The Blogging Gerbil

Some more Warhammer fan fiction. Read my last post to get an understanding of what is going on here if you're not familiar with the lore. No action like I usually like to write in. That's in the next section. This is the foreplay for that if you would.

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Sazari was sitting in his quarters inside of the Scarred Horror. His one-hundred and six men were quartered a deck below him on the warp-capable beast. He thought about it some more. When he did the math he had far fewer than one-hundred and six men. Ten were the elite Kasrkin that had been attached to his part of the 108th armored. Sazari commanded 10 platoons. More squads than platoons but he still called them platoons. On a level it made the Colonel feel more important. Also just recently attached was the venerable Commissar Lynch.

To the Colonel Commissar Lynch was a mystery. The last commander of the 108th armored infantry had been killed in their last action. As had just short of three thousand men. The last actions on Vonthrax had made the men of the 108th veterans almost to a man. You couldn't ask for a better unit to command. When the last commander had died, rest his soul, Lynch and the Kasrkin squad had been attached to him at the same time. No unit in the 108th had ever had a Commissar, Cadians were no men to stray from their duty. None braver in the face of Chaos. Indeed none more loyal to the Emperor. Lynch hadn't had much to do. He'd actually spent more time keeping discipline in the other units on board. He couldn't understand the need for a Commissar. He did enjoy having an elite Kasrkin squad however. To him that was a pleasure.

Sazari was polishing his honored sword, passed down from commander to commander of the 108th. It didn't feel like it belonged to him, but he had always wanted it, so he treasured it like his own arm and cared for it even better. A hard knock on the door interrupted Sazari from his cleaning and thoughts. Sazari leaned from his wooden chair and tapped a green rune on the pict-slate hard wired into the wall. It fizzed for a second and it came to life with the grizzled face of Lynch staring into the camera. Another tap of the green rune and the feed cut and the door clicked loudly as the locking mechanisms to his quarters disengaged.

The Commissar entered, his black great coat trailing behind him. The Commissar removed his peaked cap and sat himself down in a chair by the small and bare table across the room from Sazari. The Colonel stared at him and waited for Lynch to say something. For a long moment all he did was stare at his hat that he had placed on the table. He slowly reached into his jacket. Sazari's mind began to race. He thought to himself why else would they put a Commissar into such a decorated unit that in its entire history had never had one nor had need for one. Command didn't trust him. He stood up placing his hand on the gilted grip of his ancient sword.

The Commissar now had his turn to stare at the Colonel. Slowly he pulled a flask out of his coat. He unscrewed the cap and took a long swig and offered it to Sazari, who took a long drink from it himself, handed it back, and slouched back down into his seat. Lynch put it back into his coat and began to quietly laugh. "So is that why you think I'm hear, Colonel?" he asked lightheartedly, laughter evident in his voice.

"Honestly, Commissar, for a moment I did. I cannot fathom why a man of your order would be placed in the 108th. One can only assume." With that he grabbed the ornate sheathe for his weapon and slid it back in, placing it by his seat, but still within easy reach, should the need arise.

"No, I'm not here to watch you. Or your men even. In fact, I don't want to either. I've spent far too much time killing Imperial soldiers for insubordination that I don't think I could any more honestly," he said into his cap, rotating it so the brim now faced him with the sign of hiss office affixed above the gleaming black brim. "I was put here to die."

"To die?" Sazari stammered. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Not because it sounded silly, which it honestly did, but because if he wanted to die, there were far better units to do that with. "You're going to have to explain, Lynch."

"I was getting to that," he began, adjusting uncomfortably in the metal seat finally looking up from his cap and to the Colonel. Look, they, and by they I mean the Scholum, don't want me about any more. I really fekked some missions up with the last unit I was attached to. So they put me here to finish my service out quietly. They didn't put me here because you you needed me, but rather because you didn't," he looked back down at his cap. He had become a pale drawn color now.

"Well if I'm not to have you removed you'd better tell me what it is you did," Sazari demanded, putting on his newly acquired commanding officer voice.

How Sazari said it made Lynch smile a little. "It's always entertaining to see new officers put on voices like that. Don't try to get tough-guy on me. I've seem my fair share of new officers and you're no different. It's cliche, but it's not how or what you say to your men, but rather what you do. If you're a good man they won't care how you talk." Sazari just got angered by this, but the Commissar was by far more experience with soldiering than he was so he didn't respond. They sat there in silence for a moment before Lynch began again. "Colonel, it's the matter of opinion that got me here. Or rather, misinformed leaders saying what I did was wrong. We were defending a hive, my last unit and I. Their commander, a green Captain not unlike yourself thought he was hot to trot and took on the biggest missions he could. He was wearing his men down, having them killed. These men weren't expert Cadian shock troops or well drilled Morriden men. They were conscripted boys. Nothing more. He was pushing them so hard. He ordered suicide mission after suicide mission..." The Commissar trailed off stopping in his dialogue as suddenly as he had shown up at Sazari's door.

Sazari could see how this would anger a man, but not drive him to do something drastic. He was waiting for where any reason would come for what he assumed the Commissar had done, that is execute the officer. This scared Sazari a little. He was new to his job. He was only a company commander less than a year ago and had been promoted so much to keep with the rank requirements to command a Cadian regiment. Sazari was now looking at the Commissar expectantly. Waiting for him to continue wondering why he wasn't. "Sir?" he asked cautiously.

"I shouldn't say more. Its still magenta level, Colonel. All I can say is things happened that should have, from my eyes. But well connected men, not on the ground disagree. All I can say is I had to make hard choices to save lives and accomplish a mission. That is all," he picked up his cap and placed it on his head. He looked tired. "I can say they don't trust me. They put me here half as a test to see if I'd make the same mistakes in a flawless regiment, or if I'd wisen up and acknowledge that it's not always the Commisserants duty to make decisions. Either way I'm here until I die. So we'll have to work together."

Sazari nodded and stood up. He offered his hand to the Commissar who took it and pulled himself up from the chair. "I'd like to know what happened with your last unit one day. I hope one day you'll find fit to tell it all to me. In the mean time, we both have work to do. We've been given orders."

"What are they, Colonel?" The Commissar asked, getting over himself and sitting back down in the metal chair. He pulled the flask out of his coat again offering it to Sazari who refused the flask this time.

Sazari reached into his pocket drawing a data slate. He pressed his finger into the identifier and it registered him as the real Colonel Sazari of the 108th. "Well," he said looking at the slate, "there are some rim worlds that have recently been attacked by this new race called the Tau." Although the Tau are a serious menace to the Empire, Sazari had heard very little of them. Cadians were treasured for the valor and ability to hand Chaos without becoming tainted, being born so close to the Gate.

"They're only new in terms of presence on the fringe, Colonel. The Empire has been dealing with them for a long while now. Little buggers keep "converting" loyal men of the Empire to fight on their side. They don't seem to be agents of Chaos, but woe betide the man who tries to pry into the alien's mind," the Commissar punctuated the sentence with a sign of benediction towards the Emperor. "Do you have any solid details on the mission?"

"Well, it looks like we're being deployed almost alone. A Morriden unit and a few other Cadian units as well as ourselves. It looks like everyone on this barge is going into the field. It doesn't even look like we'll be getting the full 108th armored branch to aid us. Just two companies of armor to aid us. It doesn't look like they expect much," Sazari put away one pict slate and drew another from his pocket. "The intel seems very poor. It says to expect airborne units as well as stiff air mobile resistance. Whatever that means. We're a ground unit. We don't bother with the air. I say leave that to the navy." He turned off the slate and walked to his table and started sifting threw the draws.

"Well Colonel, you don't know much about the Tau, do you?" Sazari shook his head, focused on his search. "The Tau use hover vehicles. Warriors are transported in by air and then engage in hit and run style tactics using the speed of their transports."

"Is that so?" he questioned still searching. "No matter. We'll shoot them down then," he continued, still clearly not focussing on the conversation between him and Lynch. Lynch began to speak but Sazari raised his hand. "Hush a moment, Commissar, I'm looking for something." Lynch just leaned back in his chair. He didn't like being told the obvious very much by a man a quarter his own age. Finally he found what he was looking for and held it up. "This, is very special."

"Well, I sure hope it is. Do tell, dear Colonel, what is it?" Lynch said with mocked enthusiasm.

"This, my friend, is a medallion. Obviously. But what is important is what it's said to do." He pulled on the string until the brown-gold object sat in his hand. "This was given to me by a man I knew a long time ago. Before I joined the Guard. He was lets just say an expert on aliens. Everyone knows someone like that, right? Anyways," Sazari was now talking excitedly fast. It was his turn to share with the Commissar, "this is meant to have some sort of power against the alien. I don't know what, or how, but I was told 'If you ever have to fight the alien, be sure to take this with you.'" Sazari pocked the medallion in his chest pocket and sat in the chair across from Lynch. "I've spent my entire life waiting for a chance to stop fighting the Chaos tainted and to fight the alien. I mean, its all well and dandy fighting what we know, but can't you see that the chance to fight the unknown is so much more exciting?"

"You are rather junior, Colonel. But your enthusiasm is a gift, my friend. Not many would be overjoyed with the prospect of fighting something they hardly know of." Sazari looked at him as if he had been offended.

Just as he was about to say that he meant no offense, the lights on the entire ship dimmed. The atmospher became warmer as the fans for circulation stopped spinning. The lights flicked off and a moment latter red lights came on instead of the bright white ones that usually light the warp capable ship at all hours of the day. Kalaxons started to sound loudly in three distinct sounds. "We've been attacked," Lynch said as if it didn't matter that the ship was under attack.

"Impossible, we would have felt it," Sazari argued.

"No, the artificial gravity prevents us from feeling it unless its extremely close to us. Soon, that will shut off as power is diverted to the main weapons." As if on cue, the gravity cut in half. Now it was just the spinning of the ship that held them to the deck.

"What should we do? Anything?" Sazari asked giving in to the experience of the vastly older Commissar.

"Nothing. If we're needed the gravity would reengage and the lights would turn to both white and red, so we could see better in deck combat. Even then it would be up to the ship enforcers. We have what? Knives and shock sticks?" At this, the lights came back to white and red and the gravity reengaged. "Right, so we've been boarded. But still, nothing we can do. We should sit still."

Again, as the Commissar had finished talking there was a decided shake in the hull. A green rune flickered to life on his door mounted pict slate. He got up to key it. When it flashed to life the image of the ships cargo officer, the one in charge of the guard, appeared on it next to the captain of the ship-born enforcer units. He turned to look at Lynch and says just loud enough so Lynch can hear him, "I guess we will be needed." With that he turned back to the screen, "What could I do for you two gentlmen at this hour?"