Commissar Adrian Volnt reclined in the battered chair in his office. His boots perched upon the top of his ironwood desk; native to his own home world. Though he could not see it from his lounging position, a red obsidian Aquila was inlaid on the top of that desk. Volnt clasped his hands around a glass of amasec perched upon his stomach. Its contents catching the low diffused light of the glowglobes about the room, and warming his belly right about where it sat upon it. Mildly decent, the elixir did what it was supposed to do. Now that the ship, Blind Fury, had left the warp there was little chance the prisoners would become disturbed. Outward signs of possession would be evident. Even if they did revolt, they could not escape. Volnt could take a few moments to himself.
Holopicts hung on nearly every wall. In one he stood on Terra. As much as the thought pained him, he never wanted to return there. Volnt acknowledged few things in the known universe to cause him to fear, Terra was one of them. Keeping it up in its place on the wall was his chance to relive that fear everyday.
Another pic was older and was a place Adrian longed to go back to. His home. Though Volnt vowed to return only after he retired from service to his Emperor. His beautiful home, where he signed onto duty, where he believed, that his rank in his civilian life would ensure him a combat life worthy of the autobiography he would write, back on his home planet.
Instead, he was placed in charge of the 108th Penal Legion. By charter he was allowed to stop on any Imperial Planet and take any and all convicts as his recruits. Volnt had learned over the years that picking a few directly from the streets was a good way find "bosses," those middle men between he and the rest of the prisoners. His assignments came frequently from Holy Terra, and they were almost always covert, and always suicidal. Perfect for disposable troops. It also ensured that Volnt would never get to pen his memoirs. But no matter how much of a sacrifice it was to be assigned to the 108th Penal Legion, Volnt resigned himself with stoic finality that would had made his friends proud. It was little to be resigned too, in point of fact, Volnt knew of few other commissars who had direct control of an entire ship.
Volnt brought his mind back to focus on his surroundings again. His office was his mind. Everything was organized properly, slates stacked into those already read, and needing a response, those not needing any response. A single slate lay in the middle of the desk containing all known information on every single prisoner in the holds below. His gaze went from the slate, which he had read six times already, to his peaked cap sitting at the edge of the ashy gray desk. From where he sat the image made Volnt smile. It was worthy of a pic to hang on his wall; the contrast of his polished black boots and matte black cap inlaid with the skull motif of the Commissariat on top of light gray wood was striking.
Volnt's smile faded. He would have to address the prisoner's soon. While he held no fear of the prisoners below, in his experience, the next few hours would determine who would be most likely to revolt. Just as likely as it was for street picked convicts to become "bosses" they were just as likely to start a riot. He would watch closely. But Commissar Adrian Volnt had done this forty-two time before. And he was still alive, and they were all dead. So it would be with this round of convicts.
Volnt pushed the amasec onto his desk and stood up. Donning his greatcoat, he left it unbuttoned. Better to see the bolt pistol in it holster and the gleaming power sword tucked in its scabbard. He pulled his cap low over his eyes, then pulled it back so that the brim was at the horizon only if he tipped his head halfway back, and walked out of his office.
Volnt did not have to think about what he was going to say. He had said it many times before, and with little variation from each successive generation. However, the speech ran itself over in his mind twice before Volnt finally made it to where the prisoners were being held.
"Attention on deck!" snapped a guard precisely as Volnt entered. The guards were expecting Volnt's return. The prisoners were not. All eyes turned however, mostly because there had not been anything new to look at in fifteen hours.
"That may have been the first time you convicts have heard that, so I will forgive you this once, your lack of response. From this point on, you will respond immediately when I, or any of my guards, address you or give you a command. Now I am going to ask you if you understand what I just said to you. You are to reply, 'Yes, Sir.'" Volnt spoke at a less than normal volume, not a whisper, but less volume than you would expect in such an address. The effect was wrought with great care, each of the prisoners straining to hear the commissar's words whether or not they could actually see him. The acoustics of the room ensured that even the last row of prisoners would be able to hear well the commissar's low voice.
As Volnt spoke he paced the in front of the prisoners, his arms tucked behind his back exposing his side arm and sword, now he stopped. He turned to face them, leaned forward and said in the same voice, "Do you understand what I have just said to you?"
"Yes, sir." Audible only because there was no other noise in the room but surrurration of 200 plus men breathing in one confined space.
"Pathetic." Volnt sighed and began pacing again.
"Each one of you is guilty of some violent crime. Most of you probably multiple violent crimes. Some of you were caught in the act of said crime." Volnt paused in speech and step. "Your sentence is death, and I am your warden. Do you understand what I have just said to you?"
"Yes, sir."
"Still pathetic." Volnt stopped, "My name is Commissar Adrian Volnt, and you are newest recruits of the 108th Penal Legion, affectionately known as the Black Rats. My word is law here. You will do what I tell you to. Not because I am wearing this uniform, or that I have weapons on me, or even that one of my guards would shoot you for disobeying me. No, you will do what I tell you to, because when we are in combat what I tell you to do will keep you alive." Volnt resumed his pacing.
"Oh yes, we will be going into battle, but keeping you alive longer keeps me alive. Do you understand what I have just told you?"
The response was somewhat more emphatic. Volnt continued, "The mission of the 108th is cleansing and occasionally recon. Even more rarely will we be called into combat within a warzone. You will not become heroes of the Imperium in a battle of glory defending a holy shrine and receiving a pardon for your sins as payment. We will be a nameless Imperial Guard unit to anyone who sees us. But we will be given the most difficult missions to accomplish. This is your death sentence." Volnt stopped pacing again, inhaled.
Some of the prisoners cocked their head, or strained to see what they could only hear, waiting to hear the commissar ask his question so they could respond.
Instead Volnt continued pacing. "Make no mistake this is a death sentence. You will rotate or volunteer for missions that are classified at the highest rate of casualties expected. You would probably refer to them as suicidal. Now you may be thinking but why don't I just kill you and you team Commissar Volnt? You wont for a couple of reasons.
"The first is you know that if you attacked me alone you would not survive the attack. Either I or one of my team or even one of the other prisoner's would kill you. It would do you no good.
"The second is you could never trust enough of you fellow convicts to organize a riot and overtake the ship. If you show enough brains and muscle to try and pull that off, you will find yourself promoted. I have seen six riots break out, two in this room, in fact. The guards were ordered to fire indiscriminately at the mob. As you can see, they are elevated, you are not. Only a few survived the riot, but the mission was completed before we gathered new recruits.
"And you would not succeed if you tried to flee in the midst of conducting a mission. Most likely you would be shot by one of your own team before you took your fourth step for betraying their position.
"But this reason I think is the most important. Before you awoke today you were just a criminal. Instead of rotting in a cell, each of you will experience something that the arbites will never experience. You'll see things that Imperial Guardsmen will never see. Some of you will have that experience for only a very very short time before you die. But each of you will get that experience at least once before your death sentence is carried out. And if you use this chance as repentance for your crime, that is between you and the Emperor. But you would not be just a criminal anymore. The Emperor protects."
Volnt stopped bowed his head. "There is of course yet one last reason not to try to escape, kill me or riot. Each of you has had a small device implanted into the base of your skull. It is a bomb designed to sever your spine from your brain. To detonate it I speak a sub-vocal code. Then bang, I send your arse on a first class trip to being dead."
Volnt began pacing again, making eye contact with as many of the prisoners as he could. "I also have the code to detonate all of them simultaneously. I threatened the use of this device as a last resort. Act with discipline and, for whatever reason you choose to, accept your sentence, and you will no longer be treated as a prisoner. Otherwise you will be drugged like you were before, awoken at the onset of your next mission, and if you survive drugged again until needed.
"Do you understand what I have just told you?"
"Yes, sir!" Louder now, the understanding beginning to sink into the prisoners' minds.
"You will find that punishment, when it is meted out, is particularly severe. I see the stun batons have knocked a few of you out cold already. Until further notice speak only when spoken to. While I will not treat you like a prisoner, if you do not act like one, you must remember that you are. Do what you are supposed to do when you are supposed to do and your execution will not be at my hands."
Volnt smiled, "Think over what I have said to you. I am going to instruct the guards to remove your wrist restraints and move to the second tier. Don't make them shoot you."
Volnt turned to exit the room, but stopped before he had taken two steps. "I said there was no chance for a pardon, but I misspoke. There is one way. Should I be killed in combat, you will be granted a pardon if you can complete the mission. But take that thought from your head, I have led forty two generations of convicts."
Commissar Volnt resumed his stride and left the room. He replayed the speech in his mind as he walked back to his office. The glowglobes ignited as he entered and walked to his cogitator, spoke a prayer to awake the machine spirit and typed a code logging him on. Volnt pulled up a vid screen of the prisoner's room. Multiple sensor readings were displayed. If one of the convicts did decide to revolt, Volnt would know before even the convict knew about it himself.
Volnt removed his cap, placed it on the edge of his ironwood desk, and poured a deep glass of the amasec he had been drinking before. He sat back down in his chair, put his feet back up on the desk next to his cap and watched the vid screen for the tell tale signs. Using voice commands, Volnt brought the focus on one of the convicts. He pulled up the prisoner's dossier from the single slate on the center of his desk..
"Hmmm. Axtyl, Yaniman. I remember you. Yes you are one I need to keep an eye on, I think."
The two seemed to stare at each other through the vid screen.