The Liberator's Day Off (Part 12)
Colonel Greydon of the Kastrean 73rd climbed down the ladder of the parapet, carefully wiping revenant putrescence from the bayonet of his lasgun. The walls would hold another day, he judged, and if nothing else went ploin-shaped on this accursed world they could hold out almost indefinitely.
The Kastrean 73rd had been shot out of the sky, bailed out in a combination of shuttles and life pods, crashed into a combat zone in the capital city, regrouped, pulled out, lost the better part of a company in the hurried retreat from Viasalix, and had forted up in the only other defensible city on this accursed planet with the remains of the better part of ten other regiments, fighting off mobs of mindless undead. Now they were guarding a mob of civilians, a tiny spaceport, and only remaining astropath on the planet, the one responsible for squalling out a distress call and updating sector command, and generally holding out as long as possible in the hope help would arrive.
All in all, he was having quite a fine war indeed, and a far better one than usual. If it hadn't been utter heresy, he would have given a thank-you to the heretics who had made it possible. For the first time in his twenty year career, he was free to prosecute a war without the benefit of a commissar, and, as he had expected, casualties had dropped, morale was through the roof, and he occasionally surprised troopers spontaneously breaking out into hymns of thanksgiving.
Even among the long list of homicidal redcaps, Commissar Fossick had been outstanding. His reign of petty terror had been responsible for more deaths in a few days of training maneuvers than many regiments suffered in a minor battle, and there wasn't a man in the regiment, Greydon included, who hadn't been lashed for some minor uniform infraction. He would be replaced by some other frackwitted martinet in a red sash soon enough, or they would all be overrun by heretics, but for now the war was turning into as near to a vacation as one could ever get in the Imperial Guard.
Major Lawvel, his second-in-command, hustled up to his side, a dispatch case tucked under one arm and a curious mix of hope and trepidation writ across his face.
Greydon raised an eyebrow. "News?" He asked.
"A ship's made orbit." He panted. "Rogue Trader. They claim to have heard our call and came to render assistance. We're to hold the shuttle pad clear of enemies while they land."
Greydon frowned fiercely while he contemplated that news. On the one hand, Rogue Traders were, nominally at least, imperial. But they were also traders, and their help always came with a price.
Then again, it was a price Greydon was unlikely to pay. In all likelihood, the trader would pull out the guard units and stuff them in his holds like a particularly interesting piece of archeotech, then hold on to them until the Munitorium coughed up a 'transport fee' that would be a ransom in all but name. Trained Guard regiments weren't something the imperium lightly discarded, despite the depredations of commissars.
The Rogue Traders would also probably stuff his lower decks with all the untainted citizens of this city he could grab, to live out their lives as belowdecks serfs or outright slaves, but on a world as obviously lost to the Emperor as this one, it would be a (slightly) kinder fate than being dismembered by the hideous undead monstrosities here. In any case, they wouldn't be his problem, and if there was one lesson Colonel Greydon had taken care to learn, it was not to promote his problems past his pay grade.
He had enough problems of his own. Lord General Custerd his entire staff had been casualties of the void battle, and when the dust had settled, Colonel Greydon had been, by virtue of five days seniority, the highest ranking guard officer on the entire planet, and therefore de-facto commander of the entire expeditionary force.
He snorted. "Well, let's roll out the red carpet." He said. "Redeploy our hydras to cover the shuttleport, and give his lordship clearance to land." He paused contemplatively. "Which Rogue Trader has chosen to grace us with his presence?"
"Lord Commander Sigan, sir." Colonel Lawvel reported. "Of the Triumph."
"Mmm." Greydon wracked his brains to try and recall if he'd ever heard of a 'Lord Commander Sigan' or a ship called the Triumph, but the doings of the Navy had been far above his head and far outside his interest, and nobody with the requisite experience had survived to advise him.
In theory, he did have someone in charge of the wider picture- a commissar from the Nusquam First and Only, a newly founded regiment from a world devoured by tyranids with a commissar barely out of the schola. He hadn't heard anything particularly bad about her, which, troopers being troopers, meant that she'd clearly made herself invisible enough that he'd barely heard anything about her at all.
He snorted. Despite their vaunted power of considering 'the wider picture', Greydon thought the odds of a galaxy where a commissar might actually have something useful to say were about as likely as catching an Ork doing needlepoint. He discarded the thought of consulting her, and mentally prepared himself to meet Lord Commander Sigan.
The shuttle came screaming out of the atmosphere to land with the hard SMACK of a pilot knowing he was landing in an active combat zone and skipping every civilized nicety such as 'reverse thrusters' and 'full flaps' because of it. Greydon winced and nodded with approval at the pilot's caution. There wouldn't be a single arse aboard that shuttle that didn't feel solidly kicked right about now.
The landing ramp clunked down, and Greydon concealed a blink of dismay as the diminutive Lord Commander marched down the ramp in a swirl of elaborate brown and silver robes, his entourage of guards dogging his heels. Greydon had dealt with Ratlings before, fighting beside the abhuman auxilla, but he'd never before seen one rejoicing in any sort of nobleman's title, much less as a rogue trader. And, despite his obvious ratling nature, it was clear from his body language, the way his subordinate deferred to him, and the sheer force of his personality that the ratling was ruler here.
Then again, rogue traders were law unto themselves. That's what rogue meant. Colonel Greydon drew himself stiffly to attention as the little lord marched straight at him and drew to a halt.
"I am Lord Captain Sigan." The lord rapped out in a nobleman's drawl. "Are you in charge here?"
Greydon nodded stiffly. "Yes, Lord Captain." He saluted. "Colonel Greydon, commander of the Lentonian expeditionary force."
The little lord's grey eyes narrowed. "How severe were your losses, and where is Lord General Custerd?"
"Losses were severe. Effectively, we have three regiments up to fighting strength, and I consolidated the remains of five more into a half-strength reserve regiment. An additional three regiments were lost in their entirety in the void battle, and Lord General Custerd is dead, sir."
"I see." The grey eyes grew briefly cold, then stared straight up into Greydon's. "I am pleased to see survivors and organized resistance, Colonel. Given the nature of the astropatic messages, I did not expect so many. Well done."
Despite the absurdity of being complimented by an obvious abhuman mutant, Graydon felt his spine stiffen at the well-deserved praise. It *had* been well done, and he knew it.
The little Lord Commander smiled mirthlessly. "And, of course, the traditional reward for a job well done is another job. We have much to discuss."
—
Greydon had poached a local shopping center for the regimental headquarters of the Kastrean 73rd, and not a particularly elegant one, either. He led the trader to his staff room in the back of an expropriated manicurist's storefront, corralled a few staff and watched with interest as the rogue trader declined to turn up his nose at the cheep decor in favor of getting down to business with an almost guardsmanlike efficiency.
"In your professional opinion, what is the state of affairs on Lantonia?" Lord Commander Sigan asked.
"This world is lost." Colonel Graydon said bluntly. "It is overrun with revenants, its government is destroyed, and this city is the only remaining outpost of the Emperor's light. We have no orbital infrastructure left, no satellites, and that means no vox contact with other cities, even if there are any untainted civilians left alive. Given the virulence of the revenant plague, I doubt there is anyone left on Lentonia."
"And you have any recommendations for what the Imperium should do about it, Colonel?"
"We should withdraw immediately, my lord Captain." Colonel Greydon said unhesitatingly. "We can save the citizens of this city, and the troops we have remaining. But there is nothing more to win here. We do not have sufficient forces to be able to break out."
The little rogue trader nodded soberly. "What is the status of the rest of Lentonia?"
"I have no way of knowing that." Colonel Grayden said. "All of the orbital infrastructure has been completely destroyed. Even if there are any free imperial citizens remaining alive elsewhere on the planet, we have no way of contacting them, no way of defending them from the invasion, and no way of determining if they are healthy or if they are concealing more plague."
"I see." Said the Lord Commander, nodding. "Then we need to begin coordinating an evacuation of this city." He punched a few buttons on a data slate, then spun it across the table to colonel Greyson. "I assume you've had evacuation plans drawn up. Use this to make whatever adjustments you need to your plan, and be prepared to initiate an evacuation as soon as possible."
Colonel Grade picked up the data slate and noticed that it had a breakdown of the carrying capacity of the ship and the number of shuttles it boasted. It looked like it would be a tight squeeze, but it was possible to fit most of the remaining citizenry into the berthing spaces of the ship.
Then the rogue trader nodded at his entourage and at Greydon's gathered officers.
"If I might have a word with you in private, Colonel," the Lord Commander phrased it as a request, but Colonel Greydon knew an order when he heard one.
Greydon nodded. "Come to my office." He invited.
Grayden's office was a small affair, containing nothing but a couple of chairs, a cheap desk, and as large a recaf dispenser as he could loot from fanciest bean emporium in the city.
He poured himself a cup, and offered one to the rogue trader.
The little Lord Commander accepted with a nod of thanks. The trader hopped up on a chair, then sat himself on the edge of Graydon's desk, somehow managing to imbue it with the grandeur of a command throne.
"How may I assist you, my lord?"
"It's my lord inquisitor, Colonel." Said the Commander, holding up his palm. The inquisitorial electoo flashed into visibility. "And you can help me figure out what in the Emperor's name is going on on Lentonia."
Greydon felt like he had been hit by an entire bucket of ice water. "…my lord inquisitor, what's going on is it's overrun by revenants.
"Yes," said the inquisitor, sipping at his recaff appreciatively. "But when I arrived, I did not expect to find you alive, much less successfully defending an entire city. So tell me, Colonel Greydon, why are you still alive?"
Colonel Greydon paled, and his mouth worked soundlessly. Then he gritted his teeth.
"We're alive because we fought the revenant hoards. We've been fighting them for weeks."
The inquisitor stared at him narrowly. "And how did you fight off the demons?" He asked in a falsely pleasant voice.
Colonel Greydon blinked, "Demons?"
"Yes." The inquisitor said. "The Demons."
"Demons…are a myth." Colonel Greydon said with as much calm as he could muster.
The inquisitor stared him for a long time. Colonel Greydon felt as if the eyes were boring straight into his mind.
At length, the inquisitor nodded. "You're not lying to me. You haven't seen any demons."
"Because demons don't exist!" Colonel Graydon burst out. His head ached like he hadn't had a recaff in days.
"We do make a good deal of effort to make sure that everybody thinks that." The inquisitor agreed. "People don't go looking for what they don't think exists. But those who rule must know what threats the imperium faces. And as commander of the expeditionary force, Lord General Grayden, there are things you must know."
"Lord…General?" Colonel Grayden said cautiously. "I'm a Colonel."
"Not if you successfully salvage three and a half regiments from a nascent Demon world," The inquisitor took another delicate sip of recaff. "Welcome to high command, my lord General. If you survive the next few days, I can assure you, the Militarium will ratify your promotion."
The Inquisitor waved the dismissive hand.
"But that's not important right now. What's important is that for some reason, this world is overrun by a mindless zombie hoard, instead of becoming the haven for every warp-spawned monstrosity in the sector. Every single tarot card reader, every psyker, any remotely psychically sensitive human, and even a few interfering elder farseers has been shrieking about it for weeks. But…something here has stopped a full bore demon incursion in its tracks, and it is vital to the imperium that we find out why."
Colonel Greydon swallowed. "And what do you need from me, my lord inquisitor?"
"Every single scrap of intelligence you can provide for my analysts." The inquisitor sipped recaff again. "Your best forward recon squad that you can manage to scrape together."
"That will be fourth squad, second platoon, third company, Kastrean 73rd." Colonel Grayden said instantly- the place he'd stashed every competent screwball he'd needed to protect from incompetent disciplinarian of Commissar Fossick. Some troopers were too good to throw to the redcaps. On paper, they couldn't find their asses with both hands, and spent their entire Guard careers digging latrines. In practice…
"And yourself, of course. I do hope you're comfortable leading from the front."
The man who had spent the better part of the day on the walls, encouraging his troops and fighting off revenants personally with a bayonet, nodded.
"Reasonably comfortable," he said dryly.
"And now, my Lord General," the inquisitor said. "Pass whatever orders you need to start coordinating the city's evacuation. Then…I'm going to have to give you a bit of a briefing on Demons."
Several hours later, Lord General Grayden, his mind reeling and stuffed with all the horrors of the warp, did his best to not stagger out of his office.
The fifteen cups of recaf currently zooming through his system were helping a lot more than he'd like to admit.
—
The only thing worse than going hand-to-hand with a demon with nothing but a chainsword its getting shot in the back with a lasgun while doing it.
I had cause to be extremely grateful for my freshly discovered carapace armor, and the fact that the Lentonia had gotten increasingly better at manufacturing panacea in the couple of weeks I had been galavanting around with them.
Still, getting shot in the back with a lasgun is never a fun experience. The whole point of any lasweapon is that it punches fist-size craters of burning energy into whatever the bolts strike, and the lasbolt essentially explodes the matter it hits into superheated steam. Including a notably large chunk of my shoulder blade.
Now, much it was absorbed by my carapace armor, and what got through almost immediately started healing due to copious amounts of panacea I had started swigging like a hip flask of amasec, but it still knocked me flat on my face at the most inopportune moment.
The demon's spiked tail went hissing far too closely over my head while I shrieked in pain, anger, and no little amount of terror, my chain sword skittering from my grasp as the bolt burned into my shoulder.
I had gotten clever over the decades I'd been using a chainsword, so I had attached the hilt to my wrist by a short cord. It wasn't a very strong cord, since the last thing I wanted was to have myself yanked off balance by my own weapon if it got caught again on tyranid chitin. It was designed to break if you put any amount of force on it, but it did allow me to quickly recapture the damned thing if I was ever so incautious as to drop it. Like now.
Still screaming, I rolled onto my blasted back, and stabbed upward at the thing's legs while a flurry of las bolts hit the demon.
The demon's bulk protected me from the fullisade, and I scrambled behind one meaty calf, while my combead exploded in a blizzard of profanity.
Specailist Rolan had an impressive command of invective, and I heard him swearing that he'd shoot the head off the next Kastrean squaddie who shot into melee and hit the commissar.
The fire abruptly slackened, leaving the demon undistracted and it turned its attention to me. I swore soundlessly myself, and stabbed upward, revving the chainsword's speed selector to full and eviscerating it.
The gaping crater in my back had stolen my voice, but I signaled in battle sign to open fire again and ducked.
The demon didn't so much as die as come apart in a shower of extremely disgusting viscera, most of which gloooped all over me as I fell back down. I lay still, not bothering to get up while there were frakwits with weapons able and willing to punch holes in me.
Instead, I panted in pain as a completely different fight broke out over rapidly my healing body.
Specialist Rolan tried to keep it private, he really did, I do admit.
He turned off my combead channel and tried to open a private channel with the new arrivals who had shot me, and it probably would have worked if I had actually been Commissar Fossick.
Unfortunately for him, I was the exceedingly paranoid commander of a heretical hundred-planet empire, and I knew how to jigger commissarial overrides with a few heretek modifications to give me access to ANY comnet.
I listened with interest as Specialist Rolan threatened to jam the longlas sights up the sphincters of the next squaddie who committed a 'friendly fire.' I admit, I didn't quite understand what he said next, but I could infer well enough that Rolan had busted out a few Kastrean in-jokes and secret squaddie jargon that boiled down to explaining that now was seriously not the time to frag his commissar.
This was exactly the scenario I had shipped myself off Slawkenberg to avoid. I'd be willing to bet that if anyone ever did an honest count, more commissars died like this than actually in battle.
I wished I'd brought along anyone but Rolan, but I'd decided to find myself a nice little sideshow to sit out another major battle we'd managed to trigger during Vice-Potentate Parker's progress across Viasalix. The vice-potentate had been steadily growing into his own, and good thing too, because the goddamned sewers kept swarming with demons. Still, the Lentonians were steadily becoming a well organized army with a coherent system of logistics, and as such there was no need for me to go pick a fight with every eldritch horror lurking in the sewers of this city.
Anyway, in the interests of avoiding the major battle, I'd peeled off to chase one of the less dangerous ones, calling for Rolan to follow me. I'd persuaded Jurgen, at least, to stay out of it, so he wouldn't be tempted to fire his melta, something I was rapidly coming to regret. Rolan stopped his diatribe to glance over at me, checking to make sure I was still alive. I waved limply, wondering if I could get away with malingering or if I would actually have to get up and take some sort of command of this frack-up.
My chest heaved, and I felt the uncomfortable sensation of blood leaking into my lungs as the panacea fought with the lascrater.
The panacea would win eventually, but Rolan seemed to be handling it and honestly what's the point of training subordinates to be competent if you can't let them do their thing when your chest is blown apart?
Anyway, Rolan seemed to have things well in hand, and I inferred from the various vox codes and utterly unfamiliar voices that the Imperials had, finally, managed to show up.
Which was a good thing, in that having an imperial regiment around meant that at least there was a some way off this godawful planet.
On the other hand, judging from Rolan's diatribe, it was the Kastrean 73rd, and based on his tone and what he wasn't, *quite* saying on the comnet, was that one of them had immediately seen me and shot me.
"Kastreans, attention!"
An older, far more mature voice broke in, and Rolan shut up with parade ground suddenness. Then Rolan snapped to attention.
"Colonel Greydon, sir!"
Rolan's tone was odd, the sort of relief at seeing a familiar authority that he didn't actually despise, mixed with…well, mixed with the thought of having to explain to that superior what in Terra's name was going on.
That was a question I honestly wanted to answer myself. This was the third demon incursion this week. It was as predictable ans it was annnoying, given that the reason they were coming out of the woodwork was that Parker and I had located an open webway portal in the sump, one that was obviously also connected to the warp. So we'd siezed it, and just like that an host of demons had come crawling out of the hive depths to take it back.
The strange thing was that they hadn't succeeded. They were acting more like wild animals than the clever, utterly inimical beings I knew them to be. They reminded me of tyranids without a synapse creature, which as good because otherwise Viasalix would have been overrun weeks ago.
"Glad to see you, specialist." the one called Colonel Graydon said.
I would wonder why a colonel was out and about leading what was quite obviously a small squad, but here I was, a 'commissar' in command of exactly one guardsman and stabbing demons, so who was I to throw stones?
"Now, specialist, would you do me the courtesy of explaining what in the Emperor's name is going on?"
"Well, Sir," Rolan said, "Commissar Fossick and I are hunting sewer demons."
"Sewer demons?" He asked sharply, emphasizing the 'S.' "More than one demon?"
I couldn't exactly see Colonel Graydon, but I could practially feel the lifted eyebrows radiating through the vox link.
"Yes, sir. This was the last breakaway from the roundup." Rolan reported.
"Seems you've kept usefully occupied," The Colonel drawled."Mind if we join the hunt?"
"Sir…that would be for Commissar Fossick to say." Rolan said, "I've been offically seconded to the Commissariat. I'll have to ask Commissar Fossick."
There was a brief pause, and Colonol Greydon muttered, "Well. I see miracles do happen."
I took this as my cue to sit up. There's a trick to looming while flat on your butt, and being the liberator, I'd gotten a lot of experience intimidating people while sitting on a variety of chairs that my people resolutely refused to refer to as thrones.
I tucked my boots crosslegged on the rubble, balanced my chainsword across my thighs, and struck my most sinister pose while trying not to wheeze as my rapidly knitting shoulder itched and stitched itself back together.
I nodded at the Colonel. "Specialist Rolan has done well." I said hoarsely. "A credit to the Kastrean 73rd.
"Really? Sounds like quite the adventure." Colonel Graydon walked forward, and extended a hand. I gripped his wrist, and heaved myself to my feet. This was the moment, I thought.
This was when weeks of picking Specialist Rolan's brains, chatting up Mechwright Paverick, and doing my best to polish up my Commissar Fossick persona, was finally going to be put to the test.
I opened my mouth, and the world went dark as the little ratling dogging Colonel Graydon's heel shot me with a digital weapon.
—-
I do not enjoy waking up naked.
I do not enjoy sitting in an interrogation room without a clue where I was, how I'd gotten there, and who had done it. I do not enjoy being tied next to an equally naked specialist Rolan, who still drooped, unconcious, in his bonds.
I certainly did not enjoy being drugged to the eyeballs by a ratling.
"Who are you?" The ratling asked.
I glared. "Your death!" I hissed. "How DARE you lay a hand on a member of the Commissariat?" I raved. "Where's my hat? Where's my *SASH?* Where's my UNIFORM? You have no authority to detain me while I'm on duty-"
"Actually, commissar," the Ratling's eyes gleamed as he opened his palm and flashed the inquisitorial electoo, "You'll find that I *do.*"
"The INQUISITION?" My eyes bugged out of my head, and I just *knew* that the next few questions would involve things like 'my name' and 'my rank' and all sorts of little details that would hang me from the rafters, so I had to act fast.
There's a trick to dealing with truth drugs pulsing through your system, and that trick is to get your story out first, before your interrogator siezes control of the situation.
"WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU FRACKWITS BEEN THE PAST THREE MONTHS?" I shouted.
I entertained myself for the next several minutes bawling out the Inquisition for being late off the mark while providing all sorts of useful information about what I knew about the Lentonian demon infestation, Lentonian society, and the strategic and tactical possibilities of Lentonia in particular. There's an art to lying your ass off for your entire life, and an extremely important component of that is to stick strictly to the truth, and specifically the parts of the truth that supported whatever image I was projecting. I'd played this game with Emeli dozens of times and I knew how to say what an interested listener wanted to hear.
The inquisitor cocked his head and listened with close attention, and, more power to him, he didn't seem the least bit put out as I insulted his tactics, his strategic timing, his competence, and his obvious lack of actionable intelligence.
Still, after twenty minutes of this, my terror began was moderating into a far more dangerous sense of irritation as I listened to myself describing instances of imperial incompetence and was beginning to feel genuinely offended by the waste of it all. It was a good thing the panacea was doing a number on the drugs, so I was beginning to regain my capacity to lie, but letting this ratling of an inquisitor know that didn't seem like it would work for my long-term prospects.
Still, I was not enjoying myself at all.
But just as the inquisitor opened his mouth to ask a few questions of his own…let's say I *greatly* enjoyed what happened next.
Because what happened next was Jurgen.
Now, usually my aide solves my problems by shooting them or psychically exploding their heads with extreme prejudice, and I, who have far less excuse than most, tend to forget how diligent he is as an administrative aide, how many different contingencies he's prepared for, and what breath and depth of knowledge he has aquired after fifty years of trailing in my wake.
So even I gaped in complete surprise when he barged into the interrogation room, flashed an inquisitorial electoo in the palm of his hand, and demanded that the inquisitor unhand his entourage and that the Ordo Malleus keep it's frakking nose out of an Ordo Hereticus investigation.
I confess, I'd rather forgotten how many weird inquisition artifacts, assassination teams, and general screwiness Jurgen and I had dealt with in the last fifty years, and I'd forgotten that the Borg had figured out the authorization and identification protocols of the inquisition. To be fair to myself, that's what I have aides for, and I'll be damned if Jurgen didn't come through yet again.
"You tell him, Inquisitor Tannaman!" I encouraged, and Jurgen snapped, "Quiet, commissar." I shut up, and enjoyed the spectacle of my aide in what was so obviously his natural habitat: a protocol fight.
I confess, I have no idea what points of etiquette and protocol my aide brought to bear in the battle between the Ordo Malleus ratling who had kidnapped me and the Ordo Hereticus inquisitor he was pretending to be, but it was incredibly obvious he was winning. It was a thing of beauty and efficiency, and after sneering his way through several points of order, he won back me, then won me back my uniform, my hat, my sash, and my guardsman Rolan faster than I could have if I'd managed to challenge the inquisitor to a fair game of strip tarot.
Less than an hour later, in a completely predictable turn of events for anyone who really knows Jurgen, he'd arranged everyone with terrifyingly brisk efficiency to point all their efforts and focus in the correct direction: at the demons.
"So." Inquisitor Sigan said rather grumpily. "We are in agreement. This world *should* be overrun by demons. It isn't. Rather, it is, but the demons are barely shadows of themselves."
"Demons aren't really my area." 'Inquisitor Tannaman' said the lie so completely straight-faced that I felt a thrill of surprise at the discovery that Jurgen could, if needed, lie as well as I could. "But the quantity of them is rather odd."
"It means there's an open portal to the warp." Inquisitor Sigan said grimly. "And they're coming through."
Jurgen turned his head towards Inquisitor Sigan. "I assume you have some method of closing it."
The inquisitor nodded. "If I can get close enough. And if I can find the damned thing."
Jurgen rolled his eyes. "We found it two weeks ago. We haven't let any new demons through, but the ones already here are a bit….irritated and keep trying to take it back."
Inquisitor Sigan bolted to his feet. "Take me there. Now!"
"So nice to see a colleague with a sense of urgency, when they're not kidnapping my people." Jurgen said coldly. "Let's go, then."
I rose to my feet, reaching for my chainsword, but to my surprise Jurgen waved an imperious hand. "Stay and coordinate with the Kastrean 73rd, Commissar. That's guard business." He favored the other inquisitor with a mirthless simile. "This a duty for the inquisition."
My stomach clenched oddly, and I felt…bereft, as Jurgen went off to face a deadly danger without me. Then I shook myself, cursing myself for a fool. I was a coward. Jurgen was jumping into danger, and I could, for once, stay behind sipping recaff and figuring out how I was going to get Paverick to forgive me for getting my uniform entirely soaked with demon guts.
Then I eyed Colonel Grayden and the Kastrean 73rd, and sighed. Close a demon portal, or deal with a regiment who had introduced themselves to me by nearly killing me. Twice.
I straightened my hat, and went to charm the boots off the Kastrean 73rd.
—
"Don't bullshit me, Rolan." Sergeant Colon said. "Who the hell is that?"
Longlas Specialist Rolan sighed. He'd been having variations of this conversation with every member of the squad Colonel Greydon had brought with him for the past three days.
"You know how they say war changes a man?" Rolan said. "Sometimes it's for the better."
"Nothing can change Fragbait Fossick for the better." The sergeant said grimly. "That is not Fossick. He says 'thank you' when you bring him recaff. He fights on the front line. He pushed Specialist Stronginthearm under cover during that tunnel fight. He even bothered to learn trooper Nobb's first name! Whatever that is, that's not Fossick!"
Specialist Rolan loosened his shoulders. "Inquisitor Tannaman says it is." He said, quietly. " And what the inquisition says, goes."
Sergeant Colon frowned. "War changes a man, eh?"
"And, speaking of how war changes a man-" Rolan wet his lips, then passed a copy of a Lentonian newspaper to the sergeant- the one featuring the commissar and the bloody knife. "I took my stab a couple months back, and I'm lucky Commissar Fossick's such a new man, these days. Forgiving, even."
The sergeant looked confused, and Rolan decided to spell it out for him. "He grew a brand new heart, Sergent. I don't think anyone could frag him now if they tried. So it's a good thing war changes a man, sergeant. We could do worse. Copy?"
They both contemplated the idea of commissars, and the idea of worse.
"Could be worse." The sergeant repeated. "Copy that. I'll pass the word."