As soon as the shuttle's engines fired up, Clarence knew something felt off, it was at the very least unusual for her to be the only passenger en route to Gradius; of course she wasn't the only living and breathing person aboard, but none of the others were going to actually stay. Just until a few minutes earlier she almost had to elbow her way through the crowd of techpriests busy loading the shuttle she was on, and she had to move her own luggage several times because apparently there was not enough space in the cargo bay for everything and over half of the seats were full of boxes and metal crates bearing the imperial two-headed Aquila and the Adepto Mechanicus seal.
In theory, she thought, she was supposed to be informed about the contents of all the crates behind her, but in practice such information was confidential and only for the eyes of the quartermaster and officers of the 76th Gradius. While Clarence was transferred there, a by the book reading of the regulations about imperial guard procedures revealed she was, officially, still serving as senior officer in the 118th Scintillan Fusiliers until the very moment she disembarked on Gradius and signed all the proper paperwork.
Judging from her past experiences, not to mention the tactica lessons she received back when she was still a Schola Progenium cadet, the vast majority of those supplies was most likely made up of ammunition; from what she could understand by reading the reports on the dataslate they supplied her, Gradius was a feral world bordering the outer reaches of the Astronomican, it was currently not at war and its population numbered a handful of billions. Food production was most certainly not an issue, but they likely had little to no ways of producing ammunition or advanced machinery, which meant they weren't going to have many tanks, possibly not much of an air force either, and who knew how much artillery they could rely on.
More importantly, she had to consider what to do for the following few hours of her trip. She was more than certain nobody was going to bother her unless she specifically asked for something, but she was content enough with the arrangement: she had seldom found techpriests to be good conversation partners, and her past relationships with them were somewhat tense due to the constant clashes between her necessities of using war supplies and their insistence in following rituals by the book paired with their extreme jealousy of their niche.
Clarence's attention then returned to the two rows of seats still available; they were not exceptionally comfortable, but having twelve spots all for her meant she could use them however she pleased, and this was tantamount to luxury for her standards, where even officers had cramped quarters and little to no comforts during military manoeuvres. She could have just sprawled across several seats and browsed her dataslate for additional details on Gradius until she eventually dozed off, but she didn't want to risk someone seeing her in such a carefree state.
In the end the old habits got the best of her and she simply closed her eyes, dozing off while sitting upright and correctly like a proper lady, even with her arms crossed and her back only relaxed enough to slump with dignity. Despite the very long travel, she had to switch rides several times before finally boarding the shuttle for the surface and sign solid layers of paperwork every time, and she could never sleep right while navigating through the Warp; there was always a nagging feeling of everything being terribly wrong hitting the back of her head like a ram, and according to some navy officers she talked to it was something one never gets used to.
Only when she woke up did she realize she had fallen asleep, but without regrets: her mind was clearly too clouded with worries she couldn't handle before their time and rest was all she needed. A quick check of her chrono informed her that the ETA was about ten minutes, just what she needed to refresh herself before landing.
When one of the younger techpriests, with very little in the way of mechanical augmentations, arrived to inform her that they were about to enter atmosphere, she had already strapped her belts and secured her luggage, and only needed one glance and a firm nod to give the message that she was ready, and no part of this procedure was new to her.
Being a military-issue shuttle there were no windows to look outside, but she knew for a fact that orbital traffic around Gradius was very light: not only the planet itself was rather close to the edges of the Imperium's already vast territory, it was a feral world with little in the way of industry and not much else that could be of interest to the rest of the galaxy. Clarence did not have a profound understanding of the merchant trade, but she knew for sure that commerce ran on profits, and a place both distant and not ripe with thrones did not register as a worthwhile waypoint to most.
A light but constant vibration ran through the shuttle's frame; the metallic tinkling behind her confirmed her suspicion about the crates being full of ammunition, though it was a wonder for what reason they stocked but one shuttle full to the brim instead of using more. If Gradius lacked worthy industries, the supplies were most likely consisting of artillery shells, possibly bolter rounds or other heavy calibre weapons. Still, having just one shuttle for such supplies ran contrary to every sense of military scale she could think of.
As soon as the shuttle stopped moving and the engines stopped roaring, Clarence repelled those arising doubts without answers away from her attention and unfastened her belt with wasteless motions. By the time the young techpriest had arrived to call her, she was already ready to depart and no words needed to be spoken.
Clarence's first impact with her new assignment carried the heavy smell of nature; the air had more oxygen than her homeworld used her to, and her recent and somewhat long trip aboard several spaceships made her forget about the sheer amount of things that join the atmosphere from various sources. Suddenly, she could smell plants, pollen, humidity, perfume, paint and much else, though the sudden assault to her senses that came through her nose made her pause for a moment and hesitate before stepping down from the shuttle.
She found herself atop an open-air platform in the middle of what must have amounted to an important structure in this world. The tall, steel gray and brass-edged tower right next to here was but a shack compared to the luxurious, multi-tiered structures of Hive Sibellus, and the various bridges and connectors that allowed passage from the shuttle stations to the rest of the docking facility appeared as a vulgar toy, only fit for the children of those without breeding, to the eyes of a scintillan.
A light wind nearly threatened to budge her tricorn hat and Clarence realized that no matter where she looked, the dominant colour was green. Thick forests, or rather jungles considering the humidity, filled every visible part of the landscape, interrupted only by grassy meadows where the vegetation was nonetheless tall. Thanks to the elevated platform, she could also notice that slender but numerous rivers slithered through the land, occasionally forming lakes following odd patterns.
Before she could actually focus on the landscape and start to notice how odd it was on a second look, she forced herself to walk forwards, luggage in both hands and a backpack to boot. It took her but a glance to see that there was only one way out of that platform, which was to go inside that landmark tower, considerably taller than any other of the few structures in the landing complex.
A figure was waiting in front of the only entrance, a large hangar-like passage left widely open as if to accommodate the transit of vehicles, which were however absent at that moment; it was a tall, lanky man with a thin face and sunken features, sporting an odd smile further enhanced by the high cheekbones. The clothes he wore were far from what Clarence expected from a feral world: red and green fabrics, thick enough to barely sway in the wind, trimmed and sewn in gold forming simple yet alluring decorations. The jewelry he was carrying had a somewhat tribal yet refined taste in both shapes and material: his silver earrings were polished to almost appear as ivory and so was his rather large choker.
He greeted first as Clarence approached, waiting until she was close enough so he could speak at a normal volume, "Major Clarence Mora from the 118th Scintillan Fusiliers, I am lord chancellor Octavio Judes and I am proud to welcome you to Gradius, our humble planet".
As she dropped both her bags to partake in the formalities, Clarence appreciated the grace and simplicity of the lord chancellor's bow and how he bended low enough to actually offer his neck, no easy task considering the height difference. "The pleasure is mine, lord chancellor", she removed her right glove to offer her hand for shaking, keeping her back straight to give herself the dignity her physical stature did not convey, "I am glad to see the planetary government being first in line to welcome an officer of the Imperial Guard. I understand the regiment I will take command of is important to you, lord chancellor?".
His wry smile answered the question before his words did, "Please allow me to give you a brief tour of our docks, Major, for they will be you only connection to the rest of the Imperium during your stay here. We will also discuss about your assignment as we walk".
Clarence had been in worse places as far as docking stations went: Gradius was primitive enough to not have an orbital facility, but rather a few surface structures only fit to receive shuttle traffic. To her understanding and according to the dataslates she received, she just docked at the major one, which was strangely quite far from the planetary capitol, even accounting for security reasons; the reports however assured that the military headquarters were very close and well-connected. At least for what passed as "well-connected" on this planet, she mentally added.
She noticed a few forklifts on their way to the shuttle; the embossed two-headed eagle featured prominently on one side of every vehicle, meaning the supplies were reserved for the Imperial Guard, as she imagined. Even though the infrastructure was very spartan, sometimes even bare when it came to added functionalities, it was efficient in carrying out its intended purpose; the workers looked amazingly normal too, although they were certainly fewer than she expected even accounting for a scarcely populated world, and but a laughable speck of dust compared to the bigger facilities she grew accustomed to in her careers, with lines upon lines of servitors, stacked upon each other in multiple layers, with wires and tubes and all sort of technological mysteries connecting them to their devices, the walls, each other or who knows what else.
If anything, the staff seemed to amount mostly to technical operators, with the distinct lack of figures wearing the typical red robes of a Magos. A note of worry passed through her head, as she wondered who took care of vehicle maintenance if the ranks of the Adepto Mechanicus were so slim.
The Lord Chancellor proved to be a welcoming and well-mannered guest, dispensing somewhat obvious information about the workings of the shuttle dock which however proved useful for Clarence to understand just how much of a backwater assignment she had received. As the visit ended, they emerged in the ample clearing the dock was built in, and she found herself temporarily dazed from the scent of nature and fresh air; even though she had served in battles fought in a world with little in the way of industry and pollution before, Gradius' air had something to it that picked at her nose, and a bit at her head as well.
The Chancellor proved to be enough of a gentleman to hide his obvious amusement as Clarence struggled to keep a straight face, "Do not be concerned, major. Gradius has a particular vegetation, but the air you're breathing is completely harmless. You'll be accustomed to it before you know".
It was unsurprising that such information wasn't present in the dataslates given to her, it was the kind of information she expected the Administratum to miss or to not consider important. However, her brief talk during the shuttle dock tour was enough to give her the idea that there were plenty of details her data supplies failed to provide, and she just wondered if it wasn't intentional.
Several vehicles were parked outside, most of them sporting large, thick wheels fit for off-road travel, and considering she could only see pressed dirt where she expected a proper road or pavement to be, she figured this would be where she started to experience the feral part of the world.
Then, she noticed a mechanical saviour not far from the exit: the familiar frame of a Chimera armoured transport, with proper tracks, no skirts, and packed with extra promethium tanks, extra supplies, extra shovels and a dozer blade in the front, showing more than a moderate amount of use. The personnel carrier had quite a bit of extra bits installed with the notable exception of additional armour: poking from the hull and the dozer blade itself was the tip of a flamethrower, and the somewhat oddly high turret sported two rotary autocannons, supported by a pintle-mounted gun whose pattern she couldn't recognize, but clearly fired some kind of solid projectile as it had none of the trappings of a las weapon.
She could very clearly make out the imperial Aquila and the logo of the 76th Gradius on the side, the latter of which was present often and in high detail in the dataslate reports she had plenty of time to browse. However, the brief lapse of civilization ended as soon as she came to her senses and made the appalling realization that the vehicle's colour scheme actually fit with its surrounding despite the outlandish look.
She had no room to complain about bright, shiny colours as the baroque uniform she wore sported only the most eye-catching degrees of white, blue and red, topped with a stylishly black tricorn hat that gave impressive dignity to what would have otherwise been an ordinary set of carapace armour: however, the jungle camo on the chimera was painted in such bright, shiny colours it would have been a miracle if it could fool anyone instead of acting like a painted bullseye.
Clarence instead found that, once her feet were down to earth level, Gradius' jungles were actually rather brightly-coloured and the vegetation was more bizarre than it looked from high above, with flanged ochre climber plants and crimson vines and aquamarine berries. She was obviously too distant for a closer observation, but she was also carrying somewhat of a heavy luggage and while her military discipline commanded her to not show fatigue, her undisciplined, traitorous arms were starting to complain.
She briefly gave her limbs quarter as she set her bags down to appear proper in front of her new subordinates: the crew that was idling about the Chimera and stood on attention as soon as she and the chancellor approached. "SALUTE!", the sergeant ordered, and the crew complied immediately, idly impressing Clarence who wasn't quite sure what to expect from a feral world army and her imagination provided little in the way of military discipline.
Her visit to the docks gave her plenty of information about the population itself: they could speak gothic, they were not new to the concept of cleaning and grooming, and actually seemed to take good care of their hairs and beards, though it seemed customary to wear both long.
The guardsmen themselves, however, were all women. Despite the fact being clearly stated on the reports, Clarence frowned noticeably as she witnessed the truth she was prepared to face; she decided on letting that expression show to give her a sterner look as she answered the salute. The five women in front of her were all rather young, wearing helmets that did nothing to hide how all but two wore their hair long albeit collected into either braids or ponytails so as to not get in the way.
And, most importantly, they were all taller than her. Nearly a head taller.
"At rest", Clarence conceded after she was satisfied with the display; their uniforms wore the same camouflage pattern as the paint on the chimera: bright, shiny colours, brown included, with speckles of amber and crimson, although used mostly for trims and decoration. They all carried solid projectile sidearms and much longer knives than their standard issue gear; they also looked somewhat nervous, or maybe perplexed, at the sight of their new commander.
"Allow me to introduce your new commander. She is major Clarence Mora, from the 118th Scintillian Fusiliers, veteran of the Battle of Halfpass and who served in the Campaign of Corbellus Ignis. Starting from today, she will be the commanding officer of the 4th company; I trust the preparations are ready?".
"Yes, lord chancellor, everything is ready and everyone has been informed", the sergeant, a gray-haired woman that looked short only when next to her comrades, used a different and much more natural tone when addressing the man than she did when she turned to Clarence again, "Commander, we will escort you to headquarters. If you are ready to leave".
"I am, sergeant. Let's get going", the woman nodded and saluted in answer, then ordered two of her subordinates to help the commander with her luggage, at which point Clarence set her outstretched hand forth in stern refusal, "No. I like to carry it myself, thank you".
The pause was visible as the crew was unexpectedly thrown off their expectation, at which point the sergeant ushered them to climb back in the vehicle and gave Clarence another salute before boarding herself.
The interior was painted in much brighter colours than she had come to expect in her military career, as if the users tried to make the experience of being shuffled back and forth or straight in the middle of a battlefield as soothing to the eye and mind as possible, all while keeping the colour scheme in tone with the exterior. The chancellor, who had previously insisted in being tasked with introducing Clarence to the crew, also insisted in accompanying her to the headquarters and sat opposite in front of her.
Since there were just two passengers, there was plenty of room for luggage, but most importantly Clarence was quite sure she could have a private conversation with the man right now. As she put her hat right next to herself, she decided it was the right moment to demand some answers on the several, now painfully obvious gaps in the information she received regarding her new assignment.
"May I ask what the previous commander was like, chancellor?", she had figured out the Lord prefix was for show, a local habit of sorts, as his duties and responsibilities were no different from that of a high-ranked representative of the planetary government, regardless of name.
The Chancellor's smile was, again, worth more than the words themselves, "Ah, yes. major Sendrick Albaster, I do remember the man. He had quite a charming personality, you could say, and a fiery disposition towards the enemies of mankind. He sought battle with fierce conviction and was yet caring for his subordinates", he chuckled for a few moments, "Indeed, it wouldn't be a stretch to say the 4th company loved him. His passing was a bad blow to their morale".
Clarence frowned; she knew who the previous commander was and pretty much every detail of his career, but the reports didn't mention anything about his personality or relationship with the company he was assigned to. His replacement didn't quite come in record time, but it came pretty fast considering what little strategic importance Gradius had and the small amount of guardsmen it tithed to the Imperium's cause, which meant it wasn't impossible the soldiers were showing some hostility because they still couldn't accept a substitute to his figure.
She was fully aware of this possibility from the beginning, and such problems were quite documented in the Imperial Guard; she heard plenty of stories, none of them nice, about the merging of the 23rd Scintillan and the 426th Catachan, and despite the friendly fire ratio was considered to be well within acceptable levels she never found the prospect reassuring when she readied herself to face her entrance into the 76th Gradius. After all, she had to keep friendly fire down to absolute zero as she was the only back they could shoot at.
"I have also been informed that the regiments in this planet are still rather feral, even when it comes to their equipment and tactics", Clarence pressed, focusing her full attention on the man, "And that it makes ample use of abhumans, but I have yet to see one".
This time there was a pause where she came to expect a smile, "What you have seen in the docks is the staff working there. Highly qualified and well-schooled. Rest assured that you were not fed false data, major- or should I say commander", he managed to create the circumstance to slip a smile in, but the comment about the data gave Clarence confirmation that something was intentionally amiss, "The majority of this planet is indeed rather primitive, there are few isolated exceptions and we do not sport the hive cities that cover the more advanced planets. I am sure that with time you will better acquaint yourself with the populace".
The ride was somewhat rough, meaning the lack of proper roads was a very widespread problem, and between the noise and the engine and that of the tracks, Clarence had to raise her voice quite a bit to continue her conversation, "Were you also lacking in officers? I find it somewhat odd that nobody from this planet could substitute my predecessor", she put a brief pause before deciding to add another question that kicked in her head ever since she first read the dataslate reports, "And pardon me if the question is silly, but I was under the impression the guardsmen from Gradius were actually all women. Was major Alabaster assigned from somewhere else?".
And here the chancellor smiled again, "Just like it's thanks to missionaries from the Imperium that this world pledged its alliance to the Emperor, your presence here will be very positive to the growth of our army, no, of our planet as a whole. Indeed, major Alabaster was not from this world, as the guards that remain on the planet have little actual combat experience", he took a moment to scan Clarence's figure with a visibly satisfied look, "I have heard the Scintillan Fusiliers possess impeccable training, their honour unblemished and their discipline unwavering; I am more than certain you will soon become the prominent figure our soldiers need".
"Is that why the planetary government decided to pull its weight in directing assignments for the Imperial Guard?".
Clarence internally gave herself a prideful pat on the back seeing how her sudden, straightforward question instantly erased the smile from the chancellor's face, substituting it with a neutral expression that still showed the respect one gives to a predator when out in the wilds, "Rest assured, Commander, that we are all loyal to the Emperor, and if a breach or two were made in etiquette it was with the best of intentions".
Having heard what she wanted, she gave an understanding nod and tried her best to relax on the passenger seats, designed for quick deployment in and out of the battlefield and therefore far from being pleasant to sit in for prolonged amounts of time.
"Besides, commander, it is not like your assignment here is a punishment".
And while she silently glared at the chancellor, she felt her irritation mounting as that wry smile returned to his face.
