Necron Lord Cairo and the Valhallan 597th
As I arrived at the door of the mess hall, I couldn't help but vent my oral exhaust port in what a Human would call a sigh.
I have to admit, between the frantic preparations to evacuate both my Tomb World's Necron population and the group of Human colonizers who apparently took one look at the lifeless husk that was Interitus Prime and unilaterally declared 'What a great place to live!' before an incoming Tyranid Hive Fleet drowns us in an organic tidal wave of messy, nigh-instantaneous death, the wheeling and dealing with said colonists and the 'Techpriests' that had joined them that probably would have been hilarious to behold had I not been the one forced to engage in it, and the near-constant battles between the Necron forces under my command and the insane Destroyer Cults and Flayed Ones who seek to wipe me off the face of the galaxy for the high crime of acknowledging the fact that an alliance with these 'Imperials' is in the best interest of all parties involved, myself and the Tomb World under my command included, these past few days have been trying my patience. And this day was worse than usual.
First I had to abandon my troops to the command of Pariah Jurgen, my loyal second-in-command, so that I could pay a return visit to a sub-sect of Techpriests that has repeatedly proven themselves disruptive to our combined evacuation efforts and explain to them, again, that no, my Crypteks couldn't subject them to the lovely little process of Biotransference even if I was at all inclined to sabatoge our tenuous alliance with these humans by allowing such a thing to occur. Then that had been interrupted by an ambush from a Genestealer Cult, and the battle that had followed had inevitably segwayed into a hunt through the depths of the Arc Mechanicus Mechanical Perfection (don't get me started on the name, just don't) for the cult's headquarters.
And now this.
The room before me was a heaving mass of angry humans punching, kicking and flailing at one another, all semblance of discipline, culture, or even simple, basic pragmatism thrown to the winds. The fiercest fighting was going on in the centre of the room, which was occupied by a small knot of brawlers clearly intent on using lethal force unless someone intervened. And as usual, that 'someone' had to be me; apparently I'd been the first one to notice this, and I had to do everything I could to shore up the shaky truce I'd formed with these Humans.
Several flashes of green light erupted throughout the crowd as dozens of specialized Scarabs teleported into position at my command. An instant later, translucent walls of green energy erupted to life between them, neatly splitting the room in half, trapping the two sides in the rapidly-developing brawl on opposite sides of a hardlight barrier. With that done, I waited a moment for tempers to cool and the fight to leave the humans, spending it by giving them a look-over. No one was mortally injured, thankfully, though several would definitely be in the infirmary for at least a week.
I tapped into the noosphere connection of the Imperial combead I always carried. "Commissar Forres, I just caught your regiment getting into a brawl in the mess room."
There was a sigh on the other end of the combead. "Again?"
"This has happened before, hasn't it?" I asked.
AN: Another short omake, in which Cain is a Necron Lord who keeps getting dragged into shit he really doesn't want to have to deal with. His name is an Egyptian one, meaning "the strong" or "the victorious"; ironic, considering his preference for negotiation and compromise rather than the Necrons usual modus operandi of "kill all organics".
Naturally, Jurgen is a Pariah, an obscure Necron unit from 3rd edition. They're essentially a human with the Pariah Gene turned into a Necron, so of course Cairo's aide would be one.
Of course, that leaves the question of how to rope the Valhallan 597th into this. Hence the inclusion of Commissar Forres, a character plucked straight from canon who got assigned to the 597th in Cain's place. The reference to the 296th and 301st coming to blows 'again' is to the fact that this is the second time they've come to blows over a bunch of plates; Forres has been putting off merging the two units because she doesn't want her regiment to implode on her, which means that when the 296th's founding day rolled around, they made the exact same mistake the 301st did.