Though one would easily forget it when looking at their death toll, it is an established fact the Imperial Guard recruits only the best of each planet, the elite of the elite. The209th Penal Legion, like all legions, works on a different principle; they look for criminals, the worst scum each planet has to offer, born killers who were given an opportunity to do just that and die for rocks nobody wants to bother with, but would look nice with an Imperial flag on them.
We're supposed to die during our service of the Legion, that's the whole point of the thing… In my case, that's starting to take a bit too long.
Twelve years after signing up, I have seen officers come and go, usually on the same day, sometimes for a longer period of time, I've been promoted to every non-commissioned rank and demoted for reasons that went way beyond my limited understanding on social interactions, but I presume most officers don't like having a Sergeant that knows more than they do.
Right now, I'm a Private, riding at the back of a civilian flatbed truck with my autogun on my lap.
From time to time, we get a shipment of lasguns, but they usually end up given to officers or whoever has enough coins to buy them from the quartermaster. I have plenty, but I'm saving them for a new arm.
See, I did a little tango with an ork, ten years ago, and he ripped my hand right off. Later on, they had to amputate the arm bellow the shoulder and not having both arms is a pretty bad thing in the penal legion. Having a friend in the Adeptus Mechanicus, however, has benefits, and Magos Kiliane fixed me up with some large, heavy and ugly piston powered arm. It's rusty, the inner workings are exposed and there are only three fingers, but it's strong and I can crush skulls with it. I like it.
Plus, I'm dead anyway, if this arm can help me serve the Emperor better before someone makes that fact final, then who cares about aesthetics?
The desert is flying by, rocks and dried grass stretching as far as the human eye can see, because the only things on this planet that aren't human, the Shades, only come out at night and don't have eyes like we do.
A kid, just opposite me, fumbles with his autogun, the safety lever off, and the muzzle drifts up slowly, pointing to slip-proof floor, to my crotch before settling on my head in the boy's attempt to unfold his weapon's stock. He yelps when I wrench it from his grasp to pull the rusted butt in position before shoving it back on his chest with a growl.
"Thanks, sir…" The blush on his face tells me he'll be dead inside the week.
Depending on who you ask, I am also a Corporal, though neither my priviledges nor pay grade reflect that. It's recent, a side effect of being assigned as an aide to our new commissar. She's pretty, about my age and with a nasty burn scar spreading from her neck to her ear and stretching its tendrils on her cheek, but below the whole battle hardened look, she's quite pleasant to look at.
I'm not going to tell her that.
She picked me as an aide because she wanted to piss off the Colonel, who wants me dead. No real reason, the kid just got out of officer school and seems to think I've lived too long. The Commissar got here yesterday, on the same shuttle he did, and thinks a man like me can only be an asset.
Odd thing, actually; she knew my name right off the transport and cited quite a few battles I did good in right then in our first conversation, so this was not spur of the moment: The big guy with knives and metal arm has always been her first choice.
In any event, she's now asking for my tactical evaluation.
I've had training over the years, nothing official, but you get all kinds of people in the Legion and some are willing to teach you some stuff for the right price. That's how I learned to read and write, how I learned how to maintain a Lasgun, which rituals have a point in maintaining machinery and other things that would get me shot if the commissar caught wind of them.
So… We have friendlies in the area and they sent us some fresh data about the area, mostly exaggerations and rough evaluations. Imperial intelligence at its finest…
If we forget about the estimates and anything that has a number in it, these reports come down to very simple facts: Big guns guard the stronghold. The big guns were made from scrap and are a threat only to lightly armored targets… Artillery shotguns, got to love that idea, shame they're pointed at us.
Speaking of artillery, there are mortar positions spread across the mountains, guarding the eastern, western and southern approach. The north side is guarded by a minefield, improvised explosives, for the most part. The only way in from that direction is by train.
My evaluation is that if we attack that stronghold head on, we'll get butchered before she has a chance to shoot deserters. She actually smiles at that, sadistic bitch.
But if we capture that mortar position two kliks south, move it east a little to mix things up and rain some phosphorous rounds on the cultists, we could easily go in and mop up the survivors before they get a chance to clear the smoke from their lungs.
"I like this plan…" Not sure what that look is, might be she's attempting humor or farting, "Seems like something the Sisters of Battle would approve of; kill them with fire."
She laughs at that. I don't know whether it's heresy, funny or at all better than a fart. I crack a grin and bring my eyes back on the horizon line, scanning for silhouettes. You get used to it after a while, looking for silhouettes becomes your default activity. Thinking isn't my strong suit, but staying focused and all that, that's my cup of tea. Never drank tea, but whatever.
Some of the new kids give me brief looks, chattering amongst themselves at the back of the truck:
They wonder what I did, did I murder someone? Did I burn something?
Most people here did one of these two, maybe both, me, I killed, burned, raped, tortured, kidnapped, smuggled, poached and jaywalked all before my fifteenth birthday.
My parents were Catachan, see, but they sold me to some gang on Vectis so I could be raised and used as an enforcer, I was not exactly the smartest bugger around, but did a good job at killing things and followed orders.
All they had to do was let the Imperium propaganda machine tell me all about our glorious Emperor, then pretend everything I did was for his glory, and I was sold, quite literally, as they finally ended up making me take the fall for just about everything their gang ever did. I killed them all before surrendering to the authorities.
Mind you, there was only three of them left, and they were all in the same car when I blew it up.
Now here I am, twelve years later, still alive, still killing and not quite as dumb as I used to be.
Ignorance isn't bliss, trust me, and even though I still do not qualify for the role of resident encyclopedia, I can think on my feet and would not trade it for anything.
The Commissar stops all four trucks of our convoy and announces that we're going to walk our arses to that mortar position. I want to object, but I like the current shape of my skull and jump off the truck in silence.
We're far off, like, butt end of nowhere kind of far off, but she wants to sneak up on the position.
"Oh, we'll sneak up alright, we'll be ghosts by the time we get there!" That doesn't leave my mouth, but it's painted on my face and she's on me in a tic.
"Something to say, private?" Her breath is sour, but not rancid yet. She's been eating the same rations we do since she got off the shuttle. Soon enough, her mouth will qualify as a chemical weapon.
"Desert is dangerous, Ma'am," I respond, weighting my words carefully, "we'll lose a lot of our Combat capacity on this hike."
Good answer. Or at least, not the bad one, as she takes a step back and actually thinks about it.
"How dangerous?"
Feral orkz, giant snakes, quicksand, meteorites, gigantic sodium patches that will go boom if a single drop of water touches them, the usual.
You ever see a commissar pale? I did, twice, once was when I came back from my tussle with the ork, missing an arm but carrying the thing's lower jaw, second is now.
Nobody warned her she'd landed a job in hell itself, nobody ever tells anyone how skakky this nameless mud ball really is.
"On your record," she swallows, paling even more, "on…"
Sunstroke, not shock. Figured it was too easy, commisars don't go all white at the thought of danger.
I raise a hand and she blinks repeatedly, beads of sweat forming at her hairline and trickling down her snow white face, "Ma'am," I interrupt, "you should really drink some water."
Her mumbling seems to agree with me and she fumbles with her canteen. Empty, of course, she kept using some of it to clean the dust off her insignias.
The other troopers are fine, but they still have water and are not wearing this retarded black cloak with matching hat. I catch her on the way down and drop her semi-unconscious form in the shadow of a truck.
Two of the troopers, Ferenzky and Plato, I've worked with before, they used to take orders from me, when I was a Sergeant. I tell them to get their hides in the lead truck and tell the rest of the kids to set up camp, that we'll Vox in when we've taken the mortar position. Why? I want to be way far away when that commissar wakes up and have a good reason for it. Passing out in front of the troops? She'll need to reassert her authority and someone is going to get shot.
As I already said, I like the current shape of my skull.