'You get more with a kind word and an excruciator than with just a kind word.'
- Inquisitor Maiden.
'SO WHAT YOU'RE trying to tell me,' I said, turning the piece of crockery over in my hand, 'is that three people are dead, fourteen still in the infirmary, and a perfectly serviceable mess hall reduced to kindling because your men didn't like the plates they were served their meal on?' Broklaw squirmed visibly on one of the chairs I'd had Jurgen bring into my office for the conference - I'd told him to fetch the most uncomfortable ones he could find, as every little bit helps when you're trying to exert your authority - but the major's discomfiture wasn't due to just that alone. Kasteen was still visibly suppressing a smirk, which I was planning to wipe away in a moment.
'Well, that may be overstating it a little ' he began.
'That's precisely what happened,' Kasteen cut in acidly. I hefted the plate. It was good quality porcelain, delicate but strong, and one of the few pieces remaining intact after the mess hall riot. The regimental crest of the 296th was prominent in the centre of it. I turned to the dataslate on my desk, and made a show of paging through the reports and witness statements I'd spent the past week collecting.
'According to this witness statement, the first punch was swung by a Corporal Bella Trebek. A member of the 296th prior to the amalgamation.' I raised an inquisitive eyebrow in Kasteen's direction. 'Would the colonel care to comment?'
'She was clearly provoked,' Kasteen said, losing the smirk, which seemed to hover in the air for a moment before jumping across to Broklaw.
'Just so,' I nodded judiciously. 'By a Sergeant Tobias Kelp. Who, it says here, threw his plate down declaring that he would be damned if he ate off some.' I made a show of getting the quotation scrupulously correct. '"Mincing tart's front parlour tea service." Does that strike you as a reasonable comment, major?'
The smirk disappeared again.
'Not particularly, no,' he said, clearly wondering where this line of questioning was going. 'But we still don't know the full circumstances.'
'I think the circumstances are perfectly clear,' I said. 'The former troopers of the 296th and the 301st have cordially detested one another since the regiments were amalgamated. Under the circumstances the use of the 296th's regimental dinner service was bound to be regarded as an insult by the stupider elements of the former 301st.' Broklaw flushed at that. Good, let him get angry. The only way to salvage the situation was to make radical changes, and that wouldn't work unless I could get the senior officers to feel passionately that they were necessary.
'Which begs another question,' I went on smoothly. 'Just who was stupid enough to order the use of the dinner service in the first place?' I aimed my second-best intimidating commissarial glare at Kasteen for a fraction of a second, before snapping it round to nail the junior officer sitting at her right. 'Lieutenant Sulla. That would be you, would it not?'
'It was founding day!' she retorted. That did take me by surprise. I didn't often get people bouncing back from a number two glare, but I concealed it with the ease of long practice. 'We always use the regimental ceramics on founding day. It's one of our proudest traditions.'
'It was,' Broklaw broke in with sardonic amusement. 'But unless you've got some traditional adhesive.'
Both women bristled. For a moment I thought I was going to have to put down a brawl in my own office.
'Major,' I said, reasserting my authority. 'I'm sure the 301st had their own founding day traditions.' That was a pretty safe bet, as practically every regiment celebrated the anniversary of its First Founding in some way. He began to nod, before my use of the past tense registered with him, and then an expression curiously close to apprehension flickered across his face. I leaned back in my chair, which, unlike theirs, I'd made sure was comfortably padded, and looked approving. It's always good to keep people off-balance. 'I'm glad to hear it. Such traditions are important. A vital part of the esprit de corps we all rely on to win the Emperor his victories.' Kasteen and Broklaw nodded cautiously, almost together. Good. That was one thing at least they could agree on. But Sulla just flushed angrily.
'Then perhaps you could explain that to Kelp and his knuckle-draggers,' she said. I sighed, tolerantly, and placed my laspistol on the desk. The officers' eyes widened slightly. Broklaw's took on a wary expression, Kasteen's one of barely suppressed alarm, and Sulla's jaw dropped open.
'Please don't interrupt, lieutenant.' I said mildly. 'You can all have your say in a moment.' There was a definite edge in the room now. I had no intention of shooting anyone, of course, but they weren't going to like what I was about to say next and you can't be too careful. I smiled, to show I was harmless, and they relaxed a fraction.
'Nevertheless, you've just illustrated my point perfectly. While the two halves of this regiment still think of themselves as separate units, morale is never going to recover. That means you're sod-all use to the Emperor, and a pain in the arse to me.' I paused just long enough to let them assimilate what I'd just said. 'Are we in agreement on that, at least?' Kasteen nodded, meeting Broklaw's eyes for the first time since the meeting began.
'I think so,' she said. 'The question is, what do we do about it?'
'Good question.' I passed a slate across the desk. She took it, and Broklaw leaned in to scan it over her shoulder as she read. 'We can start by integrating the units at squad level. As of this morning, every squad will consist of roughly equal numbers of troopers from each of the former regiments.'
'That's ridiculous!' Broklaw snapped, a fraction behind Kasteen's far from ladylike exclamation. 'The men won't stand for it.'
'Neither will my women,' Kasteen nodded in agreement with him. So far so good. Making them feel they had common cause against me was the first step to getting them to co-operate properly.
'They're going to have to,' I said. 'This ship is en route to a potential warzone. We could be in combat within hours of our arrival, and when that happens they'll have to rely on the trooper next to them, whoever it is. I don't want my people getting killed because they don't trust their own comrades. So they're going to train together and work together until they start behaving like an Imperial Guard regiment instead of a bunch of pre-schola juvies. And then they're going to fight the Emperor's enemies together, and I expect them to win. Is that clear?'
'Perfectly, commissar.' Kasteen's jaw was tight. 'I'll start reviewing the SO&E1.'
'Perhaps it would be best if you did so with the major's help,' I suggested. 'Between you, you should be able to select fire-teams which at least have a reasonable chance of turning their lasguns on the enemy instead of one another.'
'Of course.' Broklaw nodded. 'I'll be pleased to help.' The tone of his voice said otherwise, but at least the words were conciliatory. That was a start. But they really weren't going to like what was coming next.
'Which brings me on to the new regimental designation.' I'd been expecting some outburst at this, but the trio of officers in front of me just stared in stupefied silence. I guess they were trying to convince themselves they hadn't heard what I'd just said.
'The current one just emphasises the divisions between what used to be the 301st and the 296th. We need a new one, ladies and gentleman, a single identity under which we can march into battle united and resolute as true servants of the Emperor.' All good stirring stuff, and for a moment, I actually thought they were going to buy it without any further argument. But of course it was that daft mare Sulla who burst the bubble. 'You can't just abolish the 296th!' she almost shouted. 'Our battle honours go back centuries!'
'If you count slapping down stroppy colonists as battles.' Broklaw rose to the bait. 'The 301st has fought orks, eldar, tyranids'
'Oh. Were there tyranids on Corania? I guess I was just too busy with my needlepoint to notice!' Sulla's voice rose another octave.
'Shut up! Both of you!' Kasteen's voice was quiet, but firm, and stunned both her subordinates into silence. I nodded gratefully at her, forestalled from having to do the job myself, and pleasantly surprised. It was beginning to look as though she had the makings of an effective commander after all. 'Let's hear what the commissar has to say before we start inventing objections to it.'
'Thank you, colonel,' I said, before resuming. 'What I propose is to treat the date of amalgamation as a new First Founding. I've had the ship's astropath contact the Munitorium, and they've agreed in principle. There is currently no regiment designated the Valhallan 597th, so I've proposed adopting that as our new identity.'
'Two-hundred-and-ninety-six plus three-hundred-and-one. I see,' Kasteen nodded.
'Very clever,' Broklaw nodded too.
'A very neat way of preserving the identities of the old regiments,' he said. 'But combined into something new.'
'As was always the intention,' I agreed.
'But that's outrageous!' Sulla said. 'You can't just redesignate an entire regiment out of existence!'
'The Commissariat gives its servants wide discretionary powers,' I said mildly. 'How we interpret them is a matter of judgment, and sometimes temperament. Not every commissar would have resisted the temptation to discourage further dissension in the ranks by decimation, for instance.' Quite true, of course. There were damn few who'd go quite so far as to randomly execute one in ten of the troopers under their command to encourage the others, but they did exist, and if ever a regiment was so undisciplined that such a drastic measure might have been justified, it was this one, and they knew it. They were just lucky they'd got Cain the Hero instead of some gung-ho psychopath. I've met one or two in my time, and the best thing you can say for them is that they don't tend to be around long, particularly once the shooting starts. I smiled to show I didn't mean it.
'If the new designation is unacceptable,' I added, 'the 48th Penal Legion is also available, I'm told,' Sulla blenched. Kasteen smiled tightly, unsure of how serious I was.
'The 597th sounds good to me,' she said. 'Major Broklaw?'
'An excellent compromise.' He nodded slowly, letting the idea percolate. 'There'll be some grumbling in the ranks. But if ever a regiment needed a new beginning, it's this one.'
'Amen to that,' Kasteen agreed. The two senior officers looked at one another with renewed respect. That was a good sign too.
Only Sulla still looked unhappy. Broklaw noticed, and caught her eye.
'Cheer up, lieutenant,' he said. 'That would make our next Founding Day.' He paused fractionally, glancing at me for confirmation as he worked it out.
I nodded. 'You'll have nearly eight months to come up with some brand new traditions.'
OF COURSE, THE changes I'd imposed didn't go down too well with the rank and file, at least to begin with, and I got most of the blame. But then I've never expected to be popular, ever since I got selected for commissarial training I've known I could expect very little from the troopers around me apart from resentment and suspicion. As my undeserved reputation has snowballed, of course, that's got to be the case less and less of the time, but back then I was still taking it more or less for granted.
Gradually, though, the reorganisation I'd insisted on began to work and the training exercises we put the troopers through were beginning to make them think like soldiers again. I instituted a weekly prize of an afternoon's downtime for the most efficient platoon in the regiment, and a doubling of the ale rations for the members of the most disciplined squad within it, and that helped remarkably. I felt we'd really turned a corner the morning I overheard one of the new mixed squads chatting together in the freshly repainted mess hall instead of splitting into two separate groups as they'd tended to do in the beginning, and exulting over their higher place in the rankings than a rival platoon. These days, I'm told, ''Cain's round'' is a cherished tradition in the 597th, and the competition for the extra ration of ale still hotly contested. All in all, I suppose there are worse things to be remembered for.
The one problem we still had to resolve, of course, was the matter of those responsible for the riots in the first place. Kelp and Trebek were for it, there was no doubt about that, along with a handful of others who had been positively identified as responsible for the worst of the deaths and injuries. But for the time being, I'd put off the question of punishment. The wholesale reforms I'd instigated, and the subsequent improvement in morale, were still fragile, and I didn't dare risk it by ordering executions.
So I did what any sensible man in my position would have done, dragged my feet under the pretext of carrying out a thorough investigation, kept the defaulters locked away where, with any luck, most of their comrades would forget about them in the general upheaval, and hoped something would turn up. It was a good plan, and it would have worked too, at least until we arrived in a warzone somewhere and I could quietly return them to a unit or have them transferred away with no one any the wiser, if it hadn't been for my good friend Captain Parjita.
Technically, of course, he was well within his rights to demand copies of all the reports I'd been compiling, and I hadn't thought there was any harm in letting him have them. What I'd been forgetting was that the Righteous Wrath wasn't just a collection of corridors, bunkrooms, and training bays, it was his ship, and that he was the ultimate authority aboard. Two of the dead had been his provosts, after all, and he wasn't about to sit back and let the perpetrators get away with it. He wanted a full court-martial of the guilty troopers while we were still on board, and he could make sure they were punished to his satisfaction.
'I know you want to be thorough,' he said one evening, as we set up the regicide board in his quarters. 'But frankly Ciaphas, I think you're overdoing it. You already know who the guilty parties are. Just shoot them and have done with it.'
I shook my head regretfully. 'But what would that solve?' I asked. 'Would it bring your men back to life?'
'That's not the point.' He held out both fists, concealing playing pieces. I picked the left, and found I was playing blue. A minor tactical disadvantage, but one I was sure I could overcome. Regicide isn't really my game, to be honest - give me a tarot deck and a table full of suckers with more money than sense any day - but it passed the time pleasantly enough. 'There really can't be any other verdict. And every day you delay just leaves the cowardly scum cluttering up my brig, eating my food, breathing my air ' He was getting quite emotional. I began to suspect that there had been more than a simple line of command relationship between him and one of the dead provosts1.
'Believe me,' I said. 'There's nothing I'd like better than to draw a line under this whole sorry affair. But the situation's complicated. If I have them shot the whole regiment could unravel again. Morale's just starting to recover.'
'I appreciate that.' Parjita nodded. 'But that's not my problem. I've got a crew to think about, and they want to see their comrades avenged.' He made his opening move.
'I see.' I moved one of my own pieces, playing for time in more senses than one. 'Then it's clearly long past time that justice was served.'
'ARE YOU INSANE?' Kasteen asked, looking at me across the desk, and trying to ignore the hovering presence of Jurgen, who was shuffling some routine reports I couldn't be bothered to deal with. 'If you condemn the defaulters now, we'll be right back where we started. Trebek's very popular with the ' she shot a quick glance at Broklaw, seated next to her, and overrode the remark she'd been about to make. 'With some of the troopers.'
'The same goes for Kelp.' Broklaw moved quickly to back her up. Exactly the reaction I'd been hoping for, now the regiment was beginning to function properly, Kasteen and Broklaw had begun to slip into their roles of commander and executive officer as smoothly as if the bad feeling between them had never existed. Well, up to a point, anyway, there was still an air of strained politeness between them occasionally, which betrayed the effort, but they were well on the way. And to be honest it was far more than I could have hoped for when I stepped off the shuttle.
'I agree,' I said. 'Thank you, Jurgen.' My aide had appeared at my shoulder with a pot of tanna leaf tea, as was his habit whenever I was in my office at this time of the morning. 'Could you get another couple of bowls?'
'Of course, commissar.' He shuffled away as I poured my own drink, and pushed the tray to the side of my desk. The warm, aromatic steam relaxed me as it always did.
'Not for me, thank you,' Broklaw said hastily as Jurgen returned, a fresh pair of teabowls pinched together by a grubby finger and thumb on the inside of the rims. Kasteen blenched slightly but accepted a drink anyway. She kept it on the desk in front of her, picking it up from time to time to punctuate her side of the conversation, but never quite getting round to taking the first sip. I was quietly impressed. She'd have made a good diplomat if she hadn't been so honest.
'The problem is,' I went on, 'that Captain Parjita is the ultimate authority aboard this ship, and he's well within his rights to insist on a court martial. If we don't let him have one he'll just invoke his command privilege and have Kelp and the others shot anyway. And we simply can't let that happen.'
'So what do you suggest?' Kasteen asked, replacing the teabowl after another almost-sip. 'Regimental discipline is supposed to be your responsibility after all.'
'Precisely,' I took a sip of my own tea, savouring the bitter aftertaste, and nodded judiciously. 'And I've been able to convince him that I can't have that authority undermined if we're to become a viable fighting unit.'
'You've got him to agree to some kind of compromise?' Broklaw asked, grasping the point at once.
'I have,' I tried not to sound too smug. 'He can have his court martial, and run it himself under naval regulations. But once they're found guilty, they'll be turned over to the Commissariat for sentencing.'
'But that takes us right back to where we were before,' Kasteen said, clearly puzzled. 'You have them shot, and discipline goes to the warp. Again.'
'Maybe not,' I said, taking another sip of tea. 'Not if we're careful.'
I'VE SEEN MORE than my fair share of tribunals over the years, even been in front of them on occasion, and if there's one thing I've learned it's this, it's easy to get the result you want out of them. The trick is simply to state your case as clearly and concisely as possible. That, and making damn sure the members of it are on your side to begin with.
There are a number of ways of ensuring that this is the case. Bribery and threats are always popular, but generally to be avoided, especially if you're likely to attract inquisitorial attention as they're better at both and tend to resent other people resorting to their methods.1 Besides, that sort of thing tends to leave a residue of bad feeling which can come back to haunt you later on. In my experience it's far more effective to make sure that the other members of the panel are honest, unimaginative idiots with a strong sense of duty and a stronger set of prejudices you can rely on to deliver the result that you want. If they think you're a hero, and hang on your every word, so much the better.
So when Parjita announced his verdict of guilty on all charges, and turned to me with a self-satisfied smirk, I had my strategy worked out well in advance. The courtroom - a hastily converted wardroom generally used by the ship's most junior officers - went silent.
There were five troopers in the dock by the time the trial had begun: far fewer than Parjita had wanted, but in the interests of fairness and damage limitation I had managed to persuade him to let me deal summarily with most of the outstanding cases. Those guilty of more minor offences had been demoted, flogged, or assigned to latrine duty for the foreseeable future and safely returned to their units, where, in the unfathomable processes of the trooper's mindset, I had somehow become the embodiment of justice and mercy. This had been helped along by a little judicious myth-making among the senior officers, who had let it be known that Parjita was hellbent on mass executions and that I had spent the past few weeks exerting every
1 This is, of course, entirely untrue. As His Divine Majesty's most faithful servants, we're most definitely above such petty emotions as resentment.iota of my commissarial authority in urging clemency for the vast majority, finally succeeding against almost impossible odds. The net result, aided no end by my fictitious reputation, was that a couple of dozen potential troublemakers had been quietly integrated back into the roster, practically grateful for the punishments they'd received, and morale had remained steady among the rank and file.
The problem now facing me was that of the hardcore recidivists, who were undoubtedly guilty of murder or its attempt. There were five of them facing the courtroom now, wary and resentful.
Three of them I recognised at once, from the melee in the mess hall. Kelp was the huge, over-muscled man I'd seen being stabbed, and Trebek, to my complete lack of surprise, was the petite woman who had almost disembowelled him. They stood at opposite ends of the row of prisoners, glaring at one another almost as much as at Parjita and myself, and if it hadn't been for their manacles, I had no doubt they'd be at one another's throats again in a heartbeat. In the centre was the young trooper I'd seen stab the provost with a broken plate: his datafile told me his name was Tomas Holenbi, and I'd had to look twice to make sure it was the same man. He was short and skinny, with untidy red hair and a face full of freckles, and he'd spent most of the trial looking bewildered and on the verge of tears. If I hadn't seen his fit of homicidal rage for myself I would hardly have believed him capable of such insensate violence. The real irony was that he was a medical orderly, not a front line soldier at all.
Between him and Trebek was another female trooper, one Griselda Velade. She was stocky, brunette, and clearly out of her depth as well. The only one of the group to have killed a fellow trooper, she had claimed throughout that she'd only intended to fend him off, it was an unlucky blow that had crushed the fellow's larynx and left him to suffocate on the mess room floor. Parjita, needless to say, hadn't bought it, or cared whether she intended murder or not, he just wanted as many Valhallans in front of a firing squad as he could manage.
On Holenbi's other side was Maxim Sorel, a tall, rangy man with short blond hair and the cold eyes of a killer. Sorel was a sharpshooter, a long-las specialist, who snuffed out lives from a distance as dispassionately as I might swat an insect. Of all of them, he was the one who most threw a scare into me. The others had been carried away by the blood-lust of a mob, and hadn't really been responsible for their actions past a certain point, but Sorel had slid a knife through the joints of a provost's body armour simply because he hadn't seen any reason not to. The last time I'd looked into eyes like those they'd belonged to an eldar haemonculus.
'If it was up to me.' Parjita said, continuing, 'I would have the lot of you shot at once.' I glanced down the line of prisoners again, and noted their reactions. Kelp and Trebek glared defiantly back at him, daring him to make good on the threat. Holenbi blinked, and swallowed rapidly. Velade gasped audibly, biting her lower lip, and began to hyperventilate. To my surprise I saw Holenbi reach across and give her hand a reassuring squeeze. Then again, they'd been in adjoining cells for weeks now, so I suppose they'd had time to get to know each other. Sorel simply blinked, a complete lack of emotional response that sent shivers down my spine.
'Nevertheless,' the captain went on, 'Commissar Cain has been able to persuade me that the Commissariat is better suited to maintaining discipline among the Imperial Guard, and has requested that they be permitted to pass sentence according to military rather than naval regulations.' He nodded cordially to me. 'Commissar. They're all yours.'
Five pairs of eyes swivelled in my direction. I stood slowly, glancing down at the dataslate on the table in front of me.
'Thank you, captain.' I turned to the trio of black-uniformed figures sitting at my side. 'And thank you, commissars. Your advice in this case has been invaluable to me.' Three solemn heads nodded in my direction.
This was the trick, you see. My earlier contact with the other commissars on board had unexpectedly paid off, showing me who would be the most easily swayed by my arguments. A couple of eager young pups just past cadet, and a jaded old campaigner who had lived most of his life on the battlefield. And all of them flattered from here to Terra to be taken into the confidence of the celebrated Ciaphas Cain. I turned back to the prisoners.
'A commissar's duty is often harsh.' I said. 'Regulations are there to be obeyed, and discipline to be enforced. And those regulations do indeed prescribe the ultimate penalty for murder, unless there are extenuating circumstances - circumstances, I have to admit, I have striven to find in this case to the best of my abilities.' I had them all on the hook by now. The fans in the ceiling ducts sounded almost as loud as a chimera engine. 'And to my great disappointment, I have been unsuccessful.'
There was an audible intake of breath from practically every pair of lungs present. Parjita grinned triumphantly, sure he'd got the blood vengeance he lusted after.
'However,' I went on after a fractional pause. A faint frown appeared on the captain's face, and a flicker of hope on Velade's. 'As my esteemed colleagues will undoubtedly agree, one of the heaviest burdens a commissar must carry is the responsibility to ensure that the regulations are obeyed not only in the letter, but the spirit. And it was with that in mind that I took the liberty of consulting with them about a possible interpretation of those regulations which I felt might offer a solution to my dilemma,' I turned dramatically to the little group of commissars, taking the opportunity to underline that it wasn't just me cheating Parjita out of his firing squad, it was the Commissariat itself. 'Again, gentlemen, I thank you. Not only on my behalf, but on behalf of the regiment I have the honour to serve with.'
I turned to Kasteen and Broklaw, who were observing proceedings from the side of the courtroom, and inclined my head to them too. I was laying it on with a trowel, I don't mind admitting it, but I've always enjoyed being the centre of attention when that doesn't involve incoming fire.
'A commissar's primary concern must always be the efficiency of the unit to which he is attached.' I said, 'and, by extension, the battlefield effectiveness of the entire Imperial Guard. It's a heavy responsibility, but one we are proud to bear in the Emperor's name.' The other commissars nodded in sycophantic self-congratulation.
'And that means that I'm always loath to sacrifice the life of a trained soldier, whatever the circumstances, unless it's the only way to win His Glorious Majesty the victories He requires.'
'I assume that you're eventually going to come to a point of some kind?' Parjita interrupted. I nodded, as though he'd done me a favour instead of disrupting the flow of an oration I'd been practising in front of the mirror in my stateroom for most of the morning.
'Indeed I am,' I said. 'And the point is this. My colleagues and I' - no harm in reminding everyone again that this was a carefully contrived consensus, not just me - 'see no point in simply executing these troopers. Their deaths will win us no victories.' 'But the regulations.' Parjita began. This time it was my turn to cut him off in full flow. 'Specify death as the punishment for these offences. It just doesn't specify immediate death,' I turned to the line of confused and apprehensive prisoners. 'It's the judgement of the commissariat that you all be confined until it becomes expedient to transfer you to a penal legion, where an honourable death on the battlefield will almost certainly befall you in the fullness of time. In the interim, should a particularly hazardous assignment become available, you will have the honour of volunteering. In either case you can expect the opportunity to redeem yourselves in the eyes of the Emperor,' I raked my eyes along the shabby little group again. Kelp and Trebek, their truculence mitigated by surprise, Holenbi still bewildered by the sudden turn of events, Velade almost sobbing with relief, and Sorel Still that blank expression, as though none of this mattered at all. 'Dismissed.'
I waited until they'd shuffled out, assisted by the shock batons of the escorting provosts, and turned back to Parjita.
'Is that satisfy you, captain?'
'I suppose it'll have to,' he said sourly.
'CONGRATULATIONS, COMMISSAR.' Kasteen raised a glass of amasec, toasting my victory, and the mess hall erupted around me. I smiled modestly, walking towards the table occupied by the senior officers, while men and women clapped and cheered and chanted my name, and generally carried on as though I was the Emperor Himself dropping in for a visit. I half expected some of them to try patting me on the back, but respect for my position, or an understandable reluctance to get too close to Jurgen, who was dogging my heels as usual, or both, held them in check. I held up my hands for silence as I reached my seat, between Kasteen and Broklaw, and the room gradually fell quiet.
'Thank you all,' I said, injecting just the right level of barely perceptible quaver into my voice to suggest powerful emotion held narrowly in check. 'You do me too much honour for just doing my job.' A chorus of denial and adulation followed, as I'd known it would. I waved them to silence again. 'Well, if you insist ' I waited for the gale of laughter to die down. 'While I have everyone's attention and that's a refreshing novelty for a political officer ' More laughter. I had them in the palm of my hand now.
I waved them to silence again, adopting a slightly more serious mien. 'I would just like to offer some congratulations of my own. In the short time I've had the privilege of serving with this regiment you have all far exceeded my most optimistic expectations. The past few weeks have been difficult for all of us, but I can state with confidence that I have never served with a body of troops more ready for combat, and more capable of seizing victory when that time comes.' With confidence, certainly. Truthfully? That was another matter entirely. But it had the desired effect. I picked up a glass from the table, and toasted the room. 'To the 597th. A glorious beginning!'
'The 597th!' they all shouted, men and women alike, swept along with cheap emotion and cheaper rhetoric.
'Nicely done, commissar,' Broklaw murmured as I sat. The cheers were still deafening. 'I believe you've turned us into a proper regiment at last.'
I'd done something a lot more important than that, of course. I'd established myself as a popular figure among the common troopers, which meant they'd watch my back if I was ever careless enough to find myself anywhere near the actual combat zone. Pulling them together into an effective fighting force was just a useful bonus.
'Just doing my job,' I said as modestly as I could, which is what they all expected, of course. And they lapped it up.
'And not before time,' Kasteen added. I kept my features carefully composed, but felt my good mood begin to evaporate.
'We've had our orders?' Broklaw asked. The colonel nodded, picking at her adeven salad. 'Some backwater dirtball called Gravalax'
'Never heard of it.' I said. Editorial Note:
Given Cain's complete, and typical, lack of interest in anything that doesn't concern him
directly, the following extract may prove useful in placing the rest of his narrative in a wider
context. It must be said that the book from which it comes isn't the most reliable of guides to the
campaign as a whole, but it does, unlike most studies of the Gravalax incident, at least attempt to
sketch in the historical background to the conflict. Despite the author's obvious limitations as a
chronicler of events, his summing up of the causus belli is su6stantially correct.
From Purge the Guilty! An impartial account of the liberation of Gravalax, by Stententious
Logar. 085.M42
THE SEEDS OF the Gravalax incident were sown many years before the full magnitude of the crisis was realised, and in retrospect, it may well be easy to discern the slow unfolding of an abhuman conspiracy over the span of several generations. A historian, however, has the perspective of hindsight, which, alas, cannot be said of the actual participants. So, rather than pointing an accusatory finger, with righteous cries of
''how could they have been so stupid?'' it behooves us more to shake our heads in pity as we contemplate our forebears' blind stumbling into the very brink of destruction. It goes without saying that no blame can be attached to the servants of the Emperor, particularly those concerned with the ordering of His Divine Majesty's fighting forces and the diligent adepts of the Administratum, the Ultima Segmentum is vast, and the Damocles Gulf an obscure frontier sector. After the heathen tau were put in their place by the heroic crusader fleet in the early seven-forties, attention rightly shifted to more immediate threats, the incursion of hive fleet Leviathan, the awakening of the accursed necrons, and the ever-present danger from the traitor legions not least among them.
Nevertheless, the tau presence remained on the fringes of Imperial space, and, all but unnoticed, they began once again to encroach on His Divine Majesty's blessed dominions.
Up until this point Gravalax had been an obscure outpost of civilisation, barely noticed by the wider galaxy. Enough of its landmasses were fertile to keep its relatively sparse population tolerably well fed, and it possessed adequate mineral reserves for such industry as it supported. In short, it had nothing to attract any trade, and an insufficient population base to be worth tithing for the Imperial Guard. It was, to be blunt, a backwater, devoid of anything of interest.
If Gravalax thought it was to remain undisturbed indefinitely, however, it was sadly mistaken. Within a century of their drubbing at the righteous hands of the servants of the Imperium, the black-hearted tau were back, spreading their poisonous heresies through the Gulf once more. When they first chanced upon Gravalax no one knows1,
1 837.M41, according to surviving records. Like many amateur historians, Logar is long on rhetoric and short on actual scholarship. but by the turn of the last century of the millennium they were well established there. It will come as no surprise to my readers, aware as we must be of the innate treachery of all aliens, that they had arrived at this pass by an insidious process of infiltration. And, shocking though it is to record it, with the willing assistance of those whose greed and thoughtlessness made them the perfect dupes of this monstrous conspiracy. I refer, as you have no doubt already guessed, to the so-called rogue traders. Rogues indeed, who would place their own interests above those of the Imperium, humanity, and the divine Emperor Himself!
[Severed paragraphs of inflammatory but non-specific denunciation of rogue traders, omitted. Logar seems to have had something of an obsession about their untrustworthiness. Perhaps one owed him money.]
How and why these pariahs of profit first began trafficking with the tau, history does not record1. What is certain is that Gravalax, with its isolated position on the fringes of Imperial space, and close to the expanding sphere of influence of these malign aliens, became the perfect meeting place for such clandestine exchanges.
Inevitably, the corruption spread. As trade increased, it became more open, with tau vessels becoming a common sight at the new and expanding starports. Tau themselves began to be seen on the streets of the Gravalaxian cities, mingling with the populace, tainting their human purity with their soulless, alien ways. Heresy began to run rife, even ordinary citizens daring to use blasphemous devices unblessed by the techpriests, supplied by their insidious offworld allies.
Something had to be done! And at last it was. The rising stench of corruption eventually attracted the ceaseless vigilance of the Inquisition, which lost no time in demanding the dispatch of a task force of the Imperium's finest warriors to purge this festering boil in the body of His Holiness's blessed demesne.
And that's precisely what they got. For in the van-guard of this glorious endeavour was none other than Ciaphas Cain, the martial hero at whose very name the enemies of humanity trembled in terror.