The Liberator's Day Off Part 11

There was no way on the Emperor's Earth that I was going to manage to get Jurgen to stay home after he had woken up. Any good Commissar keeps the big picture in mind and knows when a battle is already lost. So I didn't even try. I did, however, change my particular plans to include Paverick and Rolan. Paverick, because I definitely needed a Techpriest to to be able to maintain the melta that was obviously housing not only Jurgen's soul but most of his consciousness as well.

And Rolan, because there was no way I was going to leave a squaddie behind with absolutely nothing to do now that he was no longer on medical orderly duty for an unconscious man. The only thing more destructive to a world than a chaos invasion is a single squaddie left to his own devices, as had learned from the Skippy Schwartz incident.

So I detailed Rolan to pack mule duty, loading his muscular frame with the majority of our supplies for a weeklong tour through a destroyed city. Despite the bulk of the pack, he shouldered it with ease.

By dint of the simple expedient of sending Rolan and Paverick off on errands, I created a small moment alone with my aide. I was still mindful that this was deep, deep in enemy territory, so I disguised what I was doing with a battery of mental tests designed to check memory. I had him identify several Tarot cards, name symbols, and colors and state the parts of an imperial longlas. Halfway through the standard checks, which he was passing with flying colors, I sprang the most important question. "Do you know who I am?" I asked quietly.

He looked me up and down, then said, even more quietly, "Commissar Fossick, sir." I nodded, then flashed him a card- an inverted inquisitor paired with the upright double eagle. It was one of the few innocuous-looking ways I had evolved to communicate with my aid over the past 50 years, a coded vocabulary that let me signal anything from 'more recaf please' to 'the Tau Ambassador is a genestealer.' In this case, an Imperial Truth card paired with The Liar. His own eyebrows raised. "Ciaphas Fossick," he said obediently, correctly interpreting the signal as 'same first name, new last name." It also answered my question as to what he'd heard while 'unconscious.'

"That's right." I encouraged him. "Ciaphas Fossick, Kastrean 73rd."

Between the cards, my show of concern for his mental state, and a few 'games,' I managed to brief him on the part he had to play for the foreseeable future. He would still be my aid, but for the most part, his job was to keep his mouth shut and shadow me. Rolan and Paverick already knew he was with me, and neither of them was inclined to care beyond that, but Jurgen and I roughed out a couple of backstories to use in case anybody from the Guard Expeditionary Force showed up and decided to question his origins. The simplest would be to pretend he was Lantonian of some flavor since the Guard wouldn't know better, or if the Lantonians caught on, he would be some anonymous offworlder caught up in the war and plucked from the rubble.

Ideally, though, in the chaos, the best outcome would be if nobody bothered to notice him at all. I will grant, I am a pretty showy specimen of humanity, and when the Emperor was handing out faces, he'd been sure to grant Jurgen a fairly unmemorable one. Ninety percent of that is showmanship and personality, and was confident that, even masked, Jurgen would fade in to the background of whatever stage I was gracing with my presence.

I ran my own memory back to what I'd told Paverick before intimidating her into letting me take command. All I'd told her was, 'he's my battle brother,' which gave me an idea. I signaled it to Jurgen, who flashed a rare grin before his face fell back into a pained frown.

Rolan and Paverick came back from their errands, and I prepped dinner and sat down with my crew. "So far," I began, "Our mission to Lentonia is a success. We have delivered the Panacea to the local authorities, who are distributing it with all due dispatch to every remaining soul in this world." I lifted a cup of recaf and saluted each of them. "Well done, all of you."

Rolan held his cup, looking more than a bit shamefaced. "No thanks to me." He muttered.

"None of that, specialist," I said crisply. "Your aid and support have been invaluable, especially in caring for Jurgen." I nodded. "They also serve, who stay and tend." I lowered my glass and peered at the man over it. "Something they teach you in officer school, specialist: competence in combat is a myth. The side that screws up the least wins." I raised my glass again, "On this day, ourside screwed up least. We won. Thus, the toast is Victory!"

This time, Rolan joined in the toast and drank with the rest of us.

I took care to draw them out, getting Rolan and Paverick to tell a few tales of the Kastrean 73rd before steering the conversation to Jurgen. "How long have you known the commissar?" Rolan asked curiously, getting into the spirit of things.

"Commissar Fossick?" He said, rather innocently. "only a days, now. We met on the battlefield. He cut quite an impressive figure with that chainsword. I rallied to him, we fought off a bunch of heretics, and" he shrugged. "I don't remember much after that."

Paverick wasn't slow on the inload. "That is logical." She nodded at me. "You were only separated from the rest of us in the Kastrean 73rd for less than a Martian day-cycle before we rediscovered each other."

"Really?" Rolan said, who *was* slow on the uptake. He looked at me, impressed. He opened his mouth, about to say something daft like 'I know you're not really commissar Fossick', then switched it to a small 'ow' as one of Paverick's mechadendrites surreptitiously nipped his ear. He rubbed it, then visibly thought over what he was going to say next. Eventually, he came out with, "I was...surprised that *you* took on a militiaman, sir." He frowned. "On Marsalax, you ordered us to leave the wounded and said to the Colonel that we had to consider the bigger picture and couldn't afford stragglers." He met my eyes as if he were about to beam information directly into my head. "You had me on discipline parade for pulling out the survivors of fourth squad, and the only reason I wasn't shot for disobeying orders was that the vox set had been damaged and I hadn't heard the orders."

"We had a different mission, then," I said, my stomach doing a little lurch as the explanation for Fossick had been unpopular enough for Rolan to personally knife was made plain at last. "Our objectives then demanded speed. This one demanded diplomacy, and making contact with a local was of paramount importance."

"This is a very different war." Rolan agreed. "They say war changes a man." He lifted his glass again. "Here's to change for the better."

We all solemnly raised our glasses again.

"I wouldn't know about it before," Jurgen said, nodding to me. "Glad to have met you, though. He makes an impression, doesn't he?" He stared around at the other two, who nodded in agreement. "I was about to get eaten by a mob of those shamblers who'd found my hideout before the commissar fought them off me." He arched an eyebrow at me. "We didn't really have much in the way of an introduction besides, "Hello, I'm Jurgen- shambler- DUCK!"

"Let's remedy that, shall we?" I handed him another cup. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Commissar Ciaphas Fossick, Kastrean 73rd. And you are?"

"Jurgen." He said, raising his glass in salute. "Tannaman Jurgen, journeyman trader of the diaspora Valhalla, at your service." He made a dour face. "This was only supposed to be a two-week stopover before I caught the next warp current out. Now..." he shook his head. "No ships coming. Not that I have any tanna to trade, Diasporans to trade with, or thrones to buy a ticket. The sector trade factor said finding Valhallan icicles melting in Lantonian heat and desperate for a taste of home was a longshot, and frak me if he wasn't right." Jurgen hunched. "I'm a bit in need of a new job if you'll have me. I did serve a hitch in the Diasporan convoy defense when I was apprenticing, so I know which end of a heavy weapon to point at the enemy."

I nodded soberly. "I do need an aide," I said, taking careful note that for the next little bit, Jurgen had a new first name. It wouldn't matter much to me, given that I hardly ever called him 'Ferik,' but if Tannaman he wanted to be, Tannaman, he'd be. It was a solid, common enough Valhallan name that was easy to remember.

Both Rolan and Paverick were watching, Paverick with the studious attention of a techpriest, and Rolan with a vaguely bewildered expression. "But-" The longlas specialist said, and Paverick blatted. "He's a tea caravaner, Rolan." she said, "I'll explain later, with words small enough for you."

"Yes, sis." He said, face clearing as the brains of their operation told him he didn't have to know or care since she would take care of any thinking. Paverick had certainly caught on to the fact that Jurgen was spinning a tale, but she was also bright enough to know why. I could hardly show up at the 73rd as Commissar Fossick with a deep, well-greased working relationship with an aide none of them had ever met before. Paverick would keep the story straight, at least, and Rolan would take all his cues from her. He did seem to catch on to the important bit, that 'Tannaman' Jurgen and I hadn't known each other long.

She did eye Jurgen with interest. "Though if you do retrieve your trade goods, the Mechanicus would give you a good price. As a tincture, it makes excellent chimera engine degreaser and field-expedient incense for cold-rated earthshaker machine spirits."

"Pretty sure the shamblers got to it all." He shook his head. "But that explains why you lot have been my best custom the last three worlds. T'other cogs wouldn't say why, though, which was a bit strange since most techpriests I know don't really go in for tasty things."

I gave a restrained smile at that. Jurgen and the Valhallan 12th had persuaded me to try tanna a few times, and calling it 'tasty' is a bit like calling a cesspit 'fragrant.'

Jurgen's fictitious backstory persuaded Paverick and Rolan to tell a few tales out of school themselves, with details about the Kastrean 73rd that I took care to tuck away in my growing mental folder labled 'Fossick.'

That settled, I ran a surreptitious test on Jurgen's mental facilities by detailing him to pack three-day packs for the rest of us. Jurgen had always been efficient to a fault, extremely detail-oriented, and usually managed to squirrel away at least one of everything we might need on a campaign, including some very odd items that nonetheless managed to get used some time on whatever campaign I was currently prosecuting. It was something I suspected involved a very slight psychic talent toward precognition. What with his new pariah status, I wasn't sure if that still applied, though I made a note of the spork, the three flasks of unflavored ploin, and several bundles of bandages that had clearly started life as a collection of feminine period supplies, a moot point since none of my party had uteruses. They were useful for soaking up copious amounts of blood, and with that realization, I sincerely hoped Jurgen's suspected talent for seeing the future was on the fritz and I wouldn't be needing them to plug leaking bodies.

Regardless of what what was happening to his psychic curse, he provided me with the usual thoughtful collection of supplies and gear that somehow included recaf located from the shrine in the staff room, despite the fact that I knew for a fact Parker hadn't initiated him to that particular rite. The kits also contained several varieties of bathtub panacea, and I tucked a few dozen into the pockets of my greatcoat for luck.

My party was in as good an order as we were going to get. I set my newly imperialized commissar cap at the most rakish angle I could manage and set off to meet Parker.

For his part, Parker seemed to think that his entourage consisted of nothing but servo skulls. There were at least twenty of the things, all bobbing, weaving, and generally swooping around like a flock of Slawkenberg pigeons, and he insisted on introducing me to every last one of them, with names, heroic histories, and tragic stories. I supposed it was one way to keep a memory alive, but frak me if being back in imperial space with imperial traditions wasn't a head-trip after years of Slawkenberg's deliberate rejection of its deathly iconography.

I took care to memorize the names, especially since as soon as he introduced them, the majority swooped off to form an outer perimeter. I did console myself with the idea that the bodies I was putting between myself and the firing line were already dead, for the most part, which was a slight moral improvement over my usual strategy of hiding behind living troops.

"What's the objective?" I asked.

"Boost morale, solidify logistics, contact any organization willing to put its hand up and second them to distribute panacea, and do a rough census, in that order," Peter said. "The plague is broken, and the central organizing force of the shamblers is dead, but I need to check to see who is still alive and kicking."

"What do you expect?" I said.

Parker shook his head. "The Bugle readership has been pretty steady, so if we go by circulation numbers anywhere from ten to twenty thousand. But a lot of folks receive papers, subscribe to a group, or buy one and pass it on. There are a lot of folks bunkered down...I hope." his voice turned grim. "I could hope for five times that number if I want to be optimistic. I don't expect it, really, but the only way to be sure is to go and see."

"An admirable plan." I nodded. "How many did Viasalix host before?"

Peter hunched his shoulders. "Millions," he said, his as rough as chewed gravel.

I nodded even more judiciously, my posture the picture of sober acknowledgment. Adumbria had been like this, and I didn't look forward to pulling out all those memories of rebuilding after a massacre and putting them to use, but at least I had them to draw upon. This was Parker's first go-around with a planetary-scale disaster.

Peter suddenly drew himself up straighter, like the princling he was in training to be. "This is a plague zone, and we will be following plague quarantine rules." He said, crisply. "Every surviving group on Lantonia has had a crash course in effective quarantining procedures, as well as detection of NurgRag infiltrators."

"When we get to a group of holdouts, you will wait at a safe distance while I initiate contact. I've contacted many of those we'll be visiting before. If the group signals acceptance, we will approach and follow whatever decontamination ritual or mental competency test they demand. Every group we approach will be entirely different, although any group worth approaching will follow more or less the same physical decontamination procedures. If, at any point, you notice something wrong with their decontamination process, or they refuse us entry, or if you just have a bad feeling about it, disengage. Mark it as questionable, and move on. We'll circle back with greater numbers and more time later to see if they're simply shy and cautious or a reservoir of contamination."

"If we do run across a major infestation, our job is to live to report it."

I straightened my spine and nodded. This was the most sensible speech that I'd heard come out of him yet, and to be quite honest, he rather endeared himself to me when he practically ordered me and mine to run away the instant we heard, saw, or breathed anything strange.

He rounded out the whole briefing with a prayer to the Emperor, then lead us down into the sewers.

It was a sensible, coherent, cautious plan, so of *course* it went completely ploin-shaped almost immediately.

The first couple of visits went off with barely a hitch, as they were small groups of survivors well-known to Parker and merely in need of a handshake, a buck-up, and a few vials of panacea.

It grew more complicated when we took to the tunnels. Parker charted a path through the undercity of Viasalix, and when the tunnels closed around us, I abruptly felt more at home than I had in decades. I'd grown up in an undercity much like this one, and the echoing noises were as good as an auspex to my dark-attuned senses. Parker set off at a rapid pace, but I kept up easily, at least until we encountered a giant, fissuring chasm that led down into echoing depths.

"That's...odd," I said.

Parker looked at me, his brow furrowing.

"How so?" He asked.

"This looks like a hivespire air chasm to the sump, but Viasalix isn't a hive city," I said. "This is an agriworld."

Parker looked at me, then shrugged. "The undercity goes on for miles, or miles deep, for all I know," he said. "I barely grasp the surface layer. Some of the folks we'll be visiting know a lot more, but the plague all started aboveground and centered around the nobleman's estates. The survivors are those who lived down here in the first place or those who fled here when the shambler hoards stormed through the city."

I studied the unlit gap before us, eyes staring into the chasm as if they could penetrate the dark. Parker glanced at me curiously, no doubt wondering if I had some sort of night vision goggles built into the mask I'd had Paverick make me. I did, though probably not in the exact sense uphivers and open-air folk always assumed.

What I had were working ears and a depth of experience which very few could match for the twisting spaces of the undercity. I clucked my tongue and listened as the echoes bounced around until they disappeared into a far, far distance. I couldn't tell you exactly what I was listening for; any more than an educated sprig of nobility could tell you where and when they'd learned to read. It was a skill I'd learned to survive in the underhive, probably before I'd learned to walk or even to talk and certainly before I had any conscious memory.

And the chasm...bothered me precisely because it felt so very, very familiar, almost like home.

Lantonia was an agriworld, and had no hive-spires. It certainly shouldn't have a shaft stretching for miles deep into the underhive dark. In any case, hives are built from the ground up, mounding up over the millennia into cermacrete mountains honeycombed with tunnels. Viasalix had been built on a fertile plain and wasn't notably higher than any of the surrounding landscape. Humans simply didn't start with a city and burrow *down* into the Earth for miles- at least, imperial humans didn't. In my persona as the liberator, I had become unwillingly aware of the vast constellation of variations of humanity that didn't fit the imperial or mechanicus stamp. Whatever the true nature of Viasalix, I sincerely hoped it would never become relevant to my survival or situation.

While I was contemplating the depths of my ignorance, Parker was contemplating how to cross the chasm, and he abruptly pulled my attention from my unknown surroundings to his solution to the problem.

Servoskulls whirled around him, flying in patterns as intricate and directed as the crack pilots of a cainwing squadron, and my mouth dropped open as they began shooting.

Not lasguns, but some long, white, ropy, sticky substance that clung to the roof of the chasm and hung down in great stringers. Parker took a running leap off the edge of the chasm, and I checked my abortive attempt to grab him before he committed suicide by sump-dive when it became obvious that all I would do would be to plunge to the depths afterward. But just as he was about to topple out of sight, equally white, stringy substances shot from his arms, and he started swinging across the ceiling as dexterously as a null-ball player in a zero-G arena.

I was right. A fellow that brought his own concealed collection of sticky tripwires and his own close air support would be absolutely brutal in a fight, and I patted myself on the back one again for an accurate threat assessment, even as I watched wtih appreciation he literally wove a rope bridge hanging from the ceiling in front of me.

It couldn't have taken five minutes altogether. It was clearly an expedient bridge, with a single rope to walk on, two higher ropes to use as handrails, and a bunch of v-shaped support lines to give the illusion that there was at least a *little* safety between you and a plunge into the depthless abyss. Parker himself didn't bother with the handrails, simply racing along the footrope as balanced as any circus performer. I began to wonder if Governor Worden hadn't been wrong about him being part Orgryn and instead wondered if he was part Eldar- specifically, part Harlequin- instead.

"This way." He said. "Step lively, now. I have to burn the bridge within ten minutes of putting it up, or the people we're visiting will stop assuming this is a friendly visit and start assuming an invasion."

He then crawled up one of the dangling ropes and proceeded to scuttle across the ceiling, his swarm of web-slinging servoskulls flocking along behind him.

That was enough to get me moving, to be sure, and the rest of my entourage followed along like the obedient ducklings all good subordinates are. It gave me a bit of a start when Parker's servoskulls started cutting down sections of the bridge behind us, but I also noticed a few shadows shifting on the other side of the chasm, as if beings on high alert had, very fractionally, started to relax, so I went with it.

There was a crew of four figures waiting at the end of the webbing bridge. They weren't blocking it precisely, but it was clear that these were guards at the gate.

I studied their figures, swathed as they were, head to toe, in protective gear, but even wrapped up like special delivery parcels, my eye still picked out a few notable differences from Imperial standard human. The three-fingered gloves. The football-shaped heads.

"Is that you, delivery boy?" One of them called.

"Sure is," Parker called back. "Is that you, sewerjacks?"

"Sure is." One of them called. "You bring the stuff?"

Parker tossed something to them, and one of them caught the box and opened it. "Pepperoni and waffle pizza." The figure closed the box with a snap, then made a sound like smacking lips. "You brought the good stuff. Must be important."

"Why yes. Yes it is." Parker somersaulted through the air to land lightly on his feet in front of them and waved an expansive gesture to my companions and me as we made us across the last of the webbing bridge and onto the solid germacrene ledge at the edge of the chasm.

I couldn't help but notice that I loomed at least a meter above the entire greeting party, just as I did above Parker. I also noticed how they moved, a mix of the utterly unselfconscious confidence and shyness that I had seen many, many times before. And, unless I was very, very careful, it always spelled disaster.

"Sir..." Specialist Rolan grunted in my ear. "Everyone here is a- "

I booted him in the shin with my heel, and he shut up on cue, right before the telltale whir of a mechadendrite hissed behind me as Paverick got her unvoiced opinion in that her brother should shut the frack up.

Parker had strode into the center of the gate guards, hands held high, and dove in into the group with all the enthusiasm of a bunch of puppy canids at play, I watched a complicated, entirely familiar ritual of hand-claps, fist bumps, elbows, and sound effects confirmed my fearful opinion. Juves.

Half-grown juves. Every last one.

"Ayy, Rafael!" Parker hooted. "Down low, too slow-" He was abruptly backslapped and giggled- "Zounds, you got fast!"

"Wait, 'll you see this-" Another aimed a slap at Parker's head, and he ducked, laughing even harder, "Whoosh-"

"Fast one, Donatello!" Parker's hand's moved in a blur, too fast for me to see, as he hand the biggest one, with the red stripes on his green protective gear, greeted eachother. "You still got it, Parker."

"You too, Mikey!"

"Oy, guys, grow up, cut it out!" The one with blue stripes grunted. "You going to introduce us to your friends, Pete?"

"Sure, Leo." Parker stopped arm-wrestling the one in orange with the big stick and straightened formally, waving his hand in an awkward parody of a nobleman's formal introduction. "Leonardo, fearless leader of the Turtles, and his band of brothers, Rafael, Donatello, Michelangelo, may I present the Commissar Ciaphas Fossick of the Kastrean 73rd, the Emperor's Messanger, and his entourage, aide Jurgen, Enginseer Paverick, and Specialist Rolan. Welcome to the old Municipal Sewage and Recycling Center, also known as...what are you calling it this week?"

"Eh, this week Peter and Wendy drew the short straw and are in charge." Leonardo shrugged.

"Also known as Neverland." Parker finished. "The Imperium comes with good news, which I will let Commissar Fossick deliver."

Their body language shifted into poses of pure doubt. "Really?" Leonardo stepped forward, obviously in charge, and the other three closed up behind him, even more obviously backing their leader. Leonardo looked at Peter, who nodded encouragingly.

"Good news indeed," I said as Parker threw me to the wolves. Or turtles, as the case may be. Well, I had the cure for that, at least, and another sharp lesson to the young ruler about the importance of actually doing his homework since he'd never bothered to inform me about his correct address. "As his worthiness, vice-potentate Peter Parker-Worden, heir to the governorship of steadfast Lentonia, has informed you, I do have messages and news to deliver to your leaders, much of it good."

All four of them stared at me, then, like an auspex tracking a particularly hostile incoming contact, all four of their heads swiveled to stare at Parker.

"Heir...to the Governorship?" Leonard stared.

"Well, yes-" Parker said, breaking off his glare at me to draw himself up in borrowed importance.

The one in red hooted. "Congratulations, your Worthiness!" he throws a sloppy salute before stifling what I assumed were giggles.

"Dang, you made good, Potentate Parker!" The one in good did an excellent job of sounding proud while muffling guffaws.

"Indeed," I said soberly and heavily. "Vice-Potentate Parker-Worden has spoken at length to me of your courage and diligence and stated that your steadfast resistance merited relief at the earliest possible moment."

The hilarity abruptly died as all four of them straightened.

"Yes." One of them said gruffly. "Is it true what the Bugle published? There's a cure for the plague?"

"Yes." I nodded. "And we are here to deliver it."

Leonardo nodded even more soberly. "Then." He bowed a formal gesture straight out of a martial arts picture. "Come. Be welcome, decontaminate, and we'll take you to our leaders."

The decontamination process was long, elaborate, thoroughly professional, and had to be done one by one, just in case any of us showed obvious signs of plague. None of us did, and we emerged onto a balcony over a large cavern. Hundreds of suited figures swarmed industriously below in a cavern lit yellow by luminators. Pools of poisonous-looking liquids and sludges of all colors burbled, flowed, or broiled, each venting vapors to hang low in the air.

We had emerged from the decontamination chambers so clean we squeaked, but I almost immediately felt my skin attempt to crawl as vapors from the plant below adhered to my greatcoat and protective gear.

Rolan, imperial bigot that he was, couldn't resist hissing in my ear, "Sir- look at that! They're- they're mutants!"

I eyed him with disfavor. "Tell me, inquisitor Rolan, can you show me the rosette that qualifies you to make such a determination?"

He stared at me, goggle-eyed. "It's obvious-"

"You're a longlas specialist." I cut in. "Have you trained with the abhuman auxiliary?"

"Yes, but-"

"The Emperor-blessed ratlings?"

"That's- what's different."

"It is not, and if it is, such a determination is far above your stipend grade, Trooper Rolan," I said. "Therefore, You will *not* hurl insults at our allies, our hosts, or any brave Lantonian here, especially when you've missed the most important detail of this little sortie. Vice-Potentate Parker, come down off the ceiling and refrain from strangling members of my entourage, please. I have them in hand. Specialist Rolan, go check on the status of Mechwright Paverick."

Parker dropped heavily at Trooper Rolan's side as the Guardsman saluted, turned on his heel, and fracked off to be his sister's problem for five minutes. Parker gave him an unfriendly glare before turning to face me.

"Your worthiness," I said, bowing.

"My Lord Commissar," He said with an equal bow.

"Merely a humble regimental commissar, your Worthiness," I reproached him mildly. "Lord Commissar is reserved for especially long-serving members. Which I am not."

He turned to face me, innocence in every line of his posture. "Oh, but when I was researching titles, I found that the title of 'Lord Commissar' can be earned by an act of conspicuous gallantry and bestowed by the duly constituted authorities of an imperial world." He said. "A duly constituted authority of which...let me check...I appear to be. I, Vice-Potentate Peter Parker-Worden, do declare you a Lord Commissar."

"As you say, your worthiness," I bowed formally. He *was* quick when sufficiently motivated. It was a petty enough vengeance, and I decided to let him win that round.

He looked at me, then said plaintively, "Your Worthiness? Vice-potentate? Did you *really* have to tell them that?"

I eyed him. "If you don't take command of your image and presentation, Vice-Potentate, others will do it for you. As you have just discovered. You had a full day to create something better, and you've been at war long enough to know the value of timing and time. I shrugged. "You didn't brief me otherwise, so I improvised."

He tried to stare at me, then sighed. "Message received."

I cocked an eye at him. "Is there anything else you would like to brief me about now that we are entirely within your allies' power?"

He eyed me back. "The people here have good reason to distrust folks like you."

"That's a good technique." I complimented him. "You're trying to direct my attention at the idea I just quashed with Specialist Rolan. The idea that you're concealing a collection of mutants. And you're doing it in order to redirect my attention from something far more dangerous." My usual technique of a knowing smile wouldn't work through a gas mask, so I got to practice the skill of tilting my head knowingly instead. "Tell me, your Worthiness. Is there anyone in this entire sewage plant over the age of fourteen?" I spared a brief prayer to whatever friendly Power might be listening to that particular guess that was wrong.

Parker stared at me. "A few." He admitted. "Not many." I could sense his eyes trying to bore into me through the blank lenses of his mask. "How did you know?"

"Experience," I grunted, solidifying my reputation as a wise know-it-all in Parker's eyes while internally cursing like the soldier I reluctantly was.

If there's one thing I hate most about the imperium, it's its nasty habit of using child slaves to run its industry. The only thing worse is its tendency to create child *soldiers,* and here I was, about to be neck-deep in a sewage plant filled with, and apparently run by, hundreds of both.

Problem #1: Frack frack frack-it-all fracking *frack.* There's nothing guaranteed to create more headaches than juvies, and here I was, face to face with an army of them.

Parker, being a child soldier himself, wasn't going to see anything wrong with the situation. And everything about it was oh so wrong. I wracked my brain to put my terror into words that sounded wise, heroic, and vaguely approving. It was the sort of things enslaved juves of all stripes had barely any experience with, but craved with all the fervor or those dying of thirst in a desert. I would, once AGAIN, have to thread the delicate balance of not appearing to be the sort of arrogant adult out to enslave them while not leaving myself open to being mobbed by frantic children desperate for anybody in the universe with a smidgeon of power who even appeared to give a damn.

I set my lips in a fatherly sort of smile, the better to convince the rest of my body to follow suit, while listing off the problems.

Problem #2: Frack oh frack oh frack, the most crucial installation in the city was in the hands of juves who probably only knew the strict rituals of cleansing their 'owners' had taught them, without any understanding of the principles behind *why* they were necessary. That meant things could stagger along for a few months, maybe even a few years, without an enginseer helming the operation, but it would be just my luck if there wasn't.

"I knew the approximate age of everyone here, because I have approximately twenty times the experience you lot can possibly have," I told Parker. "You said this was the most important stop on our itinerary, though you didn't mention why, but now that I know this is a sewage plant, anyone familiar with most imperial worlds would be able to take a good guess as to who was staffing it. And since the NurgRag plague took out servitors, and this place has been running without stop, that means it was always staffed with juvies. Am I correct in assuming this is where Viasalix gets most of its purified water?"

"No, we mostly draw from the reservoir, and people filter it themselves," Parker said. "I'll grant this place is the best at filtering water in bulk, but everyone is fairly self-sufficient."

I inhaled through my nose, praying to whoever was listening for patience with children. "You've been drinking from a reservoir in a city under attack by the god of the midden," I said, just be sure I had it straight. "And you're not all covered in boils."

"No..." Peter said, his voice trailing off into a question.

"The only way that would be possible," I said, gently, "Is if someone were filtering out an entire resovoir's worth of impurities and contamination nearly as fast as millions of shamblers and worse can dump it in. Someone, for example, in charge of a large, obviously active, obviously over-capacity, water treatment plant."

Parker was silent for a few minutes. "So..."

"So, your worthiness, you owe the lives of everyone in this city to the brave souls who have maintained this critical shrine," I said bluntly. "Without a plant of this size and capacity purifying the wastewater as quickly as the great Enemy could contaminate it, this city would have fallen in days, not in the months it so obviously took to reduce Viasalix to its current state."

Parker looked surprised. "Really?" He said.

Problem #3: Frack it all, he didn't know. More importantly, he didn't know what he didn't know, and neither, I was morally certain, did Governor Worden. Invesigative reporter though he might be, he was still upper crust, and what the upper crust knew about infrastructure could generally be inscribed on the head of a pin. Worden might have had a crash course, but clearly the course was still crashing down on us all.

"I take it you're a visitor and a messenger here rather than in charge here?" I asked.

"Yes." Peter nodded. "I deliver the Bugle, but these folks have never needed much apart from news. Apart from O'Neil, I'm the only Bugler they'll talk to, and April was born undercity, so she gets it here in ways I don't. She's the only one that can get across the chasm, apart from me."

I mentally cursed myself for not bullying Parker into *actually bringing an entourage.* "In my experience," I said, "It's useful to bring your critical people with you when rearranging the political landscape of a city so comprehensively. Why didn't you bring O'Neil?"

"Um..." Parker stammered, and Problem #4 revealed itself. I swear, if I could have seen his face, I just knew he would be blushing. Emperor on Earth, the kid had a crush and, like a lot of juvies, was actively avoiding the object of his affection. "Never mind," I said hastily.

This brings me to problem #5 with child armies: all the disadvantages of soldiers combined with the inexperience of puppies and the hormones of juves. I swore to myself if the guard were to arrive tomorrow I'd dump all this in their far, far more adult laps.

"Experience..." Parker mused. "My lord commissar, I would appreciate your advice based on your experience. What are you seeing?"

I nodded in all the adult approval I could muster, then walked him through it. "You said in our briefing that this is the biggest enclave of survivors outside the Bugle headquarters. I'm not surprised. To run a sewage and water treatment plant, you have to have at least basic quarantine and safety precautions, even if you're using enslaved labor. The work is dangerous, and the biology virulent enough that you don't want to have to buy and train a new collection of workers every week. So, you have to train them in the rites of purification. Some particularly wasteful traitors to Him-on-Earth don't do such training. When they do, they create an opening for the Great Enemy in their worlds. Someone was wise enough here to at least value skilled workers and train them to last more than a week. When your father's cousins all turned to treason, this was one place where a vast collection of people with all the skills to survive a plague would be collected, already practicing the rituals necessary for survival, because dealing with filth was their allotted task. And, when the plague hit hard, none of the noble ringleaders thought to gut the plant, because I doubt any of them gave a second thought to any of the slaves here. Nor," I eyed him. "Any one from the merchant class."

Peter shook his head. "No," He shook his head slowly. "We wouldn't have."

"So my guess is when the plague came, there were a few overseers tossed facedown in a composting pool, and you have one place already set up with the skills to ride out a plague of this magnitude." I let the lenses of my mask meet his. "Let me make it clear. The fact that anyone in Viasalix is still resisting the enemy is a miraculous testament to your courage and your resilience, and as far as I'm concerned, every juve here, still upright and breathing, has every right to call themselves a human and a hero of the imperium. They've still been doing the Emperor's purifying work in keeping this plant running, treating all the wastewater, and buying the time for the Imperial Guard to get here."

"Seems like a good guess." Parker nodded "That is certainly something they'll want to hear." Then his head snapped up, and he stared into the clouds hovering over the vast chamber. He sucked in his breath through his teeth. "Let me handle the next few minutes, Commissar." He said, holding his hand up and shading his years. "And, whatever you see, don't fight back."

This led directly to Problem #6: No matter how trained, traumatized, adultified, industrialized, and militarized, I was still dealing with a collection of frakking juves. And juves loved violently dramatic gestures.

Out of the clouds flew two figures, one vaguely masculine in green protective gear, one vaguely feminine in blue. They wore jump-packs, but I blessed my mask as it meant I didn't have to conceal the sudden thrill of horror I felt at the idea that I might be dealing with psykers. Logic reasserted itself. On a world this corrupted by a plague, reaching into the warp at all would result in the psyker doing it, erupting immediately into a festering pile of boils. They probably were using imperial technology, or they were so far round the bend that they'd come out the other side sane and in control of their powers, and I sincerely hoped for the former since Jurgen had informed me that the latter was one of the more unpleasant ways to grow up way too fast in this grimdark universe.

" Why, if it isn't the stickiest Peter, parking his butt on my balcony. Parker! Up high!"

"Up, up yours, Peter Pan!" Parker barked back, then sprang into the air. "Going High!" I watched five of his servo skulls materialize out of the fog in time for him to bounce off them like a ball and to arrow at the green Juve, his hand raised. They met with an explosive CRACK, slapping each other's palms with near bone-breaking force, and I shook my head, my fingers twitching in memory of the greetings of my own underhive ganger days. These pair of wannabees had nothing on the Sump Rats.

I shook away the recollection and paid attention as Parker shouted, "DOWN LOW!"

More skulls appeared, spraying that sticky webbing, and the juve in green laughed as Parker kicked him in the stomach and went diving toward the bottom of the cavern. A black shadow followed the green juve like a trailing cloak, then sped past the green boy to stretch out a shadowed black hand, which Parker slapped away. Then Parker, sliding on a strand of webbing I hadn't even seen him or a servoskull set up, bungeed to a halt before a burbling pool of bright green ooze. The shadow plunged past, narrowly dodging the surface, then disappeared into a puff of vapor. "Too slow!" Parker called, swinging lithely, then dodged the green boy before lofting himself back up to the balcony.

"Enough, boys." The girl in blue called. "Unless you want me to play."

"Hardly, Wendy, dear, my dear Miss Darling!" The one called Peter Pan caroled. Then Parker snorted, swinging from his rope, chipping in with, "Everyone knows girls play too rough."

"And don't you forget it." Her voice laughed like a Sororitas about to break someone's arm on a scrumball pitch, and she hefted something off her shoulder that resolved itself into a flamer wand. She waved it like a scepter, and I was suddenly in no doubt at all who ruled here. "Speaking of play, what are you playing at, bringing grown-ups here?"

"I'm playing at survival." Parker's voice was grim. "He knows things you need to know. Things we need to know."

"So did the overseers." Wendy snorted. "But they didn't share and paid the price of those who didn't bring enough for everybody." She looked me up and down. "Did you bring enough for everybody, grown-up?"

I squared my shoulders and projected my most confident demeanor. "Enough to cure every surviving Lantonian of the Great Enemy's plague?" I nodded. "Yes. Yes, we did."

"Hiding in your baggage?" she looked me up and down, noting my lack of things like boxes of injectors or phials.

"Hiding in my dataslate," I said. I gestured at my greatcoat. "May I?"

"Sure." She said, gesturing again with the wand. "One wrong move, though, and you'll fry."

I nodded, then slowly reached into an inner pocket. I even more slowly pulled out the dataslate, and held it out.

She let go of the flamer and took it, punching the activation rune.

The propaganda pict began to play. Wendy watched it, at first, with contempt, then growing interest, then the wand drooped as she grew fully involved in the story.

I made no move to distract her. Jurgen, as always, was doing a great job of being an invisible aide, part of the furniture, and Paverick, mechanicus that she was, simply locked herself into a standby cycle. Even Rolan impressed me, and I was suddenly certain he'd been made to stand at attention at more than his fair share of discipline parades.

As the final blare of trumpets faded away, Wendy tore herself away from the imperial dream of healing, hope, and a promised future. She regarded me levelly, then said, "You want to pitch in? Fine. We've got a problem. Since you're such an all-knowing grown-up, handle it. Follow me."

Parker whistled a jaunty tune. "We're following the leader, the leader, the leader, we're following the leader, wherever she may go..."

"And we won't be home till morning, till morning, till morning, we won't be home till morning because she told us so." Pan caroled.

Several other voices joined in, including those of Rafael, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Leonardo, in one of those annoying earworms that I just *knew* was going to live in my memory forever.

Wendy waved her wand imperiously and led us into the bowels of the plant. I waved my entourage to follow me, joined the parade, and followed the leader.

Three hours later, I was mentally blessing my talent for finding my way around the underhive. Wendy and her henchman Pan no doubt thought I was thoroughly lost, but there's no way I can get lost in a fracking underhive.

It was a tiny underhive, as these things go, and a tiny sump, but it was STILL a frakking underhive, and still a fracking sump, and the day I can't run rings around anyone in a sump is the day I get eaten by sump rats.

Although these sump rats were something else.

"Wendy!" A giant rat wearing something vaguely tartan materialized out of the fetid gloom, glaring at her, then turning his gaze at me. "And you!" He turned to glare at the Turtles. "What have I told you about humans?"

All four of them, in the sort of chorus only possible by bored juveniles mimicking their elders the galaxy across, repeated glumly, "Humans are the demon scum of the earth, avoid them, don't say hi, they lust to murder that which is different from them, to interact with them is to die."

"That's right, and don't you forget it." He snorted. "Wendy, why are they here?"

"Master Splinter, this one says he can pitch in with our problem," Wendy said.

"Oh? Really?" The giant sump rat snorted with even greater disdain as he spun on his heel and launched what looked to all the world like four Eldar Shuriken into the dark. "Did you tell him what our problem was?"

"No." Said Wendy, "But the Commissar says he can help. If he can, we win, and if he can't, he dies." She shrugged. "Hard to see a downside." She hit a rune, and a giant door swung slowly open to a scene of nightmare.

We'd reached the great pit of the sump, a vast hole that plunged into the Earth, filled with all the liquid slurry and detritus of civilization. We were at the lip of the pit, and a great cavern soared above it, hundreds of pipes sticking out of the roof to disgorge liquids of every type to plunge into whatever pool of filth festered in the depths.

In short, it was entirely normal, if a bit on the small side. What I was glaring at, with well well-concealed horror, was the pitched battle raging over the pit. Several humans with jump-packs, spears, and swords, and hundreds of servo skulls were all buzzing around the horrifying figure of a foetid bloat-drone. I looked for the guns, then realized, to my horror, that this pack of formerly enslaved juvies only had slingshots for ranged weapons. It was obvious they were barely keeping it contained, and the dreadful buzz of its insectile voice shook the great chamber. "Hello, little humans!" It guffawed. "I'm Superfly."

My stomach clenched in horror. Its great cannon swiveled, pulsating angrily, ready to launch a salvo of plague rounds straight at me. I knew at that moment I was dead, and its bulging, fly-faceted eyes gleamed as they knew, too. But then a miracle occurred. One of the combatants lassoed the cannon, and another dropped a round through one of its fans, causing the thing to sputter and drop and pulling the horrific cannon off-aim in a bravura display of skill and daring that I could never math in a thousand cowardly years.

But, speaking of cowardice...every eye that wasn't on the horrific abomination was focused on me. I knew, at that moment, if I took a single step backward if I looked as if I was about to flinch a single inch, I was dead. Parker, as the traitor who'd brought me here, would probably be next, as would Jurgen, Paverick, and Rolan, but the point was that I would be attempting to make my excuses to the golden throne or, worse, to Emeli, unless I, once again, played the fearless hero.

If the Emperor ever forgives my heresy, it'll be because of all the moments of amusement I've afforded him. Moments like this.

I unholstered my lasgun, drew my chainsword, and said calmly, "Rolan, if you, please. Take out its eyes."

Up to this point, Rolan, apart from that one understandable incident of homicidal stabbing, had followed my orders with the uncomplaining compliance of a guardsman who'd had every speck of insubordination knocked out of him by some martinet of a drill sergeant. This was the first time I'd ever heard him follow my orders with a will. "Yes, sir!" He said, with all the relish of a gourmand present with a banquet prepared by Krystobol's most famous Slaaneshi chef.

And I got to see why he was a longlas specialist. His first shot neatly potted one great, gleaming eye, blasting the red, multi-faceted globe into a geyser of glowing green goo. The Bloatdrone howled in outrage, its long proboscis shrieking obscenities and blandishments to 'join the side of the grandfather's love,' and 'we're all cousins of the ooze' at the hovering crowd of aerial infantry.

Peter Pan rocketed into the dogfight, shouting for several of the flyers to, insofar as I could understand a battle-language developed for aerial combat by mutant juves in an underhive, 'fall back'. Most of them obeyed, but one, either inexperienced, brave or just playing with three emperors short of a Tarot deck, dove for the other eye instead.

And I watched in horror as the soldier- the *child*- was batted out of the air and tumbled out of sight into the depths of the nearly bottomless pit of the sump.

I was out of range, and knew it, and in that moment, I didn't care. My arm raised smoothly, my hand and eye and laspistol an effortless extension of my will, and I put three rounds squarely into the bloat drone's other eye.

There were no more words in its shrieks of outrage, and the thing spun on its axis with pustulant, warp-tainted parodies of aircar fans, its clawed arms clacking, multiple mouths alternating between cruel laughs and raging howls. Its turn revealed a great big maw of a mouth, leaking bright green ooze from something that looked for all the world like a great sky-whale, while the toothed proboscis of its top mouth grinned at me in a promise of Nurgle's eternal damnation to come.

"Almost there." I heard Jurgen whisper, and my head snapped around in horror as I cursed myself. I'd forgotten, in my posing, that there was nothing guaranteed to get my aide to do something stupidly heroic than to harm a child in front of him. I had just enough time to close my eyes against the actinic glare of the melta as he took the shot.

A dry shock of dispair flooded my system as the world twisted around the dry, blank wrongness of Jurgen's aura, and I spun just in time to catch Jurgen before he fainted. I had no time to curse as I ejected the half-spent powerpack from his melta and jammed a new one in, mentally blessing myself for the paranoia that had stashed no less than three spare powerpacks in various pockets of my great for this exact eventuality.

The aura disappeared almost instantly. Jurgen still looked like porridge left out for a week and started to grow, but Rolan staggered to his feet, looking bewildered and stunned, his longlas wavering.

"Emperor's Bones, Rolan!" I swore I'd had to drop my laspistol in my scramble to reload Jurgen, but I waved my still active chainsword at the bloated thing bucketing its way through the air at us, half its lower mouth and one of its drive fans blown to oblivion by the melta. "Shoot it while it's wounded!"

I felt the warm, wet, rotting aura of the ruinous Power it channeled reaching out far in advance of its gelid carcass, as bad in its own way as the soulless wrongness that was Jurgen, but Rolan, good Guardsman that he was, obeyed the snap in my voice with the drilled reflex of a veteran. He began pouring fire back into it. I had no idea where my laspistol had gotten to and no time to find it before tons of rotting flesh impacted the ledge I was standing on. Peter Pan, for his part, was leading his sword-wielding crew into raking runs at the charging thing, but it was utterly fixated on the person that had wounded it so terribly. It loomed closer, it's single good eye glaring hatred at me.

"One more shot ought to do it." Jurgen said weakly, and I snapped, "Hold your fire," grabbing the muzzle of the melta. One more shot like that, and I was morally certain Jurgen would be dead.

Instead, I reached into another coat pocket, readying a little surprise I'd had Paverick cook up for me in my copious spare time.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I noted the bloat drone's trajectory. It wasn't going to ram into my party and crush us, as I'd initially feared. It had lost too much altitude for that.

Instead, it crashed into the side of the pit, no more than ten feet below the lip of the sump chasm. I scuffled forward, then stared down at it. It grinned up at me and began hauling itself up. "You can't stop me." It grunted, grinning with the effort of climbing the wall. "I'm superfly. Grandpa says I'm super, DUPER fly."

I tossed the item over the edge. "Superfly?" I said, my tone full of contempt.

Not for nothing did I have the best arm on the scrumball team. My aim was good as ever, and the glittering flask with the small explosive charge tumbled straight into the chasm of the beast's wounded eye. It burst with a satifying *chuff* of shattering glass.

And a flask of Panacea mixed with holy water blessed in the name of the Emperor-as-Omnissiah burst deep inside the unliving flesh of the beast.

"Super...fall," I said, staring down.

It lost its grip on the ledge, shrieking, beginning to fall in earnest.

Then it lost its grip on the Materium, its unliving flesh broiling away like bubbles in a cauldron, steaming and streaming its way back whatever hellstruck fold of the warp it dared to call home.

After the thing's deafening howls silenced as abruptly as a knife hitting a chopping block, the normal burble, bubble and roar of the liquid wastefall flowing into the sump pit seemed as silent as the depths of space.

Then I saw it. Its flight was limping, erratic, but something was coming up out of the sump. Again, I wished I hadn't dropped my laspistol, but I checked the impulse as soon as I realized what it was. It was the child that had been struck down earlier, limping towards safety.

"Pan!" I barked. "Your soldier- go get them!"

Pan looked at me, his face far, far older than his years, then shook his head. "He got touched by the chaos thing. His suit was ripped." He said. "He was dead the minute it hit."

I gritted my teeth. "Not today," I said. "It hasn't had enough time." I reached into my greatcoat, pulled out an injector, and tossed it to Pan. "You saw the pictcast. We have a panacea. Hit him with this, then haul his ass back out of that frakking pit and to whatever you have for a medicae. No one dies today!"

Pan looked past my shoulder, and I turned and saw Wendy. She, at least, had been doing something useful- prepped to blast the drone with a stream of fire from her flamer if it had gotten any closer. "Do it, Pan." She ordered, and the boy was off like a rocket. I tracked their progress and saw what Pan was talking about. The child had, indeed, gotten corrupted. It was obvious from the green slime leaking out of his eyes, the boils tracking their way like acne across the exposed flesh of his panting, feverish face. But Pan was an excellent flyer and, in one pass, had slammed the injector through the remains of the child's protective suit.

The child hung there, suspended in air, then blinked and shrieked like the damned. All in all, that was a good sign. Those corrupted by Nurgle hardly ever feel pain- the only 'gift' worth having that the grandfather ever gives, and once you're completely in his Power, he delights in taking it away.

Pan obviously thought the screams were a good sign, too, because he dove behind the screaming child, seized him from behind in a wirey bearhug, and flew them both up to the edge of the pit.

I stepped forward, pulling out another injector, just in case, but my head snapped around as another figure stepped toward me.

It was the rat. He looked me up and down, then snorted. "Well, Imperial human. You save my boys. You have my attention. We have much to discuss."

Author's note:

This story brought to you by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, a movie WELL worth watching.

Also, characters from Peter Pan by way of the musical Finding Neverland.

I very nearly made this chapter's dialog consist of nothing but quotes from my favorite musicals, but honestly, musicals don't translate well into prose and eventually I just wanted to fight a giant foeted bloat drone named 'Superfly' so that's what I made Cain do. You were spared dialog stitched together from 'Newsies,' 'Finding Neverland,' 'Hamilton', "Lil Abner" and 'The Music Man' You're welcome!

Unfortunately, next chapter, you will not be spared from my favorite musical of all time. Muahaha!