War had come to Slawkenberg.
Since the day of the Uprising, all had lived with the knowledge that this would happen eventually. Although none regretted their defiance, they knew that the Imperium would come to punish them for daring to rebel against its tyranny. Some had hoped that day would yet be years in the future, but all had prepared for it in one way or another, while trusting in the Liberation Council to see them through when the hour came.
And now, that hour had arrived.
Inquisitor Karamazov's message had been broadcast unencrypted on all frequencies his ship was capable of reaching, and the systems of the Pyroclast Retribution were far more advanced than all but the sacred technology that had gone into the construction of the world's underwater generators. Every person on the planet knew exactly what grim fate awaited them should the Imperium defeat the Liberation Council. After generations under the rule of the Giorbas, Karamazov's threats of doom and slavery had been exactly what they had expected from an Inquisitor, who were well known to be the greatest of the Imperium's tools of terror and oppression.
If the Giorbas' enforcers were the monsters that took people in the night (or in broad daylight, they had never been shy about their atrocities), the Inquisitors were figures of terrifying myth, said to burn entire planets rather than allow a single so-called 'heretic' to live – and anyone who didn't do exactly as the Imperium ordered was a heretic in their eyes.
Yet if Karamazov had thought to break the resolve of Slawkenberg's defenders, then the madman was badly mistaken, for the people did not let fear control them. Nor, now that they knew from experience that the Imperium's cruel enforcers could be fought and defeated, did they let anger consume them and push them into making mistakes. The Liberator had made his own speech in response to the rabid Inquisitor's, and the two could not have been more different. Cain's calm and collected words, despite the fact that he had more reasons to despite the Imperium and fear their victory than most on Slawkenberg, had cooled fiery tempers and hardened them into steely resolve.
Instead of giving in to their emotions, the citizens drew strength from them, and did all they could to help in the defense of their world. In the weapon factories, workers redoubled their efforts, determined not to let a single piece of equipment make its way to the United Slawkenberg Army that wasn't up to their Borg managers' exacting standards. As the settlements closest to the Imperial landing zone were evacuated, civilians opened their homes to the refugees, sharing what little they had even as the Council ensured there were enough supplies to meet everybody's basic needs. The new cults that had sprouted without the Ecclesiarchy's smothering shadow led folks into prayer, calling upon the Powers they worshipped for aid. And from all over Slawkenberg, the forces of the USA moved toward the enemy, their hearts burning with the fire of determination.
Having tasted freedom, they vowed that their world would not return to the dark days of being slaves to the Imperium's tyranny.
As I entered the freshly-constructed bunker, I did my best to conceal my relief at getting out of the cold. The fortified structure wasn't much to look at, but it did provide protection from the winter winds raging outside. At my side, Jurgen appeared completely unconcerned by the temperature, but then he was a Valhallan, and despite having left his icy homeworld years ago, his body was still used to much harsher climates.
"Colonel Ygdal," I greeted the dark-skinned man who was the commander-in-chief of the USA forces in the area.
We'd met before : he was one of the former PDF officers who had turned to Khorne when their disgruntlement at the way things were done on Slawkenberg had turned into full-blown rebellious intent. Looking at him now, it was clear that he'd put himself through the same insane training regimen I'd intended to sabotage the USA : despite me being taller than him by no insignificant margin, I was fairly certain he outweighed me through sheer muscle mass.
"Lord Liberator," he responded, giving me a crisp salute that was imitated by everyone else in the command bunker. "Mister Jurgen," he added with a nod to my aide. "Welcome to the frontline, such as it is."
I made a show of looking around approvingly. The command bunker was bare, made of prefabricated ferrocrete blocks slammed into position, much like most of the fortifications that had been erected around the Imperial expedition's landing zone. My gaze briefly stopped on the incongruous sight of a pan decorated with flowers resting atop a small stove – doubtless a gift from some civilian in one of the nearby villages that had been evacuated.
"You've done well to set things up so quickly," I told Ygdal, and he preened at the compliment like a juvie being handed a new blunted sword on Emperor's Day. "Are there any news from our uninvited guests ?"
"None, sir," he replied with a dry smile at my admittedly weak joke. "They're staying put in their hole, just like you predicted they would. Not that they could break through if they tried !"
"Of course, of course," I said with all the appearances of sincerity.
After Karamazov's speech, I had made a planet wide broadcast of my own, spouting off some platitudes about how, by working together, we could repel the Imperial task force and keep our freedom (and our lives, most importantly my own). It'd gone over rather well, but then it was either believe it or accept the inevitability of our doom, and given the choice between those options most people will hold on to hope until the very end. At the time, my only goal had been to keep people from panicking, as I could all too easily imagine a mob dragging me and the rest of the Council out to hand us over to the Inquisitor in exchange for clemency – or, even worse, turn to the cults and go off the deep end with human sacrifices in the hope the Dark Gods would save them.
Now that I'd time to relax and think about Karamazov's speech, I'd realized there'd been more going on than had seemed obvious at first glance. As I'd said in the war room, the Imperials' choice of landing ground didn't make sense if their goal was to liberate the planet. And if something was obvious to me, then whoever was in charge of the Imperial expedition (Karamazov might be its nominal leader, but I doubted he was anything more than a figurehead doubling as advisor in heretical matters to the actual military commanders) must know it to.
Clearly, the Inquisitor had been deliberately provocative, in order to make us charge into unfavourable terrain, and slaughter as many USA soldiers as possible before moving out to reclaim the rest of the planet once the back of the USA had been broken, along with the morale of the rebels. I had to admit that it made sense : I myself had been taught that heretics often had a complete disregard for their lives as well as proper tactics. Which was only logical, since such people were stupid enough to turn from the Emperor in the first place.
Of course, the Uprising had shown that Slawkenberg's own brand of heretics had a bit more sense than average, but Karamazov was operating on limited information, and I had no doubt such a scheme would have worked perfectly well in most cases, and probably had before in the Inquisitor's career. I myself had a share of responsibility there, since General Mahlone had been fully prepared to launch a mass assault on the mountain redoubt of the Imperial forces before I'd pointed out the obvious dangers of such a course of action, back when I'd still been reeling from Karamazov's threats and searching for a way out like a slum-rat in a collapsed hab-block.
So, instead of braving the small, perilous mountain paths leading to the resort, the USA had set up a containment zone in the plains at the foot of the mountains, creating a buffer between the Imperial forces and the civilian population. The inhabitants of the closest settlements had been relocated, and the USA had dug in, finally putting to use some of the training I'd designed for them thinking weeks spent shovelling dirt would demoralize them.
It had been two weeks since then, and as the mild fall turned to winter and temperatures in the northern hemisphere plummeted, neither army made a move. Technically, time was on the side of the Liberation Council, as every day that passed meant more weapons being sent from the factories to the troops in training, which meant more bodies to put between me and the Inquisition. Of course, it also meant that the Imperium's own reinforcements were drawing closer as well, but there was nothing I could do about it, so I'd put it firmly out of my mind to avoid going mad with terror.
Once I'd understood what Karamazov's real plan was, I had considered trying to get the USA to attack anyway, but while I might have managed to convince them it would work thanks to my fraudulent reputation, the resulting casualties were unlikely to completely wipe them out. And then I would be left with thousands of cultists of Khorne very angry at me. Besides, they would most likely expect me to lead such an insane attack from the front, and having looked at the map and auspex imagery from our crafts in orbit, I wanted nothing to do with such a suicidal attempt.
"Will you visit the men in the trenches ?" asked Ygdal. "Your presence would greatly help their morale."
I wanted to do nothing of the sort, of course, as the thought of leaving the bunker and trudging back out into the cold didn't really appeal to me. Unfortunately, I didn't have much of a choice. The entire reason for my presence here was to support the troops, after all, and convince everyone on the planet that I was taking the situation seriously and doing everything I could to keep them safe (which, in a roundabout way, was true, as they would be safer back under Imperial rule than with the heretics of the Liberation Council in charge) and free (which most certainly wasn't true, as I'd have handed the planet back to the Imperium in a heartbeat if I could do so without losing my life, but they didn't need to know that).
Besides, as I've said, the Imperials hadn't made a move since they'd finished their deployment, so I was confident the greatest danger I'd have to face was catching a cold or slipping on a patch of mud and making a fool of myself in front of the grunts.
I was, of course, wrong.
Things started off well enough. We drove behind the line of trenches and hastily-built fortifications in a military vehicle along with Colonel Ygdal and a handful of hanger-ons : Jurgen and I had arrived to the front using one of several refurbished air-cars that had previously belonged to the Governor. We stopped several times, and Ygdal guided me through the trenches, the soldiers left awe-struck by the sight of the Liberator walking among them. I shook hands with a few random troopers and spouted a few platitudes, drawing upon my commissarial training (though I did make some adjustments to take my audience's allegiance into account).
Eventually, after several hours of this, we reached the end of the line, where it met the rising hills that eventually turned into mountains. Then, suddenly, the vox was filled with alarmed voices. I was wearing my own comm-bead into my ear, which was programmed to give me access to every channel used by the USA.
"The Imperials are attacking !" someone was shouting.
"What ?" I whispered, before speaking louder : "This is Cain speaking," and the gaggle of voices suddenly fell silent. As far as I knew, there was no one else with my family name on Slawkenberg, and in any case they'd probably recognized my voice from all those broadcasts I'd made. "How did they get their vehicles down the mountain ?!"
"They … they didn't, lord. We're only seeing infantry at the moment."
Grabbing a pair of binoculars from a startled trooper, I zoomed in on the mountain's base. Hundreds, thousands of Guardsmen in thick winter cloaks I immediately recognized as Valhallans were charging straight through the plains and toward us. Somehow, the Guardsmen had made it down the mountain by using the handful of trails leading up to the resort, none of which had been used in over a century.
I swept my gaze across the front, searching for tanks and transports, but found nothing. This really looked like an unsupported infantry charge on prepared enemy positions, but who would be stupid enough to try something like this ?
"All troops," said Ygdal next to me, his voice calm and collected, his words sent throughout the entire defensive line, "fire at will. For Slawkenberg !"
"For Slawkenberg !" roared the soldiers all around me, and I joined them by reflex.
What followed was an utter carnage, as the USA tore through the Guardsmen as they charged at us over an open plain devoid of cover, unable even to truly mass their numbers for a push since they were trickling onto the battlefield from the narrow paths. Machine guns reapt entire squads at once, yet still the Imperials kept running.
Occasionally, a las-bolt from the charging Imperials hit a USA soldier, but even those lucky shots failed to penetrate the carapace armor every frontline trooper had been assigned. The borg factories had produced tons and tons of armaplas, enough to equip entire battalions with it once the hereteks had figured out how to replicate the armor taken from the Giorbas' elite enforcers. I had taken the precaution of bringing the custom-made suit the borgs had sent me, wearing it under my modified uniform.
Realizing that I needed to give the image of helping, I drew the overly decorated bolt pistol of the late and unlamented Governor, and fired vaguely in the direction of the enemy. To my shock, my first shell struck a Sentinel that had miraculously made it down the mountains (as far as I could see, the only one to have successfully done so, and I wondered how many others had been lost trying to make the descent) into the knee, penetrating a weak spot in its armored joint before detonating. The bipedal walker toppled at once, and cheers rose from all around me at the sight, the defenders redoubling their efforts.
"Nice shot, sir," said Jurgen from where he stood a pace behind me. I could have strangled him; and I might've, if not for the knowledge that he could tear me to pieces with a thought.
"Thank you, Jurgen," I said instead.
"Would you like me to help, sir ?" he proposed. I made a show of considering his offer before shaking my head.
"Better save your strength for when it is needed," I told him.
The true reason for my decision, of course, was that while Jurgen had been in full control of his abilities thus far, I had been taught that one of a Commissar's duties was to keep an eye on any psyker assigned to their regiment, and be prepared to grant them the Emperor's Mercy if they succumbed to the nameless horrors that dwelled in the Warp. Given how the battle was progressing, there didn't seem to be any need for that kind of risk when I was so close to him.
Especially as, a few moments later, the USA's artillery began to fire for effect. The old Slawkenberg PDF hadn't had a lot of artillery at its disposal : if I remembered the archives I had read correctly, the Giorbas hadn't wanted to risk damaging the scenery the off-worlders saw from their windows. The few existing pieces had been in appalling condition from lack of proper maintenance, but the borgs had managed to repair them and build some new ones – they didn't have the schematics for those either, but according to Tesilon-Kappa, figuring out how to build a big cannon really wasn't that complicated compared to maintaining millennia-old generators. Even so, the artillery of the USA was far inferior to that available to a typical Imperial Guard unit.
But some artillery was still better than no artillery, and the latter was what the Imperials were getting. A rain of shells fell, called by the spotters scattered throughout the line, and thousands of Guardsmen were reduced to pieces as the ground was churned into bloody mud. Within minutes, the sporadic las-fire aimed at our defensive positions completely stopped.
"Cease fire," I heard someone say. A moment later, I realized it had been me. Why I did something so foolish I will never know, but I didn't have time to ponder, as Colonel Ygdal stared at me as if I had just suggested we replace all las-guns in the USA with flowers.
"Lord Liberator ?"
"Cease fire !" I searched for an excuse he would accept, and thankfully I found one. I gestured grandly at the devastation, forcing my face into a frustrated expression. "There is no honor in this, Colonel. Do you think these soldiers are running to their death of their own accord ?"
His eyes widened. "You're right, lord Cain. My apologies." He started repeating my order to stop pummelling the defenceless Imperial troopers into paste, and I relaxed slightly – whatever conclusion he'd drawn from my hastily improvised justification, it had satisfied him for now.
Moments later, the artillery barrage stopped all across the defensive line, and an unnatural stillness descended upon the ruined landscape in front of us, troubled only by the distant moans of wounded Guardsmen.
"Send medics in there with escorts," I ordered. "We need intelligence on the enemy."
"At once, lord."
Soon, parties of soldiers emerged from the trenches and moved through the ravaged landscape, picking up wounded Guardsmen. I listened in on the vox, but it seemed the Imperial soldiers were too shell-shocked to think of firing at the people ostensibly coming to their aid. Whether this was because they wanted to live or because the crimson-clad soldiers cut quite the intimidating figure, I didn't know.
"Lord Liberator," a fellow in red robes that I immediately identified as one of the borgs attached to the USA said, walking close to me. "We have managed to break the enemy encryption."
"You have ? Great job." It really was : if just anyone could break into the vox transmissions of the Imperial Guard, it would make nearly the entire Tactica Imperialis obsolete. Once again, the borgs' efficiency surprised me, but right now I couldn't feel angry about it : I needed to know just what the frak was going on. "What can you tell me about the situation ? Do you know why they just charged our guns ?"
"No, lord," he (or she, there wasn't enough of their flesh left for me to be sure) said, shaking their head. "There is a lot of shouting over the lines, and getting a clear picture is difficult." Well, that wasn't exactly surprising, given the utter slaughter they had just suffered. "We do know that the officer in charge is one Commander Chenkov, however."
"Chenkov," I repeated, as the coin finally dropped. "Kubrik Chenkov ? Commander of the Valhallan 18th Infantry Regiment ?"
"Unknown. But the Valhallan 18th have been identified as part of this ill-advised assault."
"Then it definitely is him," I muttered to myself. It all made sense now.
"You know this man ?" asked Ygdal with a sharp look in my direction.
Oh yes, I did. I'd had never met him, thank the Throne, but I had most definitely heard of him. Kubrik Chenkov's story had been used as something of an object lesson by my tutors at the Schola, once I'd been selected as a future Commissar.
Chenkov was the commanding officer of the Valhallan 18th Regiment, nicknamed the 'Tundra Wolves', a name that sounded far more intimidating than the reality, which was that the 18th Infantry Regiment of Valhalla was one of the largest Regiments in the Imperium, a concentration of manpower any tactician worth the name could use to great effect. Unfortunately, Chenkov was no great tactician – in fact, he wasn't any kind of tactician at all.
At the overly-gloriously named Siege of Kotrax, Chenkov had taken overall command through intimidation, and then ordered the Guardsmen to charge straight at an enemy stronghold held by only a few hundred rebels, without any artillery or aerial support. The Valhallan Commander had personally executed dozens of his own men who had protested the insane order, though that number was only a drop in the bucket compared to the absolute carnage that had ensued.
As it turned out, and to the surprise of absolutely nobody except Chenkov, ordering massed charges of infantry against strong defensive positions didn't work. Over ten million soldiers had died as a result of that insanity, achieving precisely nothing beyond water the earth of Kotrax with their blood, and all while Chenkov himself had remained far, far behind the frontline, sipping hot recaf while his men were slaughtered by what I suspected had been very confused heretics, wondering what they done for their Dark Gods to reward them with such a tactical windfall.
Fortunately for Chenkov, a strike team of the Raven Guard had infiltrated the stronghold while its defenders were scratching their heads at his stupidity, and managed to detonate its ammunition stores, before departing the planet without fanfare, called to yet another battlefield. In a frankly astonishing display of bravado, Chenkov had claimed the explosion was the result of the men he'd sent to die managing to breach the fortress and forcing the enemy to self-destruct in an attempt to spite the Imperium. His report had also grossly inflated the strength of the opposition they'd faced, the small stronghold becoming a towering fortress manned by tens of thousands of the rebels' best troops, whose destruction had crippled the planetary rebellion and led to Imperial victory on Kotrax.
Because Chenkov was a member of one of Valhalla's most established lineages, his version of events hadn't been questioned until he had received the Merit of the High Lords and been put in charge of a reconstituted regiment. The event had clearly taught him nothing, and he'd continued to send wave after wave of men to die in every campaign he'd been involved with afterwards, always staying far from the danger himself. It was well known that his bolt pistol had killed a great many more of his own men than the enemy. Segmentum propaganda had played into the legend as well, using Chenkov to prop up the impression that the Imperial Guard could crush any foe through the sheer might of Humanity's numbers, and the brave sacrifice of the heroic (yet forever unnamed) children of Valhalla who had the misfortune to be put under Chenkov's command.
By the time the truth of what had happened on Kotrax had been uncovered, it was too late. My tutors had presented the whole thing as an example of the importance of keeping the bigger picture in mind when it came to maintaining morale, of how compromises were sometimes necessary, and of the fact that the Commissariat was often privy to information that had to be kept under wraps. According to regulations, Chenkov should have been shot long ago, but politics and the greater needs of the Imperium had placed him beyond the Commissariat's reach … for the moment. From what I had picked up, Chenkov's execution had only been delayed. The Commissariat took a dim view of anyone in the Imperial Army killing troopers while not wearing a crimson sash.
Of course, the main lesson I had taken from it all had been to make damn sure not to ever end up anywhere near that maniac. There were worse choices Karamazov could have picked up to lead his task force, but not many.
I briefly summed up all of this to the colonel, who naturally took it as confirmation of his belief that all Imperial commanders were incompetent, inbred lunatics who spent the lives of their men like bullets from an autocannon in the hands of an over-enthusiastic ogryn. I considered telling him that men like Chenkov were the exception rather than the rule, but thought better of it.
After all, I wanted the rebellion to fail when faced with a competent and reasonable Imperial response. And underestimating your enemy was always a good way to get your arse kicked, as I'd shown many a fellow juvie on the scrumball pitch.
Karamazov's choice of military commander made it clear that this expedition wouldn't be the one to bring Slawkenberg back into the Imperium's embrace. I may not think much of the USA's chances against a properly trained, equipped, and led Imperial force, but Chenkov's stupidity was worth an entire Titan Legio to the opposite side.
"My lord," said a voice in my comm-bead, cutting through my thoughts on a frequency reserved for urgent broadcasts (which immediately made my palms tingle). "This is observer post Gamma-Twelve. We're seeing movement : the Imperials are preparing for another assault."
"What ?" I exclaimed before I could stop myself. "Are you sure ? No, nevermind." He wouldn't have contacted me personally if he wasn't. "Do you know what they are planning ?"
"As far as we can tell from their transmissions, the exact same thing as before. We are hearing a lot of noise about how the troopers' faith in the Emperor was lacking in the first attack."
I felt genuinely appalled. I wouldn't pretend to care about the lives of the soldiers of Slawkenberg beyond their use as meat shields to protect my own hide, but this wasn't just wasteful, it was grotesque. The first wave had the advantage of surprise at the very least : did Chenkov think he could win by throwing Guardsmen at us until we ran out of ammo ? The USA leadership was made up of a bunch of Khorne worshippers and even they wouldn't be that callous.
"Evacuate the prisoners to the back of the line," I ordered. "See if you can find people among them willing to vox their comrades and tell them that if they surrender, we'll treat their lives with more care than their commanding officer."
Against most Imperial Guard forces, such a ploy would've been useless : even had the faith of the troopers been so weak, it would be the job of their Commissars to shoot anyone who looked like they wanted to take the offer. But this was Chenkov's Regiment, whose soldiers had been slaughtered time and again due to their leader's incompetence, only to be replenished with yet more bolter fodder from Valhalla. I had a feeling these soldiers would feel very differently, and the 18th hadn't had Commissars since Kotrax. When the next Imperial task force arrived, I wanted them to see that we had taken prisoners instead of slaughtering the wounded in a mass sacrifice to the Dark Gods.
"It will be done, Lord Liberator," saluted Ygdal. "Where will you be ?"
I looked around, searching for a way out. I didn't want to stay on the defensive line : I would be expected to lead from the front again, and despite the overwhelming advantage of the USA in this fight, all it would take was one lucky shot and I would be explaining myself to the Emperor in person.
I looked at the detailed map of the area I had pulled up on my dataslate, and something caught my eye.
"Jurgen," I called out to my aide before pointing at the map, "do you think you could get us here without drawing attention ?"
He hummed thoughtfully to himself for a few seconds before nodding. I turned to look at the soldiers around us :
"I need a squad of volunteers," I told them, immediately getting the attention of every trooper in the vicinity. "We are going to do some reconnaissance-in-force in the mountains : I want to know just what the hell they think they are doing."
With Jurgen's assistance, we were easily able to navigate the trek through the steadily growing hills, leaving the diminishing sounds of battle behind us. The journey brought to mind what had happened with Drogiro Giorba, but the soldiers had gone through enough training to be able to march without causing another landslide, and I let myself think that maybe I had gotten away with it this time.
I felt pretty good about my made-up 'mission'. The location I had selected was just far enough from our lines that I would look suitably heroic for venturing forth, while also being out of the way of the paths the Valhallans were taking as they hurled themselves in front of our guns. And I would have a squad of troopers with me, so any stragglers (or, more likely, smart soldiers trying to avoid the butchery) would be easily dealt with.
So of course, it turned out Chenkov himself was already there when we arrived, along with a full score of his best (or, given his predilections, most sociopathic) men. I would have given the order to hide, but the soldiers were wearing bright red carapace armor, which didn't exactly suit itself to camouflage. Within seconds, we were taking cover behind snow-covered piles of rock as a flurry of las-bolts slammed into them.
"Incredible," breathed the sergeant of the squad accompanying me and Jurgen. "How did you know he was there, sir ?"
"I didn't know for sure," I answered him truthfully enough, mentally cursing myself, Chenkov, and the Dark Gods. The smart move would be to withdraw and call in an artillery strike, but I doubted Chenkov would stay in place long enough for that once we left. The man might not exactly have impressed me with the depth of his intellect so far, but he clearly had a good survival instinct to have lived through his many frak-ups. Also, running away wouldn't do my reputation any favor.
So I resigned myself to the inevitable and turned to my aide. "Jurgen, if you would ?"
"Of course, sir," he replied, showing no more concern than if I'd asked him to refill my amasec glass.
He stepped out of cover, immediately drawing fire, but the las-bolts that hit him pinged uselessly against his own set of carapace armor. The air filled with the smell of ozone, and my skin crawled with static energy as he called upon the unnatural powers that had brought him to the attention of the traffickers who'd kidnapped him on Valhalla.
I felt a pressure on my skull, growing and growing, like a headache on the verge of becoming a migraine but not quite committing to it. Around me, the USA troopers groaned in pain, but held their ground, either out of fear of being shot if they moved or, more likely, looking weak in front of their comrades, not to mention their glorious Liberator.
As for myself, I had been present when Emeli had been transfigured into a daemon. This, while unpleasant, was nothing in comparison, and I bore it stoically, absently noting yet more awed looks in my direction from the troopers as I did so.
After a few seconds, Jurgen had finished charging up, and unleashed his attack. Out of morbid curiosity (and the whispering thought that I might need to go up against him myself one day and should learn all I could about his abilities), I took a look, and had to keep my emotions from showing on my face at the sight.
The first five Guardsmen to die simply burst apart as if a grenade had exploded inside their stomach. The las-fire stopped at once as the survivors froze in place – then half of them weren't survivors anymore, as their necks twisted three hundred and sixty degrees on their axis with a series of sickening crunches. The seven remaining soldiers started to scream in mixed shock and horror, before Jurgen clapped his hands in front of him, and their skulls were crushed as if by the fist of an invisible Ogryn.
The whole thing had taken less than a couple of heartbeats (and my heart was beating rather fast at the moment). Jurgen turned to look at me with an expectant look on his face, and I was incongruously reminded of a dog looking up at his master after performing a trick and waiting for a treat.
"Well done, Jurgen," I said weakly. Fortunately, he didn't seem to notice, and I turned my attention back on the carnage he'd wrought, a flicker of motion drawing my eyes.
To my surprise, Chenkov was still alive. He had stayed behind his troopers as they fired at us, and must have stayed out of Jurgen's focus that way (or perhaps my aide had deliberately spared him for one reason or another).
He was, quite understandably, running for his life, the path he and his cohorts had taken to reach the small plateau. But much as I might empathize with his desire to preserve his life, I didn't feel particularly generous towards him at the moment. I could forgive him coming to Slawkenberg : he was Imperial Guard, and following orders. I could forgive being part of an operation that sought to kill me : I had taken part in a rebellion against the Golden Throne, whatever the circumstances might have been. But the sheer wasteful incompetence with which he had prosecuted this campaign had ruined my chances of carefully orchestrating the rebellion's defeat and Slawkenberg's return to the Imperium from behind the scenes.
Also, I had sworn an oath to fulfill my duties as a member of the Commissariat, and if there ever was an Imperial officer deserving of a Commissar's attention, it was Kubrik Chenkov.
So I drew my bolt pistol, carefully took aim, and shot him in the back. I had never been the best shot of my class, and preferred a las-pistol to the heavier weapon I was now stuck with for image reasons. But Chenkov was less than thirty meters away in the open and running in a straight line (which was one more sign the man had never seen actual combat). If I couldn't make a shot like this, my instructors would never have let me graduate.
My shot flew true, and the Commander of the Tundra Wolves went down in a shower of gore as it detonated, tearing through his uniform and most of his torso. Conscious of the eyes of the troopers on me and of the need to keep playing up to their image of me, I stalked through the snow toward the corpse and turned it over with my boot. His face was frozen in a death-mask of terror, and I felt a shiver running down my spine at the sight that had nothing to do with the cold.
I felt a strange coldness within me that had nothing to do with the freezing temperature. This was the first time I'd deliberately killed a member of the Imperial Guard myself. As a future Commissar, I had known that day would come long before Emeli had dragged me into this mess, even though I fully intended to do it as little as possible in order to avoid painting a target on my back in the eyes of the soldiers whose morale I would've been responsible for. And, as I've said, if ever there was someone who deserved to be shot by a Commissar, it was Chenkov. The man was to blame for the deaths of millions of soldiers of the Emperor and had completely avoided taking responsibility for it.
Yet still, looking into his dead eyes, I felt … something. Maybe the souls of the Guardsmen who had died at Kotrax would rest easier, I mused to myself, before shaking off my sudden bout of melancholy.
"What do we do now, sir ?" asked the sergeant. A good question; I had been pondering the same.
"We'll take the bodies back with us to the line," I decided. "And somebody call the borgs : I'm going to make an announcement."
"Soldiers of the Imperium, hear me," said a deep, calm voice from the vox-speakers of the communication post. "I am Ciaphas Cain, and I speak for the Liberation Council, Slawkenberg's government by the will of its people.
Moments ago, Commander Chenkov died at my hands. He did not die alongside the thousands of your brothers that he sent to die in a pointless and unsupported attack at established defensive lines. Instead, I killed him while he cowered far behind the frontline, having killed several of your comrades to threaten the rest to charge despite the grim fate his incompetent leadership led the first wave to, rather than admit his own failures.
I have no quarrel with you, for I know none of you had any choice in coming here, and you haven't done any harm to my people. Those of your comrades who survived have been taken prisoner, and shall be treated with all the respect owed by one warrior to another.
This war should never have been fought in the first place, for we are all children of Humanity. Too many of your brothers have already died in vain; you need not add your own lives to this pyre to Chenkov's hubris.
I implore you to surrender. You cannot defeat us, and you know that your masters will not allow you to retreat. We will not attack, for there is nothing of value in these mountains, and neither the Liberation Council nor I will throw away the lives of the brave soldiers under our command.
Know this : your masters will force you to die for nothing, simply because the alternative is admitting they are wrong, and that is something they will never do.
You need not die for their fragile egos. Throw down your weapons and come down the mountains, and we will welcome you. I swear upon my soul that you've less to fear from us than you do from those who call themselves your betters while staying far from danger themselves."
The transmission ended, leaving behind a silence that was only disturbed by the howling of the wind. In the luxurious mountain estate that had been claimed as the ground headquarters of the Imperial expedition, the Valhallan officers who had been left behind looked at one another. There were three of them, each a survivor from years spent under Chenkov's command. The only reason they'd survived that long was the same one they had avoided being sent out to charge this time : they were the 18th's best when it came to logistics, and even someone like Chenkov knew he needed people capable of keeping his soldiers from starving or having no ammunition to fire.
Well, he had known that. The fact Chenkov hadn't immediately spoken up against the claims of this 'Cain' was a pretty damning indicator that the man was speaking the truth when he'd announced the commander's death.
"We could withdraw back to orbit," suggested the first officer to speak up. "The locals don't have anything that could hit the transports on the way, and even if they try to cross the mountains, we've few enough people left the evacuation should be over by the time they get here. Once we get reinforcements from Sector command and, you know, pick up a better landing position, we could still win this."
"Yes," agreed another, "but there's a problem with that. Do you want to tell Karamazov that we left the planet the moment our commander got himself killed ?"
"Ah. I see what you mean." At least Chenkov had only killed people who had disobeyed his orders. Or didn't follow them fast enough for his liking. Or failed to show him what he considered proper respect. Or just looked at him funny, whatever that meant …
Anyway, Chenkov had killed a lot of Guardsmen since the Inquisitor had called the muster to reclaim Slawkenberg from the heretics. Yet he still hadn't been as feared as Inquisitor Karamazov, the man who had ordered the execution of a whole bunch of the Sector's highest-ranking Militarum officers and Munitorum clerks just to get the task force assembled.
"What do you want to bet that if we ask for instructions, the Inquisitor'll tell us to fight to the end and lay low our lives in service to the Emperor ?" asked a third with a bitter smile.
"Do I look like an idiot to you ?" retorted the first before glancing at his comrades one by one. "So, what do you reckon ? Surrender ?"
"I mean, their boss killed Chenkov." The officer spat at the name of the man who had gotten so many good Valhallan soldiers killed and gotten a frakking chestful of medals for it. "So they can't be that bad."
"True that. Do you think we can offer him a drink ? I still have a pot of tanna brewing."
On the bridge of the Pyroclast Retribution, Fyodor Karamazov seethed with righteous fury. Around him, the crew remained respectfully silent as they tended to their duties, the vox-officer who had relayed the message from the surface promptly returning to her post.
Commander Chenkov, the Imperial hero he had appointed as leader of the military forces Karamazov had called to his banner, was dead, treacherously slain by the heretics' own foul leader, the renegade Ciaphas Cain. And no sooner had he died that the remains of the worthless rabble those incompetents at Sector command had sent him in place of the true soldiers of the God-Emperor he had demanded had broken their oaths to the Golden Throne and surrendered to the enemy, condemning their souls to perdition in order to prolong their miserable lives.
It was clear that Chenkov's leadership had been the only thing holding them together. In hindsight, the many executions the Commander had been forced to enact on their way to this system should have been a sign of the Militarum's wilful sabotage of this holy campaign.
When it had become obvious that the heretics were too gutless to dare attack the well-defended position Karamazov and Chenkov had chosen for the landing (one that was both unassailable and home to the last untainted shrine to the God-Emperor on Slawkenberg, a clear sign of Him on Earth), Chenkov had suggested they go on the offensive. Clearly the Archenemy's slaves on the planet were so lacking in courage and skill that they would break before the might of the Emperor's Hammer.
And it would have worked, of this Karamazov was certain, if not for the treachery of the soldiers, whom Chenkov had reported had disobeyed his orders and somehow forgotten to bring the tanks and vehicles that had been transported to the base with them, leading to the failure of the first wave to secure all of its appointed objectives. Unable to trust his subordinates, Chenkov had bravely gone to the front to lead his men in person (regardless of that heretic Cain's lies to the contrary, which were obvious to anyone – after all, how could Chenkov had met the leader of the traitors if he hadn't been on the frontline ?), only to perish in heroic combat.
Karamazov took a deep breath to center himself, holding the righteous fury he felt at the center of his mind without letting it control his actions and make him lash out at his surroundings. Once he was confident he could contain his holy rage, he turned to the captain of the ship, who stood straight as the gaze of his lord fell upon him.
"Give the order to prepare for Exterminatus," Karamazov declared, his voice clear and cold as fury of His Divine Majesty. "If Slawkenberg persists in its defiance of the God-Emperor, then it shall burn. And set up another planetary broadcast : I want these foul heretics to know that their judgment is coming, and that there is nothing their treacherous leaders and foul gods can do to save them."
AN : Chenkov getting ten millions men killed in a single operation is canon, just so you know. The only things I changed were the fact his "victory" was actually achieved by the Raven Guard, and the Imperial propaganda factor (which, given that Chenkov's backstory is given in an Imperial Guard Codex and those are explicitly written from the POV of the faction they describe, might as well be canon). Also the fact that no Commissars are attached to the 18th Valhallan.
I did consider writing an epic duel between Cain and Chenkov. And then I decided it would be funnier to have Chenkov die like a chump instead, so that's what I wrote. Going by the rules of the 5th Edition Guard Codex (which contains Chenkov's profile), I don't think Cain's bolt pistol should have been able to kill him in one shot (Chenkov has two Wounds and, unless I misread things, a bolt pistol can only do one point of damage per shot in that edition), but it's not like that really matters. And don't worry, Cain will get his chance to show off his impeccable swordsmanship and unrivaled courage before this arc is over.
To be clear, the two Valhallan Regiments Cain meets in For the Emperor aren't part of Karamazov's task force. I toyed with having them be part of it, but the timeline didn't work out, and (more importantly) I think I can use them better later. Because, frankly, having Kasteen and Broklaw join Cain after his forces slaughter their Regiments (even if it's the fault of their commanding officer) stretched credibility, even for this story.
One thing to keep in mind (I certainly struggle with it) is that at this point in the story, Cain is young. Like, "fresh out of the Schola" young. Meaning he is in his early twenties at best, and already rules over an entire world while enjoying the affections of a Daemon Princess of Slaanesh. Alexander the Great, eat your heart out.
I admit that I'm afraid this story might be getting out of my control and slipping away from being pure crack/parody into something semi-serious. Do you feel that way too ? I might need to amp up the ridiculousness of the story if that's not just me.
Well, that's all for now. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and I look forward to your thoughts and suggestions. Next up should be another chapter of A Young Girl's Weaponization of the Mythos.
Zahariel out.