Dark Apostle

men uneasy. Hell, they made him uneasy. Soldiers that had no notion of fear or self- preservation, he was certain they would all march straight off a cliff to their doom at a word from the magos.

Soldiering was meant to be glorious: heroes were made on the battlefield and the victories of those heroes would be recorded for ever more back on Elysia, recounted in song at the great banquet feasts and balls of his home world. War was a noble act where one could gain honour and standing. There was no such honour or heroism amongst the Skitarii. They were little more than automata, playing pieces of their callous masters. What honour was there to be gained fighting alongside such as them?

He had been fascinated and horrified in equal measures when he had first seen inside one of the mobile factorum crawlers. The motionless shapes of pale-fleshed humans were held in vast aisles of bubbling vat-tanks, kept in a dormant state. That single factorum must have held ten thousand inert bodies, or ''flesh units'' as the magos called them. Darioq had coldly explained that while the Mechanicus was capable of creating its own vat- grown host bodies, it was time consuming and resource heavy, so most of these soldiers were from the other Imperial Guard units within the Crusade. They had suffered grave injuries, leaving them alive, but brain-dead. Others were criminals and deserters, and the punishment for their crimes was to be turned over to the Mechanicus.

They were destined to become battle servitors, all semblances of their former selves erased with mind-wipes and the removal of their frontal lobes. Indeed, Darioq had stated, the entire right hemisphere of the brain was removed from all but a few, those used as shock-troops and specialists, where a certain degree of adaptability and autonomous decision making, albeit severely limited in nature, was required.

Such concepts as creativity were clearly frowned upon within the Mechanicus and Laron had found this galling, for it was anathema to the way that the Elysians operated. Adaptability, being able to react to changing directives, objectives and situations, and the ability to operate effectively deep behind enemy lines with little or no direction from the upper echelons of command, were all favoured skills in the ranks of the Elysians. Those same traits were deplored as dangerous and heretical amongst the adepts of the Machine-God.

'Deep in thought, acting colonel?' asked a voice behind him and Laron turned to see the approach of the leather-clad figure of Kheler walking towards him.

'Commissar,' said Laron in acknowledgement. The commissar had been his shadow ever since Havorn had assigned him to watch over Laron and he had certainly not been lax in his duty. Wherever he turned, the man was there, watching and listening, waiting for him to slip up.

'Survived another day without getting shot then, acting colonel?'

'The day isn't over yet, Kheler.'

The commissar chuckled. It was insulting and belittling to have the man watching over him and the threat of his presence was obvious. His uniform demanded respect, yet he was a canny warrior and a highly capable officer.

The swiftness and the severity of his judgement was shocking. The commissar had been smiling and talking with one of Laron's men, but had executed that same man without a thought not an hour later when the trooper had turned to flee because his lasgun's powercell had run dry. A laspistol blast in the man's head had shown all the troopers that cowardice of any kind would not be tolerated.

'You do not flee the enemy under any circumstances!' he had roared. 'The Emperor watches over you! If your power cell runs dry, you pick up the weapon of a fallen comrade. If that runs out of ammunition, you draw your pistol. If you have no pistol, you fight with your knife. If your knife breaks, you fight with your bare hands. And if your hands are cut off, still you do not flee, you attack the enemy with any weapon that you have. You bite their damned kneecaps off if that's all you can do!'

That had got a scattered laugh and Laron had marvelled at the commissar's skill. The man had just killed one of their comrades and he had got them to laugh.

'But you do not flee!' Kheler had shouted severely, his eyes wide and threatening. 'Or I promise you, as the Emperor is my witness, I will gun you down like traitorous dogs.'

'Motivation,' the commissar had explained to Laron. 'That is what I provide to the regiment. The threat of a bullet in the back of the head is good motivation not to turn tail and run.'

The man switched from jocular comrade to ruthless executioner in a second. Even knowing this, Laron found it hard to dislike the man.

'Aren't you hot in all that get up?' asked Laron, motioning towards the commissar's long, black, leather coat and hat. The temperature over the last days had soared and any sign of the storms of the week before were long passed.

'Hot, acting colonel? Yes, I am damn hot, but do you think I would look such a commanding figure if I were stripped down to my undergarments? And besides, I look damn good in black. Dashing is a word that springs to mind.'

Laron snorted and shook his head.

'We are only flying to the front to see if the enemy truly are retreating into the plains, or if it is some ploy.'

'Must keep up appearances, acting colonel,' replied Kheler.

'Hold on to your hat, commissar,' said Laron as the dark shape of a Valkyrie approached overhead and the Elysian clicked his visor down over his eyes.

The screaming reverse thruster jets of the Valkyrie blew salt dust up into the air as they rotated towards the ground. Laron smirked as the commissar shielded his eyes with one hand while the other was clamped down on his leather hat to keep it from blowing away in the hot blasts of air coming from the engines.

The aircraft touched down onto the ground and its door slid open. With a nod to the men inside, Laron climbed aboard and turned to help the commissar. The man fell into his seat, blinking salt dust and grit from his eyes. Laron stood in the open doorway grabbing the overhead rail tightly as the Valkyrie left the ground and began a vertical ascent into the air, turning slightly.

The Imperial battle force was spread out beneath him. Lines of tanks rolled towards the front and tens of thousands of men marched in snaking columns over the rough ground below. Free of the constriction of the ravine, the army moved forward quickly and in good order. It was surprisingly tiring to organise the dispositions and lines of advance, but no doubt that was why Havorn had ordered him to do it, to test how he progressed.

It was certainly very different from being a captain. He had not thought it would be quite as difficult and exhausting as this. A lot of thankless organisational and logistical work required his attention, and he found that he was weary beyond words. He was far more tired than he had ever been when engaged on the front line, or even more than when he had been when engaged in deep missions on enemy territory. At those times he would snatch sleep when he could get it, an hour here, a few minutes there, but at least that sleep had been deep and restful, even if it was in the middle of a siege barrage. Now he felt as if he hadn't slept for weeks and when he did sleep he was still filled with concerns and worries.

There were a thousand and one jobs that needed his agreement, his sign-off and his input, and he had found it overwhelming. He was floundering and he couldn't see how he could get on top of it all. It was difficult at first to know what truly needed his attention and what could be delegated to his captains. His respect for Havorn had grown immeasurably as he realised the responsibilities of command that must weigh upon him. But he never showed it. He was always the tough old campaigner and none doubted his judgement.

His captains: it still sounded strange to him. He was no longer one of them. Now he was their colonel and the easy camaraderie he had once shared with them was long gone. He grinned at that. In truth, there had never been any easy camaraderie with most of the other captains. They had always seen him as an arrogant bastard, the 'glory boy' captain of the storm troopers. And they were mostly right.

It felt good to be in the air again and away from the pressures of his position, and he hated slogging along on foot. That was grunt's work. He was a glory boy, damn it, and if they were going to say it anyway, he might as well live like one.

'You think the enemy is truly retreating, colonel?' asked the commissar, though Laron knew that he already knew the answer. This was for the benefit of the men around them. He noted that in die presence of other members of the 72nd the commissar left out the acting part of his title. No doubt that was something else to do with motivation. He was a clever bastard.

'It's been hard and we have lost a lot of good men, but the enemy are falling back. I just want to see the traitors fleeing with my own eyes. The Emperor is with us! We will make them pay for the deaths of the men of the 72nd.'