Mud. By the Emperor how I hate mud. Octavius cursed quietly as he picked himself up. Standing at the bottom of a small muddy ravine, a slick brown line marked the side he just came down. Well, for once I am ahead at least. He straightened his back gingerly; pain crawled across his lean frame slowly stabbing at bruised joints stinging pulled muscles biting at cuts and grazes everywhere. Damn jungle, damn mud, damn mosquitoes!
— Careful Sir; get hurt rushin' like that. – The Catachan soldier kept his face straight but failed to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
And that is another thing, respect, no damn respect for an Emperor's Commissar, all going in the report. Octavian straightened up and tried to look dignified as much as possible while being covered in mud from hair to boots.
— Stick to your job and I'll stick to mine private. — He didn't bother to hide the scorn in his voice.
Buck stepped to the edge of the little valley eagerly looking for anything to shoot. Bottom; nothing. Slopes; nothing. Tree line opposite… still nothing. He lowered Betty, taking his finger off the trigger, his vast shoulders slumping pathetically with disappointment. He was an Ogryn, and like any other of his kind he was always happiest when things needed killing. His gaze fell on the lil' emperor man at the bottom of the valley, he smiled revealing a somewhat incomplete set of yellow teeth. He liked the lil' emperor man. But something about him looked different. Buck's mind was racing to work it out.
Octavian looked on with contempt as the huge bulk of the Ogryn came in sight. Stupid animal, little better than the Xenos himself, though useful he may be to the Emperor's cause. Twice the height of any man, and several times the weight, the creature carried the squad's heavy Bolter. The Commissar saw the beast's huge shoulders and the muzzle of the bolter slump. Then looking at him slowly, hesitantly, the Ogryn raised the bolter again. A cold heavy feeling clenched at the Commissar's guts, he could hear the sniper on the right yelling:
Buck! What the… — Then, the world exploded.
The bolter muzzle was silent although still glowing faintly and smoking profusely when Sergeant Berk crushed through the last branches and looked past Buck into the ravine.
— What was it? — he asked.
— The lil' emperor's shadow, it looked evil. Needed killing. – Came Buck's low, slurred reply.
Shite! No one liked the prick but I can't disguise this as an accident.
The Ogre pointed its thick finger to the bottom of the ravine where a gust of wind finally cleared the smoke.
The sergeant stared; next to a quivering ball of mud, the commissar, amazingly still alive though audibly whimpering, was a mass of twitching claws and bits of carapace covered with mud and green ichor. Shite!
— Wa' is it boss? — Asked Buck.
The sergeant sighed deeply.
— Tyranid Buck, that there is a Tyranid.