Chapter 9

Edmund found himself staring across the narrow aisle at the officer across from him, who had bent over to hold onto her own wire and, as a consequence, allowed a man in his position to catch a good helping of cleavage, which was lit up brilliantly by Percy's lightening. Their eyes locked, and Edmund decided it was probably best that he did not let her catch on to the fact that he was seconds away from determining her cup size.

"Colonel Blackadder, 23rd Percian Light Infantry Regiment, serving under General Rowan." He introduced himself the best he could considering that he was upside down and holding a very live wire.

"Colonel Kasteen, Regina, Valhallan 597th," she responded reflexively. "Weren't you poisoned earlier?"

"I was, but my poisoner was a tit." Edmund kicked himself mentally for the slip, hoping she would not notice. "The medicae nipped it in time and gave me a clean breast of health."

Fortunately, Kasteen was prevented from noticing his misstatements as the shuttle pulled up abruptly in order to level itself with the ground and throw off the ork fighters. The shuttle careened to the left and right as missiles screeched past the cabin and bolter fire splattered the ground only a dozen feet below.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking." Excellent, further distractions. "Praise be to the Machine God that we are not going to become fully integrated with the topsoil. We are currently approaching the landing pad far lower and faster than intended, and as a result we will be deploying inertial dampeners to full and the emergency drag chute. Those who do not wish to suffer whiplash are advised to buckle up and sit tight. Have a nice day."

Before Edmund could figure out what to do, the shuttle came to an abrupt halt. There was a resounding "whump" sound as the drag chute was released, and a high pitched whining filled the air as the inertial dampeners stopped the shuttle and prevented everyone inside from becoming a particularly unpleasant bloody paste. It quickly became evident that they had been traveling too fast for even the inertial dampeners to compensate for, and true to the pilot's predictions, the crew found their seatbelts straining to keep them in. Percy's lightening shot wild and scorched the ceiling as the man holding Edmund lost his grip and let go, sending Edmund flying towards the pilot's door for the second time that day. He landed back first and bounced off off the door, ending up falling on his face as the shuttle came to a complete stop.

Edmund noticed a pair of boots standing next to his head and looked up to see Colonel Kasteen extending a hand towards him. She helped him up, picked up his hat which had gotten lost in the chaos, and slapped him upside the head with it.

"That was for peeking," she stated coolly, tossing it to him with a mocking salute before departing.

"Baldrick," Edmund uttered after five minutes of stunned silence, "I think I'm in love."

The Imperial Guard's main base of operations was located in the Albenesis mountains. From their well insulated position, the Guard could afford to consolidate their strength against the alien onslaught in preparation for the counter-offensive. Unfortunately, the arrival of General "Bleating Mad" Melchett meant that such a consolidation would happen over his dead mustache; ten groats to one, he would be whipping the men into shape for a glorious charge at the enemy followed by a swift decimation in the Emperor's name, the grox fondler.

It was with a due sense of dread that Edmund entered into the strategic operations room of Albenesis base, no doubt so that he could be assigned another blatantly suicidal mission by the general staff. On the plus side, there was a chance of seeing Kasteen again, which might make up for the insanity. His eyes wandered around taking in the ambiance - which mainly consisted of bad lighting and cigar smoke so thick that one commissar had taken to wearing a Kregian gas mask - before finally finding Kasteen around the holographic map in the center of the room, talking animatedly with Ciaphas Cain.

Of course she would be; Edmund had long since grown used to his luck, and it seemed quite fitting that the woman he fancied would be serving with the man he loathed. He sulked around the darkness of the room until General Melchett bleated loudly and called everyone to attention.

"Attention! Officers, it is now my pleasure to announce that, Emperor willing, our glorious crusade to save the people of this agriworld from the ravages of the xeno invaders shall now commence!" General Melchet declared it with his usual display of irritating pompousness and undue fondness for long sentences with far too many articles separated by commas.

"For far too long, the brave soldiers of the Imperial Guard have sat around doing blast all, but never fear, now shall come the time for action! As of now, I am immediately ordering the mobilization of all regiments in a drive to the planet's main industrial center of Simir, which even as we speak is being held by the Tau and contested by the Orks!"

It was really par for the course given that it was a Melchett idea. Next, he'd probably talk about a glorious bayonet charge in the Emperor's name.

"- and of course, the Tau, being weak and unmanly, shall surely fall before the force of our bayonets as we charge at them through a field of plasma fire protected by our faith in the Emperor!"

General Melchett had reached the point in his blathering where he seemed to be confusing conviction in the divinity of the Emperor with deflector shields. Edmund harbored the suspicion that Melchett's mustache was in fact an alien parasite that grew by leeching nutrients from the man's brain. It seemed more plausible every time they met; perhaps it would be a good idea to talk to his Aunt about having him thoroughly purged just in case.

Purplish red in the face now from a lack of oxygen, General Melchett finished his grand speech with a striking pose and held his head aloft as if expecting thunderous applause for his stunning insight into the matter. The only sound that he received aside from the hum of logic engines was a very slow, very sarcastic clapping that probably went over his head.

"A marvelous idea, General, but if I might make some tiny suggestions?" Edmund asked, as he brought his hands against each other to a slow, dull beat.

"Such as?" Melchett still had an idiotic smile on his face as he basked in the glory of the moment.

"Well, the details might need some changing, such as the part where we go into enemy territory without any reconnaissance or knowing what we're up against."

"Nonsense! We know what we're up against from this book," Melchett thundered, pulling out his well worn copy of the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer. " "Weakling cowards who can't take a punch to the face, and dull witted green brutes who wouldn't understand stratiegery if it showed up stark naked and bit them on the behind! Surely none such enemies can hope to stand before the might of our strength and cunning!"

Edmund carefully calculated how sarcastic a reply he could make without getting caught, but was unfortunately upstaged as Ciaphas Cain leaned into the table and raised his hand.

"If I may?" He asked smoothly and took the momentary silence following his entry into the conversation as permission to continue. "While I find General Melchett's faith to be laudable, the great Tactica Imperialis, contains many treasties on the use of intelligence gathering, as does the Codex Astartes. It really does serve our purposes here to make full use of reconnaissance, as exploiting the weakness of our enemies to bring about their destruction as swiftly and painfully as possible surely pleases the Emperor more than blind sacrifice. After all, it is through the destruction of our enemies that we earn our salvation, not the destruction of ourselves."

"Oh yes, but of course," Melchett agreed, in awe that he was receiving tactical advice from the HERO OF THE IMPERIUM himself. "When you put it like that, it seems much more reasonable. I say, I wish I had your spunk, but damn my aging body... yes, yes, I think reconnaissance before heading out would be a superb idea, would you care to lead it?"

There was a brief, almost imperceptible pause in the conversation when the Commissar heard the suggestion; if Edmund did not know better, he would have thought the man was scared.

"No problem at all," Cain replied gracefully. "Nothing would honor me more than personally ensuring the demise of our adversaries."

"Splendid, I'll have you assigned right away. Oh blast it, where's Darling?" Melchett shouted for his petty officer, who hurried to the table with a stack of papers clutched to his chest. "Darling, we'll need to get the Commissar attached to a recon unit right away. Who do we have on hand?"

Darling grinned maliciously as he caught Edmund's eye. "Isn't our Light Infantry regiment trained for this sort of thing, sir?"