The mop-up campaign on Perlia only took a few months, far shorter than my merry little jaunt through the wastes. The death of Korbul, along with the mass Orkish casualties we'd caused with that stunt with the dam, had broken the green tide and allowed the Imperial forces to surge forth. Even then, in the normal course of events it might have taken years to cleanse this world of the Ork menace, but we had help on two fronts. Firstly was the stream of Eldar reinforcements. It was becoming eerily common to see Guardsmen and Eldar troopers loading up into one of their anti-grav armored personnel carriers; Guardians and Wave Serpents respectively, as Illric explained to me. I'd been fearful that there'd be problems between two longtime enemies working together, but it seemed like having a common enemy to fight helped the integration tremendously. Secondly was what we found out about the aftereffects of my 'blessing' of the unleashed dam waters. They didn't just kill off Orks, but eradicated their spores so that no new ones cropped up. A few tech-priests modified a few flamers, letting them spray the spore-killing waters rather than jets of burning promethium in order to sterilize reclaimed lands.
That of course led me to more troubles and attention. The rest of the Imperial Guard discovering that the sparkling purple water was my doing, and the side effects on everyone, seemed to make them all buy into that Saint lie. I'd have thought that the Psykers around camp would have started gibbering more madly than usual after drinking water tainted by a Daemon. but to my surprise it didn't seem to affect them much. What really surprised me were the medicae grabbing the water by the gallon and hauling it off into their medbays, giggling like schoolgirls. I sent so many silent prayers to the God-Emperor to spare those about to drink my taint from damnation. The Orks were being routed, casualties were low, and as a result morale amongst the Guard was high; except of course amongst the remains of the 12th Valhllan.
The troops were incredibly tense for those first few weeks after my return to the regiment, always starting when they saw my uniform and scrambling to look perfect as they stood ramrod straight. Even someone as damned to the Goddess of Perfection as I was, thought they were trying too hard. The first verbal warning I doled out led to the poor sap crying in relief, much to my confusion until Divas spelled it out for me.
"Under the last one, he'd have been shot." My friend informed me grimly.
"He just had three buttons out of place on his uniform." I replied incredulously.
"Wouldn't have stopped the death." Divas growled angrily. "I swear, we lost more men to that bloody bastard than we did to the Orks(1)."
I felt genuinely ill at that statement. "It's Commissars like that that give the Schola a bad name." I stated firmly, letting my genuine belief in what I was saying shine through. "And were I there, I'd have shot him for wasting lives." And I'd have done it too, with a song in my heart; in my mind there were few sins greater than wasting lives, which were the Emperor's currency.
"And this is why we've been planning on building a shrine to you." Divas stated matter-of-factly, timing his reaction to the sipping of my tanna. Said tea was wasted by my spit-take. He smirked at having caught me off guard as he continued speaking merrily. "It's been in development for a while. Gather some rockcrete here, an aquila there…"
Illric just burst out laughing. He'd folded into the 12th quite nicely, all things considered(2). "I'm sure my people would love to copy your designs!" He cackled, causing me to want to crawl into a hole in the ground and cry.
"I like you." Divas told Illric with a smile, which the Ranger returned. God-Emperor, there were two of them now. I could almost feel my fate being sealed by those two performing jokes at my expense.
Finally, after months of sitting in camp and recovering from what I was already hearing be called 'Mostrue's Folly', our new marching orders were given. We wouldn't be getting any fresh bodies to throw into the grinder and rebuild the 12th Valhallan Artillery Regiment; instead, our unit was going to be merged with two others that had suffered similar levels of casualties. On the one hand, I'd be away from Perlia, and the maniacs who were, to my utter horror, beginning to file the paperwork for me to be recognized as a saint. On the other hand, this new combined unit would likely be more front-line, and therefore I'd be in the thick of it again. I'd rather enjoyed the few months of peace I'd gotten after what they were calling 'The March of the Liberator', thank you very much! But orders were orders, so we and our meager amounts of equipment were shipped back into the Warp on a small vessel, where we'd go to meet up with the other two mangled regiments on a larger transport.
It was a steady if sometimes fraught few weeks on the ship, with my occasional help to keep us all alive; thrice the Gellar Fields shut off in fact, and I had to order a squad to keep an eye on things while I investigated. It turned out to be a death cult that had formed from the ship rats' general unhappiness with the state of affairs. They were quite perplexed as to why no one was getting ripped to pieces by angry monsters, at least until I put lasbolts through their heads and welcomed them to hell. For trying to murder loyal soldiers and sailors of the Emperor, there'd be no ferrying them to the Golden Throne unless I judged that they'd earned the opportunity to do so. In the meantime they could enjoy the 'hospitality' of my soul's less welcoming places.
Finally, however, our transports met up. From there, we crossed over to the Righteous Wrath, a bold name for one of the millions of troop transports that the Imperium used, and still knew how to build(3). Felecia had joined us as the new regiment's Enginseer. Of course it was only after the paperwork had been sorted out that we had learned that her name was supposed to be spelled 'Felicia', she just hadn't wanted to be rude and correct everyone mispronouncing her name. And considering that she was now 'Felecia' in the roles of the Astra Militarum and the Administratum, it was far easier for her to get it legally changed rather than convince the pen-pushers that there was a mistake in their precious records. Hopefully if we met up with her brother again, he wouldn't get all pissy over the error; if he took offense I'd try contacting Norbert to sort it out.
Of course I hadn't entirely gotten away from Perlia scot-free of my adoring hangers on. Besides Felecia, Demara and Tamworth had approached me together, and insisted that they accompany me. Demara had nothing of particular note keeping her on Perlia, and Tamworth was insistent upon 'keeping an eye on her'. They weren't fooling me, I'd been feeling the desire for each other off of both of them for weeks. I couldn't very well say no without a good reason, and besides, a proficient heavy weapons team was a welcome addition to my retinue. I'd at least demanded that the former ganger woman cover up her facial tattoos with a more appropriate one of the Imperial Aquila, proclaiming her allegiance. She seemed to take to that order with the relish of a Sister of Battle, and I had to make sure she was kept away from any hot material out of fear she'd try to burn the tattoos off. With them along with Illric, Divas, and of course Jurgen at my side, my shuttle descended and the 12th disembarked, carrying off what equipment we had. The guns and artillery of course had been lost to Ork scrappers, but a good supply of man-portable mortars had been recovered so at least we had some small semblance of an artillery unit.
Divas, who had been promoted to Captain, was going to be in charge of the 12th's forces as we unfrakked the clusterfrak we found ourselves in. I had read the reports, and had wanted to drag whatever Administratum drone who had decided this was a good idea to Slaanesh myself. The two regiments we were joining with were the 296th and 301st Valhallan, and they could not have been more different without coming from different worlds. The 301st was a crack planetary assault unit, or as the Valhallans called them, bolter fodder(4), with over fifteen hundred years of experience in throwing themselves into the meat grinder; a veteran and decorated elite unit. The 296th, however, was a rear guard echelon force, the sort of regiment I'd have loved to get assigned to; however it was an all-female regiment. My getting assigned to them was impossible, on account of being a man, and I was perfectly happy to remain one thank you very much. So they had opposite battlefield duties and were made of different genders, and both had been deployed on the same planet, Corania. They had been stranded there after a Hive Fleet came bearing down on them, and were stuck there fighting for their lives for over a year. The battle was only won when two detachments of Astartes, the Reclaimers and Swords of The Emperor, had arrived to turn the tide. Even then they were nearly overwhelmed before an Eldar detachment from Ulthwe had joined the fray, defeating the Fleet with something called the Avatar of Khaine(5); I decided to assume the name was a coincidence. I put away the slate just as the doors opened, where I found a striking young woman with a face full of red hair and blue eyes(6) saluting me, a relieved smile on her face.
Oh Frak me, they were genuinely happy to see a Commissar. That was never a good sign. These days it's different; it's almost expected for Guardsmen to be happy to see me as my reputation has grown beyond all bounds and reason. But this was just after Perlia, and there was no way the over-inflated stories of my deeds had reached the shattered remnants of the 301st and 296th. They had no frakking idea of who I was at least supposed to be, just that I was a Commissar who for all they knew was a trigger happy idiot like that bastard Mostrue had replaced me with. And yet, they were still glad to see me. Emperor, give me strength.
"Colonel Kasteen." The young redhead said, introducing herself. She had, from the data-slate, been put in charge due to being an officer for the longest amount of time out of the survivors, beating out now-Major Broklaw by less than a standard week. "I'm happy to see your safe arrival, Commissar…" Evidently she hadn't gotten a name.
"Ciaphas Cain, with what's left of the Valhallan 12th, returning from Perlia." I introduced myself gently, well aware that Kasteen was in a delicate situation and so deciding to treat her and the others with kindness for now. Better to be seen as a soft touch than someone they'd rather eat a lasbolt sooner rather than later. Besides, I had my saintly image to consider now as well.
"So you're the one referred to as 'Slav-her-een-er'." She said, sounding out the unfamiliar Eldar word that had been assigned to me by my great mistake. I was impressed by the obvious effort she put into getting the word correctly.
"You would be right, madam!" Illric declared, peering out from behind me with a charming smile for the Colonel. I noticed a faint flush on Kasteen's cheeks and widening of her mouth; no doubt she was flabbergasted by Illric's… Illric-ness. A huff of amusement drew my attention to the solid-looking man stood beside her.
"I guess the regiment owes you our lives, then." Broklaw said, approaching me to shake my hand. Our hands met, and I could feel his grip try to tighten. I didn't feel any crushing, so I just looked down at our combined hands, and back at him, before gently beginning to squeeze and continuing to put on pressure. Unfortunately, I pushed too hard, and heard a crunch. I hurriedly made a quick prayer and healed his broken fingers, which seemed to surprise him as he'd only had the time for a flash of pain before I'd taken it away.
"That… what was that?" He whispered, pulling away his now healed hand and cradling it in disbelief.
Illric, damned jackass he was, decided to inform them. "That would be Saint Ciaphas using his power to heal your injury, Major." He replied cheekily.
"Saint?" Kasteen asked, raising an eyebrow at the Ranger which just caused him to wink at her and increase his rakish grin.
"Well, how else can you describe someone who survived several months without food or water, only feeding off of the faith of those around him?" Illric teased her. There was silence for a long moment as everyone there processed the statement, those that had been with me on Perlia giving the others smug looks.
"...What… exactly… happened on Perlia?" Broklaw asked, still in shock and examining his hand; I may have accidentally healed an old injury while I was at it, as he flexed the hand with disbelief. I glared at Illric, but the Eldar was in his element of causing headaches for me. Still grinning, he shrugged and began speaking once more.
"Oh not much… Ciaphas here crash-landed, met up with me, proceeded to save hundreds of civilians, fought and defeated the warboss one-on-one, and also blessed an entire river." Illric replied, counting off my alleged achievements off of his fingers one by one. "Did I miss anything, Felecia?" He asked, turning to the cog-girl (And hanger-on).
"No, I think that settles it." She replied, sizing up Kasteen. For her own part, Kasteen seemed discomforted by Felecia's presence but gamely met her gaze. They seemed evenly matched(7) in their respective departments to me. As much as I would have loved to see them compete further, I had to figure out what to do with this mess of a regiment, and decimations were absolutely not on the table as far as I was concerned.
"Ahem." My cleared throat shut them all up and got their attention back on me. "The pointy eared comedian is Illric Nightspear, our attached Ranger." The alien jackass just made a grandiose bow, winking at Kasteen once more. "Our Enginseer, Felecia Tayber, and Captain Toren Divas, ranking officer of the 12th Valhallan Artillery Regiment. As well as Demara and Tamworth, two members of the militia I raised on Perlia." Each of them nodded as I introduced them, save for Felecia who gave a cheerful wave. "And this is my aide, Gunner first class Ferik Jurgen." I continued, introducing my near constant companion, even as his smell caused those not used to him to start breathing through their mouths. "Can you show him where to place my luggage, please?"
"He carries your luggage?" Broklaw asked, sounding slightly offended on Jurgen's behalf.
"He gets jealous when someone else does." I admitted with a sheepish grin. Jurgen is too good to be carrying luggage, at least in my humble opinion. Jurgen, for his part, nodded firmly. As far as he was concerned, it was his duty to take care of all the little things I needed, and the Emperor help anyone getting in the way of him doing what he saw as his duty.
"Sulla?" Kasteen called over. One of the women with a rather equine face came trotting up. "Can you escort Gunner First Class Jurgen to where the Commissar will be staying?"
"Certainly!" She said eagerly, motioning for Jurgen to follow.
The tension in our area of the transport ship was palpable even for those who didn't feed off of emotions. The other regiments wouldn't come into our area, not even for the time honored practice of pulling off practical jokes on other regiments (Which would spare us the trouble of a Harlequin troupe showing up and somehow managing to grease all of the hallways in the ship aside from our assigned area overnight; we only knew who the culprit was due to a spray-painted harlequin face by the captain's quarters)(8). The captain of the ship, Captain Parjita, was one of the only bright spots in the long trip as he kept an excellent amasec cabinet and was a deft regicide player. I'd tried to socialize outside of the regiment with the other Commissars, but things didn't work out. All of them were Emperor-Botherers to a man, and either bowed to me thanks to Illric's boasting of my 'saintly' status to the other Eldar that had begun to tag along reaching the common soldiers (Which was undoubtedly his plan), or were visibly fighting the urge to shoot me since they (rightfully) thought me to be impersonating a Saint. Warp travel didn't even provide relief, as it made it much harder to sleep with all that energy flowing inside, and helped me to actually taste the excess of malice and frustration flowing through the ship like a river. I was half-tempted to rant at the next passing daemon, but I doubted they'd care as much as opposed to avoiding getting consumed by me. I finally decided to head to the captain's deck to explain my frustrations. He seemed very sympathetic.
"Why haven't you shot anyone yet?" He asked me, when I mentioned the issues over a congenial game of regicide. "That'd reassert discipline."
I groaned and rubbed the bridge of my nose before moving a piece, explaining what seemed to me to be simple logic. "If you rally people around fear, then they will destroy you the moment they sense weakness. But if you rally them around hope, they will follow you until you die." I replied patiently, countering his next move. "And shooting troopers for all but the most serious issues is a waste of The Emperor's Currency."
The captain stared at me intently, and for a moment I thought I'd gotten through to him before he shrugged and brushed what I was saying off. "Huh. From what I've heard from the other Commissars, they're wondering why you haven't decimated your regiment yet."
I had to fight the urge to scream in my own excess of frustration at that.
It was just after my pointless talk with Parjita that I was walking down the halls towards my private quarters, Jurgen besides me as per usual. It was then that my palms started to itch. I paused in my footsteps, knowing something was up and that there was only one likely culprit.
"Sir?" Jurgen asked me curiously, glancing around for potential threats as he noticed how I was holding my hands..
"Where are the 296/301st?" I asked urgently.
"Mess hall, sir." Jurgen replied with his usual calm, but I could see in his eyes that he knew what I was getting at.
"Something's gone wrong." I stated factually, and I began to double time it to their assigned mess hall. Somewhere ahead of me, my worst fears were confirmed when I heard the marching of provost boots. That made me sprint faster, faster than a normal human should've been able to and leaving Jurgen somewhat behind, but time was of the essence. I managed to meet up with the head of the squad, but before I could say anything, I watched as a teacup bearing the 296th's emblem shattered against his helmet.
"Emperor's Blood!" I shouted, diving behind the wall. Actually, did The Emperor still have blood? Or had it all decayed during His vigil upon the Golden Throne? I put aside such thoughts and moved out into the open so as to get a better view.
I had seen riots before. This was something worse. Grown men and women were punching, kicking, screaming, and even biting each other in a frenzy of bloodlust. Every second seemed to cause another casualty. When the provosts arrived, I hoped that would snap them out of their violence. Instead, it only enraged them further, as they turned on their common enemy with a frenzy that would make Nailed World Eaters ask them to calm down. Within seconds, the provosts were trapped, either locked in melee or on the ground. One had been stabbed in the neck, and I could almost taste the corpse starch. I wanted to wait for reinforcements, but knew if I did then at least someone would die. Regardless, the choice was taken out of my hands when the leader of the ship provosts who had seen me yelled out, "Commissar! Help!" At that, everything paused and all eyes turned on me. Suddenly I had hundreds of bloodlust-filled gazes boring holes into my uniform. If someone had chanted 'Blood for the Blood God' I was certain that the replies would have been 'Skulls for the Skull Throne' instead of 'Heretic'. They hadn't moved yet. That would change, unless I took them by surprise. So, after a quick survey of the situation, I decided that the best way to make their anger go away was to shock them.
"You." I ordered a random trooper amongst the crowd, pointing to them. "Get a broom." I began to stride into the mess hall, heading for a group of three who were obviously not going to make it without my help. The rioters and my chosen 'volunteer' still hadn't moved, though their stares had changed to ones of confusion. "That was not a request. This mess hall is an absolute disgrace, and no one is leaving until it's cleaned up." I declared, reaching a female provost who was weakly trying to hold in her intestines. I then pointed randomly. "You, you, you, and you. Go with him. Get mops as well." They began to slowly move, but the provost's twitching was growing weaker by the second. "AT THE DOUBLE!" I roared, snapping to parade rest and giving them the Number Three Commissarial Glare. Ingrained discipline kicked in, and the bloodlust left the room as those ordered moved out while the rest shuffled about at an uneasy attention. I knelt down, and started some prayer to cover my heresy as I feasted on the provost's pain, and repaid her by healing her; as thanks for the meal, I gave her a tip(9). I then moved onto the next near-corpse, repeating the process. The third was almost beyond my help; his heart had stopped, but his brain was still working for the moment, so I saved him just in the nick of time.
The troopers watched in stunned awe, especially as I made my rounds through the mess hall, healing injuries from broken arms to bloodied knuckles; I considered leaving the less serious injuries unhealed in order to teach the rowdy troops a lesson, but didn't want them to resent me for such a decision (10). By the time Kasteen arrived, I had finished up with the stretcher-cases, and was moving on to the others. I noticed her shock, and paused, letting the flesh of a rather deep cut flow like clay as it repaired itself. "The riot has been calmed." I informed her gently with what I hoped was a gentle smile. She just stared dumbly at me, as were the former rioters and the reinforcements the Colonel had brought. Shrugging, figuring that she'd soon overcome her feelings of dismay over the mess her troopers had caused (11), I went back to my rounds and moved to the next injured trooper.
From the Collected Sermons of Cardinal Vervah Mordo (12)-
"Some may ask, 'why did the Prophet heal those who had sinned?'. I know I have asked that myself while deep in contemplation of the workings of the Holy Emperor and his Prophet. And what I have come to realize is this; we are all sinners. From the smallest lie to the greatest theft, from cursing at our neighbor's good fortune to words said in anger to those undeserving of it, we have all, every one of us, failed to uphold the standards the God-Emperor would hold us to. Yet, as shown through the actions of His Prophet, the Beneficent Emperor loves and cares for us. And so He forgives us our transgressions so long as we truly seek Him and His Will with a willing and honest heart. This is why the Prophet healed those who had sinned in their anger, so that they might know the Emperor's Love, make amends, and once more pursue the Emperor's Path to Salvation. We all must work, to be worthy of the Emperor, knowing that we never can achieve such perfection but that striving for it is what He most cherishes. Offer your hearts, earnest and yearning for His Light, to the Most Holy Emperor, and He shall not despise you."
1: An exaggeration. Were the regiment to be at the strength of one thousand men at the time of arrival, five hundred would have been killed by Orks, and three hundred and fifty would have been executed by Mostrue or the new Commissar, whose name I have been unable to find. Or, in general terms: half the regiment was killed by Orks, 35% by Mostrue and the replacement Commissar, and 15% survived.
2: These days, it's common to have a Ranger in a regiment.
3: Felecia's rediscovery (HA!) of the STC fragment for the Apocalypse-class Battleship has helped to smooth things over in this department.
4: A rather unfair assessment. Valhallan human wave tactics are not the only tactic those units are used for, just most of them. And after Chenkov's death (I have been told he was pleading for his life when the Eldar handed him over to his men for lynching), the casualty rate for planetary assault forces was cut in half.
5: Khaine is the Eldar god of war and murder, and his avatars are some of the most powerful beings the Eldar can summon, with summoning one costing an Eldar life, which is something they spend sparingly. The fact that they were willing to do this for humans shows how deeply the Path of Humility bound them to us. In my personal opinion, it's worth it, even with the Xenos Hybris constantly chanting 'I told you so'.
6: Amazingly, Ciaphas almost never saw Kasteen in a lustful or romantic light despite her admittedly stunning good looks. When I asked him about this, he said that he 'preferred blondes' in an obvious attempt at flattery, that it would be unprofessional, and that it would be a violation of something he called the 'bro code'.
7: … I retract my previous comment about Ciaphas' professionalism. Really Ciaphas? REALLY?
8: Harlequins have a tendency to play practical jokes on Imperial forces; thankfully, since the Bargain, these aren't murderous jokes but more harmless, if extravagant, ones. They also are impressed when you manage to prank them back, especially if you manage to, say… trick Cegorach into eating a tray of laxative-laced brownies.
9: No, I am not jealous that Ciaphas increased her bust size.
10: The fact that he may have genuinely wished to alleviate pain and suffering of course doesn't occur to Ciaphas.
11: Again, it doesn't occur to Ciaphas that the reason for them all being dumbstruck was witnessing what appeared to be a genuine miracle, performed by someone who's supposed 'sainthood' they had doubted up to that moment.
12: Cardinal Mordo was the first high ranking member of the Ecclesiarchy to fully embrace the new Cainite Cult. Previously he, like Ciaphas himself, was a major proponent of the works of Saint Emelia. His sermons, works, and teachings greatly influenced the Cainite Cult in its earliest days, turning it into the movement of charity and kindness towards fellow Imperial citizens that it is today.