"Midgets."

"Yup."

With Castarius and Animal Mother busy running the Kriegans through training exercises on the hot deck, and with the ship being restocked by the people of Talaris II, Jax and Dimitri were taking some time to meet with Captain Brigham to discuss their next course of action. Dimitri was in favor of recruiting more Dogs from Tripe's files. But Jax apparently had a better idea, one that Dimitri was having some trouble coming to terms with.

"Midgets," the equerry repeated. "As in tiny people."

Jax nodded. "Yeah, that's what the word means." He grabbed a handful of mixed nuts from a bowl sat out on the hololithic table and tossed them down his gullet. His next words were spoken between munches. "What's so weird about that?"

"Well, forgive me for not understanding the tactical applications of midgets in CMC armor."

"S'okay," Jax replied. "I got thrown for a loop myself when I first thought it up. But think about how many small places they could get into!"

"Uh-huh."

"And the way Castarius talks, the shorter the person, the more effective the armor'd be at protecting them."

"How—"

"See, if somethin' smacks into an armored midget, the force isn't dispersed over as large an area. Instead, it compounds the force enough so we can shake the hits right off! Perfect for close combat!"

Brigham took a drink of his recaf and looked at Jax. "Forgive me, but I've been a shipmaster for a long time, and never in all the battle's that I've witnessed have I seen physics work like that."

Jax stopped chewing. "Yeah, but I'm a saint."

"Fair point." Brigham spun around to the rest of the bridge. "Higgins! Alert the navigators; lay in a course for Skavaria as soon as possible, and hurry up the re-supply operation!"

Dimitri stood up. "Okay, hang on. What's in Skavaria?"

"It's an abhuman world. Ratlings, mostly. Skavarian ratlings are particularly ferocious, or so I've heard." Brigham beamed at Jax. "Figured those would be best for your purposes."

Jax patted the Captain on the shoulder. "Reckon they will be." He started off toward the exit. "Come on, Dimitri! We've gotta go make preparations to get the rattiest ratlings!"

The Confederate

Chapter 21: The Rattiest Ratlings

When they were out on the thruway, moving back toward the hot deck, Dimitri stepped in front of Jax. Both men were in their armor, so confronting the Confederate wasn't as strange as if he had been unarmored, but to an onlooker, the image was still ridiculous.

Jax was just so damn tall…

"What the hell are you thinking?" he started. "Ratlings, Jax? You want to throw the recommendations of the top inquisitional minds out the airlock for Throne-damned ratlings?"

"Yup. Civilians if we can get 'em."

"You'll have to explain that, Jax."

Jax looked down at him. "You mean, like, with somethin' different than the whole 'tiny kicks ass' thing?"

"Yes."

"Fine. I need soldiers I can train. These regular Imperials we been getting just don't do the trick. Hard to fill a cup that's already done been filled." He leaned back against the railing. "Hell, I spent an hour this mornin' arguing with Manker over how his boys were praying to the damn guns while they loaded them."

"That's to appease the weapon's machine spirit," Dimitri corrected.

"It's a waste of fucking time's what it is. Think a damn ork's gonna wait while ya pray?" He made a finger gun and popped Dimitri in the forehead.
"Nope, he's gonna blow your damn brains out and eat yer babies for supper."

Dimitri nodded. "Okay, Jax, I see your point."

"Thanks."

They rode on in silence for a moment before Dimitri broke in. "And I think Gort might find that baby eating thing to be a bit stereotypical."

"Nah, he don't listen to music."

Far Away

Sandalphon nursed his hatred in silence. In low orbit above the domain of Fabius Bile, he forced himself to remain still as shuttle after shuttle of vile experiments were shoved into his holds, where they were allowed to brawl and murder at their leisure, playing with the scrap armaments fed to them by their Black Legion guards.

Master Adamus didn't seem very worried about these beastmen, yet another fact that irked Sandalphon's immortal sensibilities. True, the warband was low on manpower, but the idea that the War Captain would even tolerate this—let alone encourage it—was still an affront to Sandalphon's honor.

Yet he stayed silent, and added it to Adamus's steadily growing tab of deeds he would be held accountable for one day.

The door to the bridge slid open and Adamus marched in, towing a pleading slave by the hair. He walked to the center and kicked open a circular hatch in the floor. Below, a fleshy gorget of teeth and muscle spiraled off into the abyss. The War Captain kicked the slave inside and let her be devoured by Sandalphon's crushing bite.

As her body came apart in his throat and her blood drained down into his stomach, Sandalphon's anger ebbed just a bit. Maybe Adamus wasn't so bad…

"Sandalphon," Adamus said, sitting on his throne. "How's my favorite demonically possessed strike cruiser today?"

"I am ready to kill, lord."

Adamus nodded. "I hoped you would say that."

Sandalphon grew excited. "Why, lord?"

"Just the usual: raiding, mass-rape and genocide." Adamus leaned forward. "Bile has given us all we need. Now, get us to the planet Conventia in the Ultima Segmentum. We have a monastery to destroy."

Skavaria, One Week Later

Dawn was breaking over the red-roofs of the town of Lavainia when the offworlders made landfall. They came en masse, appearing at the perimeter of town as suddenly as a quick breeze, the harsh flash-crack of their passage echoing across the surrounding valley.

At once, alarms in the town went off, wailing through the streets. The chapel bell rang out, and all the men ran to the trenches at the edge of town with their rifles.

Out on the field, Dimitri was just beginning to come out of his teleportation daze when the first bullets smacked into their line. They were low-caliber hunting rounds, and even if they had hit the weakest points on the Dogs' armor, they hadn't a hope in hell of penetrating. Still, the suddenness of it was enough to startle him.

Or, in the case of the Kriegans, to evoke a violent response.

Sergeants called their men to arms and Impalers whipped up. Target locks sounded across the trans-com, and firing orders were being given. Without so much as a word from Jax, the unit was ready to demolish the entire town and kill everyone within it.

Dimitri wouldn't stand for it, and activated his commlink. "Everybody, stand down and hold your fire! Nobody fires until we give the order!"

The Death Korps guys responded instantly, snapping their rifles down and slinging them without protest. Gort, however, didn't stop as quickly, and Jax had to convince him with a round in the leg. The Humie Luva didn't complain about it, and let his physiology start to heal the wound.

Jax stepped up beyond their perimeter, letting the fusillade smack off his armor. In the morning light, his white suit contrasting with the darker tones of the rest of the Dogs, he looked every pound of his saintly self.

"Put yer guns away, ya stupid bastards! We're Imperials!"

The firing stopped immediately, and Dimitri stepped up alongside Jax, cranking his external speakers to full. It was time to do his job.

Later

Four hours, two sermons, eighteen outrunners and a few village-wide toasts later and Jax was practically family with the entire planet. Feudal ratling culture dictated that all the kingdom counts meet with the offworld saint, and by late evening, the continent's royalty was flocking into the fields outside Lavainia where the Dogs had set up their ground base.

They came on their best mounts—lizard-like creatures called Clawacks—and flying their best colors. Dimitri and Jax had a hard laugh at the sight of the ratling kings, their chubby little forms all resplendent in expensive furs. The Confederate's chuckles continued all through his meetings with the counts, though if they took offense to it, none was shown.

It wasn't until the last meeting that they encountered a hiccup. The ratling entered the tent in no robes, but instead the trappings of a hunter, and looked up at Jax with familiarity in his eyes.

"You!" he snarled. "Why are you here?"

Dimitri looked up from his dataslate and did a double take. "Menshaw? Is that you?"

"Yeah, it's me," replied the little man. "And what the hell are you doing here? Couldn't you idiots have died on Dancer?"

Jax's eyebrows went up. "Oh! You're the little guy I kicked into the crates! I remember you!"

Menshaw hissed at him. "Yeah, my spine remembers you too, gakface."

Dimitri flicked the safety off on his rifle. Not that he was worried about this little puke hurting either of them. The gesture was more to shut Menshaw's face than a prelude to killing him.

It didn't work.

"I scav my way all the way back home from that warzone and what do I get? The two of you show up to ruin everything." He sat down in the dirt. "Why'd dad have to get sick today?"

Jax leaned forward on the ammo crate he was perched on. "Yer dad's one of these kings?"

"Counts," Dimitri corrected.

Menshaw nodded. "One of the most powerful, not that you give a rotten poo."

That's when they lost Jax to a fit of laughter. Dimitri rolled his eyes and squatted down next to the ratling.

"So, you're a prince, then?" he asked.

"Yeah, what's it to you?"

Dimitri stood and walked away. "Not much, really. Just that we're starting a task force and need some recruits. Nothing you'd be interested in, though. Lots of fighting for glory and whatnot."

Menshaw snorted. "Glory? Bah."

"And honor. A whole lot of honor."

Menshaw hopped up and turned to leave.

Dimitri stretched. "Plus, the pay's a couple thousand thrones a month."

Menshaw stopped dead in his tracks, his stubby ears wriggling at the words. He looked back over his shoulder. "How much?"

"Only a couple thousand. Not much, considering your royalty status." Dimitri didn't even look at Menshaw as he led the poor guy on. Next to him, Jax was hiding his laughter behind an armored hand. "We really need a full count, to be honest. One that's got a penchant for glory and about a hundred men with heroic attitudes."

"Oh, I've got plenty of that!" Menshaw said, gesturing expansively. "I am a knight, after all."

Dimitri gave the ratling his best derisive glance. "Oh? Knights wear fingerless cloth gloves now?"

Jax picked up for him. "C'mon, Dimitri. Maybe the little feller's more'n he looks." He stood and walked over to Menshaw, reaching very far down to place his hand on the ratling's capped head. "You say you got a bunch of men?"

Menshaw tried to nod, but the neo-steel resistance stunted the motion. "Uh, absolutely! I've got enough men to launch a full crusade!"

"Well, we only need about a hundred."

"I've got a hundred men ready to fight!" Menshaw chirped. "Can I have a shot, lord?"

Jax made an over-exaggerated pondering face and held it for a full thirty seconds before nodding. "One shot, Sir Menshaw. Get me yer best men."

"Oh, absolutely, lord!" Menshaw said as he scurried from the tent. "I'll get the absolute best men ever, and you won't be disappointed! They're a real class lot, these boys! You'll be real impressed, honest!"

As Menshaw stumbled out of sight, Jax and Dimitri both broke down laughing.

"Throne, that was ridiculous," Dimitri muttered.

"Yeah, but he's our best shot."

"How do you figure?"

Jax walked back to his ammo crate throne and sat down. "Know how I wanted guys I could train?"

"Yeah. Clean slates, right?"

"Exactly," Jax replied. "Menshaw's buddies are gonna be the lowest ratlings there've ever been; I'm talkin' thieves and criminals, guys who've seen the scariest things inside themselves and come out hard as nails. Those're the guys we need, Dimitri, 'cause when a man knows his own dark self, there ain't a thing that can scare him."

Dimitri scrolled down on his dataslate, found the bullet point labeled 'find ratling team', and marked it as complete.

Later

It was four feet tall. The servos were condensed in the legs and arms, and all the neo-steel plates that had been removed to give it its shortened stature had been reattached in the shoulders and chest, giving it an overall rounder, pudgier appearance that along with the bulbous helmet made it almost completely round.

Castarius called it the CMC-400 Abhuman Variant Mk. 1.

Jax called it the Midget Ball, then pulled the saint card on Castarius's designation.

One hundred full suits had been converted to Midget Balls, and all were now waiting on the mustering fields outside Lavairia, attached to charging generators and tended to by a team of servitors.

Jax stood above them all, watching as each of Menshaw's ratlings were assigned to their own suit. One by one they were activating, then going through the stages of stumble-fall-crawl-stumble that all new users experienced. Target practice came next, then a briefing by the big man himself.

Dimitri watched Jax give the walkthrough. He had figured that after so many times hearing it, he would have been bored this time through. The distraction of watching the pint-sized audience squabbling with each other convinced him otherwise.

It also bothered him to the point where he stopped Jax after the meeting and before the Confederate could join his new recruits on a shuttle.

"Hey, Dimitri! Watcha think?"

"I think you're completely out of your mind!" Dimitri hissed. "Did you see them fighting each other? I'm amazed none of them opened fire!" Jax gave him his 'c'mon Dimitri' look, but the equerry would have none of it. "Explain to me right now, here, how this is going to work, because after that I just don't see it."

Jax set his hand on Dimitri's shoulder. "There," he said.

"Jax, are you trying to make a saintly gesture to sway my opinions?"

"Maybe. Depends on if it's workin'."

"It isn't."

"Oh, well, then I guess you'll just have to trust me."

Dimitri had started to respond when he noticed his hands were starting to glow. Static built up around him, and he felt himself dematerializing. He sighed.

"Emperor take that damn teleporter…"

There was a flash, a crack, and they were back on the ship. Jax helped him to his feet and kept on talking as if nothing had happened.

"Listen, Dimitri, we were wasting too much time getting men, and with these new guys, I think we got a really good team." Jax pulled him out into the hallway. "Now cheer up and stop puking, 'cause tomorrow we start the first day of saving the galaxy."

Author's Note: Okay, okay, okay, I promise the ratlings won't steamroll Space Marines. Good? Good.

I really just needed to finish up assembling the Dogs, and I thought that having something interesting in their roster might be a nice change of pace. There will still be more additions to the command squad-meaning Jax, Dimitri, Animal, Castarius and Gort-but the main force is pretty much taken care of. Now we can get on to saving the galaxy and resolving some of those character mysteries that have been ignored up until now. Mainly what Chapter Castarius is from.

Oh, yes, Animal Mother is a reference. His name, Jayne Casey, is a combination of two Adam Baldwin characters and his nickname is a third; the hyped-up machinegunner from Full Metal Jacket. I was surprised everyone caught that.

Next chapter is the beginning of a three-part arc entitled We'll Be Back. If you've played tabletop, you should know the bad guy.

Till next week, later.