"..."
The group exchanged solemn glances.
Contact with Chaos. Severe mutation. Next, contact with other Imperial forces.
Given the Imperium's paranoia, the fate awaiting the Broken Swords was self-evident.
"Lead the way!"
Arthur stood.
The Imperium might not be worth saving—but its soldiers and citizens were.
——
Scratch, scratch.
The pen's tip rasped across paper, leaving faint sounds in the silence.
In a small, clean room, the Commissar hunched over a desk, lit by a promethium lamp he'd pulled from a corridor wall fitting, writing in long, deliberate strokes.
After Arthur and the others purged the heretics and guided the battered ship out of the Warp, the Commissar finally found a moment. Once the Astra Militarum sealed the compartments, he could spend what little strength remained to him drafting the action report.
A Commissar: morale officer and Ministry of War's watchdog both.
Every Guardsman operation was summarized in detail by the Commissar and then delivered to the Departmento Munitorum. A report's quality could determine a regiment's very future.
"...Let's hope they forgive my absence this time. I've served almost three centuries."
He checked the report again, verifying system coordinates. No mistakes. With practiced ease he copied the draft onto formal parchment, then pulled from his powder-stained coat a stick of hardened sealing wax.
Snap.
He broke it, opened the lamp's hood, and set the wax spoon into the white-hot core.
The pallid light carved deep shadows across his face, illuminating streaks of white hair at his temples.
Once, he could fight on the front for seven days straight, then spit on an Administratum clerk's face while demanding better supplies. But now...
He averted his eyes from the flame.
The buzzing gnawed at his brain; the hiss of melting wax was thunder.
If not for the drugs in his veins, he would have collapsed.
He poured the wax across the envelope flap, pressed his signet into it, then rubbed his brow. Ink-stained fingertips left a black smear across his forehead.
In his mind, a voice whispered relentlessly:
You are old.
Sad, but undeniable.
I am old.
The un-augmented half of his face went slack. He exhaled deeply, like setting down a burden, then signed his name across the seal.
ALEX CAINE.
He spread the last wax over it, then stood with the letter in hand. A decision had been made.
He had served the Imperium over two hundred years, endured endless farewells. Now he could endure no more.
The door opened. Colonel Kovek of the Broken Swords was waiting.
"Commissar Caine."
The Colonel offered him a lit lho-stick.
"Thank you."
Alex took it, biting the end.
"How many left?" he asked around the smoke.
"One hundred and sixty-nine."
Kovek exhaled a cloud.
"Counting you and me. Plus the Ogryns."
"One hundred and sixty-nine."
Repeating the number, Alex slumped against the cold wall.
"And survivors?"
"Two thousand six hundred. No more, no less."
Kovek's tone was strange.
"Thanks to the Emperor's Angels, our strike went too smoothly. Almost no casualties."
"Heh. I'd rather they died on the field."
Alex drew in smoke.
"Yes. Death would have been kinder."
The Colonel blinked.
"If they had all died, like those Safra-chem addicts on the lower decks, the Munitorum wouldn't bother cross-checking pensions. We wouldn't have to come back, victorious yet dishonored."
"The girl on Tydannis..."
The Colonel lowered his head. "Jack liked her."
"This is the report."
Alex handed him the letter. The once-harsh Commissar didn't scold the Colonel's heretical mutter.
"Take it to the Eye's Munitorum outpost. I hear their efficiency is high."
But the Colonel pressed the envelope back to his chest.
"Kovek?" Alex asked.
"You go."
The Colonel dropped the lho-butt.
"I'll stay with them."
His strength was overwhelming. Alex resisted briefly, but already felt his age.
"Heh... fine. Good."
His hand trembled. He wanted to clench it but feared crushing the report. Shoving it inside his coat, he balled his fist and snarled:
"You're all the same! From Armageddon, to Cadia, to the Maelstrom, to Watch-Fortresses—every time you say the same thing, every time you leave me behind!"
Hard to imagine the grim Commissar with such a face.
"I'm three hundred years old, boy. Can't you let an old man have his wish? I should never have taken that cursed rejuvenat for pension money. My grandson is dead of old age!"
"I want death. I need death. Even if it's in the void. Anything but skulking back again, abandoning men."
"I... I can't trust the bureaucrats."
To see Alex—like some frail grandfather throwing a tantrum—left Kovek at a loss.
"I grew up on your stories. My father served under you. You're the only one I trust."
"Again. After three centuries, again. You don't even change the lines..."
Alex's expression said it all: this was a conversation he'd lived countless times before.
"..."
Kovek stayed silent, staring him down.
"Fine! Fine! I promise you. This is the last time."
Between dying alongside his soldiers or seeing to their last affairs, Alex once again yielded.
If they couldn't trust themselves, who else could they trust?
__________________________________________________________
To read more advanced chapters and support me, go to:
patreon.com/ArchSovereign