Professional Documents
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Service In His Shadow -Ariel Abel "Like any newly-commissioned young commissar I faced my first assignment with an eagerness mixed with trepidation. I was, after all, the visible embodiment of the will of the Emperor Himself; and I could scarce suppress the tiny voice which bade me wonder if, when tested, I would truly prove worthy of the trust bestowed upon me. When the test came at last, in the blood and glory of the battlefield, I had my answer; and my life changed forever." -Ciaphas Cain, 'To Serve the Emperor: A Commissar's Life'
ONE
I must admit, at first, that the thought of scripting my own memoirs had not crossed my mind until I casually glanced through the pages of the autobiography belonging to my long-time colleague, and Hero
Now either Cain was a man of infinite patience or somehow the thought of me sitting pathetically at a table cleaning vomit and bile off of his boots like a juvie being detained by his tutor left the commissar feeling sympathetic to my plight because despite my best efforts to assume responsibility for my actions, he would have nothing of it. He insisted that I was not the first commissar to do something stupid after
TWO
Unless you're an Astartes, being shot is an experience you will never get used to nor will you ever forget. Brushes with death are like snow flakes they might all melt into a nice uniform puddle after a few minutes but at the time each and every one is unique. I'm certain that Cain can remember all the times the Emperor decided to spare his life for a little while longer and aside from a couple of augmetic fingers he seemed to have escaped the worst of it in relatively good order. As for myself, I was never so lucky. Sure, it could have been a whole lot worse; that lasbolt could have gone through my eye socket and pulped my brain and ended my career right then and there. By the Emperor's grace, though, I had
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The vessel I was traveling on was a meager cargo transport known as the Blessed Bounty, which spent most of its time ferrying munitions and other supplies from one side of the segmentum to the other. It wasn't a luxury yacht but the simple fact I was free from the chains of my desk was all the luxury I needed at the time. There was no paperwork to be done, (particularly the kind needed to explain a battle damaged recaff machine) no boots to polish, and no oversized Haeg prattling about the regiments he's led (or managed to get slaughtered). The captain of the vessel seemed to be an amicable enough guy and he invited me to dinner a few times during our voyage, not that we had a great deal to talk about. I never considered myself to be very good company; I had no war stories to share and little more than trivial anecdotes from my days as a cadet to tide him over. He was a civilian captain and I was a commissar, I had about as much in common with him as I did with an Eldar. Between the minimal crew and decks upon decks of massive cargo holds and empty corridors, I spent most of the voyage on my own, not that I was bothered by the isolation. If anything, I felt I could use some time to myself. Life on most Imperial worlds brought whole new meanings to the word 'cramped' so the extra elbowroom was appreciated if anything. I even managed to step up a small firing range in one of the cargo rooms between crates of rations and medical supplies. With all the crates of ammunition lying around it wasn't hard to keep myself entertained (as common practice, most cargo convoys carried more supply than actually requisitioned with the assumption some of it may be lost while in transit).
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Our ship drifted for a little while until one of the other vessels in the convoy was able to give us a lift. Without any bridge crew and especially no navigator, there wasn't anybody left to man the ship the rest of the trip. A shuttle would eventually be sent back to retrieve the cargo but that didn't matter to me, as my mission's parcel went with me the rest of the way to Haud Reverto. Despite how horrid my trip was through the Warp, I had little interest in staying on that dirtball of a world and booked the first transport I
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THREE
As a general rule of thumb for commissars, unless you have a reputation like Cain, people are generally going to try and find new and inventive ways to stick it to you. Many times during my career I found myself sitting in medicae facilities or resting in my quarters for excruciating long periods nursing some miscellaneous injury. Most physicians, I realized, will avail themselves of any delay that could be safely taken to ensure a commissar stays off the field and away from his regiment. They would do that as a sort of favour to the regiment, who enjoy the time away from their commissar's whip. Of course, were I so inclined I could have simply picked up my things, marched out the door, and threatened to shoot anybody who got in my way. I had the authority to do that, after all. But while I may have been a commissar, I was not a doctor and I had little understanding of how my body worked. At the time my knowledge of medicine could be boiled down to one simple phrase'don't get shot.' Thus, when the doctor told me to take the next few weeks off from battlefield duties so I didn't strain my injuries, I went with their judgment. I remained aboard the Emperor's Beneficence toiling away at any work I could scrounge up, even going so far as to start pestering the ship's captain take some of the load off of him by managing disciplinary forms. I had no authority on a naval ship, of course, but he said I was free to act as an advisor so long as it kept the dataslates off his desk for a while and out of his hair. I had been reassured several times that my new biotic eye was being fixed up by a techpriest and would be ready for installation in a few weeks. The biotic required plenty of extra scans, tests, and blessings to ensure it functioned properly, Again, I was no doctor and definitely no techpriest so I had no idea if they were telling me the truth or just taking whatever chance they could to mess with me. The weeks, however, began to drag on and from what I could tell from the reports I got from the 597th, things were going relatively smoothly on the planet's surface, though they had been running into problems with their investigations as to the source of the heretical incursion on the planet. Occasionally, when boredom began to take a firm hold of me, I petitioned the doctor's to reconsider their original assessment of my condition but they remained steadfast. In my youth, I was far too nave and trustingI should've just told them to frak off and went on my way. Of course, if I had that route then things would have turned out drastically different for me. Toiling away aboard the Emperor's Beneficence was tedious at the best of times. Without any Guardsmen aboard there was little for me to do and no one for me to socialize with. Navy boys weren't too interested in dealing with commissars. On the bright side, though, I didn't have to worry much about the Valhallans and how I would make myself a part of their regiment. No doubt they were equally content that I was stuck out in orbit. Cain's passing remarks about the weather in Glacier Peak served to further reassure me of my decision to remain in orbit during the campaign. My brain probably would have frozen solid if I had to fight outdoors on the dark side of Adumbria, which was all the more likely with only a few centimeters of bone and flesh separating my brain from the outside weather thanks to the newly excavated crater in my face. Between freezing every fluid in my body down in Glacier Peak or stewing in utter boredom in orbit, it was obvious to me which was the better choice. Of course, it was a decision that I revisited when the heretic fleet arrived in full force. The fleet was mostly comprised of large transport vessels escorted by some cruisers and one hell of a large battleship. Freezing started to seem like a better alternative as the days passed and the fleet drew closer, the heretical battleship plowing through our outer defenders without giving them a passing thought. I had only a small window of opportunity to make my decision stay aboard the troopship and hope we didn't get blown out of orbit or commandeer a courier vessel and make my way to the planet's surface. It was a tough call but I figured that my chances for survival were pretty even either way, so the only factor to consider was the death itself. Even if I did manage to make it to the starport in the planetary capital of Skitterfall, it was going to soon be overrun with heretics and the same went with Glacier Peak or if I felt crazy and decided to go down to the hot side to the Tallarns. There was a good chance I'd get gunned down or chopped to pieces if I went groundside. In orbit, however, I had no ability to defend myself and was sitting aboard a troopship, which was only lightly armed, about as maneuverable as a brick and sittingjust a touch to the left of the last and largest torpedo magnet remaining in orbit. The possibility of transferring over the Indestructible, the battle cruiser still parked in orbit to protect us, had crossed my mind briefly but being aboard the highest priority target seemed like an even less-desirable situation. At the very least, if I died out in space it would be swiftor so I assumed. I knew very little of the effects of being sucked out into the vacuum of space, though I imagined the chilling temperatures would make it a very brief affair.
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Anybody who has ever had to get an eye replaced can understand the period of adjustment I had to go through, as can anybody whose ever gotten a limb replaced. Just like how a man who has had his arm replaced will spend the next few days bumbling his recaff and cursing his shoelaces, I had to adjust to life seeing things in a slightly different light. My surgery for my new biotic eye did not occur for several more weeks as more life-threatening matters took precedence. Even then it still took me a few days of nagging, and maybe a casual threat or two,
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"So that's them?" Cain commented rhetorically as we stood in the starport; trucks, chimeras, sentinels, and troopers milling all about us in a frenzy that made a beehive look positively orderly. By some fluke, or simply the aura of respect that Cain emanated, we managed to avoid being crowded by troops or run down by vehicles, though I still wouldn't recommend the experience of standing at a starport with regiments loading onto transports as a pastime for the claustrophobic. "The taller one is Wren," I answered, not that Cain needed to figure out which of the commissars in the distance was whom. He likely knew more about the pair than I did thanks to his exceedingly vast bank of contacts throughout the Commissariat and was a thorough enough man to make sure the regiments he served alongside were in capable hands. I'm not sure if it was from a sense of concern for the Adumbrians or, more pragmatically, a concern for ours. From a distance the pair didn't appear to be any source of concern for us and from their vantage point we probably bore a similar resemblance to them. They stood, like us, as a pair watching as chimeras chugged passed them and servitors lugged storage crates about. I imagined their conversation followed along a similar line as ours with Stimpsen pondering aloud if that was indeed Commissar Cain standing in the distance, only to be verbally beaten back by Wren for even thinking of admiring somebody else other than him. The subtle smack to the side of the Stimpsen's head only added to my perceived vision of their conversation. "Think they play tarot?" "I doubt Wren would let Stimpsen anywhere near a game where betting is involved," I remarked. "The man's about as gullible as an ogryn." "Now Abel, you shouldn't speak so ill of your fellow commissars," Cain informed me, though his tone conveyed a sense of understanding of my part. Though I knew he held contempt for a Commissar Beije, he did keep those thoughts internalized for the most part. His advice had merit so I decided to give it a shot. I was shortly able to put my trust in Cain's advice as Stimpsen apparently managed to distract Wren long enough to make a sprint over to our position, somehow managing to avoid being flatten by any of the dozens of vehicles that passed by. He was apparently oblivious to the traffic disruption he was causing. I was surprised the drivers showed so much concern for a Commissar but I suspected they simply didn't want to deal with the hassle of scraping his fat arse off the front grill, not to mention he could put a serious dent in some of the smaller vehicles; maybe even trip up a sentinel. Since Stimpsen had absolutely no interest in me, even for the most basic of reasons, I was able to step back and let Cain work his charm on the oaf. His bulbous blue eyes gazed at Cain with a mix of admiration and joy, snapping a sloppy salute to him before offering out a hand. Of course, even at this early stage of his career Cain was more than accustomed to the blithering remarks of awe-struck soldiers, officers, and commissars alike and greeted Stimpsen as politely as he would a lord general. "Commissar Stimpsen, attached to the 9th Adumbrian Light Infantry, it is a great honour to make your acquaintance Commissar Cain. Truly an honour." "It is always a pleasure to meet a fellow servant of the Commissariat," Cain replied graciously with a crisp salute, though he hesitated for an instant to shake the man's hand as he noted, as I did, that were some crumbs and stains on the glove of questionable origins. Likely, it was from Stimpsen's last meal, not that that fact brought any comfort since the man would eat pretty much anything. The two started going on into a conversation, though it was the general line of questions one would expect upon meeting a Hero of the Imperium did you really kill so-and-so, what was it like to be at this place, were they really all that big, and so on and so forth. Amazingly, Cain maintained the same air of civility, which is far more than I could have said for myself. Unfortunately, when I said Wren was the easier of the two to deal with it was because Stimpsen couldn't take a hint if you glued it to the end of a shock maul and hit him with it.
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The first official briefing between regimental officers, their commissars, and the Lord General leading the expedition did not occur for several weeks into our trip through the warp. Due to limitations of our troopship's conference systems, the briefing was more limited compared to that of the one prior to the Adumbrian campaign. Sitting around a circular table were the regimental commanders, executive officers, and commissars belonging to the four regiments aboard; the Valhallan 597th Ice Warriors with myself, Cain, Kasteen, and Broklaw; the 9th Adumbrian Riflemen with Wren, Stimpsen, Trevek, and Laquor; the 22nd Kastaforian Heavy Infantry led by men whose names I can't recall since I dealt very little with them; and the Krieg 11th Armoured Division, which had the 5th Heavy Armour Company currently attached to it, led by a Colonel von Vismarck, a Major Scheilt, and their commissar, Waffans. As you could imagine, sharing a troopship with so many soldiers from Krieg was a huge boost to my morale. I spent as much time as I could among their numbers and managed to forge an acquaintanceship with Commissar Waffans. He was about as gloomy and fatalistic as you would expect given his heritage but he was a pleasant fellow when he was able to unshackle himself from his commissarial duties, which he did quite readily once ale and cards were introduced into the mix. I believe Cain took a genuine liking to him too, though it's hard to tell at times when he does truly enjoys somebody's company or puts on his polite faade (there were even times when I wondered what were his true thoughts of me). However,
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FIVE Anybody who's browsed even briefly through a history file knows that anything involving Orks is going to involve a lot of problems, a lot of time, and usually a lot of carnage. They were the universal frak factor and everything they touched turned into a bloody mess, figuratively and literally speaking. Sure, the Valhallans were more than just eager to give it to the greenies for reasons I didn't understand at the time but I approached the situation with a fair bit more apprehension. If I were just an ordinary soldier then, sure, this campaign would look like a blast and a half your world only consisted for going where you were told and blasting everything that didn't look human. I was stuck with the luxury, or burden depending on the situation, of having to keep the wider perspective in mind. We had seven regiments at our disposal at best but more likely we'd have four full-strength regiments and maybe enough leftovers from the other three to form a mongrel regiment for the rest of the campaign. What heavy armour we possessed would form the spearhead of our advance, accompanied by one of the infantry regiments, towards the Tau lines while the remainder of our forces was to be deployed in order to deal with the Ork threat. It was a daunting task any way you spun it and either opponent could actually be far greater than our original intelligence reports had estimated. Since the Tau had a tight control on most of the surrounding systems and we lacked the naval forces for a complete blockade, the Tau could easily
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The situation on Magnus Viridis, thankfully, didn't get astronomically worse by the time our forces arrived in the system. Our ships were greeted with suppressed delight by the few vessels that were still in orbit, one of which I was told was an Astartes Gladius class frigate, which happened to also be the only vessel that didn't respond to our arrival. It was odd to see a lone frigate of the Astartes without any cruisers or barges to escort but, as I would discover later, this was apparently not too uncommon for the particular chapter involved. Though I had little interest in naval operations, from what I had gathered on the final briefing, the Tau naval forces were holding orbit on the far side of the planet in a stand-off with our own, Neither side having dominance over the contested airspace and neither willing to commit their limited forces to a front assault. The only ships not in the fleet were a handful of scouts from both sides who maintained orbit halfway between the two in order to keep a watchful eye. Again, I didn't understand naval tactics as I would have ordered a few fighters to engage the Tau scouts but it was explained to me that such tactics would be futile, as the Tau scout ships would simply fall back far enough for their fleet to lend support and everyone would eventually fall back into their original places. For the time being, the fleets were to stay put, as a loss of any major vessels would compromise any contingency plans to evacuate if things started to spiral downward. I barely understood the total rationale behind it but what it meant to us was that the transports wouldn't get harassed on the way to the surface, which was fine by me, Although it meant the same benefit existed for the Tau. While the troops began loading into the transports, I got a final briefing with the Lord General and the rest of the regimental staff, along with a communication from Major Currae, a Cadian who was apparently the ranking officer of the remaining Imperial forces on the planet. According to his information, the Cadian regiment took a heavy pounding but were still at just above half strength while the two Catachan regiments were merged into one. Both regiments suffered heavy casualties however one of them lost their entire command staff to a well-executed assault from the Kroot. This lost prompted the merger rather than the lack of troopers. Tau forces, along with a number of traitor PDF units, were assaulting the city of Vertens and reports of enemy soldiers penetrating as far as the starport were mixed and unconfirmed at the time of my departure. Things were bad and if we didn't hit the ground shooting then we were likely to start a few moments afterwards. Control of the city was about 60-40 in our favour but if we didn't get our forces onto the ground soon that advantage would change quickly. Units were getting encircled and isolated and, if Cain's advice held true to the larger scale, they wouldn't have much time left. The nervousness was rising up again as finally preparations were being made for departure. I could only describe the atmosphere in the transport holds as being one of controlled enthusiasm, as every Guardman on the ship seemed eager to get off, except me. I was still a little terrified that I was going to get my head blown off the second the ramp hit the rockrete. Colonel Kasteen was going over a last few briefing points with the captain of the company I was landing with, Captain Sulla, while I was given a few last pointers from Cain. "Nervous?" he asked though I figured he could probably already tell the answer just by looking at me. "What gives you that idea?" "The flak vest under your coat," he said, rapping his knuckle against the chest plate. "Won't do much good against Tau plasma weapons." "I think a commissar would understand that any option that helps morale should be explored." That was also the reason I still had my Krieg gasmask hanging from my neck even though I had no expectation of encountering any gas attacks as such tactics seemed somewhat archaic considering the Tau's technology. "Fair enough," he said, looking past me to the colonel and captain talking near the transport's main ramp. "Last few pieces of advice kid; keep your head down; keep moving; and keep an eye on Sulla. She'll try
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SEVEN Though I wouldn't admit it in front of a Guardsman or officer or an inquisitor orbasically anybody really but if somebody asked me today to place a bet in a one-on-one fight between a Leman Russ tank and a Tau hammerhead, I'd be hard-pressed to find a good reason to side with the Leman Russ. In a straight-up fight, the hammerhead had far better range, firepower, and mobility and made our tanks look like rockrete blocks in comparison. Their main guns could punch holes through our tank's armour even at the most extreme of ranges. Often times our tanks were torn apart before the commander had time to shout an order to the crew. Do not mistaken me for a Tau-lover, though, because I know that very rarely do our tanks meet with the enemy in straight-up fights and what our tanks might lack in finesse and firepower they more than make up for in numbers and resilience. If victory meant losing a few dozen tanks in the process then that would be the game plan.
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Despite my willingness to barricade myself in my makeshift office (I think it used to be a storage room) behind an impenetrable wall of paper and dataslates, I was eventually coaxed out by Cain. Maybe he knew that burying myself in work was my usual means to cope with stress or maybe he just thought that I made him look bad by working so much. Either way, once Cain managed to dig his way through my castella of dataslates, he didn't need to work very hard to convince me to tag along. Were he a more selfcentered man I would have been worried about how easy he could convince me to see things his way but I trusted that he was thinking of what was best for me. As we walked out of the main compound that served as our headquarters, a few times he asked how I was holding up. While I appreciated the sentiment, I insisted that I was still perfectly capable of doing my job. Waffans wasn't the first friend of mine to die in combat but he was definitely the closest. When I was still a cadet, a friend of mine by the name of Kenrick had an unfortunate midnight rendezvous with the business end of an Ork's cleaver. It was probably the first time I had seen somebody get hacked apart by an Ork up close but I felt very little over the loss. In fact, my first response was merely 'Emperor's blood! They killed Kendrick!' However, despite my insistence to the contrary, Waffans' death was affecting me to some degree; a fact made evident by my sudden, violent reaction to Wren's appearance back in the briefing room. I believe I was trying to convince myself that I was okay more than I was trying to convince Cain. Whether by pride or my strict adherence to the credos that Kriegans were unaffected by
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We disembarked from our chimera at the edge where the paved rockrete courtyards surrounding the city met with the fertile growth of the planet's flora. I imagined that when the city was first built the separation between the city and the surrounding jungle was more abrupt. But over the years the jungle had crawled back and begun encroaching on the rockrete and the buildings. Vines and sprouting foliage carpeted the rockrete as we headed out, gradually growing thicker until we couldn't tell if we were still technically walking on the rockrete. Luminator posts were gradually replaced with towering trees whose thick canopy blocked out not only the vast majority of the daylight but also the rainfall. The shift in the atmosphere was staggering as we moved further from the main gates and we soon found ourselves in a dark, dawn-like mist. Were it not for the massive city walls a few meters to our right, it would have been easy for our party to have gotten lost in the mist. I was relieved to see that, despite Kael's reassurances, Jydais and his team fanned out into a standard advancing line as if we were in hostile territory. Lalee and Kael took point several meters ahead of the rest of us and both had a penchant for disappearing into the brush for long periods of time. To mark the location of each breech we carried a bag full of luminator posts that the engineers and techpriests could later track on their auspex units. Watz surprised me by volunteering to shoulder the load, which worked out well for me as it kept me close to Watz while the rest of the troopers needed to keep an eye on the guy carrying the posts. By extension, it meant I didn't have to worry about Jydais or his team ditching me in the jungle by 'accident.' They may not have had any need for me but they needed the posts to complete their mission. Chatter was generally kept to a minimum, again another sign of professionalism that I was pleased to see. For me, having spent most of my years on a world where little more than moss and lichen could still grow, a lush and fertile jungle was a wondrous sight. I rarely got opportunities in my career to see so much life free from the suffocating confines of rockrete buildings and cages. Unlike cities which were just crowded with people, never once did the jungle give a sense of an all-consuming presence. Dense as it was, it never stopped feeling openfor me at least. My decision to leave my rebreather mask back at base was rewarded with the mist's refreshing coolness against my face. For a brief moment, I wanted to remain outside but then a huge bug tried to nibble on my neck and I was immediately reminded why I preferred to stay in cities. Our advance was occasionally interrupted by our forward scouts when they uncovered tracks left behind by the Tau. However it only took Kael a minute or two to ascertain that they were all old tracks left from the previous day's attacks. The first major incident to occur took place when Watz took a moment to admire a small creature that hung from a nearby tree. At first I thought it was a plant as it had a somewhat amorphous body that hung from several tendrils from an overhanging branch but when Watz approached it the thing shuffled across the branch a couple of inches. It was no bigger than my fist, covered in a fine brown fur, and made a strange clicking noise whenever Watz leaned in for a closer look. "Heh, the little guy is kinda cute," Watz commented. "I'd keep my distance from that if I were you," Kael responded from the front. "Why's that? Looks harmless enough." Almost on cue, the creature suddenly flung from the branch and latched itself across Watz's face, or at least his mask. The tendrils wrapped tightly around his head, sending him into a frenzied panic as he tried to pry the thing off but to no avail. "Get it off! Get it off!" he shouted. It took a few moments of arm-flailing and fruitless tugging but eventually Watz realized that it wasn't actually harming him or obstructing his breathing it merely obscured his vision. He calmed down but that didn't help his situation very much. "What is this thing and what the warp is it doing?" Watz asked our local guide. "We call them tree jellies and it is harmless so don't worry," Kael explained as he came over to help. "Does it feel like it's prodding you in the face?" "Yeahwhat does that mean?" Kael grinned slyly, which would have been unsettling for Watz if he could see it. "It means its trying to lay eggs in your mouth. Again, it's perfectly harmless so long as you don't panic." Now Watz easily could stare down Ork hordes and daemonic beasts without flinching in his resolve because as a guardsman it was his duty to fight the enemies of the Imperium whatever they may be. His job description, however, did not include getting face-raped; even death seemed preferable to such an ordeal. Watz immediately went back to full-blown panic, taking the butt of his weapon and smashing it
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While the Tau had insisted that only one transport be used to bring the Lord-General and his honour guard to the meet site, there had been no stipulation that additional transports could not be used to escort the Lord-General's vehicle along the highway. Since we didn't want to push our luck with our liberal interpretation of the Tau's instructions, the Lord-General instructed us to hold back a safe distance once we were in view of the meet site. It was close enough so the Tau would know that reinforcements were available but not close enough to pose an immediate threat. I was given the task of leading the escort team, which consisted of Watz, Kael, and I in the centaur, a squad of sentinels, a Leman Russ tank, and a chimera full of stormtroopers. Despite my misgivings about Kael, I did not want to leave him out of my sight.
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With Cain and the rest of the regiment redeploying to relieve the Catachans on the front lines, I no longer had a senior commissar ensuring that I was following his instructions to the letter. As such, I decided to put my administrative duties on hold for a little while and take some matters into my own hands. While
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I had to call in a few favours from old friends but I was able to find a transcript of the audio recording I recovered. I've included the most significant part of the one I listened to that day.
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"Pretty damning evidence if you ask me," I commented when I finally turned the vox recorder off. We had spent the past several minutes listening to various recordings but most provided little information save for the one between Kael and the Tau commander. It appeared that the Tau were in league with the Eldar from the very start and it was Kael's hand that guided the governor straight into the xeno's awaiting hands. Still, the evidence could not necessarily be taken at face value. With the Eldar, you could never be sure what you were looking at. While it implicated the Tau, Kael would not have left the evidence for me to find unless he wanted us to act on it. But why reveal that now? Why drive a wedge between our factions after he had helped secure the truce? It was also entirely possible that the evidence was forged, though only an analyst from the Administratum would be able to verify its authenticity.
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The ride over to the front lines was...wet to say the least. Weather on Magnus Viridis was prone to mood swings but the swing from calm and sunny to torrential downpour was enough to snap your neck. It took less than a minute before I was fitting my gasmask into place just to keep the water out of my eyes. Watz was cussing about the weather for the whole ride, making constant remarks about how the pooling water was bad for the floor plating but I could barely hear him over the pelting raindrops. Passing through reclaimed territory, the scale of the devastation was evident. Most of our dead had been cleaned up but the ork corpses lay where they fell, creating a blanket of green bodies that Watz had to skillfully navigate his way around. The scores of fallen trees, splintered by artillery or plowed down by our tanks, created additional obstacles but I was surprised that despite the apparent degree of deforestation we had inflicted seemed to put only a minor dent in the overall ecosystem. Even weeks after some of the skirmishes, shrubs and saplings were already pushing to the surface and some of the older trees had bark so thick that it could've been classified as living armour. I recall one of the Catachans commenting that the persistence and resilience of the jungle reminded him somewhat of the jungles back on his homeworld, minus the 'tries to kill you at every waking moment' part. That world makes Krieg seem like a holiday resort. Field command was in the general state of disarray one would expect from the middle of a military campaign. Gunfire and explosions echoed in the distance, occasionally a stray round from a tank or a mortar impacted a nearby tree, chimeras cycled to and from the front lines carrying the wounded, and Broklaw stood in the middle of it all shouting orders at anybody who passed within sight of him. For such a young executive officer, he had a tight grasp on the situation and never faltered in his command. Like all the soldiers around him, he was saturated from head to toe and I suspect he never once bothered to take shelter in the nearby command tents unless it was to attend to urgent matters. I always admired his willingness to get stuck in the middle of it for reasons other than personal glory. "You know, a techpriest could probably set up a vox amplifier to get the same effect without you having to stand out here in the rain," I said when the centaur pulled up next to him. He didn't appear surprised to see me at the front, even commenting that he expected me to show up even sooner. What did surprise him was when I asked for directions to Cain, as he had assumed I would be heading for the frontlines rather than meeting with the commander. I explained to him that I had uncovered some interesting facts about our Eldar friend and brought the evidence in for review. I invited him to tag along but he politely declined, citing pressing duties and that he was due to head to the front for a while with the next batch of relief troopers. I wished him the Emperor's protection and headed off to find Cain. Oddly enough, while I expected I would have to go somewhere near the front to find the commissar, I instead found him in the command tent with Colonel Kasteen and Garrick. The three of them loomed over a large map, using simple blocks of wood and metal to represent troop movements on their hastily assembled strategy table. In fact, everything about the command tent suggested 'rush job' from the crudely strung luminators on a length of steel wire to the bulge on the far wall of the tent due to the presence of a tree that had the audacity to claim its spot first. The interior of the tent, despite the troopers' best efforts, still felt damp as rain dripped through small tears and holes in the overhanging tarp. Strategically placed buckets kept most of the portable electronics dry, including one that sat right on top of the vox caster while its operator had to deal with the occasional drop landing on his head. Even the
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It was probably one of the rare times where I was actually visibly pleased to see Jydais, who meandered begrudgingly into the command tent. Scowls and frowns were aplenty when they saw me and I hoped my grinning visage greeting them provided even more indignation. While typically I would watch my step around Jydais and his men, on this occasion I wanted them to be irritated with me. It would be a delicate
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As time was of the essence and the bulk of the regiment would be needed to press against the Orks and Tau when the plan unfolded, Cain and I could only muster our aides to accompany us Watz, Heilmit, and Jurgen. Surprisingly, when we loaded onto the salamander scout, we were joined by Garrick. He insisted (not that we had any real say in the matter) on being a part of the mission in case things went wrong. Personally I thought an accompanying Astartes would make the Governor far less receptive. But aside from saying 'pretty please' we really had no way to stop Garrick from doing whatever he wanted. No options for refusal meant that our party had swollen to six. We were riding on a vehicle that was ideally meant for four and one of us was large enough to count as two organized ourselves so that Garrick rode hanging onto the back of the vehicle while Heilmit sat on the front end next to the barrel of the
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Now despite falling through a skylight and plummeting thirty feet, I came out of the ordeal in relatively good order. That is, if one can consider four cracked vertebrae, a broken sacrum, a dislocated shoulder, a fractured scapula, and a second-degree concussion to be 'relatively good order.' It was relatively good compared to the Tau I landed on, who was quite dead as a result of being smoked by a hundred and thirty pound meat sack. Cain pulled some strings with the Lord-General and got me placed under the care of his personal medicae staff, which meant the best around-the-clock medical care a person could get without being obscenely rich and an orderly who responded my call in no less than thirty-six seconds. I think Cain felt a little guilty about knocking me over the ledge. I also got sponge baths from an orderly with eyes like sapphires and a smile that could make a girl think the Sanguinius himself was looking after you. Or at least that's how I remember my lengthy recovery. It's hard to say how accurate my memories of the events are considering the constant supply of painkillers the doctors gave me. Being shot in the back three times hurt like warp fire but at least the pain went away after a few days; breaking my back left it aching for months and there are still times when the pain comes back to remind me of the good old days. While the doctors were able to patch me up fairly quickly, it would still be a few weeks before I get up to take a piss without cursing up a storm. The painkillers kept me in a tolerable mood, much to the delight of Watz and Heilmit who came by frequently to pass off dataslates and paperwork for me to kill time with. Even in a drug-induced haze, I was still competent to shuffle more dataslates for Cain and, as usual, it kept me busy when there was little else for me to do other than admire the view out the window from my bed. It was about a week after our firefight through the Governor's palace that I awoke one morning to find an unexpected visitor from, if you hadn't guessed by now, our manipulative little Eldar. "'Hero of the Imperium, Commissar Cain, led a daring raid into the heart of the Governor's Palace in order to administer the Emperor's judgment upon the traitorous Governor,'" Kael said, reading from a dataslate as he sat across from my bed in an easy-chair. "'Though details are still coming in from the ruins of Aedans, survivors confirm that Commissar Cain that delivered the final blow, throwing the entire palace into disarray while Orks rampaged throughout the capital city.' The rest of the article isn't all that accurate but what can you expect from government-spat propaganda, hm? Still, congratulations are in order you and your friends have reclaimed your world and you all played your parts wonderfully." My first instinct was to reach for the laspistol under my pillow but no sooner was it in my hand did I realize that it was a lighter than it should've been. "I already took care of that for you," Kael said as he held up a power cell. "I must say that was quite an impressive fight to freedom. I was half-worried that you weren't going to make it out of there at all."
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Final Notes from the (real) author: I always find it hard to believe when I reach the end of a story. It always feels like yesterday that I started typing out the first words and now I have to put the final touches. I hope you all have enjoyed reading this as much as I have writing it. I want to thank my fans for having made this my most successful fiction to date. Keep an eye out a Cain & Abel short to be released some time in mid to late May. Also, be sure to join our heroes in the second installment, Cain & Abel: The Hounds of Erebus, which I hope to have the first chapters ready some time in June.
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