It's snowing, one, two, three. Not in gentle, poetic snowflakes, drifting lightly through the air – in thick lumps, the kind that the wind always seems to blow straight in your face. Just as well. They may not be romantic, but they'll cover our tracks just fine. The writer in me is appalled; the soldier, though, is happy, and that's all that matters.
That and keeping the rhythm, one, two, three.
It must be somewhere between one and two in the morning. I don't know for sure; forgot to get a good look at the clock when we were leaving base... again. After six years of doing this, you'd think I'd know better, one, two, three. Guess not.
It's so dark, without a moon to hang over our heads – darker than an Ogryn's armpit.
One, two, three.
Times likes this, I almost regret being kicked out of the Commissarial Cadets. At least Commissars don't have to go stumbling around no-man's-land in the middle of the night, one, two, three, practically by themselves and with no lights to speak of. Unless you fancy being pulverized by heavy weaponry, of course, in which case – feel free to light up.
Yes, Commissars have it made, if you disregard the part where you have to shoot your own people. And when the other option is getting snow in your eyes, even that stops sounding so bad.
They say winter came early to Istmus this year... Keep the rhythm, one, two, three. I hate early winters. Cold makes people grouchy (case in point, me). And I know from experience – when people are grouchy, they do stupid things. In fact, I bet the only reason why the Istmian PDF up and decided to do something as silly as playing traitor was because of the bloody winter coming early.
Okay, so maybe that's not the only reason. But, hey, you know what? Frak off – I'm a trooper, not a Magos Politicus (if there is such a thing; Emperor, I hope not). Knowing why I have to kill this bloke or that, that's not in my job description.
For how thin it still is, this crust of snow sure is loud under my feet. One crunch, two crunch, thr- whoops, springmine.
Well, you're not scattered all over the field – so chances are, you haven't set it off yet. That's always good. Just keep your breath calm and step around it, Lenz...
That's a good girl. And don't forget to tip the others off, too.
"Mine."
Three shapes behind me nod and step around the deadly needle poking out from the snow. The PDFers did a good job with this minefield; if they were dealing with anyone other than Stormtroopers, maybe that mine would have already gone off, some poor sod's intestines scattering to the wind.
If.
Muffled by the scarf, my voice sounds so nondescript; it's almost funny, one, two, three. Nondescript and asexual. A Magos Biologis would probably say – agamic. Homo Sapiens Stormtrooper is an agamic subspecies of Homo Sapiens. Rather than reproducing sexually, Stormtroopers do so instead via systemized verbal and physical abuse that is inflicted upon carefully selected specimens of Homo Sapiens Sapiens in specially designated areas known as 'Schola Progena'...
Stop that... Focus on keeping the rhythm – one, two, three. Getting through a minefield, it's a lot like dancing with someone who's got explosives strapped to their chest.
...where the typical characteristics of Homo Sapiens Sapiens will be replaced by ones found socially acceptable by their Stormtrooper cousins. This newborn Stormtrooper will then proceed to lead a nomadic, highly hazardous and usually brief life.
Emperor above, what the frak's the matter with you tonight? There'll be plenty of time later on to go down that road. For now, how about one, two, wire trying to concentrate on staying alive?
Wait a second. Wire?
Ahead, hoop after hoop of razor-sharp pinpricks grin. Like thorny vines they wrap around the PDF trenches, disappearing into the darkness and stretching on to seeming infinity.
"Ludger, barbed wire," – but, cutters out, he's already leaned over it, chomping through the second course of tonight's meal with gusto. I suppose the appetiser springmines left a bad taste in his mouth, for him to be so eager to move on...
When was the last time you had a proper meal, Corporal? Not since the Emperor walked among us mere mortals, probably. Bet you could go for some ambull steak right now. Or grox; grox meat is good too... Actually, who are you kidding – even a bowl of warm rice or half a loaf of fresh bread would constitute a feast at this point. You could ask your boys, if you didn't have to keep quiet as can be, and they would probably say the same thing.
"Any food is good food, so long as you're alive to eat it."
Click goes the barbwire, caught between Ludger's cutters. Click and it gives, almost as easy as a soldier's life. Well, not exactly like that – the wire's less expendable, I should think.
Snow settles on his narrow shoulders as he works, too far gone to care about shaking it off anymore. I don't know why, but I want to brush it away... Emperor, but those Voidborn really are thin and small.
It's a stupid misconception, that nights like these are shrouded in deathly silence. It's noisy as the Warp itself, if you know what to listen for.
Click... Click... Ponderously slow go the cutters.
Click-click-click my heart is faster, beating still to the rhythm of the dance now behind us.
Clickclickclickclickwhatthefrak?!
"Progress, Corporal?" Mazen's voice. That was static, then, bleeding into my ear from the commbead; it always seems to rattle my teeth a little.
He sounds calm, if terse. Mazen, I mean. That's his usual voice – the hardass. I guess nothing's gone wrong on his end, then, and he just wanted to check where we're at. Every bit as calm as calm as him, and a great deal calmer than I'm feeling, my finger goes up to the vox button.
Click. Enough with the clicks, already. It got old the moment I used it for that awful metaphor.
"All's well, Sarge. We're at the barbwire."
"Pick it up, then." If my Mordian-to-Gothic translating isn't too rusty, that means "Good, you're on schedule". Like I said – a frakking hardass, if ever there was one. "Mazen out." – of his mind, as usual. Either he's always been crazy about discipline, or it was the first few years in the Schola that drove him mad, because he was already like that when I met him after being booted out of the CommCadets.
"You should not take this as some sign of failure on your behalf, Cadet." The overweight Commissar's droning was remarkably hard to focus on for the quivering of his nose. Would he sneeze, or wouldn't he? The suspense seemed far more intriguing than his ramblings, delivered as they were in his usual nasal voice. "There is no dishonour to this reassignment; hundreds have been similarly reassigned and went on to become great and illustrious servants of Him on Earth. You simply lack that particular brand of resolve that this line of service demands..."
Just sneeze already, you bastard!
"Corporal." Ludger's nose isn't twitching. Or maybe it is; too damn dark for me to actually see him. Wouldn't it be a fine joke if it was? Then he could sneeze when we were smack dab in the middle of the traitors' trenches, like in the old war holovids. Comic relief and tension-building, all in one convenient package. "We're through."
I nod. "Good job."
I didn't actually say that – not that it matters any. He knows what the nod meant, even if he couldn't clearly see it, just as I know that he really has done a good job. If we had to say every little thing out loud to get it, we'd still be standing knee-deep in mud on Sepiroth. Not that ankle-deep in snow on Istmus is much of an improvement.
There's nothing else going for it. Time to brush past Ludger and take point. Is that the thumping of a nervous heart that I hear, sweat that I feel on my palms beneath the gloves?
Hah! As if. Whose head do you think this is, some kiddie-soldier Guardsman's? Things like that, they're not for Stormtroopers. Not because we're brave to the degree of silliness, of course – it's because we had that beaten out of us. "Your body is a machine of war, like any old Leman Russ. And I've never heard of a Russ having a nervous breakdown – have you?"
Quite right - we're not supposed to be human flesh. We're so much more; barely responsive lumps of meat wrapped in cloth and ceramite.
And even if I did still harbour any shreds of humanity as stupid as that, it's just too damn cold for any actual nervous sweating to be going on. Early winters are officially the worst enemy of humanity since the Ruinous Powers – it probably has to do with how warm that last forgeworld was, but even with this winter gear they tossed at us in the last moment, I'm freezing to the bone out here. I bet this wouldn't be happening if I had one of the old sweaters mom used to knit me.
Four shadows stalking the ravaged field stop in near-perfect tandem, crouching like predators waiting for the right moment to leap. Straight in our way, a patch of even thicker darkness sits, what little starlight as reflects off the freshly fallen snow torn away by burrowing hands.
Ladies and gentlemen, ahead you can see our final destination, the Istmian PDF trenches.
Snow crunches gently underfoot as I drop carefully down, quiet as a ghost. Definitely too late to go back and get that hand-knitted sweater now. Just as well – it's been years since I outgrew the last of them, even if I had, for some silly and doubtlessly sentimental reason, kept it with me for all these years
I could write home, I suppose, and ask for a new one (not that anyone would bother knitting a sweater for a Stormtrooper – with our average life expectancy, chances are good he or she will already be dead by the time you're done). There are some problems with that plan, though, even if we were to look past the unfortunate fact that silly nonsense like sending a letter back home is not allowed.
To start with, if I were to go through with this frankly dubious plan, then etiquette demands I ask a lot of questions that I don't really care about. How are you doing, mom? How's home? How's sis doing? Blergh. I'd rather listen to the crunch of snow, caught between frozen mud and the sole of Mohren's boots as he drops into the trench after me and Ludger.
And then, provided the letter even makes it to mom, she might want to see me – the horror! She would probably cry, and I don't think I could be bothered to deal with that; and then my sister would almost certainly come along, and with my luck she'd probably have kids to bring to see their 'big toy soldier' aunt, too. I don't like kids – never have any idea what I'm supposed to do with them.
With a last, heavier crunch, Stuel follows our lead and the Emperor's personal squad of restless ghosts sets off, slinking along.
The only one I would like to see, come to think of it, is dad. He'd probably laugh, then say something cliché, like "My girl's all grown up." And when he'd pat me on the shoulder (I've never known him to hug anyone; some sort of weird phobia of his, I've always suspected), I might not even think about the three opportunities to break his arm that he just gave me. Bit of a shame he's dead, all in all, but when the Emperor calls you, whatcha gonna if not follow?
We're quiet, we're so awfully quiet as we move along that I'm not even sure anymore if we're still alive and breathing. They mirror my movements perfectly, all three of them, knowing perfectly well that I'm not in the business of making stupid mistakes all over the place.
When it's just three people depending on me, I'm not half bad a leader; and they're good followers, good Stormtroopers. One flick of the wrist and I could have them putting their heads in a daemon's maw – all because I'm their Corporal. That's how deep the need to follow orders goes with us lot. It'd be so easy to kill them, with nothing more than one wrong call.
Don't take that the wrong way. I'm perfectly capable of killing them the old-fashioned way, too.
Ludger's footsteps are right behind me; they're so light, lightest in the squad. He'd be the easiest – he trusts me too much, as a person rather than just an officer. I could just walk up to him, knife in hand, and stick it right between the neck and the collarbone.
The crunching of snow is getting louder, unsynchronised as we go on. There's someone else here, stalking the trench with us. I know my boys' footsteps, and those aren't theirs.
Mohren? He'd be a bit harder, I guess, paranoid bastard that he is. But he's always been better with a hotshot than a knife. Up close and personal, it'd take a little work, but he'd be mine in the end – we both know he would.
Up ahead, a shape, shifting darkness not muted by the fresh sheen of snow. There's not even a moment's hesitation when it comes to deciding what happens next. I motion for the others to stay put – the patrol's mine.
So would Stuel be, by my reckoning. The man has the strength of an Ogryn, that's for certain, but it's also a fact that I'm quicker. You don't always need to stove someone's skull in to kill them dead – one sharp edge between the ribs is more than enough, we all know as much from experience.
It doesn't make me a psychopath, thinking about killing my boys. It's just part of being ready – and readiness, that's an essential part of any Stormtrooper's life.
"Readiness! It's not a state of mind – it's a way of life; being ready means jumping off the loo, killing a man and going back to wipe your bum and pull your pants back on without so much as a blink of the eye! Putting an effort into keeping ready, that's kiddie-soldier stuff – you don't do that! You're frakking Stormtroopers! You're the bastard cousin to the Emperor's own Astartes, the weird kid in the family that no one wants to talk to! You're all psychopaths, the lot of you, and I'm proud of myself for it!"
Say what you want about our Schola instructor, but the old dog could talk. Talk sense, too – we really are always ready. Most of the time without even knowing it, which is, of course, the idea.
That bloke ahead of me, he isn't. I can tell from the sound of his footsteps that he's just a kid.
I don't mean his age, mind you. Warped, he could be a bearded frakker old enough to be my dad, for all I know. But he's a kiddie-soldier – you can hear as much in the way that snow crunches under his boots; loudly, awfully loudly, as if he thought he was all alone on this whole planet. He probably figures he's being pretty quiet, but kiddie-soldiers never know the meaning of the word until it kills them.
For every step he takes, I take two. Fingers wrapped around the handle of the knife, ready to draw when the right moment comes – just not now.
If it were, say, Mohren walking there, he'd have already seen me – I swear, the frakker glances over his shoulder at least once a minute. The PDFer doesn't. For some reason, I almost wish he would, just this once... Just to see what he'd do.
Go for his lasgun, probably. The moron.
Mohren wouldn't; he'd see where my hand was and make the right call. In these situations, it all comes down to having the right set of instincts and the reflexes to make them count.
The guy ahead of me doesn't look like he has either. He's just walking along, humming silently to himself... Tune doesn't sound familiar. With these people, it probably won't be any of the Imperial classics, so at least I don't have to feel bad about interrupting.
Istmian PDF regiments favour a type of flak armour that is a tighter fit compared to the typical Imperial-issued sets. There's always a gap, though.If it doesn't fit as tight as our carapace, it won't be nearly enough to save this particular bastard's sorry hide.
Don't draw the knife before you're ready to pounce; it's just unnecessary noise that could tip him off. You only tighten your fingers around the handle - and pull it out right before your hand clamps down on the hapless frakker's mouth.
The PDFer is a little taller than me; just a bit. I can feel his ragged, panicky breathing through the fabric of my glove. It's almost intimate... What can bring people closer together than murder, after all? In a way that only a Stormtrooper or a serial killer – not sure if there's a difference – can appreciate, it's at least as personal as sex.
Couple centimetres' gap between the neck and the shoulder-piece.
Plenty room, Corporal; don't forget to stab at a slight angle.
The intimacy takes a bit of a blow for his trying to bite my hand – but I'm not about to give up on it. Call me a hopeless romantic.
We're living a skewed version of a corny old holovid's ending. There's no moon to shine lovingly at us and the snow falls in thick lumps rather than delicate flakes; he bleeds, gently, as his last gasps tickle my palm with their desperation... Death can come in the oddest of shapes, sometimes. I wonder if that's what he's thinking, too.
Crunch and his lifeless body is on the snow; nice and simple. Just like that, the magic is gone.
"Clean kill, Corporal." Ludger doesn't notice it, and neither should I. It's time to come back to the trenches, where snowfall is just an annoyance and blood is just plain old blood – not in the slightest bit romantic; time to stop being a crappy writer and go back to being a Stormtrooper.
A nice bit of knifework, that's something we can all appreciate – in much the same way an artist can appreciate a good painting. As far as I'm concerned, that's the only way to kill someone. Lasguns, they're just pure accounting; press a button, the number goes up... Hardly any sport in that. Or maybe that's just me.
There's no time for pleasantries, though, and Ludger knows that just as well as I do. He's already brushing past me when I motion up ahead.
"Autogun."
"Will do," - and I know he will. If he says that autogun is toast, then it's no use thinking about it any longer. There are other worries that need taking care of.
Two shades are still hovering beside me, Mohren and Stuel's outlines. Now that Ludger has his target, it's only fair that they'd want work too – and by the looks of that lump of unsullied blackness looming past the autogun emplacement, I have just the thing to keep them busy.
"Bunker up ahead. Set a tripwire by the door – they can march out to some fireworks."
Mohren grins. I can't see it, but I feel it, somewhere in my bones I feel it – sure as the Throne is golden, he's got a stupid grin plastered on his face at the thought of some PDFers stumbling out of their bunker, blown to bits by a tripwire-triggered grenade straight out the door. And I can't say I really blame him - it's enough to make me smile, too.
They too disappear, leaving me on my own. Alone again, just my thoughts to keep me company... Has it ever been any other way?
Not really, no. Everything we do – killing, eating, laughing, dying – it's all reflex; things we've been trained to do. When you're a Stormtrooper, you can only ever be 'you' in your own head – and the Emperor knows, my head is so, so muddled...
Snowfall is getting ever thicker. Our tracks, snaking their way silently through no-man's-land, are probably gone already. Not that it matters. Come morning, the whole field will have been trampled to oblivion when the kiddie-Guardsmen make their assault, and in the mess that's left behind, not even a Valhallan will be able to tell footprint from arseprint.
I don't expect any of them will appreciate what we're doing for them here, the Guardsmen - they never do. Stopped giving a frak about what they think a long time ago, though; the only thing that matters is, we've done a pretty decent job. The people who need to know that? They will.
Let's see... One patrol killed, one bunker neutralized and, if I know Ludger at all, one autogun rigged to blow in the PDFers' faces as soon as they try firing it. And that's just us four – no telling what Mazen, Hafner and Peccel have been up to in their own stretch of the trenches. Knowing Sarge, it's probably something far worse than our relatively tame showing.
Hope they have some warm soup waiting for us back home; by my reckoning, we've earned as much. It's no hand-knitted sweater, but in this life? Take what you can get.