Commissar-Colonel Luther de Cann sighed, closing his eyelids, heavy from lack of sleep.
The neck of the man, seasoned by a life of eternal war, let out a loud crack, clearly audible even through the hum of the engines of the good old Valkyrie.
The sixty-six-year-old commissioner massaged his remaining eye with his hand, fighting off the sleep that refused to leave him.
Looking old, frail, and weak due to a body not naturally blessed with much muscle, Luther in reality possessed considerable strength, and more importantly, a character that chilled the souls of the guardsmen.
Harsh in communication, strict in orders, yet in his heart — loving his subordinates.
He did not waste time on trifles, made no distinctions of rank or lineage — for the commissioner-colonel, everyone who carried the light of the God-Emperor in their heart and conscientiously fulfilled their assigned tasks were people of the highest caliber.
Those with whom it was not shameful to die back-to-back, standing on a mountain of corpses surrounded by the Emperor’s enemies.
Suddenly, the transport aircraft tilted slightly, its entire hull creaking, and then the vox-transmitter installed in the troop compartment spoke with the voice of Zeke Schultz, a pilot of the Aeronautica Imperialis and, by extension, his personal pilot: “Sir Commissar-Colonel, ready for landing: five minutes and thirty seconds.” Luther de Cann merely nodded slightly, marveling once again through the porthole at the natural beauty that stretched beyond the horizon of this planet.
Born into the family of a PDF major on Kaicedon Secundus — a death world in Segmentum Pacificus, consisting of vast rocky plateaus, cut by fissures in the rock like scars — he had never seen anything that differed in color from the grayness of his homeland’s everyday life.
For him, this planet, named in the usual alphanumeric manner by the adepts of the Mechanicus, was akin to a gulp of tart, life-giving recaf.
Distracting himself from contemplating this serene beauty, the commissioner turned his head to the left, gazing at those with whom he had passed through fire, water, and brass trumpets.
These People — yes, People with a capital P — the most worthy of all he had known and encountered in the line of duty.
Hidden by heavy, double-breasted greatcoats of black cloth, they sat silently and almost motionless in their seats.
Their true faces, which in reality belonged to sixteen-year-old youths, were concealed by the visage of death, frozen in a layer of agate-like metal on their gas mask faces.
The living dead, grenadiers of the Death Korps of Krieg.
The commissioner-colonel’s personal company — seven hundred veterans, stubborn enough not to die in several consecutive meat grinders.
Blaming themselves for the deeds of their damned and forgotten ancestors, in de Cann’s eyes they were the most loyal of the loyal.
They had been given to him by a familiar major of the Corps when the campaign to liberate a hive city, which had lasted three years, ended.
A gift as a sign of endless respect from one servant of the Master of Mankind to another.
The Valkyrie rocked a couple of times, swaying from side to side, and slowed down, a moment later touching the planet’s surface.
The Krieg guardsmen all rose from their seats as one, unbuckling their safety belts in a few movements, then froze again, awaiting orders.
“Let’s go, Lieutenant,” Luther de Cann smiled at his deputy, who was practically indistinguishable from the rest.
Fortunately, the commissioner had been with the Corps long enough to notice certain details in the guardsmen’s uniforms; the lieutenant had a silver aquila on the front of his helmet.
“Let’s not keep our charges waiting.” Seeing the lieutenant’s small affirmative nod, he waved his hand in a silent command of “Exit” and, proceeding to the ramp of the assault carrier, stepped outside.
* * * The atmosphere on the parade ground, where the 574th Regiment was deployed, grew somewhat tense as the rising roar of the approaching Valkyrie’s engines hung in the air.
Everyone, from the last private to the captain, squinting against the blazing light of the local sun, watched the approaching machine with the holy symbols of the Astra Militarum and the Officio Prefectus on its fuselage.
And then it touched the planet’s surface.
Sergeant Pivius, with a mixture of involuntary tension and irritation from the excessive noise, peered into the darkness of the transport’s belly, no longer hidden by the slowly descending ramp.
“And who’s been sent to us?” came a voice from behind and to the left; he recognized it, it belonged to Private Kiimen.
“Do you see that too?!” came agitated, panicked exclamations from the orderly ranks.
“Yeah,” whispered someone else right by the sergeant’s keen ear.
“What’s the Commissariat doing here?!” Pivius turned around angrily, his predatory eyes of a radiant blue shade flashing.
“Silence!” he hissed at “his” Scintillians, inwardly feeling a surge of joy at the opportunity to command those beneath him.
“The last thing I need is to attract the attention of someone from the Schola!” Meanwhile, from the darkness, his left eye augment gleaming, a tall man, about one meter ninety-five, in a commissar’s uniform, walked out with the gait of a humble man.
And behind him, in a marching step with perfect, almost machine-like synchronization, came people dressed in heavy black greatcoats, their gas mask lenses glinting in the sun.
“My God-Emperor,” someone bleated.
“What the…
Who is that?” “I don’t know myself!” came the reply from the other end, breaking into a shout.
“Does anyone recognize the uniform?” “Oh, Throne, what bad taste,” someone babbled in a squeaky voice that sounded much more feminine.
“And what are those muzzles on their faces, those shapeless dirty rags instead of respirators?” “Ha-ha!” laughed another, his voice like a pig’s grunt.
“Don’t these idiots know how an honor guard is supposed to dress?” “What ‘honor guard’?!” a guardsman to Pivius’s left asked through his laughter.
“These gretchin must be straight from some galactic backwater in Segmentum Pacificus!” Even the senior officer corps, as Sergeant Pivius could see, expressed on their powdered faces slight, but well-hidden, notes of contempt for the commissioner and his escort.
“Everyone, shut up!” several junior officers stomped their feet almost simultaneously, obeying the direct order of their seniors, who had finally deigned to calm the commotion that had started.
Pivius stood in the center of the impromptu inspection formation when the seemingly old representative of the Officio Prefectus stopped a few meters from him.
His figure, covered by a black cloak-coat with once-gilded but long-faded epaulets, a uniform, and a characteristic peaked cap, towered over the formation of the 574th Scintillian Fusiliers Infantry Regiment like a grim statue of a long-dead saint.
The face of the arriving “guest,” as the sergeant managed to see, had nothing particularly remarkable about it.
There was absolutely nothing of even a remotely aristocratic lineage in it: a straight nose, slightly full, pale lips, an ugly scar stretching from the center of his right cheek somewhere onto his nose, and a general working-class thinness combined with the simplicity of a decrepit old man.
Mediocrity, what else could you say?
The silence that hung over the parade ground, like a hundred-day frozen jelly, stretched on for a very long time, even too long, broken only by the light noise of the wind and rare whispers somewhere deep within the guardsmen’s formation.
But the commissioner finally deigned to speak, quietly, almost inaudibly, chuckling.
However, he was not speaking to the fusiliers and their officers at all, but…
“Oh,” Luther de Cann exhaled bitterly, closing his eyes for a moment, unexpectedly for most of the guardsmen speaking to the soldier standing at his right hand, whose polished aquila on his helmet blinded the aristocrats.
“Yes, indeed, Lieutenant, we’re in for a rough time.” The unnamed soldier said nothing in response to his master’s assertion, as if he saw no need for it!
The commissioner, paying it no mind, continued speaking, this time addressing the fusiliers: “I, Commissar-Colonel Luther de Cann, have arrived at the location of the 574th Scintillian Fusiliers Infantry Regiment,” he began, significantly raising the volume of his voice.
“And what do I see here?!” In the second that had passed since the start of de Cann’s speech, Sergeant Pivius could clearly see how the old man’s single eye filled with eternal cold.
“A formation of pampered, sleek pigs, unworthy of bathing in the rays of light of this beautiful star, that is what I see!
I hoped to meet disciplined and excellently trained warriors of the Master of Mankind, but before me are pathetic nonentities, a disorganized herd of squigs, laughing inappropriately when an authorized representative of the Commissariat stands before them!” The sergeant barely kept his feet: the words of this decrepit dotard had in an instant shaken the pride of all the aristocrats — anger began to rise from the depths of his soul, seething somewhere in his throat.
“The God-Emperor is my witness, you thick-headed idiots, it would be easier for me to shoot you all as deserters than to mold from you, stinking shit, anything even remotely resembling guardsmen of the Astra Militarum!” Luther de Cann continued to methodically drive sharp, unpleasant expressions, like the teeth of a chainsword, into the coffin lid of the Scintillians’ pride.
“Right now you are nothing, garbage under their feet!” Then this bastard commissioner, with a smooth gesture demonstrating respect, pointed at these, these…
chemically stinking peasants!
“How dare he put them above us?!
This is unforgivable even for him!
— Sergeant Pivius felt a storm of indescribable fury about to burst from his mouth, turning into words of abuse and curses.
— He, he…
Who does he think he is, a churl, to say such things to us?!” But then Captain Shon Raines Perrion the First stepped forward, the heir of the House of Perrion, the Hope of the Great Family, the Best-of-Sixteen, and half a dozen other titles.
The elegant mane of his loose, light-wheat curls, falling from his shoulders to his waist, evoked in all the present sons and daughters of Scintilla thoughts of their native High Spires, painted in similar tones.
With his beautiful in every respect eyes, the color of the rising dawn, he surveyed the guardsmen standing like statues who had arrived with the representative of the Prefectus, and spoke with the cooing of a bullfinch: “Esteemed Commissar de Cann, I, as well as everyone present here, do not quite understand the complaints leveled against our magnificent regiment, full of fine ladies and gentlemen,” he chirped, causing the hearts of the fusiliers, full of blind boastfulness, to bloom more than ever.
“Could you, esteemed Commissar,” the last word was full of the venom of contempt — “explain yourself to me, as the captain of the 574th Scintillian Infantry Regiment?” Contrary to the deliberate insolence of the thrown challenge, the seasoned commissioner kept his cold, impenetrable face.
In his soul, he was ready right then and there to tear the insolent fop before him apart with his bare hands, but instead, slowly, lovingly stroking the holster of his bolt pistol, he recited the litany to its machine spirit under his breath.
“For you, son of a whore, it’s Commissar-Colonel Luther de Cann,” the servant of the Golden Throne said coldly, already drawing his weapon from its holster.
“But then again, why should I answer to someone who will be dead in five seconds?” Suddenly, microscopic, almost invisible notes of awakening fear, and then horror, played across the face of Shon-what’s-his-name…
And he screamed at the top of his lungs: “W-wait!
S-stop!
Wait, C-Commissar!” he begged, but no one listened to him.
The proud sons and daughters of the High Spires watched the spectacle with nascent trepidation, and no one did anything.
The words of prepared curses were irrevocably drowned in an ocean of panic that had completely taken over their bodies.
Every Scintillian watched as the old commissioner’s lips parted for a moment, then closed again, methodically counting down the captain’s allotted lifespan.
“Three.
Two.” Here Luther paused for more than a second, to observe with disgust how, in the last moments of his life, the captain’s trousers were soiled with yellow liquid in the groin area, quickly spreading into a huge stain.
“One!” The commissioner’s long index finger pressed the trigger, allowing the bolt pistol to announce its presence to the surroundings with the sharp roar of gases expelled from the barrel.
The active-reactive bolt didn’t even have time to ignite its own mini-engine before it hit the annoying fly that fancied itself a man right in the forehead!
Exploding somewhere inside the head, the projectile completed its task.
Thanks to the terrifying energy of the blast, the remains of the brain sprayed the fusiliers standing behind.
Some of the more impressionable ones managed to emit an almost girlish squeak or even faint outright.
“God-Emperor, help me,” Luther said with an old man’s weariness in his voice.
“Guide these blockheads onto the righteous path, for they know not what they do…” The momentary shock ingrained in any human psyche passed when the first of the senior officers, in panic, reached for the holsters strapped to their hips for their las-pistols, family sabers, and other junk they had at hand at that moment.
Then the commissioner’s ears, which had seen it all, were filled with hysterical shrieks: “Y-you scum!
H-how dare you, you mutant bastard?!” shouted one, apparently a lieutenant.
“Freak, we’ll gut you like a grox!” protested a second, with the same rank on his shoulder boards.
“Eat this, you animal!” a third, from among the sergeants, unexpectedly yelled, throwing a knife decorated with all sorts of curlicues, prepared in advance for such occasions.
Pivius watched with conflicting emotions as the cold weapon flew towards the Schola Progenium graduate who had insulted their honor.
He was one of the first to realize that his eyes had widened like saucers when one of the soldiers accompanying the commissioner, with lightning speed, in one wide step, shielded him with his own body.
In the absolute silence born after the ear-piercing shout, a single squelching and scraping sound rang out, vanishing in the blink of an eye.
The Scintillian Highborne, with shock that could not be hidden behind their seemingly prepared-for-anything aristocratic faces, watched as the guardsman who had shielded his master did not even flinch.
He stood motionless, like a ghost, with his shoulders held high and breathing evenly, while his body, specifically the right side of his chest, took the knife blade up to the hilt.
Sergeant Pivius stood, lost for words, his thoughts abandoning his mind as this scene unfolded before him.
And he was not alone; every single Scintillian gazed at this madness.
A madness that was executed with a cold, servitor-like resolve and finality.
For the first time in their short lives, the children of the planetary elite witnessed the doomed courage of the living dead, a courage that could not even be called courage.
The drive for death to save oneself and one’s long-dead world from its sins.
They had seen the Path of Krieg firsthand.
“Guardsman-49-42/3,” came the voice of de Cann, who had been standing silently until that moment; there was not even a hint of concern in his voice, only…
amusement.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t pull the weapon out of the body.” “Understood, Sir Commissar-Colonel,” the guardsman replied in a completely dead voice, without a shadow of emotion, turning to Luther.
De Cann patted the true son of Krieg on the shoulder and carefully, with almost paternal care, moved him slightly aside to walk towards the silent fusiliers.
“Lieutenant.” Luther stared at the faces of the Scintillians, still full of horror and shock, for about ten seconds before turning to his deputy and expressively nodding his head once in their direction.
“Proceed.” De Cann’s right hand again said nothing in response, limiting itself to the same favored slight nod and a salute to the commissioner.
Then his dry voice, clearly unaccustomed to conversation, revealed itself to those around him: “Infantrymen: from 34-11-493 to 97-00-1/3, open fire to kill!” he declared, but the shocked fusiliers realized too late.
“Targets: senior officer corps, all!” The orderly ranks of the silent damned sons turned into a double line.
An instant!
The front row, in a single impulse, dropped to one knee, while the second aimed at the officers in a daze with hot-shot lasguns.
The first row copied the movement of the second row, performed above their heads, with one hundred percent accuracy.
And the lieutenant uttered a single short “fire,” meanwhile aiming his las-pistol at one pampered counterpart on the shoulder boards.
Commissar-Colonel Luther de Cann watched the melting, bloodily vaporized bodies of the senior command staff of the 574th Scintillian Infantry and deeply inhaled the fresh air, not at all burdened by the taste of iron and roasted meat hanging in the air.
Although the first impression of this unit was irreparably ruined, the servant of the God-Emperor and his companions would be able to teach it discipline and devotion.
Everything was predetermined.
Yes, he was sure of it…
The scheme is simple — you choose one of the storylines I have conceived (or suggest your own) and receive almost complete creative control over situations/characters, etc.
The richer the fanfic turns out, the more enjoyable it will be to read later.