"Who told you to die! Keep fighting!"
-Otto Xavier, Commissar
Commissar Kasteriin Aldezaar of the 81st Brigade of the Imperial Guard was in a tight spot. He leaned out from behind the filing cabinet that was serving as his temporary shield from the intermittent bolter blasts being fired by the orks. He quickly withdrew his head as a trio of bolter shells clacked into the cabinet and detonated.
"Must be holding back for some reason," he thought, considering the fact that orks usually charged right into the fray, shouting and roaring in some sadistic glee. He took another look around the edge of the cabinet, this time firing off a couple of lasbolts from the pistol his hand had gotten nearly frozen to. He didn't expect them to connect.
The roof of the defense facility he and his squad had been supposed to protect had been blasted off by rockets from tankbusta boyz shortly before, as had a good deal of the north wall, exposing the building to the harsh wintery climate.
Then he saw the warboss. "Shades of the Emperor," he swore. It occurred to him that he wasn't going to make it off the planet alive. He looked at the corpses of the squad under his direct command, from the sergeant who had been alive and swearing and firing hellgun volleys into the ork runners to the techpriest who had been assigned to close the doors to the facility and had been wiped out in the resulting rocket detonations. None of them would ever make it off this Emperor-forsaken excuse for a planet, and neither, he expected, would he.
Then Kasteriin paused. He looked down at his body. It slowly occurred to him that he wasn't dead, ripped limb from limb, or being carried off screaming by orks to more horrible fates.
Given courage by this revelation, he peeked out once more from the cabinet barrier. Nothing. The orks were gone, running out of the facility, holding high a device that Aldezaar knew to contain the plans he was protecting. Now that the commissar had time to think about it, he realized that he had retreated in the face of the enemy, leaving the object undefended.
The walk back to the landing zone where any survivors would meet for dustoff was a long one, the effect heightened by the commissars knowledge of his failure weighing on his mind. Kasteriin didn't notice the wind, or the ice forming on his greatcoat and face. He didn't notice the hills even as he skirted them, slowly heading towards his destination. When he got to the LZ, the pilot in charge of picking up any survivors had already gotten there, and was smoking a cigar when Aldezaar approached. The pilot quickly snubbed out the cigar and put it in his pocket, aware of the serious implications of smoking in an officer's presence.
"What've we got, pilot?" asked the commissar.
"Well sir, we've got two kasrkin and…, one other," replied the pilot.
Kasteriin felt a twinge on anticipation, but if the pilot noticed, he didn't comment. "Who?" Kasteriin asked.
"Well… you see sir… he's one of the types… well… he's not wearing markings. All grey, sir. No tags."
Kasteriin raised his eyebrows. "An assassin?" The pilot nodded.
Kasteriin Aldezaar shuddered a little when he thought of the Assassins. When they were called in, it meant someone died. Just as often the assassin itself as its target. Assassins were devout kasrkin soldiers who, in their service to the Emperor, decided to master the sniper rifle and stealth and trek deep into enemy lines, with the commander of the enemy army as their target. They would take a shot from the most advantageous spot they could find, and attempt to get out. Many did not survive the journey back.
They were intimidating figures to be around, and if there was an Assassin on his way up, it meant that something was dead. Or, just as likely, something angry. Like an army.
"I think we should get out of here," Kasteriin said, "all the survivors that're coming are here now."
"Right you are sir," the pilot saluted, "dustoff's in two." The man took a last look around the LZ and climbed into the cockpit.
Aldezaar likewise climbed into the cabin portion of the dropship, sat down and buckled himself in. "Dustoff is in two, boys," he said to the other inhabitants of the cabin, "say your goodbyes, we're not coming back here anytime soon."
The commissar took a moment to observe the two kasrkin soldiers. They had obviously seen some tough times, likely handed to them by some orks. One wore a sergeant's stripes and a couple of scars, but the other looked like a new promotion.
The training undergone by guardsmen to be promoted to full-fledged kasrkin tactical assault troopers was long and difficult, but it ensured that only the best made it through. The men were equipped with the kasrkin standard issue long-range lasgun and a heavy-duty grenade launcher apiece for distraction and anti-vehicle weaponry. Fragmentation grenades and night vision goggles with scopes completed their inventory. Both men were shot up, but not badly injured. They were, however, visibly exhausted, and the less-senior man looked ready to drop.
In an attempt to break their stupor, Kasteriin said, "How many men were in your squad, sergeant?" He quickly realized that this probably wasn't a very helpful thing to say in this point in time, but, he thought, it was good to accept these things.
"Four other than what you see here, sir," said the sergeant, "none of 'em vets in the kasrkins, either. We were hit by orks when the station fell, and took a longer route through the hills to get here. There were so many they couldn't help but hit us. Their shots were bouncing off one another."
Kasteriin nodded. He didn't doubt the truth of the sergeant's statements, just the sergeant's wisdom, in bringing his squad of six near what was obviously an ork camp.
He cast a glance towards the assassin; a figure dressed in an unremarkable light grey, sitting in the back of the cabin, and said to the sergeant, "I'm sure your men will be remembered. Try and get some sleep, we probably won't be able to on board our cruiser."
The engines heated up and they took off. The ride through the atmosphere was bumpy, but unhindered, as it appeared that they had not been followed. The dropship headed towards an Imperial cruiser settled in low orbit. It was a large sleek ship, designed for battle in space and glassing planets. When they docked, they headed out single file.
Aldezaar stayed back to speak to the pilot, and waited until the pilot was finished directing a techpriest to check his ship. The pilot saw the commissar looking at him and walked over. Aldezaar noted that there was nothing odd about the pilot's walk, which was odd in itself. Most pilots had cybernetic implants of some kind, usually neural, or sometimes in the legs or arms for steadiness. Kasteriin knew he had more than a few of those himself.
"I wanted to thank you for the enjoyable flight," said Kasteriin.
The pilot laughed revealing a mouthful of well-kept teeth. "Thank you, sir," he said. "The way those kasrkin were talking before, I thought we were going to be attacked by an enormous, screamin' horde of orks at any moment."
"Yes," agreed Kasteriin, "but aren't we the lucky ones to come out of there." He sighed.
Just then, a clear, low voice with mechanical undertones went ringing through his head, and he recognized it as coming from his neuro-audio implants. Aldezaar held up a finger to dismiss the pilot and listened to the summons.
"Commissar Kasteriin Aldezaar," it said subliminally, "please report immediately to meeting room H-21 Block 4 Deck B. Repeat. Report immediately to meeting room H-21 Block 4 Deck B. Acknowledge please."
"Kasteriin Aldezaar H-21 4-B," he replied, knowing that his neural nodes would pick up his speech patterns and transmit them as an acknowledgment to the senior techpriests on the bridge.
Aldezaar sighed. He knew this would have to happen. After all, he did fail to protect the plans he was posted to protect. It was always just a matter of time, and now his time was up.
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Writer's Indulgence- Well, that was fun, I fully intend to put it in more context in the next chapter. Thanks for reading, and hopefully you'll review.