sole mounted man and also the one in the apparent position of honor, for the guard commander and they were coming down to greet him. The eyes of his fellow officers were murderous but hurrying as they were they weren’t going to make it before the locals greeted the second platoon commander as though he were the Lord Solar himself.