Valour and Mayhem (40k)

[Academia Nut]

Prologue

The scene was an ugly one, the inhabitants of the room blown to a fine paste by a fuel-air explosive delivered to a confined space and then subsequently burned to a greasy crisp by the fire triggered afterwards. Under normal circumstances the bomb probably would have snuffed out any secondary fire by simply having consumed most of the oxygen in the room already, but the blast cracked the oxygen bottles in the room and one thing led to another.

“What do you think Quintus?” Inquisitor Darien asks while looking about the wreckage.

The grizzled old Guard veteran takes one look around before pointing to a twisted pile of metal on the ceiling and saying, “Bomb was dropped from there, which I think was probably a vent before the redecorating occurred.”

Walking to what was almost definitely the epicentre of the blast Quintus carefully prods some rubble before nodding and saying, “Yeah, like I thought. The weapon was pretty crude, probably just a large container of promethium with a dispersal charge and a detonating charge. The bomber then placed the weapon in the vent, suspending it from a cord at the T-junction with a large weight hanging down from underneath. A few hours go by and the place fills with bored young nobles. Everyone is having a good time when the bomb and the weight are let go. Weight crashes into the grate over the vent first, punching the way clear. Line between the penetrator and bomb goes slack, bomb arms, half a second later everyone is burning paste.”

“Devious. And you concluded all this by looking at the rubble?” Darien asks, not a trace of sarcasm in his voice.

Shrugging, the old warrior says, “There’s a chunk of metal imbedded directly beneath the centre of the explosion and the vent. Plus crude FAEs are one of the booby traps you learn how to make in some of the more elite segments of the Guard. Fuel tank off a destroyed tank and two grenades can take out an entire squad if you place it right and get lucky. Throne, one time we brought down an entire hab unit on platoon of traitors with one well placed bomb.”

This time Darien just raises an eyebrow suspiciously at Quintus. The veteran was a gold mine of useful information on all aspects of combat and tactics and more than held his own in a fight, but he had a tendency to over-inflate some of his exploits.

Holding up his hands defensively Quintus says, “I never said the hab unit was intact when we blew our bomb. Damn near collapsed on us too.”

From the other side of the ruined club the voice of Hailey, Darien’s other bodyguard, shouts out, “Boss, we’ve got a big frakking problem over here!”

Rushing over, Darien quickly sees what Hailey is getting at and immediately orders, “Get back now. You didn’t touch it did you?”

Shaking her head emphatically, Hailey says, “No, barely even looked at it boss.”

“Good…” Darien says while pulling out his plasma pistol and beginning a Litany of Purification. After a moment to finish the prayer he fires the weapon and obliterates the symbol of Chaos that once hid beneath the now incinerated rug and more recently the rubble of the exploded building.

Holstering his pistol, Darien looks to Hailey and says, “Get the rest of the team down here now, our little political reassurance trip has just turned into something more important.” As soon as she heads off he turns to Quintus and asks, “Your opinion.”

Shrugging in an exaggerated fashion that was further accentuated by the bulk of his carapace armour, Quintus says, “Damn me to the Warp if I know. Best guess would be a rival cult or possibly just some gang that got ticked off. I suppose it could be another of your type, but generally the kind of Inquisitor that does this much damage isn’t all that quiet about the deed.”

Frowning, Darien nods in agreement and says, “There are a few that might do something like this, but they’re pretty rare. Twenty credits say that it’s a rival cult.”

Nodding, Quintus replies, “I’ll take you on that bet if you give me three to one that it was a gang that did this.”

“Deal,” Darien replies, although it was more to motivate Quintus than out of any need of money, especially considering that an Inquisitor was as wealthy as he dared be. The old veteran had long ago developed the habit of betting on anything he could, but never initiated the process with his employer despite gladly running with it if Darien made the first move. Darien was one of those Inquisitors that preferred to keep his staff happy seeing as they tended to perform at their peak under such conditions.


Two hours later and Darien was standing over the corpse of Baron Cassius Anderson, father of Jacoby Anderson, one of the idle young Chaos worshippers blown up in the bombing. He was also, alphabetically, the first person on the list of people Darien wanted to interrogate. Unfortunately, someone had blown up the elevated highway carrying the late baron’s groundcar, shot-up his escort, and then immolated Cassius.

Examining the damage, Quintus frowns and then says, “Hmm... better see what regiments have been here in the past couple of years.”

“Oh?” Darien asks while making his own assessment.

Nodding, Quintus says, “I could be wrong, but the burn marks look like those of a standard issue Mars pattern Exterminator rifle accessory. The las wounds on the escorts are definitely from a pattern the Guard uses, probably Mars or Necromunda. On the other hand, the PDF on this world uses slugthrowers.”

“So you’re guessing our mystery assassin is ex-Guard?” Darien asks while picking up and examining a few bits of rubble.

“Probably… huh… guess there is another option to consider. Sometimes Guardsmen just go nuts after they’re mustered out, think the war is still going on…” Quintus then gets a distant look in his face before shaking it off.

Nodding, Darien examines a bit of some charred, gummy substance at what appears to be the terminal point of the flamer blast before saying, “Yeah… more than one Inquisitor has thought he was hunting a Chaos cult only to discover that the cause of the disturbance was ex-Guardsmen on misguided witch-hunts. Not such things are necessarily bad, but they should really leave such things up to the professionals.”

Smiling wryly, Quintus says, “Jealous?”

Still examining the substance, Darien says, “I’d like to say that I’m mad, but really I’m impressed enough that I’m more irked than anything. When we catch the people doing this, if their motives are pure, or at least pure enough, rather than being motivated by the fratricidal tendencies of Chaos, they might make a useful resource.”

Now interested in what Darien is looking at, Quintus comes over to look and asks, “What’s that?”

“Our assassin was clever, but not quite clever enough I would say. Tell me Quintus, if someone were to hide out in those mud flats, digging in, would you be able to see them from the roadway?” Darien asks.

Looking across the rubble of the damaged area, Quintus shakes his head and says, “Not a chance.”

“But would the mud fowl a lasgun?” Darien asks.

“Lasguns are sturdy and built for mud, you just need to make sure the focusing lens is relatively clear and after a few blasts anything still in the way will have burnt off,” Quintus says with a shrug.

“I know, but I was just asking to see if you were sharp enough to see what I’m getting at. Where is this substance in relationship to the battlefield?” Darien asks.

Furrowing his caterpillar eyebrows for a second, Quintus looks around a bit before swearing and saying, “The Exterminator!”

“Precisely. Mud might not be much of a problem for a lasgun, but its damn well a problem for a flamer. We’ll need a precise analysis, but I would bet my rosette that I’m look at some form of plas or tex used to cover the flamer, melting when the weapon was fired,” Darien explains.

From the section of intact highway, Hailey shouts down, “Boss! Some merchant named Julian Ashford just got whacked on the other side of town.”

Pursing his lips in annoyance, Darien pulls out a data slate and says, “That was the next name on the list.”

“Alphabetical order? Damn,” Quintus says with an impressed tone.

Shouting back up, Darien asks, “How’d it happen?”

“Burned up when his groundcar was refuelling and someone turned the place into an inferno. No bombs this time, but plenty of fire,” Hailey reports.

“Throne,” Darien mutters before saying, “Okay, let's forget this; just start grabbing people on the list as the Arbites find them. We’ll assume guilt and interrogate at our leisure.”

Nodding, Hailey runs off to update the plans, while Quintus smirks and says, “I thought you were always bitching about other Inquisitors that just run roughshod over Imperial citizens instead of using a subtler method?”

“That was when our witnesses weren’t being blown up in a brutally methodical manner. Come, we’re heading back to base; let the verispex teams collect the rest of the data for us. I want you and Adrian to scour the records for where rogue Guardsmen might have come from, and for every apothecarium in the city,” Darien orders.

Grumbling somewhat, Quintus nods and then asks, “What will you be up to?”

Grinning morbidly, Darien replies, “Why, interrogating at my leisure.”


The next day Darien was sitting on one of the plush couches that occupied his apartment and, staring at a large board covered in sheets and pictures, tried to work out what was going on. Since the death of Ashford things had gone quiet, but that could change at any time. The assassinations were making things both easier and harder for Darien. On the one hand, many of the people on his list had mysteriously disappeared, indicating that they were panicking. If not for the assassinations it would have been easy to approach many of them under the guise of a detective interviewing the families of the bombing victims and looked for heretical behaviours. Now he would have to root out the Chaos worshippers the hard way.

On the other hand, identifying who was innocent and who was guilty had become an order of magnitude easier as all the people they had rounded up so far probably had no clue about any cult activity, while the ones that had run were undoubtedly guilty and fearing for their lives.

Looking up from the board as Quintus strolls in with a large stack of sheets and slates, Darien quickly reads his adjutants face and asks, “Another attack?”

“No, but the data the cogboy and I gathered is almost as bad. The Sargath 7th was in system twelve years ago,” Quintus says, dropping the stack on the table next to the board.

Groaning in exasperation, Darien asks, “Picking up or dropping off?”

“Both. They’d just come through a meat grinder of a campaign and were demobilizing about a quarter of their survivors while replenishing their ranks in their standard ways,” Quintus says grimly.

The Sargath 7th was born on Sargath Prime, a world that rebelled and fell to Chaos. During the war to reclaim the system a Warp storm struck and several Guard regiments were cut off and forced to engage in guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines. Four years later when contact was made again the survivors had gathered into one badly chewed up regiment full of expert partisans and insurrectionists. Named after the world they fought over, somewhat sarcastically at the time, because the six regiments from Sargath had all turned traitor, they had presented a headache to the Commissariat, the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the Inquisition ever since.

Everywhere they went, the Sargath 7th caused trouble, which was why they were typically placed behind enemy lines, where their skills as partisans gave enemy commanders nightmares. Always tinkering with their equipment and pyromaniacs to the core, they had a reputation for being happiest when they got to blow something up with improvised explosives and then watch it burn to the ground. Rumours kept flying that they had stopped an ork advance by challenging the Warboss to a drinking contest and won. They recruited from hive gangs, penitentiaries, and insane asylums. One branch or another of the Inquisition was always keeping an eye on them, but so far no one had been able to come up with anything conclusive and the few Inquisitors that might not have cared about guilt or innocence kept disappearing.

In short, the soldiers of the Sargath 7th were too good at what they did to be disposed of, but too crazy to be trusted. And now it seemed they had a band of them running about blowing things up in pursuit of Chaos cultists.

“So how many of these maniacs are we looking at?” Darien asks.

“Unknown. Most of them settled on another continent as farmers or miners and have been dutifully paying their taxes, so they’re probably uninvolved, at least directly. About a hundred of them have disappeared from the official records, a troubling fact, but most of those probably skipped the planet seeing as they tended to last be seen near star ports. However…” Quintus then pulls out a file showing a dead man on an autopsy table. “This man was Sergeant Zadius Corbath, settled here in this city as a general labourer in one of the poorer habs, found dead about a year ago with his heart cut out.”

“Frak,” Darien exclaims.

“My thoughts exactly. We’ve got a bunch of people trained as insurgents and guerrillas running around with vengeance on their mind and their sights set upon a bunch of Chaos cultists who have infiltrated the upper strata of society. This could rapidly turn into a bloodbath,” Quintus explains with a frown.

“Tell me you have good news,” Darien pleads in exasperation to his right hand man.

“Yes and no. You won’t need to hand over your rosette yet, as that substance you found was the melted and charred remnants of a high quality latex condom. Only a few places carry stuff like that, but…” Quintus explains.

“Somehow I expect you to say something that will make narrowing down where it came from harder rather than easier,” Darien says with a sigh.

Nodding, Quintus says, “The chemistry is the same as the kind distributed for free from several Adepta Sororita Hospitaller missions in the city, especially the poorer areas.”

“Great. Here, grab some pins and let’s start putting up the new data,” Darien replies, and he and Quintus immediately set out to updating the map of the city.

Idly pushing in pins showing where the various missions are, Darien pauses and then looks over the whole map before saying, “Oh… shit.”

“What is it?” Quintus asks.

“Throne, we should have seen this sooner. I think the alphabetical killing was an accident. Look at this. Anderson was killed less than ten minutes walk from a major mass transit hub. When the highway went down the place flooded with people being redirected, perfect for a muddy assassin to blend in. Less than an hour and a half later and Ashford is torched. But see, the refuelling station is also near a transport hub. A hub that connects directly to first one and to a neighbourhood with a mission, which also happens to be the same one our dead Guardsman was living in,” Darien explains excitedly.

Picking up some files now that he saw where his boss was going, Quintus looks over a few things and says, “The station was a big one too, a lot of promethium flowed in and out of there every day. It would have been pretty easy to skim off enough for the bombs over a fairly short period without being noticed.”

“Yeah… in fact…” Darien begins while calling up some schedules on his slate. “Okay… the assassin could have easily gone home and cleaned up before going for his shift at the station, which started ten minutes before Ashford died. While working there, he sees a target by sheer chance and takes the opportunity to kill the merchant.”

“I’ll get Hailey and call up the Arbites. I’m betting we need to make a stop at that neighbourhood,” Quintus suggests.

“You would have won that bet too. Come on, let’s get going,” Darien says while picking his armour and weapon belt up off a nearby chair.


Darien was quite sure that whatever the nurses of the mission of St. Agatha’s Mercy were expecting for their day, three Arbites Rhinos rolling up to their doorstep and an Inquisitor from the Ordo Hereticus strolling up to talk to them was not one of the possibilities. Still, the nuns accepted the whole thing stoically and pragmatically with the serenity typical of the Orders Hospitaller.

“What may we do to help His Imperial Majesty’s Most Holy Inquisition?” The canoness of the mission asks politely and reverently after seeing Darien’s rosette.

Pulling out a data slate from a pouch on his armoured vest, Darien pulls up a picture of Zadius and asks, “Have you ever seen this man?”

Taking the slate, the canoness looks it over before saying, “Oh! Yes, this was Zadius. He was a very pious man, always here for mass or if he or his son needed treatment or spiritual guidance. It was a shame when he died in that bar fight, didn’t even knew he drank.”

“Bar fight?” Darien asks suspiciously.

“Well… that’s what Mosegi said about it, although he seemed very upset at the time and never told me the full story,” the old nun explains.

“I see… and did you know if Zadius’ had any friends?” Darien asks.

Shrugging, the canoness says, “I only ever saw him with his son when he came in here, but I’m sure he had friends over at the Ashford Consortium where he worked.”

Darien felt like swearing, but he could tell just by looking at the canoness that if he tried that in front of her he would get such a chewing out and not even being an Inquisitor would help him out. Charging a Bloodthirster would probably be preferable to facing this octogenarian pacifist. Instead, Darien asked, “He worked for Julian Ashford?”

Scrunching up her wrinkled face in thought, the canoness says, “I’m not sure if he worked directly for Mr. Ashford or if he was attached to Baron Anderson’s division, he certainly mentioned the baron more than once.”

Darien had to bite his tongue to keep from swearing while the Quintus had to excuse himself from the presence of the canoness to go find some place where he could let loose with a stream of expletives that could probably strip the paint off of a battleship in orbit. Once he regained his composure, Darien asks, “I only arrived in system a few weeks ago, could you help me understand the relationship between these men?”

“Certainly Inquisitor,” The canoness says with a tone that reminds Darien of certain schoolmarms in the schola. “Mr. Ashford is the owner and head of the Ashford Consortium, which is the leading construction and manufacturing company on the continent amongst the top three on the planet. His family has a long and complex relationship with the Anderson family, notably giving their children and seniors sinecure positions to train on and retire on, respectively. In exchange, the baron and his family give political favours to the Ashfords, usually contracts and the like. Of course, that’s all I really know about them, mostly from the patients complaining about their employers.”

Digesting this information, Darien then asks, “What kind of complaints do you usually get?”

“Considering they’re usually complaining because they were hurt on job and have to come to us for treatment, they tend to be a bit biased. Usually the workers complain about the incompetence of management. Apparently the baron’s son was particularly bad, often sitting back and laughing while workers got hurt in machinery. More than one patient said that he seemed to get sadistic pleasure out of it, and the male workers often said that they had to make sure the women were never left alone with him,” the canoness explains.

“Frak!” Darien exclaims, finally losing his self-control. It wasn’t the situation so much as just how much information he didn’t know about that frustrated him. Before the venerable nun could launch into a tirade about profanity in a house of the Emperor, Darien held up his hand and said, “I apologize Sister. It is just that yesterday there was a bombing that killed several young nobles and in our investigation we discovered evidence of activity by the Ruinous Powers. Later in the day both Baron Anderson and Julian Ashford were assassinated, presumably by the same agents responsible for the bombing.”

Digesting this, it was now the canoness’ turn to ask a question, “Which has led you here why?”

“Your mission, in part of its efforts to maintain the health of the citizens in this neighbourhood, has been distributing condoms, no?” Darien asks, and once he gets a nod from the canoness he says, “Well yesterday the assassin used a condom of similar chemical composition to the ones your order distributes as a barrel cover. Analysis led us to believe that the identity of the assassin may have some connection to this neighbourhood, specifically to Zadius. Thus we felt your mission would be the best place to start while the Arbites locked down the area.”

From the back of the room there came a sudden gasp, and all heads turned to a motherly looking nun who was holding a hand over her mouth. She immediately said, “A few days ago… Mosegi… he said he was starting to get curious…”

Looking directly at the nun, Darien asks, “Are you telling me that the son of Zadius Corbath received a condom from this mission within the past week?”

The nun merely nods under the glare of the Inquisitor before nervously saying, “I just thought that he was getting interested in that cute girl who he works with down at the refuelling station…”

To his credit, Darien did not swear again, but only just barely. Finally he says to Quintus, “Well, I suppose that explains how the bomb got into the vent. Son of a Sargath Seven, probably trained by his father, furious at the death of his father and probably suspecting what we now know, going on a blood soaked vengeance trip.”

The canoness then asks somewhat insolently, “So what do you plan on doing with the boy, Inquisitor?”

Shrugging, Darien says, “That depends on what happens when we find him. He is interfering with our work, and no matter what scum he has killed, vigilantism is not condoned by the Imperium, so local law enforcement or I will have to deal with him somehow. I suspect however, that he will have some use to the Imperium.”

Nodding, the canoness says, “Very well then. I merely wanted to know where my sympathies should lie. The boy lives in the sub-basement of the hab unit across the street.”

Nodding, Darien says, “Thank you Sister, your assistance has been most appreciated.”

Leaving the quiet sanctity of the mission behind, Darien and his entourage march across the cordoned off street to the hab block, picking up a squad of Arbites along the way. The streets were quiet; the lockdown already in full effect by the time Darien had finished with the Sisters.

Finding the door to the hab unit locked, Darien pounds on the door, shouting out, “In the name of the Emperor, open this door immediately!”

After a few seconds with no reply, he gives a curt nod before standing back and letting one of the Arbites breach the door with his shotgun. Kicking down the door, the squad rushes in while Darien puts on airs of casual disdain, Quintus and Hailey flanking him while Adrian takes up the rear, carefully recording everything for later.

The Arbites swept through the run down hab unit with the ease of long practiced professionals, checking everywhere for traps and ambushes, but surprisingly the building was eerily empty of human activity. Despite the fact that he was no psyker, Darien could feel something ill at ease about this place. There was something seriously wrong going on here.

Reaching the sub-basement without having found anyone, the nervousness of the squad is thick enough to cut with a knife, and a sharp one at that. While they would never break with an Inquisitor watching over them, they were still worried. As they proceeded deeper into the building, they began to discover signs of recent battle, blast marks from lasguns peppering the walls and splashes of blood where men were wounded, but no bodies.

Finally they come to a doorway that had been blasted off its hinges by what appeared to have been a krak grenade. On the other side of the threshold was a large room made smaller and more cramped by the presence of heavy machinery. Blood and scorch marks covered the floor, but again, no bodies.

Moving carefully into the area, the Arbites were ready for anything, including the frag grenade that rolled into their midst. That still did not mean that they got off without grievous injuries. Forming a tight defensive perimeter around their wounded, they immediately began blasting away at the section of machinery where the explosive device had come from. Adrian noticeably winced at the desecration, but otherwise kept his commentary to himself.

And then the Molotov cocktail dropped from the ceiling into the centre of the Arbites formation. A simple thing really, just a glass bottle filled with promethium and a burning rag stuffed into the neck, but it did the job with brutal effectiveness. Of the ten Arbites in the squad, three had already been badly wounded by the first grenade and half of the remaining members were set on fire, along with two of those already down.

For the remaining Arbites, the hail of las bolts that rained down upon them from above was none too welcome either. With the machinery serving to shield and obscure their attacker and their Executioner rounds seemingly unable to lock onto the shooter, they were in a bad position.

It took Darien all of three seconds to figure out where he needed to shoot before he unleashed a single bolt of searing blue-white plasma into a junction, blowing it apart and dropping half the ceiling, much to the chagrin of the remaining Arbites, but at least it uncovered the shooter, wrapped up in a shiny, heat reflecting shroud. The shooter barely had time to get up before Adrian’s needle pistol replied three times and the target was down, knocked out by a massive dose of tranquilizers.

Moving carefully forward, Darien threw off the shroud to reveal a young boy desperately clutching a Necromunda pattern lasgun with an underslung Executioner flamer and an Imperial Rosary wrapped around his left hand.

While Darien examined and began restraining the boy, his retinue began helping the surviving two Arbites troopers out of the rubble, making the Inquisitor smile. He had a feeling that this boy would make a very valuable asset to the Imperium indeed.

Just as they finished with the living another other squad of Arbites rushed into the area and their sergeant said, “We heard gunfire sir…”

“The situation is under control now… sort of…” Darien says, adding on the second bit after looking around at the disaster around him.

“I see sir…” the sergeant says, obviously dismayed at the slaughter of his comrades, but he immediately says, “Although I think I know what happened here.”

“Oh?” Darien asks while handing the boy off to Adrian’s augmetic strength.

“Our patrols picked up a group of men wearing Arbites pattern armour but carrying lasguns. After a brief firefight we discovered their transport was carrying several dead bodies similarly equipped,” the man reports.

“Damn, no wonder the boy had a shoot first policy against. Still… that’s an impressive kill count,” Darien muses.

“What are we going to do with him sir?” Quintus asks.

“I’ll have to talk to him first and then think about it,” Darien muses, wondering what indeed he was going to do with this boy.

[Academia Nut]

And now for the mayhem.

Chapter 1

He was the shadow of a ghost; the echo of a silent scream; the lingering scent of air. At the best of times his footfalls were soundless, his movements unnoticed. And now he was trying to stay hidden. For aside from the very real physical danger of discovery, there was not only his pride and dignity, but the pride and dignity of his comrades to think about.

Although considering the pounding he would receive if anyone found him, his own physical well-being was definitely at the forefront of his mind.

There was a very good reason the Sororitas tended to win so often at scrumball in the intra-schola meets.

Normally the other commissarial cadets didn’t mind so much when they lost such things, but the humiliating pounding they took right after the storm troopers cheated during the duelling contests had pushed the cadets over the edge. Revenge was in order.

So his comrades turned to the one cadet who most thought was probably better suited to storm trooper training. Or possibly Imperial Assassin training. Mosegi took this opinion in stride, stating that it made him better-rounded to do things he wasn’t as naturally good at. He still enjoyed infiltration and fomenting insurrection though, not that he got much chance to do so as an aspiring pillar of morale and stability for the troops of the Imperial Guard.

So far the plan had gone without a hitch. The first stage was to sneak into the storm trooper barracks and discreetly pilfer several of their uniforms, something Mosegi had done with ease during the day. The second, and considerably more dangerous stage involved the acquisition of several flashbangs from the armoury, an action that was sure to piss off the administration of the schola if found out. But now was the third and possibly most difficult stage.

Assaulting the Sororitas’ dorms.

Mosegi was the spear point, both because he could infiltrate far closer than his inept comrades, something he had told them straight up and they had agreed with, and because he, unlike them, could slip away more easily. Or more simply, he would have to make himself the target for a while.

The initiate dorms were built in the classical style favoured by all convents of the Sororitas, which was to say a cross between a cathedral and a fortress, but since they were not yet full members of any order, the structure took on a somewhat more utilitarian air. This made picking the locks to the windows significantly simpler than trying to figure out how to get through stained glass windows without committing some sacrilege against the Emperor.

Years of training with his father and surviving in the rough part of town had gifted Mosegi with such skills that some might find unbecoming of a commissar, such as the aforementioned lock picking, or more impressively, the capacity to climb the ornate gothic architecture of the outside of the dorms without aids or equipment.

Once he had unlocked and left ajar seven second-storey windows, Mosegi gave a careful thumbs up to his comrades hiding in the bushes on the other side of the yard. A second later there was a brief flash of light to indicate that the message was received. He was now on his own and into the most dangerous part of the mission.

Carefully and quietly scampering up the wall to the third floor, Mosegi quickly unlocks a nearby window and then slips inside, closing and relocking his ingress point behind him. Like crawling into a cave full of hibernating bears, the only sound is the quiet, restful breathing of the Sisters in their sleep. Skulking about, Mosegi ever-so-cautiously makes his way towards his primary objective.

A senior Sister, only weeks away from graduation and moving on to convent elsewhere, less than a foot away, Mosegi draws open a drawer and begins extracting the ultimate prize of the entire operation: underwear. The only negative point of this grand panty raid was that they would be pinning the whole damn thing on the storm troopers, thus none of the undergarments could be kept. Commissars had to be above such things unlike those unruly hooligans. Plus the retaliation by the Sisters would be as painful as this raid was daring.

It was a shame too, because the underwear Mosegi was taking was very nice. Millennia of experience had shown that power armour, especially under battlefield conditions, could exacerbate chafing to the point of serious medical complications. Thus the trainees were issued appropriately comfortable undergarments, usually made of fine silks and embroidered with fleur de lys patterns.

Moving like a silent wind from room to room, Mosegi hit most of the senior student’s rooms, only slowed down by the need to hide from the occasional night patrol. Finally though, Mosegi had completed his first primary objective, which was to get enough undergarments to make it noticeable. His next primary objective was to create a distraction to allow his comrades to make their raid on the second floor. However, he had spotted an opportunity to go for a secondary objective.

Sister Dielle was the hottest teacher on campus, a thirty-two year old Sister of Battle who was on rotation as a teacher for the trainees. Most of the teachers for the Sororitas tended to be older women, but there was apparently some complicated story about why Dielle was here. In any case, the successful acquisition of anything from her would be worth everything else combined. The senior students were graduating in a few weeks, so the plan was to mail the item back to her so that in the end all of the glory would go to the commissars instead of the storm troopers, while the fallout would have already settled.

When Mosegi arrived in the room, he immediately discovered a problem. Sister Dielle’s bed and a pile of equipment blocked the path to her dresser from the doorway, and Mosegi doubted his skills of stealth could get him past the barriers without detection. However, upon inspection of the room, he discovered an opportunity so audacious that it made him pause for a second.

Then however, he remembered that he was born of the union between two Sargath Sevens, trained since birth to have the kind of chutzpah to ask to be left behind enemy lines so that he could better blow things up. When he was twelve he had the cojones to begin hunting down high ranking Chaos cultists to avenge his murdered father, meticulously planning their destruction for over a year. Throne, he had even shot at an Inquisitor! And this whole insane plan was his too, in spite, or perhaps because, of the fact that this dorm had not suffered a successful panty raid in almost a thousand years.

Audacity was his middle name!

And so, despite the voice at the back of his head telling him that he was insane, Mosegi moved to test his skills of legerdemain in the most epic way possible. With incredible daring and dexterity, he began the process of removing Dielle’s bra while she was sleeping in it without waking her up. Aside from the kind of precision that most snipers would envy, his also required Mosegi to somehow get the eighty kilograms of slumbering muscle and holy wrath to roll over without awakening to very probably send him to see the Emperor sooner than he would have liked. After two minutes of subtle prodding and blowing to get her to move, he finally slipped the undergarment away, pocketing for later.

Slipping out of the room with a smile on his face the sized of the Damocles Gulf, Mosegi discovered that the rest of the mission would be a breeze compared to the feat he had just pulled off. Throne; even if he got caught he had just scored enough points that his name would be remembered forever, even if he might not.

Positioning himself strategically, he waits for a patrol to walk by before saying quietly, “Hey ladies…”

The two girls assigned to patrol the dorms immediately snapped their heads about to look for the source of the male voice in their territory, which meant that they were looking in the right direction when the flashbang went off. Temporarily blinded and deafened, this meant that the most alert people were now incapacitated, while everyone else in the dorm would have been awoken from their dreams of slaying the enemies of the Emperor to utter confusion.

The first one on the scene was, unsurprisingly, the ever-so-athletic Sister Dielle, completely unaware of the fact that she was completely topless. Mosegi decided to inform her of this fact by whistling appreciatively and waving the pilfered bra. Fortunately he was wearing a balaclava to conceal his identity otherwise he knew that he would have been hunted to the ends of the galaxy. The danger was worth the utterly gobsmacked look on Dielle’s face as she blushed with shame and rage before she let loose a prodigious shriek of feminine fury.

Giggling to himself as he ran for his life, Mosegi wondered why anyone ever thought they stood a chance against the Adepta Sororitas. The combined effect of the flashbang and the scream had roused everyone on the floor and probably most of the Sister in the dorm. And Mosegi estimated that he probably had half of the senior students chasing him screaming for his blood. His waving of the stolen undergarment like a captured regimental banner probably had something to do with that.

Narrowly dodging a busty Sister that he remembered painful from the scrumball match, he slid across the tile mosaic floor to the stairs where he transferred his lateral motion to vertical, springing up and twisting about to view the onrushing horde. Snapping off a sharp salute, made all the more comical by the fact that he was holding the bra in his right hand, he then woodenly tipped over the railing, landing cat-like on the second floor landing.

Pocketing the bra again, Mosegi quickly took out a smoke grenade and dropped it at his feet. Just as the thick purple clouds began to build, Mosegi jumped off that landing. Just in time too as the flashbangs being thrown by the rest of the assault force started going off on the second floor. They would be engaging in a much faster snatch and grab mission, spending no more than thirty seconds on the second floor before retreating under cover of smoke and darkness.

Mosegi on the other hand had to keep the confusion going to give his comrades time to escape, so he stopped at the first floor, which fortunately had no living quarters, and waited, crossing his arms and tapping his foot impatiently. Screams of rage filled the night and Mosegi knew that eventually someone would take control of the situation, but for now he was in his element.

Once the first of the Sister began to clear the smoke and see him, he took off like a bolt, and began a merry little chase through the halls. He figured he had about two minutes before someone from the administration started to send out their own people to deal with the situation, but until then he was going to run just fast enough to avoid being beaten to a fine red paste by the howling mob behind him.

Reaching a straightaway, Mosegi picked up his pace a little so that he could get enough distance to risk turning around and shouting out mockingly, “Catch me if you can, wannabe bolter bitches!”

He immediately had to pick up his pace again as that seemed to really piss them off.

Feeling his muscles begin to burn with the exertion, Mosegi rounds his last corner before making for his escape route. There was a certain doorway with a pole just over it for hanging plants or censers that a sufficiently acrobatic person could potentially use to get to a balcony just above. Mosegi was such a person.

Grabbing onto the pole while running at full speed, he kicked out and let his momentum carry him into a circular path. Releasing just after his body was parallel to the ground, he did a nice neat flip onto the balcony, only just getting his feet onto the balustrade and having to practically throw himself forward to avoid falling back into the screaming horde.

With one last glance back at the furious faces screaming up at him, he blows the Sisters a kiss, smacks his ass, and then runs off, quickly disappearing into the shadows.

Quickly making his way across campus to the ditch point, he finds two bundles waiting for him. One of the storm trooper uniforms used for the mission, the other the spoils of the raid. Stripping down and putting on a more anonymous set of clothes, Mosegi takes the two bundles to complete the final stage of the plan: blame the storm troopers.

While certainly not the most difficult part of the operation, this one was perhaps the most time intensive as eventually someone would begin questioning the other students to try and find the culprits. Dumping the uniforms in the laundry, Mosegi then hides the underwear in the ceiling of a janitorial station near the storm trooper barracks. The job was incredibly sloppy and practically asking to be found, which was actually the point.

Stealing away like a panty thief in the night, Mosegi slips past the patrols and makes it back to his dorm with just enough time to change again and pretend to have been asleep before Commissar Trannan comes barging into the commissarial cadet dorms and shouts out, “All right, every last one of you little frakking shits get out here on the double.”

Filing out orderly, all of the cadets stand at attention, wearing their best ‘butter won’t melt in my mouth’ expressions. Marching back and forth along the line of cadets, the grizzled old commissar then begins, “In the history of this schola, the sanctity of the Sororitas’ dorms has not been disturbed in a thousand years. In fact, a man has not set foot in there since the dean was forced to take disciplinary action of a unique sort over two hundred years ago. And tonight, that pristine record was broken. And not by us!”

No one blinked. It was too obvious a trap.

“And do you know why we didn’t do it?” Trannan rages.

Barely half a beat later Mosegi says crisply, “Because as future members of the commissariat we are above such juvenile antics, sir?”

“No Cadet Corbath, we did not break this streak because you are the biggest bunch of weak kneed, incompetent…” Trannan then trails off as he stops near Mosegi, his nostrils flaring.

It is then that Mosegi realizes that he still smells strongly of sweat from his run through the halls with a horde of psychotic women on his trail.

Looking at him closely, Trannan asks, “Cadet Corbath, why do you smell like you just ran in the intra-schola 500m sprint?”

“I forgot to shower before going to bed sir,” Mosegi says, trying to make it sound like a statement and not a suggestion.

“You’re lying, I distinctly remember you carrying a towel and having wet hair before lights out,” Trannan states.

Oh. Frak.

“Sir I…” Mosegi begins.

“Can it cadet. Before I haul your ass before the administrator I just want to ask you one thing. Did you really get in there?” The last bit dropped all hints of intimidation and sounds actually sincere.

Still trying to think of a way of weaselling out of the situation, the confrontation is interrupted by Trannan touching the ear bead vox unit he was wearing and listening in before glaring at Mosegi and saying, “The Sisters are unanimously blaming the storm troopers for this one and apparently all the stolen goods were recovered close to their barracks.”

“Sir, the storm troopers are like a bunch of juvies at the best of times, it would be within their character to pull a disgraceful stunt like this,” Mosegi says, hoping to divert the conversation.

“Yes… yes… and their code of brotherhood would mean that they would never talk about something like this. I suppose since they wouldn’t be able to single out one individual or group they would just have to punish them all equally,” Trannan says coolly.

“They are wont to do such things sir,” Mosegi says.

“Oh, wipe that shit eating grin off your smile Mosegi, I know it was you. I’m not going to report you though,” Trannan says.

Still not quite taking the bait, Mosegi says, “Shit eating grin sir? I must apologize; there was something in my teeth.”

“Lame cadet, very lame. I…” Trannan then pauses to listen to his vox again before something akin to a twinkle lights up in his eye and he says, “Apparently there is still one item missing cadet. Something belonging to Sister Dielle.”

There is a slight collective gasp and Mosegi winces as his cover is blown. Several of the other cadets send evil glares at those who let the cat out of the bag.

Glaring at Mosegi, Trannan says, “Alright cadet, if you can show me that it was you and that the commissars have just pulled off the biggest prank in this schola’s history, I promise to keep this whole affair a secret.”

Sighing, Mosegi says, “Yes sir,” before going to his hiding place for the bra. Returning with it, he hands it over to the old commissar, who immediately begins examining it, including sniffing it, a rather creepy action that is both better and worse because of the clinical way he goes about it.

“Cadet… this article of women’s clothing was very recently on a woman… what does this have to do with the Sister’s… shall we say hysteric fury?” Trannan asks.

“Err… well… she’s probably made because she went to sleep with it on and woke up without it… sir,” Mosegi explains sheepishly.

For several moments, there is silence, followed shortly thereafter by the sound of several dozen jaws hitting the floor, including Trannan’s.

Once over their flabbergasting the cadets all start babbling before Trannan holds up a hand for silence and says, “Truthfully?”

Nodding, Mosegi says, “I swear by the Emperor that it is the truth, may He struck me dead if I lie.” After several seconds with Mosegi not keeling over dead or spontaneously combusting, Trannan nods and hands the evidence of his epic feat back to him.

“I trust you plan on doing something not unbecoming of the station of commissar,” Trannan says.

“Mail it back to her on Graduation Day so that by the time she gets it I’ll have already shipped out for field training. We can’t have the storm troopers taking the glory for this, now can we?” Mosegi says, accepting the trophy with a salute.

Returning the salute, Trannan chuckles and says, “Remind me to book a month or two off for vacation after grad.”

“I wouldn’t dream of abandoning you sir,” Mosegi says with a grin.

“Good. Now get back to bed all of you. You’ve got a big day of faking innocence tomorrow,” Trannan says, waving them all away before pausing and thinking. After a few seconds an evil grin spreads over his face and he says, “I’ll see if I can swing having the commissarial cadets supervise the punishment details for the storm troopers. For the valuable experience of course. And because we are a neutral, third party in this whole sordid affair.”

The hallway fills with cruel snickers at that.

[Vehrec]

DAMN. That took balls, skill and enough luck to dance naked through a plasma reactor. You just had to forget to towel off though, didn't you? Ahh well, the Commisars will at least be able to unbend enough hopefully to tell this story in years to come. Many a young guardman's hopes and dreams will be raised *ahem* by the tale of Sister Dielle's bra.

Also, I now wonder. Do Space Marines wear Boxers or Briefs? Do their Boys need a House? Or do they let them hang? I don't know why I'm thinking about this. Write more about the Valor part so I can stop thinking about it.

[Academia Nut]

I'm fairly certain that it is stated that Space Marines go commando when they wear their power armour, although that is because they have the black carapace for the interface so they don't wear anything between them and their suits.

And I should have the next chapter up sometime tonight. It's a little bit of both valour and mayhem this time.

[Academia Nut]

Chapter 2

In retrospect, the pict evidence along with the signed confession for the returned bra had probably been a bit much, but whatever strings Sister Dielle had pulled to get him reassigned at the last minute was pushing the limits of good taste. After all, Mosegi had never done anything that bad, had he?

Although he supposed considering the fact that whatever happened he was more or less guaranteed deployment to a war zone at some point in his field training transferring his deployment from a civilized regiment to a feral one could be considered not that bad. The trouble was that Sister Dielle had to have known that Mosegi was terrible at close quarters fighting, just the kind of fighting such a regiment excelled at.

Thus somehow Mosegi found himself running along with a bunch of damned fool primitives waving his chainsword in the air and shouting, “Let’s get stuck in lads!”

Frankly he found such behaviour rather moronic, but the savages seemed to appreciate it and so far the orks were obligingly terrible shots to allow them to get to close range where… actually, Mosegi wasn’t quite sure why they were closing to range with creatures that were so much larger and stronger than them. Although some of these ferals were a damned sight bigger than Mosegi and closer in appearance to Ogryns than standard human norms.

This of course meant that if Mosegi wanted to have their respect he had to lead the frakking charge. Such was the life of a commissar who didn’t want to die in a ‘friendly fire accident’.

At least the bright red sash they had given him on Graduation Day to replace his schola white one gave him the authority to stock up on as many explosives as he felt comfortable carrying into battle. He had two bandoliers of frag and krak grenades strapped across his chest and three melta bombs clipped to his waist. The men had commented that he looked rather silly, but Mosegi was not about to let such commentary stand between him and his explosives.

At least someone had seen fit to issue the men he was running with their own frag grenades so when it came time to hit the ork lines Mosegi wasn’t the only one who could keep the greenskins heads down for that last moment before they hit the lines. The shrapnel did some damage against the hides of the beastly xenos, but the majority of the killing would have to be paid with blood and steel.

Leaping into the midst of the howling mob, chainsword singing in one hand and laspistol barking in the other, his own mob at his back, Mosegi wonders idly if he’ll survive this battle. Oh, sure, he made a dashing figure he supposed, but he had always scored consistently low on his close combat exams, only barely passing most of the time. True, this meant that he had far more skill at arms than the majority of these xenos, but probably less than the men he was supposed to be leading.

While disembowelling one particularly large ork, probably one of the nobs, and then having to shoot the damned thing three times in the head before it realized that it was in fact dead, Mosegi pondered whether or not he was actually really any good at this whole commissar business. He supposed he was, but he probably would have made a better storm trooper. After all, he was overqualified for long arms and assault weapons, and while technically most commissars never used any heavy weapons, he had gone out of his way to qualify for usage of most heavy weapons carried by Imperial Guardsmen.

After being knocked off his feet by a blow from a choppa that he inadequately parried, Mosegi remembered that half the reason he sucked like a vacuum at close combat was because he was always thinking. Rolling out of the way of the follow up blow, he grabbed and armed one of his krak grenades and tossed it up at the ork, saying, “Here, catch!”

He had intended for the grenade to serve as a distraction to allow him to get back to the safety of his own men, but somehow, possible battlefield confusion, the greenskin actually snatched the egg shaped explosive out of the air. Half a second later and the beast was a large splatter across the trench walls.

Getting up and dusting himself off, Mosegi turns to his men and says nonchalantly, “Huh… didn’t think it would actually be that stupid. Come, there are more greenskin to kill.”

Cheering loudly, the remaining ferals follow Mosegi back up out of the trench and onwards, blazing away with their laspistols and waving their now bloody swords, looking for more greenskins to kill. Almost immediately after making it out of the trench half of the squad is blown apart by a battle cannon shell landing on their position. With greenskins hanging onto the side and firing wildly into the air, a captured Leman Russ tank barrels towards their position.

“Run men!” The sergeant calls out in a blind panic, the ferals quickly breaking at the sight of the massive vehicle roaring towards them. Shrugging, Mosegi pulls out one of his melta bombs and casually arms it. Hurling the weapon through the air, Mosegi smiles as it lands in an open hatch. Half a second later the whole damn thing explodes in a colossal fireball as the fusion bomb cooks off something important. Orks and chunks of orks go flying everywhere, while Mosegi stands nonchalantly in the face of the explosion, the only result that his hat is taken off by a chunk of shrapnel.

Dusting off his uniform, he bends over and scoops up his hat before walking over to the trench where the ferals are cowering in terror and awe of what just happened. Casually pulling out his laspistol, Mosegi shoots the sergeant dead in the head and then says, “Today’s lesson is: don’t run. Tactical withdrawal is acceptable, running is not. Got that?”

The remaining troopers nod enthusiastically and fearfully. Of course, with the death of the sergeant and the tank cannon attack, said troopers number only number three, so sighing and shaking his head, Mosegi says, “And now that we’re so badly under strength, I suggest we withdraw back to our own lines.”


Flopping down in a surprisingly comfortable canvas chair, Mosegi sighs and takes the bottle of amasec sitting on the nearby table and pours himself a glass.

“Rough day?” Commissar Valerian asks idly while filling out paperwork.

Taking a sip of the decently well aged alcohol, Mosegi says, “You could say that sir. I’m just not cut out for the sort of fighting that these brutes prefer. I’m less of a front-liner and more of a sneaky bastard. Plus I just had to go through the paperwork nightmare that comes with having to carry out a summary execution. Oh, and I think I bruised a couple of ribs.”

Snorting amusedly, Valerian says, “You’ll get better at it. I understand you blew up a tank today?”

“Yes sir. And they laughed at me for taking all those explosives with me,” Mosegi says, chuckling darkly.

“Hmmm… well from the rumours flying around you apparently ‘stood your ground with the pride and calm of the Emperor Himself’,” Valerian notes, looking up somewhat at that.

Snorting, Mosegi says, “I’m somewhat afraid to ask if these primitives even know who the Emperor even is sir. But yes, I suppose you could say that I was rather calm about the whole affair. One way or another I was going to die if I didn’t take out that tank, and panicking wouldn’t have helped the situation any.”

Shrugging and going back to work, Valerian says, “Just so long as you don’t let it go to your head, use those sorts of rumours. We’re morale officers, which means that we do more than just execute people for perfectly human failings. We’re supposed to lead and inspire the men under us to achieve tasks that are sometimes superhuman in character. If they see a coward who sits in the back and shoots people for failing at things he himself will not do, then they will despise us. If they see a hero, then they will follow us into the Eye of Terror and back.”

Absorbing this information, Mosegi takes another sip from his drink and then says, “While I hadn’t quite thought of it that way, I know that I have to get the men to respect me, which is why I didn’t complain when you assigned me to a front-line assault unit. I just know that I’m better at different forms of combat.”

“Oh?” Valerian asks while only half paying attention.

“Did my transcript say anything about my family?” Mosegi asks in somewhat more brooding mood.

Pausing, Valerian shrugs and says, “Standard stuff. Parents were loyal Imperial servants killed in battle with the enemies of the Emperor. Not much else.”

“Huh… well, some of it is still probably classified by the Inquisition,” the mention of the shadowy organization keeping an eye upon all facets of Imperial life, and death, causes Valerian to look up sharply, “But I know that I’m allowed to say honestly who my parents were. They were troopers, standard grunts, who had a somewhat illicit affair that resulted in my birth. My mother died in action shortly after I was born and my father mustered out to take care of me. Eleven years later something happened that left me an orphan, and I eventually ended up in a Schola Progenium learning to be a commissar.”

Narrowing his eyes, Valerian begins, “While most commissars come from officer families and are thus nobility I don’t see how…”

“They were both Sargath Sevens,” Mosegi says bluntly after beating around the bush.

Valerian’s eyes go wide and he looks Mosegi up and down before saying, “Hand me that amasec.”

“Yes sir,” Mosegi says, handing over the bottle while feeling a bit flush. It had been rather embarrassing to go through the various case studies involving the ‘discipline resistant’ regiment that he had been born into.

After downing a large gulp, Valerian says, “Sorry about that son, it’s just that I served with the Sargath 7th about forty years ago and if you thought today’s paperwork was bad…” Valerian shudders and then takes another belt of the potent drink.

Nodding appreciatively, Mosegi says, “Well, as you might imagine, my father taught me everything he knew…”

“Everything?” Valerian asks somewhat with a somewhat haunted look in his eyes.

“Why do you think I had such a twinkle in my eye when I got the keys to the munitions depot?” Mosegi asks mischievously.

Valerian pours himself another large glass before saying, “Yeah… so your skill set is more…”

“Long guns, explosives manufacture, sabotage, stealth in both urban and rural areas, and some insurrectionist strategies, although I have very little practical experience with the last one,” Mosegi lists off.

Groaning, Valerian says, “The memories are all coming back to me now.”

“We’re they really that bad, sir?” Mosegi asks.

“No, just the opposite, they were too good! It’s just that their job gave them an independent streak ten kilometres wide and we had to give them a leash to match or they would bite back hard. It was physically impossible to properly crack down on contraband materials, so we commissars had to lie to keep from being a complete embarrassment to our superiors,” Valerian explains.

“Ah,” is all Mosegi can say in response to that.

Sighing, Valerian finishes off his second drink and then says, in a noticeably drunken tone, “Did I do something to offend the Emperor? I’ve always been a good, faithful servant, diligent in the execution of my duty. Why?”

Trying not to feel too offended, Mosegi, feeling the cogs in his brain turning over from the entire conversation, says, “Sir… sir, with your permission, I would like to engage in some… unorthodox morale boosting exercises.”

“Will this end with me facing a court martial?” Valerian asks drunkenly.

“I high doubt it sir,” Mosegi replies.

Valerian immediately breaks out crying and says, “The last time I heard that line I was nearly sent to a penal regiment!”

Wincing sympathetically, Mosegi says, “Don’t worry sir, the fallout will fall solely on me, I promise you that.”

Valerian’s weeping redoubles.

“Err… so do I have your permission to precede sir?” Mosegi asks nervously.

“Not like I can stop you,” Valerian cries.

“Yes you can sir, all you have to do is say no,” Mosegi says.

“That’s never stopped a Seven before,” Valerian weeps before seemingly passing out.

Sitting there for several minutes, Mosegi finally shrugs and says, “I guess I’ll take that as a ‘yes’ then sir. Don’t worry, I won’t disappoint you.”

Leaving the commissar’s tent behind, Mosegi begins to formulate his plan of attack. He needed to be able to inspire the men, and the best way to do that was to give them examples of victory to live up to. Unfortunately, he only had so much time before his luck ran out and he met someone or something he couldn’t beat in close combat. If he wanted to be a hero instead of a statistic, he would have to play to his strengths.

Looking out into the distance at the battlefield where the two lines had settled into relatively static configurations for the night, a plan began to brew in his mind. Yes… yes, he could do that.


With the dawning of the morning, Mosegi was sitting in the trenches, a chair and table set up with a complete tea set, totally oblivious to the pounding of the guns from both sides. As the ferals began to shuffle out, many of them started to gather about him curiously.

Sipping the last of his current cup, Mosegi sets it down politely on a saucer before crossing his hands in his lap and looking up languidly at the crowd of primitive savages given high tech weaponry surrounding him.

“Ah, you’re all here. Good, good. Now, how many of you know who I am?” Mosegi asks.

“You’re a commissar,” one grunt offers.

“Not quite, I’m only in training so I only have authority over Guardsmen of rank lieutenant or lower, but close enough. Now, how many of you know what a commissar actually does? I’ll give you a hint: it’s not all about killing your friends,” Mosegi offers politely.

One somewhat dim fellow suggests, “You blow up tanks?”

Chuckling lightly, Mosegi says, “Well, perhaps I do, but it’s not a job most commissars actually do. Is anyone here from yesterday?”

One trooper sort of makes himself known, and Mosegi nods and asks, “So, what did I do, exactly?” He then pours himself another cup of tea and sits back to listen.

“Uh… well, when the tank came… you… uh… well, I suppose you did what you’re doing now in a way. You didn’t even blink, just pulled out one of your bombs and tossed it,” the somewhat confused feral explains.

“Yes, precisely. Does anyone here know why?” Mosegi asks.

“Uh… you have the strength of the Emperor on your side?” Someone in the back suggests.

Shrugging, Mosegi says, “I suppose you could call it part of that, but I prefer to think that the Emperor helps the competent more than He helps fools, even if He seems to protect the latter more often. But what you see as divine blessing I like to call discipline, because unlike the mysterious ways He on Earth moves, discipline is a gift from the Emperor that will always be with you. And part of my job is discipline. Now, I can enforce discipline on you all, but that involves lots of beatings and executions for you and paperwork for me. Or I can teach you discipline so that you carry its strength with you always. Which would you prefer?”

Having remembered the cold, remorseless way Mosegi executed the sergeant the day before, the soldier from the squad says, “Uh… I would like to learn.” There is a chorus of agreement after that.

“Good. Now, there are no plans for an attack today, and the greenskins don’t seem up to assaulting our position today, so I have set up a little object lesson in discipline for you all. My first lesson is that discipline is not bravery, despite the fact that the two often look the same in the heat of battle. Discipline is about knowing your capacities and skills and knowing them well, and that means sometimes you do not charge blindly ahead. To that affect, I have strung up ten coloured flags mid-way into no man’s land. If you think you can get them, go out and get them for me. Of course, charging blindly out there is pretty much guaranteed to get you shot. Only those skilled in the arts of stealth have a chance of going out there, taking a flag, and returning unharmed. To those who get the flags, there is much glory. To those who stay behind, there is wisdom in knowing yourself. To those who rush out like idiots, there is much shame and dishonour for false pride and stupidity. Judge your own skills carefully,” Mosegi explains.

Two hours later and seven ferals lay dead on the ground, blown apart within seconds of clearing the trenches, while ten crouch next to him, triumphant in their victory and skill, while everyone else had long since disbanded to go back to their own units. His tea long finished Mosegi nods and says, “Excellent. Now, follow me those of you that returned with a flag.”

Leaving the network of trenches behind and heading for an empty practice range, Mosegi says, “Now… what happens next depends upon you. You have all shown a great deal of skill. I am willing to train you to improve your skills, to make you a sharp tool of the Emperor rather than a blunt instrument. This however will require hard work, suffering, and more than a little danger on your part. The first thing I will do is write you all up for ‘lacking fire discipline’, a relatively meaningless charge usually used to guarantee some form of punishment in more serious charge. This will give me the authority to take you all away from your standard units and see to your training as part of a ‘punishment detail’. I warn you though, once you accept, there will be no going back, lest we all lose face over this. Understand?”

After a chorus of replies, Mosegi nods and says, “Good, let’s get to this then.” He then goes to a table and pulls off a tarp to reveal a small collection of Mars pattern lasguns.

Picking one up, Mosegi says, “Alright, I don’t know what kind of half-assed training they gave you when you signed up, but we’re starting from the beginning. This is a lasgun, works on a near identical principle to the pistols you’ve all been issued. Now, I don’t particularly care what you’ve been told about how this things work, and frankly the spirit of this gun doesn’t care much either. Like the Emperor, the lasgun will light your path in dark places, and like the Emperor, this weapon also has a few, simple demands of you.”

Clutching the gun to his chest somewhat dramatically, Mosegi says, “Actually, relationship between a man and his lasgun should more properly be described as motherly rather than the paternal relationship between a man and the Emperor. A lasgun will always love you and support you, damn near no matter what you do. You still need to feed its spirit, but even when your power cells run dry, the gun will still be there for you,” Mosegi then accentuates the point by exploding into action and stopping a bare millimetre short of smashing one of the men across the jaw with the butt of the gun.

Drawing back from the noticeably shocked man, Mosegi smiles and says, “But there will be time for that later. Before we learn such things, we shall learn to fire these guns to lethal effect. From what I have seen, your training with your pistols has consisted mostly of ‘point this end at the enemy and pull the trigger’. Unacceptable. Doing that, you will only hit something of importance by the grace of the Emperor, and frankly I think he has better things to worry about than if some screw-ups like you actually hit anything. He gave us brains for a reason, and this is it.”

Picking up a can from the table, Mosegi hurls it a good 30 metres into the air, striking it three or four times before it hits the ground, now with several glowing holes punched through it and a more plastic disposition.

“When I’m done with you, by the Emperor you will be able to do that and more or I’ll kill you for incompetence myself. Now, I don’t realistically expect you to actually be able to do something like that now, there will be much blood, sweat, and tears training first, most of it the endless, repetitive firing drills I’m going to pound into your skulls, but before even that, I’m going to teach you to take care of the spirits of these guns. Now, gather round and I will go over the Rites of Maintenance…”


Eight hours later and someone finally noticed that Mosegi was up to something and Commissar Valerian came out to see what his pupil was up to. What he found were ten men endlessly drilling on one of the practice fields with Mosegi occasionally looking up from his paperwork to shout corrections to faulty behaviour.

“First I hear that you killed a bunch of men, now I find this madness. What are you doing cadet?” Valerian demands, although more with a worried tone than an angry one.

“Right now, sir? Alternately trying to complete all the paperwork I’ve made for myself with weapons requisitions, casualty reports, and the formation of this ‘punishment detail’ while trying to get the training of these soldiers up to a respectable standard. Fortunately they are all, to a man, elite hunters back home so once I explained to them not to ‘shoot the deer unless they have a shot’ they started getting past the spray and pray tactics they were taught,” Mosegi explains.

“And the flamer?” Valerian asks.

Looking down at the weapon at his feet, Mosegi shrugs and says, “This squad is going to have special weapons at some point, I figured I might as well start with my favourite. I’m actually a clinical pyromaniac; I’ve just learned to control it.”

Raising an eyebrow, Valerian says somewhat sarcastically, “Son of a Seven with pyromania? Will wonders never cease? Incidentally, remind me to ban you from getting near the Hellhound vehicle pool.”

“Awww…” Mosegi says in disappointment.

“You sounded far too sad there cadet. Back on topic though, what are you doing?” Valerian asks.

Glancing at the troops, Mosegi says, “It’s a bit too complex for Low Gothic sir, may I instead use High Gothic.” This was of course code for ‘I don’t want the troops to hear this’.

“Precede cadet,” Valerian says in the precise tones of High Gothic.

“This is a meat grinder regiment, the kind that the Guard is infamous for. These men live in mud huts for the most part, so the only thing they can give the Imperium is their lives. While noble, ever part of me screams that every drop of human blood spilt should be paid for with as many litres of the enemy’s blood as possible, not the other way around. We need to inspire this regiment, make them aspire to something more important than to run screaming at the enemy with swords and pistols and hope our dead suffocate our foes. We commissars are all about offering examples to the men, usually negative examples, but you yourself said that the men need heroes. I plan on making these men heroes,” Mosegi explains.

Valerian absorbs this information several times before a shiver runs down his back and he accuses, “You want to make a squad of Sargath Sevens!”

“I am a commissar so I would hope for more discipline than that, but yes, I will be passing on the tactics and strategies I know, which was why I made sure all of these men were capable of infiltration,” Mosegi admits.

Valerian groans and then says, “Fine, just wait the minimum six months before doing anything too stupid so I can promote you to full commissar and I can pass this administrative nightmare over to you.”

“Of course sir,” Mosegi replies.

“I need a drink,” Valerian grumbles while leaving the brewing mayhem behind him for the moment.

[pieman3141]

This story is sheer effing genius. It's different than other 40k fics because in my mind, it reads like a hardboiled detective story, with lots of noir and 40k-style violence in it.

Keep on writing!

Oh. Edit:

I only read the first chapter before posting that. Mosegi sounds like a cool guy, but a complete hardcore badass at the same time.

[Ford Prefect]

That was excellent. It has that more lighthearted tone that I like. However, it also had an epic once in a millenia panty raid on a dormitory full of Sisters of Battle in training. That's brilliant.

[Vehrec]

Even when preformed by Space Marine Scouts, any panty-raid into a Sororitas held area is frought with danger and risk. This was not merely a millenial event, no, this theft will be spoken of with awe for the next ten thousand years!
Nice to see that having killed a Sarge he then takes over the training. Training Ferals up to the standards that an elite unit like the Sevens would enforce will take time, but he can probably make legends out of them if he gives them even half his skill. Also, I have been somewhat inspired to draw up an Army List for this pyromanaical group. If anything pans out, I'll let you know.

[Academia Nut]

Go right ahead Vehrec. If you want the rough doctrines list for the Sargath 7th, it would go something like this:

Light Infantry (for the infiltration)
Veterans
Die-Hards (they're so used to being outnumbered it doesn't even phase them)
Heavy Weapons Platoons (they're always getting cut off or left behind, so they can't use things like tanks, but they still need things that make big booms)
Rough Riders (use bikes for the models despite having the same stats as horses. The only thing the Sevens like quite as much as fire is speed)

But the only entries on that list that are truly necessary are Light Infantry and Veterans.

[Academia Nut]

Chapter 3

“Sir, is this one of those stupid things Commissar Valerian warned you not to do?” Lorne whispers to Mosegi.

“Very probably, but opportunities like this only very rarely show up,” Mosegi notes quietly.

“What opportunities? Opportunities to defy orders and get into a situation where we’re almost certain to get ourselves killed?” Jorl asks sarcastically.

“Keep it down!” Mosegi hisses while checking his scope. “If it makes you all feel better, you’re assisting a commissar in the summary execution of a criminal.”

“I don’t think ork Warbosses count sir,” Jorl notes.

“One, he’s fighting against the Imperium, which is, by definition, a crime. Two, he’s a filthy xeno, which is also a crime. Both are unforgivable. Thus I am carrying out Imperial justice,” Mosegi explains casually.

“Then why aren’t we killing all the orks swarming about us right now?” Lorne inquires.

“Their time will come,” Mosegi notes darkly.

After absorbing this, Jorl finally asks, “So how exactly are you going to explain this?”

Shrugging, Mosegi says, “We got cut off and while looking for a way to get back to our own lines we discovered the local Warboss and decided to cut the head off the serpent, so to speak. Don’t worry, I’m a political officer. I can bullshit my way out of this sort of thing.”

“What about defying orders?” Jorl asks.

“Orders? Our orders are to slay the enemies of the Emperor, and when out of contact with superiors, I am to take control,” Mosegi explains.

“But can’t you get orders with that vox-thing?” Lorne asks.

“Sadly it stopped functioning during the beginning of the ork assault, and I am unable to rekindle its spirit as I am not a Techpriest,” Mosegi says with a hint of sorrow.

“But didn’t you…” Lorne begins.

“Not a Techpriest!” Mosegi hisses before saying, “And I see the big green bastard now, get ready for him.”

Taking up their own long-lasguns, Lorne and Jorl take their aim as well, while Anaxis and Helbay unlimber the heavy bolter assigned to them. While still out of range, Garston prepares his grenade launcher for the inevitable ork counter-attack, and Fergal double checks the flamer he carries in addition to his lasgun. Zarn, Klesus, and Verl, while not possessing special weapons of their own, prepare their own surprises for the orks.

Had the orks been looking back at the small pile of rubble they had run over, they might have seen all this activity, but as it was, they completely missed what was going on in their efforts to get to where the fun was at overrunning the retreating Imperial lines. As it was though, no one noticed until the bright lines of coherent light reached out to bitchslap their leader.

Of course, since the bastard was two and a half metres of solid ork bone and muscle covered in crude plates of metal, the one beam that actually hit him directly didn’t drop him outright, although it did piss him off quite badly seeing as how one arm no longer worked quite well. The second volley caught on of his bodyguards in the head and blew his brains out, but otherwise didn’t do much against the heavily armoured orks.

With a huge number of orks now turning towards their position, Mosegi could feel the others getting nervous, but he just holds his ground, now chanting the Litany of Accuracy aloud. His personal beliefs were that the Emperor was a very busy deity, but that there was always a chance He or one of His representatives might hear anyway. Plus he was pretty certain the practice had a calming and focusing effect.

It certainly worked on Lorne and Jorl, as instead of panicking, they calmed down and picked up the Litany, adding their fire back to Mosegi’s.

Still steadily firing away at the onrushing horde, sending single beams into the fray, Mosegi calmly says, “Anaxis, Helbay, please open fire. Garston, you start launching frag grenades as soon as the orks come into range.”

Just as the two gunners open up with the heavy bolter the various mobs of orks rushing their position begin firing, the orks finally begin returning fire, blowing chunks of masonry away from the ruins where Mosegi hid their position. As always, ork accuracy was best described of as a ring around their actual target, making it more dangerous to actually be next to the target being shot at than the actual target.

Eventually the inevitable happened, and Jorl took a large calibre round through the head, removing everything above his lower jaw in a shower of blood, brains, and bone chips. The men were clearly spooked by this gory death despite their training, but Mosegi just redoubles his chanting, focusing their faith in the Emperor and distracting them from the fact that they were outnumbered by an obscene value.

The roar of the dozens, perhaps hundreds of ork weapons going off blended together with the chanting and the fire of their own weapons that for a moment Mosegi worried that Zarn might not get the signal, or panic, but fortunately the soldier remembers his duty in the roar and chaos of battle, and right as the orks are about to smash into their position from all sides, he triggers their ace in the hole.

With a tremendous roar and a distinctive sound, the twenty claymores around their position all detonate at once, filling the air with tens of thousands of supersonic ball bearings. The effects on the orks are spectacular, reducing once frothing beasts of inhuman fury into bite sized chunks of flesh, or standing around with a stunned look on their face like the confused looking Warboss trying to figure out where his legs and retinue went.

Putting the beast out of his misery, Mosegi then calls out, “That won’t hold them long, run!”

Grabbing their gear, including what was probably a record breaking limbering of the heavy bolter the survivors quickly exit the ruins, grenades flying left and right while Fergal hoses down the immediate area with burning promethium. Pulling out a remote detonator, Mosegi blows the krak grenade attached to the sewer manhole cover that let them get this far behind enemy lines in the first place, throwing the ork corpses off in a spectacular explosion.

Trading his sniper rifle for a lasgun, Mosegi begins firing from the hip while waving for his men to get down the hole, shouting out, “We don’t have much more time! Move!”

First down the hole was the heavy bolter, as it was the bulkiest weapon, although they had already removed enough of the gear to fit it through in the first place. Then went Fergal, followed shortly after by Lorne and Verl. Zarn took an ork bolt to the chest just as he was getting into the hole, his entire chest cavity blown apart in a shower of gore, but Mosegi just casually kicked the corpse the rest of the way down while throwing another smoke grenade and spraying the area with las blasts.

Once the last man was down, Mosegi pulls out a melta bomb, arms it, and slaps it down on the lip of the hole before jumping straight down. Hitting the bottom with the agility of a cat, he quickly rolls out of the way of the blast of heat and the rain of lava like molten rockrete that accompanies the melta bomb sealing off the path behind them.

Using the fading light of the rapidly cooling puddle of molten rock to turn on his illuminator, Mosegi looks at all the men, and with an enormous grin on his face says, “Well that was fun, we’ll have to do it again some time.”

He is, of course, met with incredulous looks that question his sanity, but he only responds by brushing off his uniform and replying, “Oh, don’t look so shocked, we must have had a good twenty to thirty to one kill ratio, plus we got the local Warboss. With any luck, the whole damn advance will have stalled as they try and work out who is in charge and half the orks will be coming here looking for the big fight that caused all this mess.”

Somehow, judging by the pale looks on the men’s faces, Mosegi does not think that this fact has encouraged them so he says, “Look, just follow me and I promise to get at least half of you back alive.”

“Half!” They all cry out in horror.

“At least half. Sorry, but when you’re outnumbered thousands to one in enemy territory, it’s a little hard to promise you’ll all make it back. Anyway, if you want to get back safely, follow me,” Mosegi says.

“Why? You got us into this mess in the first place,” Klesus asks indignantly.

“Well, considering that you followed me, that’s a mark against you and not me, now isn’t it? And there are two factors you must consider. The first is that while I’m no hive worlder, I can navigate tunnels like these a frak load better than you can. The second is that I bet I could kill you all if you tried anything as vulgar as mutiny,” Mosegi explains, his voice becoming darker towards the end.

Klesus looks like he is about to protest but looking at Mosegi makes him shut up immediately and merely nod. Mosegi didn’t quite realize it at the time, but the combination of poor lighting, uniform, and all the blood, dust, and smoke on his face made him appear like a traditional figure of death from their homeworld. Already scared by the orks and being underground, the men all decided that perhaps ticking off the Grim Reaper is a bad idea.

Nodding, Mosegi says, “Good. Now follow me, we have to get out of the sewers.”


An hour later and they are all hiding in the shadows of a ruined church while Mosegi scouts from the bell tower. Free climbing down the ruined wall with incredible dexterity and agility, he drops quietly into their midst and then waves them all over to talk.

“Okay, I have some good news and bad news. The good news is that the plan worked! The orks are in full retreat, and within an hour or two more this position will be back in Imperial hands,” Mosegi tells them, to silent cheering.

“The bad new is that we have about two hundred thousand orks coming this way and they appear to be flooding the sewers with promethium, so in about two hours time the Imperium will be in possession of a large, smoking crater,” Mosegi then adds on in a deadpan tone. This news is met with wide eyed stares.

“Don’t despair though, the Emperor will provide. In the mean time though, I suggest we run that way,” Mosegi says, clenching his fist and pointing the thumb away from Imperial lines.

The men blink a few times, a few think about saying something, before they all shut up and nod, more acceptingly than approvingly.

Smiling, Mosegi says, “Think of it this way: this is a chance to cause the greenskins even more trouble. So far I think our kill to casualty ratios are better than some Space Marine chapters! Let’s see if we can get it even higher!”

Again, no response but wide eyed staring. Of course, none of the men had studied engagements involving the Astartes so at best they thought of the Marines as Angels of Death. Mosegi had no idea at the time, but the men were starting to think of him as a divine servant of the Emperor, and if just one of them made it back alive to tell the tale shrines to him would start appearing within the week.

Of course, since he did not know this, he blithely went about unintentionally making his legend grow even more.

Rushing from bit of rubble to bit of rubble, Mosegi then orders his men down in the middle of a field as his ears pick up a harsh throaty roar. Listening for a second, he smiles and then, gesturing for the men to stay down, stands up, walks out, and then begins waving his hands. At first the men think that he is signally for help, until of course the orks bullets start kicking up the dirt around his feet.

Calmly raising his sniper rifle to his shoulder Mosegi peers down his scope at the ork truck bouncing and rattling its way towards him at high speed. Not even twitching when one of the bullets ruffles his camouflage cloak, Mosegi takes a single shot. This shot threads through the gap in the armour on the drive compartment and splatters the driver’s brains all over the back window.

Having gone from a nominally in control vehicle to an out of control ballistic missile, the truck veers to one side before hitting a pothole and flipping over, throwing the passengers out and crushing them between the rolling hunk of metal. With one final colossal bounce the vehicle lands right in front of Mosegi, the driver side door falling off its hinges and the dead driver slumping out at Mosegi’s feet.

Turning back to the open mouthed men, Mosegi says, “See? The Emperor provides. Now come on and hop in.”

Clambering into the back, Lorne asks, “Uh… sir, can you drive this thing?”

“No. Can you?” Mosegi asks while hopping into the driver’s seat, not even noticing the blood.

Lorne blinks, shrugs, and says, “No.”

Looking over the crude controls, Mosegi shrugs and presses a big red button, which causes the engine to start up from the stall induced by the tumble. Grabbing a lever that he figures might be the gear stick, he puts it into what he hopes is first gear and then presses down on one of the pedals. When nothing happens, he tries the other pedal, only to discover that he has somehow put the truck in reverse. Quickly stomping on the other pedal, he confirms that it is indeed the break.

Turning back to everyone sitting in the back, Mosegi smiles weakly and says, “Sorry, my bad.”

After three more false starts, Mosegi finally figures out how to get the thing going, at which point he subsequently discovers that ork vehicles have three settings: fast, very fast, and reverse. Unfortunately for the passengers hanging on in the back, Mosegi has one setting: too fast for sanity’s sake.

After jumping a gap and landing hard on the truck’s poor shock absorbers, Mosegi lets out a loud whoop of joy while his passengers just scream in terror. Looking about, he points to a large convoy of ork vehicles and shouts out over the roar of the unmuffled engine, “Hey! More orks to kill!”

Whatever response his men meant to give is lost by the wind, but it wouldn’t matter anyway because Mosegi had already turned the steering wheel so as to move to intercept the long line of ork buggies and trucks. Quickly catching up, Mosegi pulls up to the nearest vehicle, gives the driver the finger and blows a raspberry, and then stomps his foot on the accelerator.

This, of course, enrages the ork to no end, and in typical orky fashion, he takes this as a personal challenge, especially from a ‘puny uumie’ at that. So he immediately stomps on his accelerator and gives chase. Weaving in and out of traffic, Mosegi and his tail quickly turn the whole damn thing into a giant race, with only a few of the orks actually realizing that the leader isn’t an ork. Not that they would care, seeing as how they would still shoot at an ork.

Once at the head of the column, Mosegi bangs on the window and shouts “Shoot them!” before grabbing and arming a few of grenades and tossing them out the door. One of the frag grenades bounces too away to do any damage, while another one bounces up just before detonating and turns the back of another truck into a charnel house.

The krak grenade on the other hand leads a charmed existence and bounces right into the back of truck full of barrel of fuel. Most of the barrels do not actually detonate right away, but a gigantic fireball erupts, immolating two buggies, and the rear of the truck becomes consumed in flames. Somehow Mosegi thinks that the ork driving the truck finds this an improvement, while in the back his men are busy frantically returning fire at the horde of green flesh and rusty steel following them.


Ten kilometres away a colonel looks through a pair of binoculars and then asks the commissar next to him, “Valerian, do you have any idea why two dozen ork vehicles, one of which is spectacularly on fire, would be chasing and shooting at one of their own vehicles, which, if I am not mistaken, is firing an Imperial pattern heavy bolter at them?”

Groaning, Valerian takes a quick slug from his flask, having switched from amasec to antacid months ago and says, “No colonel, I have no idea why something like that would be happening.”


Rushing across shelled out, ruined terrain, Mosegi then spots an opportunity he can’t pass up. Ahead of him there is a groundcar tunnel that has been partially blocked by a damaged tractor trailer, judging the space left open carefully, Mosegi then shouts out, “HANG ON!” before gunning it for the tunnel.

Just barely clearing the gap with a millimetre to spare on either side, Mosegi immediately enters an obstacle course of burnt out vehicles, smiling to himself at the fact that they were lucky they couldn’t burn much more. Three buggies slip through the gap, a fourth slams into the tractor and is then hit by the flaming truck, which never had a chance of making it anyway.

The entire hillside erupts in flame as the rest of the fuel barrels are ruptured by the impact, consuming the rest of the convoy in the fiery blast. In addition, one barrel is not immediately ruptured, but instead becomes a brief rocket, taking it far away from the impact site. Falling flame back to the ground, by some stroke of luck it lands in one of the sewers the orks had been filling with promethium, a fact not currently known by the Imperial forces.

Thus, the only clue Mosegi gets as to a several kiloton equivalent explosion is a slight quaking of the ground, something he doesn’t particularly notice as the two surviving buggies are still on his tail and thus the only shaking he is worried about is the rattle of the truck’s engine and the bullet bouncing off of its piecemeal armour.

Somehow mounting up the courage to do so, Garston pops his head out and launches a krak grenade nearly point blank into one of the buggies, blowing it to scrap metal. The act costs him his life though as one of the orks on the other buggy gives him a rather fast, rather thorough full frontal lobotomy.

Now having to duck and weave through the various burnt out hulks, Mosegi finds his ability to control the truck is inadequate for the task, and thus begins to go into a slide. Shrugging fatalistically, he pulls out a krak grenade and throws it at the last remaining buggy, where it strikes the gunner in the head but otherwise does nothing.

Slamming hard into a barrier wall, Mosegi idly wonders why the ork species had never come up with the concept of safety restraints as he dazedly tries to regain his composure. Fortunately for him, the orks in the buggy are too busy laughing their asses off to think about finishing them off.

“Stoopid uumie! Ya forgot ter arm da stikkbom!” One of them calls out, holding up the krak grenade Mosegi threw while bellowing hysterically. Pulling the pin, the ork is rewarded with the grenade instantly going off in his hands, immolating the buggy and its passengers.

Once he has regained his composure, Mosegi clambers out of the truck to check on the damage to the vehicle and to his men. Seeing no injuries worse than some bruising, except for the quite dead Garston, he straightens out his coat and hat, brushes off his shoulders and then says, “And that is why I made you rote memorize where you put all your grenades. Bombs with the timers dialled down to 0 are dangerous but have many potential uses, that being one of them. Any questions?”

Weakly raising a hand from the pile of bodies in the back, Lorne asks, “Yeah, now what?”

“Well, I’m sure we can find a way out of these tunnels on this side of the river, but by now the area is probably crawling with orks, while the ones on the other side would have no idea we’re coming,” Mosegi says.

“So that means we’re going deeper into enemy lines?” Lorne asks.

“Yes,” Mosegi says crisply.

“Okay. I just wanted to know,” Lorne says. “I suppose that means that there will be more targets for us to blow up.”

“That’s the spirit!” Mosegi says with a grin.


They were the Adeptus Astartes. Angels of Death. Agents of the Emperor’s divine will. Nothing could stand against them. Sons of Corax, Primarch of the Raven Guard, they emphasized brief, furious assaults on key positions to take the enemy to their knees through a thousand deep cuts. They were a precise scalpel, whose target was…

The target was on fire…

The squad of marines stood at the crest of the hill they had just rounded to discover that the fuel and munitions dump they had infiltrated behind enemy lines to take out had been turned into an inferno. As they watched, the fire began to spread, quickly immolating a large chunk of the occupied city the orks were using as a fortified stronghold.

“Uh… sir… I have to turn around to see something that isn’t on fire. No, wait… the river is now on fire. Everything is on fire,” one of the brothers notes clinically, with only the slightest hint of sarcasm.

“Oh… frak, were you here to hit that target?” A voice from the darkness asks, at first invisible until the brothers realize that it is coming from the direction of the fire and thus their night vision equipment is being overloaded on the visual and IR spectrums. Turning them off, they find a human in a somewhat battered looking commissar’s uniform looking up at them.

Looking down, the sergeant finally says, “Yes, we were here to destroy this supply depot. Now we’re stuck here for five hours until our Thunderhawk can get here.”

“Oh, sorry about that,” the commissar says, shrugging apologetically. “My boys and I just decided it looked flammable.”

“And the city?” The sergeant asks.

“Well, we managed to dump two tanks of promethium into the sewer systems before we lit the whole thing up, so that should have adverse affects of the locals. Of course, we had to dig a bit of a trench first, but we had captured enough earth moving equipment to get the job done,” Mosegi explains.

“Damn it, I thought we were working with the Guard this time,” one of the brothers seethes.

“Oh, it’s just me and seven troopers plus as many civvies as we could find. We got cut off from the main lines several days ago,” Mosegi explains.

The sergeant is about to say something when he pauses and brings out a data slate. Thumbing it several times, the sergeant says, “Damn, I think we can track this guy’s progress from orbit by the devastation in his wake.”

“You can?” Mosegi asks curiously, leaning in to get a look.

Glad that he can’t see their stunned expressions through their helmets, the sergeant finally says, “Commissar, I think we need to have a good long talk.”

Nodding, Mosegi says, “Well you have five hours and I have marshmallows back at camp, so I’m sure we can work something out.”

As Mosegi walks of, the sergeant turns to his brothers and with an accusing finger says, “We are not having marshmallows, got that?”

“Awww…” A few of them whine.

[pieman3141]

That was wicked. ...-ly funny, that is.

Alright. So.. what happened to the grim start? Mosegi seems just a bit crazy, but hardly evil or insane if you look at the big picture.

[Ford Prefect]

Mosegi is clearly insane. Clearly. And it seems the kings of behind the scenes killing want to have words with him.

[Vehrec]

Damn. Ok, I did work up a list, I really did. And it does this no justice. I need to get a lot more things that go BOOM, like maybe a cyclops or somthing.

Die-Hards
Light Infantry
Veteran
Rough-Riders
Special Weapons squads

HQ: H. Senior Officer, 55+20 for Manchurian cross, +15 for refractor field +10 for Power weapon and Storm bolter +2 for surveyor. +25 for Master Vox operator, +20 for 2 plasma, +18 for 3veterans, +12 for Krak grenades for all guardsmen.(108) Special weapons squad 1, 35pts+27 for 3 flamers, +6 for frag grenades(68 ). Special weapons squad 2, 35 pts+28 for 2 flamers and 1 demolition charge 6 pts for frags (69).

Elites: Hardened Veteran Squad 1: 85 pts, +10 for Light Infantry +5 for srgt power weapon, +18 for flamers, +5 vox.
Hardened veteran squad 2: 85 pts, +10 for LI, +15 Autocannon, +30 Plasma, +5 vox.
Hardened veteran squad 3: 45 pts, +10 for LI, +30 for Meltaguns, +12 for krak grenades, + 5 vox.

Troops: Junior Officer +2 points for Surveyor, 40 pts 5 for Vox, +15 for Missile launcher, +16 for 2 grenade launchers, +6 for 1 veteran +12 for Krak. 60 pts for infantry squad, +5 for vox unit, +10 for frags, +8 Grenade Launcher, +15 Missile launcher(98x3).

Junior Officer, 40pts +2 for surveyors 5for Vox, +20 pts for Plasma, +10 for Light Infantry, +18 for veterans, +12 for Krak. 70 pts for Light infantry, +5 for Vox, +10 for frags, +6 veteran sergeant, +5 sniper rifle, +6 flamer(102x3).

Junior Officer+2 for surveyors, 40pts, +5 for vox, +15 for Autocannon, +6 for veteran +5 for medic, +16 for grenade launchers(87)
60 points for Infantry squad, +5 for vox, +15 for Autocannon, +8 for grenade launcher (88pts).

Fast attack: Rough Riders Squadron 1: 46 pts, 5 for vox, 20 for Melta-bombs, lasguns substituted, +20 for 2 Meltaguns.
RRS2: 46 pts, 5 for vox, 20 for Melta-bombs, lasguns substituted, +20 for 2 meltaguns.

For the record, I really like the feel of that hand delivered Demolition charge. And I now clearly need to design Commisar Mosegi, Son of Sevenths. I go to all the trouble of getting those Voxes, and he goes and ignores them!

[Academia Nut]

Yeah, demolition charges are definitely part of the Sargath fluff, seeing as they are routinely crazy enough to use them.

As to Mosegi, I was thinking of something along these lines (for the last story anyway, he's going to expand in the near future). I have no idea how many points he would be worth, other than LOTS:

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
3 5 3 3 3 4 2 10 5+

Wargear: Sniper rifle, lasgun, krak grenades, frag grenades, melta bombs, trademark item (see below)

Special Rules
Sneaky Bastard Mosegi is perhaps one of the sneakiest bastards in the Imperium, and certainly within the Commissariat. To represent this, he and any unit he joins may use the Infiltrate special rules when the mission allows it. In addition, he is noted for his tendancy to slip away from a fight he does not think he can win to cause havoc elsewhere. To represent this, any time a he or a unit he wins an assault, they may not make a Sweeping Advance, but must rather either Consolidate or slip away. If they slip away, then Mosegi and any unit accompanying him will be removed from play and placed in reserve, and may then Deep Strike as per the usual rules, even if the mission does not normally allow it. If still removed from play in this way at the end of the game, Mosegi may not contest table quarters but will not count as being defeated for victory point tallies.
Claymores Mosegi is infamous for booby trapping his positions, and to represent this, use this rule. If Mosegi does not move from his initial set-up position at all, then if assaulted, after all movements are completed but before rolls are made, all enemy models capable of participating in the assault take one automatic Strength 5, AP 5 hit. Note: if all enemy models capable of participating in the assault are killed then it is resolved as an automatic win for Mosegi and he may consolidate or slip away
Retinue Mosegi may be joined by a retinue of Guardsmen on 'special punishment detail'. To represent this, he may have an attached squad of Imperial Guard Hardened Veterans, using the standard rules for such a squad, except that any number of guardsmen may replace their lasguns with sniper rifles at +10 points per model, and these weapons do not count against the number of heavy or special weapons taken by the squad. This squad counts as part of Mosegi's unit for the purposes of a force organization chart. Mosegi may not leave this retinue unless it is completely destroyed, in which case he reverts to being an independent character.
Independent Character Mosegi counts as an independent character and follows all the rules for such.
Krak grenades Mosegi loves explosives and has learned to use them in close combat. If he forgoes all other attacks during an assault phase then he may instead place a krak charge. Regardless of respective weapon skills, he hits on a roll of 5+ and causes one Strength 6 hit, ignoring Armour Saves
Angel of Death The men Mosegi leads are terrified of him because of his insane confidence. To represent this, Mosegi himself counts as a Trademark Item and thus any unit attached to him rerolls failed morale saves. In the event of a failure, remove one model as Mosegi summarily executes the nearest coward, at which point it is assumed that the unit passed anyway. If alone, Mosegi counts as Fearless
Leader of Men Unlike other commissars, Mosegi does not use the Advisors special rules
Taunt Mosegi has studied the psychology of various Imperial enemies extensively in order to better piss them. Any enemy unit within 6" takes a -1 penalty to morale and must make a morale check or charge and assault Mosegi during the Assault Phase.

[Academia Nut]

In this chapter, we add a fair amount more valour and a metric fuckload more mayhem.

Chapter 4

Five minutes later and Sergeant Durant is feeling distinctly stupid holding a stick with a couple of marshmallows stuck on one end over a low wood fire. Durant wasn’t even sure how it had happened, it just had. The goggle-eyed stares of everyone but the very peculiar commissar wasn’t helping the feeling any either.

Having regained his wits, Durant turns to Mosegi and asks, “So what exactly were you doing when you got cut off Commissar?”

Holding up a finger so that he can finish swallowing the gooey mass of semi-liquid caramelized sugar Mosegi then says, “Actually, I’m just a cadet. I left the schola… oh, probably about half a year ago, and I’ve been in the field for about four months now. Still have at least another two months before I can be promoted by my superior to a full commissar.”

“Ah,” Durant says, somehow not expecting the young man to make it that far.

“To answer your actual question though, I was drilling the squad here in urban warfare tactics when our position was overrun. Realizing that we could not survive a direct confrontation, and with our vox-unit malfunctioning, we utilized the sewer systems to hide before infiltrating to a bombed out building. From there we began a campaign of asymmetric warfare against the greenskins,” Mosegi explains.

“Asymmetric warfare that leaves a trail of destruction battleships would be envious of?” Durant asks sceptically.

“What can I say? The orks are stupid; they really should change their tactics to compensate for being the inferior force in such an engagement,” Mosegi says with a nonchalant shrug.

Durant blinks a few times before struggling with the urge to stare in open mouthed wonder at the raw audacity of the young man before him. He also tried not to look pained by the way Mosegi was completely dominating the conversation.

“Quite. I must say though, your methods are rather unorthodox for a commissar,” Durant notes.

“You have no idea,” Mosegi comments before popping another toasted marshmallow into his mouth.

Passing off the stick of now crispy golden marshmallows to his men and accepting another stick of uncooked ones, Durant asks, “Well then explain further. We do, after all, have plenty of time.”

Finishing his marshmallow, Mosegi says, “For starters I’m probably the sneakiest bastard to ever wear the sash.”

“That’s not exactly hard,” Durant points out.

“True,” Mosegi concedes. “I’m probably one of the sneakiest bastard’s in the Imperium then. Top ten thousand at least.”

“I’ll have you know the Raven Guard and our successors pride ourselves on our stealth. I myself received training from Captain Shrike, a master of stealth,” Durant says, trying not to sound boastful, merely adequately proud of a hard earned accomplishment.

“Captain Shrike, eh? We studied some of his campaigns at the schola. Very interesting Marine I must say. I would love to meet him some day,” Mosegi says honestly and openly, making Durant feel not so… he would never use the word intimidated, but there was definitely a lesser synonym involved around the commissar cadet. He had an aura of self-confidence that most Chapter Masters would have a hard time outdoing.

And then Mosegi dropped a bombshell by saying, “I wonder what he would think of this?” and pulling out a small pict.

Taking the piece of plas, Durant examines it and after a moment lets his jaw drop in shock and wonder. Printed on the piece of plas is an image of Mosegi grinning from ear to ear, giving an emphatic thumbs-up while holding what was quite clearly a standard issue Adepta Sororitas bra.

“I know it’s juvenile, but just before graduation I organized the other cadets into staging a panty raid on the Sororita trainee dorms. Blamed it on the storm troopers too and… must you all look at it?” Mosegi trails off, asking as all the other marines crowd around to get a look at the pict.

“Scout marines have died on missions like this!” Durant exclaims.

“Really?” Mosegi asks incredulously, furrowing his brows at that.

“Okay, most have just been beaten to a pulp, and these were better defended convents, but once two thousand years ago Brother Delphinius pushed his luck one time too many, infiltrating the dorms rather than the laundry like normal looking for a big score and… why are you frowning like that?” Durant asks.

“I infiltrated the dorms, not the laundry, and I have eyewitnesses to prove it. Also, the pict was originally taken to show that I did the deed and not some storm trooper. Plus, I know you won’t believe me but I swear to the Emperor it’s true, that bra came from an instructor who was wearing it at the time of theft,” Mosegi explains.

Durant’s eye twitches and then looks for some bolt of lightning to come down through the roof of the building where they are hiding before he says, “You’ll excuse me if I’m sceptical of such madness.”

“Madness? It was Nova Spartacus Argentis; you can look up the report yourself. Best bit was that the commissarial cadets got assigned the task of managing the punishment detail for the storm troopers. Were they ever pissed about that, not that they could do anything for the rest of that year what with them living in fear of horrible retaliation from the Sisters,” Mosegi says, grinning smugly.

Going silent for a moment, Durant hands the pict back to Mosegi and says, “Damn it, now I need to come up with an excuse for requesting the files without looking like an idiot.”

“Introduce me to your superiors and I bet they’ll do the job for you out of sheer morbid curiosity,” Mosegi says with a too wide smile. Durant shudders slightly because the plan is far too simple for his liking.

Deciding to change the topic, Durant asks, “So now that you’ve burned down a good chunk of a city, what are you going to do now?”

“Well, presuming that you will let me use your vox units to contact my superiors, I will do as they order me. Otherwise I will try and smuggle all of these civvies back to Imperial lines,” Mosegi says, gesturing to the several dozen people crowded into the bombed out building, staring at the strange gathering.

“With just you and seven men?” Durant asks.

Shrugging, Mosegi says, “It’s only a couple hundred thousand orks, I’m sure we’ll be able to make it.”

And then, with synchronicity that implied divine intervention on some level, one of Mosegi’s men walks into the room with a grim look on his face and says, “Uh… sir, we have a problem.”

Getting up, Mosegi follows the man outside and takes the proffered binoculars and looks up the hills to the north to see a rather gruesome display. Obviously pissed at the destruction of so many of his assets, the ork Warboss in charge of the entire invasion had set up a lovely display of crucified Imperial citizens and the mass immolation of entire families using material gathered from shattered churches of the God Emperor.

Staring at this scene grimly, Mosegi sets his jaw and says quietly, “Well this is all the more reason to get the civvies to safety.”

Examining the scene with his own auto-senses, Durant says, “It’s Ramrag Raka, leader of this whole Emperor-damned Waaagh, if we kill him then the whole thing could collapse.”

Nodding, Mosegi says, “He’s calling us out. He knows someone from the Imperium is causing all this havoc, and he like any good ork he’s tired of the best fight on the planet sneaking about and not facing him. He wants a fight; he doesn’t care about what happens afterwards.”

“And we’ll be the ones to give it to him, right?” Durant asks the Marines assembling behind him, and they all reply with quiet nods.

Turning to Durant, Mosegi nods and says with a smile, “I’ll guard the civvies and tell your transport what’s going on, you go kill the greenskin.”

Offering a hand, Durant says, “It has been interesting to meet you Commissar-Cadet Corbath.”

Taking the proffered hand and somehow dominating the clasp despite the enormous size difference and the fact that Durant could squeeze the marrow out of Mosegi’s knucklebones, Mosegi nods and says, “And you noble Astartes.”

And then the black suited Marines rushed off into the night, quickly vanishing into the shadows as if they never were. Looking back up the hill to the bonfires there, Mosegi gets a hard glint in his eye and a small, animalistic growl escapes his throat.


“Wen meeb catch dat stoopid uumie, me'm goin' ter stomp 'im, peel 'is skin off, an shoot 'im. In dat orda!” Raka rages, punting random gretchin into the fires while he stomps back and forth, raging at the unfairness of the whole situation. “Meeb an da boyz jus' wanted ter gotsa spot o' fun, git a gud Waaagh goin' an awl, an dat uumie 'asta go an spoil it awl!”

The bolt exploding against the side of his head puts a stop to Raka’s tirade, but unfortunately the thickness of his skull and the large chunk of steel perched atop it means that his head fails to be blown off.

“A pity, I’ll have to redouble my bolter drills,” Durant notes while his brothers begin opening up with their bolters from the shadows, mowing down the various orks in the area. Unfortunately Raka and his bodyguards are big enough and are wearing enough armour that most of the blows do little more than increase the berserker fury of the orks.

“Yooz nub da wun me'm lookin' fer, but me'll stomp ya anyway!” Raka announces, charging at the marine’s position with the rest of his boys.

Thumbing on his chainsword, Durant announces, “Focus all fire on Raka!” while ork shells bounce off his armour.

The battle is short and brutal, and unfortunately, not in the favour of the Marines. While they give as good as they get, Raka himself is simply too strong, his armour shrugging off blows that would fell lesser beings while his enormous axe and power claw cleave through ceramite and flesh with terrifying ease. Sawing one ork in half, Durant blows the head off another one while trying to push his way through the swirling melee to get to Raka, who has just cut one of his brothers in half from head to groin. Before he can get there though he feels his legs give out as one of the orks peppers his lower back with heavy machinegun shells.

Collapsing, Durant blows away an ork towering over him ready to cut him down, before rolling out of the way of a descending axe. Cutting that ork off at the knees, he is forced to parry another axe with his sword, but the blow shatters the weapon. Emptying the rest of his pistol, Durant then reaches for a grenade but finds an iron shod boot on his arm and an ork leering down at him, pointing a crude bolter at his face.

Before the beast can pull the trigger a bolt of coherent light hits him square between the eyes and blows out his brains. Slumping down on top of Durant, the dead body prevents him from doing anything with the poor leverage not having feeling below the waist confers.

Backlit by the fires of the city still burning below and the rising of the sun, Mosegi walks into view, and tossing his sniper rifle aside, says in surprisingly good ork, “Leave 'im, me'm da wun ya wan.”

Pointing a single massive power claw finger accusingly, Raka says, “Ya! Yooz da wun meeb wan!”

Pulling his lasgun off his back and tossing it aside too, Mosegi strides forward, arms wide and says, “An yooz da wun meeb wan, ya stoopid zoggin ork. Awl ya orks are stoopid, but ya da dumbest wona awl ya zoggin grot wit.”

“An ya stoopid uumie…” Raka begins, but is then cut off by Mosegi.

“No, ya lissen ter meeb ya stoopid zoggin ork. Me've killed lotz o' yer kind, an yooz jus' anodder greun pile o' babee ploppaz dat needs flushin'. An y'knowz why? Koz orks are stoopid an uumies are bedda,” Mosegi declares.

“Uumies are da stoopid wunz! Orks are bedda!” Raka says indignantly.

“Uumies!” Mosegi cries out while taking a menacing step forward.

“Orks!” Raka declares.

“UUMIES!” Mosegi shouts while tapping his chest, asking for Raka to do better.

“ORKS!”

“UUMIES!”

“ORKS!”

“UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMIES!” Mosegi screams at the top of his lungs, now standing eye to eye with Raka, although the enormous ork has had to hunch over for this to occur properly.

Inhaling deeply, Raka roars at the top of his considerably larger lungs, spittle flying from his teeth, “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-”

He is unfortunately cut off by Mosegi shoving an armed krak grenade down his cavernous throat. Biting down in surprise, Raka doesn’t have the time to spit the weapon out before it goes off, incinerating his head and blowing Mosegi back a good ten feet, missing most of his right arm below the elbow.

Blood spurting out of the half charred wound, Mosegi struggles to rise, taking off his commissar’s sash and wrapping it around his stump, tying it tight with one arm and his teeth. Rising shakily, he looks around at some of the orks milling about and then picks up a large ork gun. Balancing it precariously with the remains of his arm, he turns to them all and shouts out, “Me've got anodder arm an plenty more stikkbomz, who wants a piece?”

Looking amongst themselves, one of them finally says, “'E's more orky dan Raka ee iz!”

“Does dat make 'im da boss?” Another one asks in confusion.

“No, jus' means weeb godda go elsewhere an tink ubbout ow ter be more orky,” the first ork replies.

“Will there be bea an scrappin?” A third asks.

Cuffing the questioner upside the head, the apparent new leader says, “O' corse, datz wot bein' orky iz awl ubbout! Weeb jus' can't du it 'ere, or da uumies will see an den 'ow're weeb goin' ter git bedda?”

“Oh! Okay den. Werr weeb goin'?” The second one says.

Cuffing that one upside the head, the new leader says, “Weez orks! Weeb know wen weeb git there!”

And with that the remaining orks just sort of wander off. Blinking a few times, Mosegi shrugs and lets the heavy weapon fall from his weary hands. Stumbling over to Durant, Mosegi collapses and says in a raw voice, “I would help you out there… but I lost a lot of blood and I think I’m on the verge of shock.”

“Not surprising,” Durant notes, looking at the now soaked sash tied around the wound. After a moment he asks, “So does the noise distract you?”

“What noise?” Mosegi asks weakly.

“The sound of your solid frakking adamantium balls clinking together when you walk,” Durant notes.

Smiling and then laughing somewhat before it turns into a coughing fit, Mosegi says, “No, I had padding installed during the same surgery where they stuck the official commissar’s stick up my ass.”

Snorting, Durant says, “I don’t think it stayed there.”

Coughing again, Mosegi says, “Let me tell you; was that ever a hellish trip to the toilet.”

After another lull, Durant asks, “So as to keep you talking and try and stave off shock, where’d you learn to do that?”

“What? Blow up my arm? I was kind of winging it at that point,” Mosegi says.

“I mean smack talk with orks,” Durant says.

Snorting, Mosegi says, “Oh. That. Well, have you ever heard of the Sargath 7th?”

“No,” Durant replies.

“Didn’t think so, their infamy is pretty local to this sector. Anyway, my parents were both from that regiment, and let’s just say that I inherited a lot from them,” Mosegi begins.

“Somehow I see such a thing as being a commissar’s worst nightmare,” Durant jokes.

Smiling, Mosegi says, “Oh, it is. But anyway, despite the fact that the regiment was only founded a few hundred years ago at most, there are stories that circulate around about even earlier histories. As my father explained, every word is a lie but the stories are absolutely true, as such things go. Understand?”

Nodding, Durant says, “Even Marines bullshit with one another on occasion.”

Laughing openly before degenerating into a bloody coughing fit, Mosegi says, “Ooooh… did not need to do that. Anyway, yeah, there’s this story about how the Emperor himself founded the regiment. It is total bullshit and more than a little blasphemous, but still awesome.”

Nodding, Durant says, “Such stories are important.”

“Okay… well, it goes like this… about… Ooooh… too much blood loss. As I was saying… Emperor. The Great Crusade is going on and the Emperor lands on this one planet, where the orks there are so struck by him that they say He’s the biggest boss in the universe and they’ll follow him wherever. In His wisdom, He allows them to fight for Him as a means of seeking redemption for being filthy xenos. Anyway… what was I saying? Oh yeah, the Emperor. Anyway, after a time when these orks have proven that they are loyal and hard fighting, He is so impressed that He decides to forgive their crime in this life instead of the next. So in His glory and power He… He… He? Oh yeah, He remakes these orks into proper humans. So moved are they by this gift, these former orks go on a twelve planet arson spree, all in the name of the Emperor of course, and thus was the Sargath 7th born. Pretty… pretty silly? No?” Mosegi says, swaying drunkenly back and forth through the story.

Taking of this in, Durant says, “That’s a very strange story.”

“It’s a very strange regiment,” Mosegi responds before adding on, “And I think I’m going to pass out now.” He then proceeds to do just that, his eyes rolling up into his head and his body flopping over spread eagle on the ground.

“Damn it,” Durant curses, trying again to wiggle out from under the ork corpse.


It was perfect. Valerian had managed to work out an air tight case against Mosegi, and if the psychopath ever showed up again he would be in front of a court-martial so fast his head would spin. Hopefully from a noose at that. There was nothing that could go wrong. Nothing.

And then his aide came running excitedly into the tent and said eagerly, “Commissar, you have to come see this! A Space Marine Thunderhawk just landed nearby, and Marines descended carrying Cadet Corbath on their shoulders! Apparently he killed the ork Warboss and the rest of them are dispersing, leaving the planet for somewhere else. The war is over and they’re calling him a true Hero of the Imperium!”

Valerian’s left eye twitches to the point of closure, and then he picks up the files he has gathered and tosses them behind him. Pulling out a bottle of forty year old amasec, he breaks the seal for the first time and begins chugging until his chair tips over.

---

With apologies to Spanky and thanks to this guy for his English to Ork translator.

[Ford Prefect]

Not even Ciaphas Cain can match this level of absurd and hilarious twinkery. Oh Mosegi, you silly, silly man.

[Sidewinder]

I like the story so far. It's humorously entertaining, and Mosegi is a fascinating character.

[Academia Nut]

Hehehehe... can you guess which book I finished the day I started writing this story?

Anyway, here is a short bridging chapter. Can you tell I wrote it on Father's Day?

Chapter 5

Consciousness was slow to returning for Mosegi, partly because he had suffered a mild concussion when his head hit the ground after blowing up Raka, partly because he’d had chunks of ork driven into his stump by the blast and thus the entire site had become badly infected, leading to blood poisoning and then several days of delirious fever dreams.

Eventually though the apothecaries got the infection under control and removed the last bits of foreign material. Once the stump finished draining, they immediately began cleaning it and preparing for the attachment of a bionic replacement. Aside from being a commissar and thus earning the right to higher quality augmetics than the bog standard trooper, with Space Marines staring over their shoulders the medics made sure that Mosegi got the best quality gear they could get their hands on. Fortunately, when a Space Marine coughs politely, there was a tendency for the Ad Mech to look a little harder for the good stuff.

Thus, by the time Mosegi’s eyes fluttered back open, two weeks had passed, which was enough time for Durant’s spinal column to have healed. So the first thing he saw was the enormous Marine standing curiously over him. Or rather, it was the first thing he recognized, seeing as the first thing he actually saw was the buxom nurse’s ample bosom as she leaned over his bed to do something, but at the time he opened his eyes he was lacking sufficient context to understand exactly what he saw.

A pity that too.

“Feeling better Hero?” Durant asks jokingly.

Raising his now mechanical limb and flexing the fingers a bit, Mosegi says after a moment, “Given the alternative, I guess you could say so.”

Snorting in amusement, Durant says, “True. When I heard that you were walking up I came down to tell you a few things. The first is that, aside from ending a war early and saving countless lives, you saved the lives of several of my Brothers. Aside from me, three other Marines were critically wounded but not dead and our apothecaries managed to patch them all up. So you have the eternal gratitude of the Raven Guard.”

Smirking, Mosegi says, “I’ll have to add that into my personal planner. Note to self: have eternal gratitude of First Founding Space Marine chapter, may come in useful one day.”

Throwing his head back to laugh heartily at that, Durant says, “Yes, I’m sure it will one day. And to show our gratitude, we’ve had something commissioned for you.”

Pulling out a large, ornately carved box made from polished ebony, Durant places it next to Mosegi’s bed and gestures for him to open it. Lifting the lid, Mosegi gasps in shock at the item lying within. Inlaid with gold and etched with numerous devotional scripts, the piece is clearly the work of a master artisan. Gingerly lifting the storm bolter out of its case, Mosegi examines it and then asks, “Why?”

Snorting in bemusement at Mosegi’s confusion, Durant says, “We always keep a few weapons around for other loyal servants of the Emperor who have proven their worth in our eyes. That particular bolter was crafted over seven hundred years ago and has yet to find a master. My Captain was in complete agreement with me that you deserved to wield this in the name of the Emperor.”

Of all the reactions Durant expected, Mosegi to break down crying was not one of them. In fact, it was distinctly uncomfortable to see a man who had done what he had so thoroughly bawling. Especially since Marines never cried. Not even when they got something in their eyes, as they had special membranes to clean them.

“Umm…” Durant says, wondering what to say. He was used to dealing with crying civvies by being tough, a rock in a storm, a bastion of the Imperium against all the horrors of the universe. Somehow he doubted that such a tactic would work for a man who had a kill count somewhere between a company of Space Marines and an orbital bombardment.

Wiping away some of his tears, Mosegi says, “Sorry… sorry. It’s just that well… this is the first time in a long time that I’ve felt appreciated. Not since my father died…”

“Oh,” Durant says, not really having any context on how to respond to that.

Sniffling, Mosegi says, “My father used to always tell me that we all have many fathers, but there is a minimum of two: one father who is biological, and the Emperor, who is the father of all. When my biological father died, I was left with only my faith and the desire for revenge. I got my revenge later, but since then I’ve been feeling a bit empty. The Emperor is… is… well, you know. But He’s not great at the sort of praise and congratulations boys need when growing up. But for a Space Marine, practically a direct son of the Emperor, to give me something like this…”

Taking this in, Durant finally says, “Ah, yes, I think I understand. Well, I think all of your years of hard work are going to pay off today as many representatives of the Emperor congratulate you.”

Looking upset, Mosegi says, “I’m not looking for accolades! I just…”

Placing a ceramite encased hand on Mosegi’s shoulder, Durant says, “There is nothing wrong with having pride in what you have earned by the grace of the Emperor and your own work. Your humility does you justice, but if this victory is as much the Emperor’s as yours, then surely celebration is in order?”

Thinking this over, Mosegi finally asks, “It’s frakking hard to not fall into hubris, isn’t it?”

Snorting bemusedly, Durant replies, “No, but if you keep reminding yourself why the hard path is often the better one, you’ll do fine.”

Nodding, Mosegi reverently packs the storm bolter away and says, “Thank you.”

Nodding back, Durant says, “Well, I must go now, the detachment from my Chapter has already finished exterminating the majority of the orks that did not leave this world and we are moving on shortly. Know though that you have the full support of every Brother in this task force, and if you want it, once you become a full commissar there is a position as a liaison with the Raven Guard with your name on it.”

And with that Durant was gone.

Mosegi does not have to wait long, perhaps only a half hour at most, which he spent reading the storm bolter maintenance manual and ogling the nurses, before Commissar Valerian comes in, looking decidedly under the weather.

“Ah, good to see you sir,” Mosegi says, placing the manual back in the box with the bolter, which Valerian eyes nervously.

“A gift from the Marines?” Valerian asks.

“Yes sir, they were most appreciative of my aid,” Mosegi says crisply.

“Indeed. While I’m sorry I got cut off like that and could not help the rest of the regiment, by the grace of the Emperor did it work out for the best in the end,” Mosegi says apologetically.

“Quite. That is actually part of why I’m here. You see, the regiment took over 75% casualties in that last ork push and it has been decided to muster out most of the survivors and have a second founding. Curiously enough, upon returning and learning of this fact, the men you had on ‘special punishment detail’ immediately requested to be kept on to serve as NCOs in the new founding. It was decided to grant them this request,” Valerian explains, his eye subtly twitching towards the end.

“Oh. A shame really, there was still a lot that could have been done with those men,” Mosegi says sadly.

“Yes, well your students will undoubtedly pass on the knowledge you gave them,” Valerian says, trying not to look queasy.

“I was referring to all of them, but yes, I suppose you’re right. Still more I have to teach though,” Mosegi says with a hint of regret.

“I’m sure. In any case, I have come here to present you with several things. The first is your Medallion Crimson, in light of the indomitable will presented in the face of grievous injury as befitting the example of the Emperor,” Valerian states, taking out a small cherry-wood box and opening it up to present Mosegi with the small crimson and gold medal.

Taking the box, Mosegi says, “Thank you sir, although I didn’t do much after I lost my arm.”

“The Medallion includes provisions for those that intentionally suffer harm for the purposes of completing a critical mission,” Valerian says with a shrug.

Placing the box on his lap, Mosegi says, “Thank you sir.”

“Next up are a swath of campaign medals and various heroic ones, but they’re all really just added weight to your chest,” Valerian states, handing over several more boxes, which Mosegi examines in turn.

“Finally though, is your promotion to full Commissar,” Valerian says.

Furrowing his eyebrows in confusion, Mosegi asks, “I thought that…”

“Six months, I know,” Valerian says, sounding rather frustrated at life in general before saying, “That said, there are ways to get around that. In the event of a cadet displaying heroism above and beyond the call of duty, he may be promoted early with the recommendation of his mentor and the endorsement of two others, usually other commissars, but Imperial Guard officers of rank General or higher or other important military officials, in your case an entire company of Adeptus Astartes, are also acceptable. While you were recuperating the recommendation for promotion was passed along to a Commissarial Review board and passed unanimously. Congratulations kid, you’re a Commissar now.”

Mosegi is left speechless for a moment before he says, tears in his eyes, “Thank you sir, you have no idea how much this means to me.”

Actually letting a smile cross over his craggy face, Valerian says, “Oh, I think I have some inkling. This is however, where our paths part. Due to medical conditions, I have decided to retire from active service. In recognition of your skills at raising morale, your new assignment is one where you should be able to do the most good.”

“Really?” Mosegi asks, curious at his new assignment.

“Yes. Your new assignment is to serve as the Regimental Commissar for the 117th Penal Legion,” Valerian says with just the hint of a smirk.

Taking this in, Mosegi then asks, “What is the primary crime of the soldiers, sir?”

Shrugging, Valerian says, “I’m pretty sure it’s a mixed bag, mostly hive scum rounded up and given guns.”

“Ah. That will make things decidedly easier. I won’t have the desire to shoot them all for turning their backs on the Emperor as much then,” Mosegi notes clinically.

“As much?” Valerian asks.

Shrugging, Mosegi says, “As a political officer, I of course must consider what is best for the Imperium, but that does not mean I have to personally enjoy such things. Common criminals on the other hand are much easier to work with, seeing as their transgressions against the Emperor are less heinous than others.”

“Ah. I suppose that makes sense,” Valerian notes.

“Indeed sir… err… wait, I’m the same rank as you now, aren’t I?” Mosegi asks, having just considered the change in the dynamics to their relationship.

Throwing back his head and laughing, Valerian says, “Oh Mosegi, there are some things about you that I will miss, your honesty being one of them.”

[Ford Prefect]

Aww, that's sweet.

[Academia Nut]

Chapter 6

Riva was bored. Not that boredom was unusual for her, but ever since the frakking Arbites had decided to round up troublemakers and she had been somehow caught and pressed into this Throne-be-damned penal regiment. Now she didn’t even have the enjoyment of variously shooting or blowing things up.

And damn it if she didn’t miss her mates! While she wasn’t sure if Nether could stand another stint in the Guard and that idiot Stone would have been eaten alive the first day here, to say nothing of D probably getting shot by his fellow cogboys for some heresy or another, but at least if they were here the boredom would be more tolerable.

Especially all the Emperor-damned marching! What was up with that? They were all hive scum; they all already knew how to fight. Just let them have their guns again and point them at the enemy!

And now they’d made them march and line up in the courtyard for inspection because apparently they were getting some hot shit new hangman to scream and shoot at them now. Whatever. Riva had already thrown twenty credits in the pot that he wouldn’t last the week. Their last couple of leashes hadn’t.

When the new commissar showed up, flanked by some of the senior officers, all the idle chatter rapidly died away. Not because they had men with heavy bolters watching over them, but once the conscripts got their first look at the bastard they all shut up. The guy was frakking scary.

It certainly wasn’t his outer appearance that was intimidating either. He was actually pretty young, a lot younger than most of the commissars they had had before in fact. And his face wasn’t all that messed up, a few minor scars here and there from what looked vaguely like coming from standing too close to explosives going off in Riva’s opinion. Considering the bandoliers of grenades strapped across his chest in a definitely non-standard fashion, this probably had a degree of truth to it. The fact that he was missing most of his right arm below the elbow also showed that he had been in battle. The ornately gilded storm bolter at his side also said that he apparently had some very good connections to get a weapon that good.

But the wounds, the weapons, even the uniform, paled in comparison to the aura of raw menace that radiated off him like heat from a star. There was just something about him that could scare even the most hardened hive gangster into shutting up and trying not to be noticed.

He walked up and down the rows of troops, silently inspecting the various conscripts for… something. He didn’t seem to care about sloppy dress or anything like that, but Riva did see several men discretely try and tuck in their shirts. Apparently they didn’t want to attract any more attention than necessary.

And then the commissar stopped at one man, looked him up and down a few times, and then casually drew a laspistol and shot him in the head. The act was stunning in the utter calm exhibited by the man while doing it. He quite simply cared less than a man might if he were taking out the trash. The corpse on the floor was less than trash to this man.

Continuing his slow progress through the ranks, the various gangsters now terrified into presenting their best at attention poses, he shoots three more men, and Riva starts to see the pattern behind it. He was weeding out old gang leaders who would be too wilful to accept authority and would actively undermine him. How he could tell just by looking seemed impossible but…

A sudden though occurred to Riva and she wondered how it had got there. Probably Stone’s fault. The commissar had probably read the various disciplinary reports beforehand and memorized the faces of those who he felt would be too much to keep around. The slow, quiet, calm approach and the seemingly psychic ability to tell who needed killing was all a carefully constructed act. Somehow though, knowing the mechanism behind this did not comfort Riva in any way. In fact, the whole thing terrified her on a much more fundamental level.

Lost in her thoughts, Riva did not notice that the commissar had stopped in front of her and was examining her closely. She instantly tried to look attentive and submissive, and felt herself why she was so terrified by this man who was younger and shorter than her. As his gaze intensified, she felt her bowels clench and she wondered if she would soil herself before or after she died. She hadn’t been that much of a disciplinary problem had she?

And then he was gone and Riva let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

Finishing off his tour without killing anyone else, the new commissar returns to the front where he ascends a small platform. Standing at ease, the commissar looks down upon the assembled group and then says, his voice amplified by speakers, “Greetings, members of the 117th Penal Legion, I am Commissar Mosegi, and I must say that you are the filthiest group I have ever met.”

No one laughed. No one sneered. No one did anything that might direct his attention towards them.

“You’ll note my diction there I hope. ‘Filthy’, not ‘filth’. You have all chosen to break the Emperor’s laws, and in doing so you have turned your back on the Emperor and humanity. But humanity has not turned its back on you, for while you revel in your own excrement, you are still human. So it is my honour to drag you, kicking and screaming if necessary, back into the light. All that filth on you will be washed away with an ocean of blood, sweat and tears so that when you see the Emperor you can stand before Him proudly. So do not think that you can try and slouch through your sentences and try and avoid catching a bullet on the battlefield, because I am going to wring every last bit of fighting potential out of all of you. That is all. Dismissed,” Mosegi says casually, letting the terrified conscripted convicts begin to filter away.

He then adds on afterward, no doubt carefully timed for maximum effect, “Oh, and would Trooper Rivka Lake please come see me.”

Freezing at the mention of her name, Riva wonders what to do before quietly scurrying off to see what the commissar wanted of her. The worse bit was that she was too scared to feel resentful for doing something so embarrassing and demeaning as ‘scurry’.

Once she arrives at the commissar and tries to give him her best salute, he returns it and then silently gestures for her to follow. Tagging along like some obedient dog, Riva follows while sweating bullets and wondering what horrible fate awaits her. Eventually they arrive at his office, where he gestures for her to sit down while he goes to his desk.

The office was strange, filled with boxes as he had obviously just moved in, but already it was taking on a haphazard look. One section of the room had apparently been set aside for weaponry, of which the commissar seemed to have quite the collection going. Mostly explosives and incendiary weapons, but a disassembled sniper rifle lay in one corner, along with a rather old and beaten looking lasgun. Power packs mingle with magazines filled with bolter shells and the occasional fuel tank for a flamer. His desk is covered in piles of files and data slates, with only a small area swept aside for him to work his cogitator.

Picking up a particular file, he opens it and after browsing it for a moment he says, “Trooper Rivka ‘the Reaver’ Lake, prefers to go by the hypocoristic form Riva. Originally wanted on suspicion of theft, smuggling of weaponry and proscribed substances, kidnapping, and murder; to name the short list. Upon capture wounded three Arbites officers and then refused to divulge information on the location of associates Nether, Stone, and D. When it became apparent that you weren’t going to talk, you were transferred to the 117th where you are to serve a forty year tour of duty. Does all this sound about right?”

“Yes sir,” Riva stutters out.

And then the mask dropped. Or perhaps it was another mask being put on. Suddenly Mosegi was not some coldly terrifying monster, but an amicable, friendly young man who oozed confidence. Smiling broadly and putting his feet up on his desk, he leans back in his chair and asks, “So how would you like a job as my aide?”

Riva could not have been more stunned if Mosegi had leaned across his desk and punched her in the jaw.

Smiling mischievously, Mosegi says, “Oh, don’t look so shocked, you’re here more or less for the rest of your life and commissar is a career position. Wouldn’t you prefer to spend most of your time filling out forms than getting shot at?”

In actuality, Riva would prefer the exact opposite so long as she got to shoot back, but saying that probably wasn’t the best idea at this time. So instead she asked, “Why me?”

“Well, for one, you’re literate, which is an advantage over half your comrades. The second and more important thing is that you’re loyal, in that, as much as they were other criminals like you and you could have received a much better sentence if you had handed them over, you chose to stay quiet. The most important reason is that amongst all the crimes you committed, you never once harmed a loyal Imperial servant directly; you only ever acted against the scum living next to you. That shows that you still have a shred of dignity left in you,” Mosegi counts off.

Riva really wanted to deny all this, but considering the alternatives, she just said, “Why?”

Still smiling, Mosegi says, “Because I need two things. One is an actual aide to help me out with the mountain of paperwork sure to be generated by this whole affair. The second is I need a trusty companion to watch my back. I don’t quite trust you yet, but somehow I get the impression that once someone has your trust, they have it for life or betrayal, with the second usually closely followed by the end of the first.”

“Well… err…” Riva says, trying to figure out what to say.

“You’ll do it? Excellent, now, there are a few details that need to be worked out first…”


Riva thought having to wear the fatigues instead of whatever the frak she wanted was bad, but this was far, far worse than anything she could have imagined. Commissar Mosegi demanded something parade ground worth, and since as a penal regiment the 117th had no dress uniform, she was forced to wear something of a makeshift designed based off of commissariat colours, which was mostly black with bits of red here and there. The concept of a uniform, and a dress uniform, was bad enough, but Imperial regs stated that the dress uniforms for females had to include skirts for some arcane reason.

Riva hated skirts.

Of course, she hated dying more, so she did not voice any complaints while she stood in front of the assembled scum once again and wondered what was taking Mosegi so long. She was used to getting stares and ogling, in fact if she had taken that bastard’s offer up on the porn shoot she would have totally missed the Arbites sweep, but the snickers were something new. As was the fact that she could not pound the frak out of the ones snickering.

Finally Mosegi showed up, carrying, strangely enough, an empty ration can and a briefcase. Handing the can to Riva, Mosegi instructs, “Take this can out a good hundred paces and then hold it in the air.”

His cold, menacing mask on, Riva dares not refuse or ask about the strange order, she merely does, running off with the can to the required distance before holding it up and shouting, “Is this okay sir?”

Mosegi, just a distant speck, does something and then shouts back, “Yes.”

About a second later a las bolt blows the can out of Riva’s hand, causing her to immediately start cursing up a storm while shaking out her hand. While not touched by the las bolt, the kinetic energy imparted to knock it out of her hands is enough to smart.


Lowering the long-las from his shoulder and ignoring Riva’s raving, Mosegi turns back to the convicts and smiling predatorily says, “Today I will be assessing fire discipline. While your lives are essentially worthless, it would be a shame to waste the Emperor’s las bolts, don’t you think?”

Methodically breaking down the long-las in front of the troops without even looking at what he is doing, Mosegi says, “In order to make a general assessment of competence with weapons, all squads are ordered to engage in a live fire training exercise. Squad senior NCOs will select one member from their squad and any one weapon issued to them. Said NCO will then have to hold up an empty rations tin at ten paces and the selected trooper will have to shoot the tin. Failure to strike at least once out of three shots will result in two weeks worth of punishment detail, under my supervision. Striking the NCO with one of the shots will result in four weeks punishment detail. If a NCO does not trust his squad to be up to the task, then the penalty is one week of punishment detail. At the end of any punishment detail the same test will be retaken. Thus, unless you want to be on punishment detail forever, it is within your best interests to pass. Understood?”

The squad leaders were at this point sweating bullets. Punishment detail under the new commissar sounded unpleasant, but aside from the fact that the majority of the soldiers relied on the spray and pray method of combat, even the good shots were likely to miss right between the eyes of their sergeants. Thus, unsurprisingly, all of the squads declined to take the test.

Putting on a look of mild annoyance, Mosegi looks casually at the assembled forces before him and then turns to Riva and says, “Riva, please go requisition an autocannon for my use.”

“Uh… yes sir,” Riva says before leaving as quickly as she can without running.

Letting his eyes go dark and flinty, Mosegi glares at the assemblage of soldiers until the ones in the front ranks start to wilt and then he says, “Originally I was going to just use a heavy bolter for the punishment detail, but since you had to go and annoy me like that I’m afraid that stronger measures are going to be necessary.”


One week later and no one had died of exhaustion… yet. Mosegi had driven them hard for the week he had them under his tender mercies, but in a carefully calculated way to make them unite in their hatred of him. Seeing as he was the commissar of a penal regiment, it wasn’t like he had a chance of not being hated, so he figured he might as well at least direct that hatred.

In the week since she had become his assistant, Riva discovered three things. The first was that being the assistant to the commissar made her a target only second to him. The second was that one good thing about being the aide to a commissar was that it made requisitioning things really easy, so she quickly had pistols back in the holsters beneath her arms. The third was that no matter how much of a terrifying, crazy, annoying bastard Mosegi was, he was also right. Once she gave someone her loyalty, it was up to the other person to betray or die first.

This meant that she had to constantly watch his back, but then again he seemed entirely capable of doing that on his own. Of course, Mosegi’s idea of watching his back was to charge headlong into a trap.

On one occasion during the punishment detail Mosegi had approached one squad training on the finer points of operating heavy weapons and after having a few terse words with them, he turned his back on them to walk away. What happened next was rather confusing, but it ended with Mosegi holding his storm bolter while smoke curled from the barrels and the weapon clicking empty. The various shivs lay useless on the ground and the heavy weapon had not been able to turn fast enough to help the luckless members of the traitorous squad.

It had only dawn on Riva while scrubbing the blood out of her uniform that Mosegi had walked in there and turned his back to encourage the attack before the plot was fully formulated, know that the squad hated him to the point where they would actually try and kill him if the opportunity presented itself.

It was really frakking hard to be a bodyguard for a man who liked to put himself in danger like that.

But now the first week was over and some of the squads would pass Mosegi’s test and be taken off of his hellishly grinding punishment details. Mostly it was like the regular boot camp training, only this time the commander actually cared if they got it right so he was relentlessly pushing them. The officers, non-convicts but often screw-ups to get assigned to such career killing units, did not like having to do so much work, but they dared not disobey. Mosegi had already shot one lieutenant, an act that actually gained him a slight increase in respect from the men, although considering how much they hated him it was hard to tell.

And so when the retesting was finished and about a third had passed, Mosegi clapped his hands together delightedly and said, “Excellent! Of course, that just proved the bare, most basic skill of one member, so in a week’s time I expect all squads to return to demonstrate all members are capable of performing the same feat. Until then you are on standard light duty as dictated by your officers, although if you wish additional practice in your free time, you may.”

This elicited groans, but they all shut up when Mosegi turned to the squads that had failed, and with his best predator grin, said, “And as for those of you I’m seeing again…”

[Ford Prefect]

Please go requisition an autocannon for my use ...

Emperor.

[Academia Nut]

Mosegi is a firm believer in the adage that "Those who do a job by halves are wasting the Emperor's time"

And did you catch the reference?

[Ford Prefect]

And did you catch the reference?

'Fraid not.

[Academia Nut]

It has to do with the names of Riva and her former cohorts. It's rather obscure and I was intentionally a bit obtuse so I'm not surprised you didn't get it. But anyway...

Riva = short for Rivka, Hebrew for Rebecca
Nether = what kind of people live in the lands of nether? Plus he's an ex-Guardsman
D = this one was generated by such an obscure path I'm not surprised no one got it. Only clue here is that he's a rogue techpriest
Stone = if you know the series I'm referring to then this is the easiest one, if not then know synonyms for stone won't help you much

That help any?

[Ford Prefect]

No, not really. When I first read Stone I thought of Tyrus' lackey, veteran of the Gland Wars. When I saw D, I thought of the dhampir Hunter from the series of novels Vampire Hunter D. I don't know where the lands of nether are, let alone who lives there.