With a casual gesture, he offers it to me. I reach out cautiously, still half-suspecting him to pull it away at the last moment, laughing cruelly.
I'm afraid to say that I snatch it from his grasp, eagerly reading the words:
'What will you do now, Kage?' the Colonel asks, leaning back in die rickety wooden chair, making the back creak under the weight.
'Stay in the Guard, sir/ I tell him instantly. I'd been thinking about it on the bumpy half-hour shuttle run. More to take my mind off Striden's poor flying than anything else. We had to ditch eventually, when another storm broke. He raises a questioning eyebrow and I explain. 'I joined the Imperial Guard to fight for the Emperor. I swore an oath to defend His realms. I aim to keep that oath/
Very well/ the Colonel says with an approving nod, 'your final rank of lieutenant will be transferred to whatever regiment you end up joining. There are quite a few here to choose from. But I recommend you stay away from the Mordians/
'I will/ I say emphatically. 'I kinda like the uniforms of the Trobaran Rangers, so perhaps I'll see if tiiey take me/
'Notify Clericus Amadiel as soon as you have made your choice. He will ensure any necessary paperwork is in order/ the Colonel says, nodding in the scribe's direction. Amadiel looks at me with his fixed, blank expression.
There is one other thing,' the Colonel adds as I'm about to turn to die door. He beckons the tech-adept forward witii a finger.
'I can remove your penal legion tattoo/ the adept says, raising die peculiar gadget as if in explanation.
I roll up my sleeve and look at my shoulder, barely making out die skull and crossed swords emblem. Above the badge you can just make out '13th Penal Legion', and underneath I know is written '14-3889: Kage, N/, though you can't see it now past die white scar tissue.
'I'll keep it/ I announce, letting my shirt sleeve drop down again.
'Keep it?' stutters Amadiel, unable to stop himself.
To remember/ I add, and the Colonel nods in understanding. The memory of four thousand dead is etched into my brain. It makes a strange kind of sense that it's tattooed into my skin as well.
We don't exchange another word as I salute, turn on my heel and march out, hand gripping the pardon so tighdy my knuckles are going white. Outside the bunker, the two provosts click their heels to attention as I walk between them, and I studiously ignore diem. A day ago, they would have shot me given the slightest chance or reason.
As I pick my way across die shellhole-pocked mud, I glance back and see die Colonel emerge. A sudden whine of engines and a downblast of air heralds die arrival of some kind of stra-tocraft - long, sleek, jet-black, no insignia at all. A door hisses open in the side and three men jump out, swatiied in dark red cloaks that flap madly in the downwash of die craft's engines, and the Colonel nods in greeting. The four of them climb back in again and with a whoosh it accelerates back into the clouds
again in less than ten seconds. That's the last I'll see of him, he's probably already planning the first suicide mission for the next bunch of poor bastards to be called the Last Chancers.
The empty bottle smashes as I casually drop it to the floor, the shards of pottery mixing with the glass and ceramic of the four other bottles that proceeded it. I'm drunk. Very drank. I hadn't had a drink in three years and the first glass went straight to my head. The second went to my legs, and the rest has gone, well, Emperor knows where! That's how it's been for the past two months, every night in the officers' mess, crawling back to my bunk when they throw me out.
I'm out on Glacis Formundus, back on garrison duty again, with the Trobarans and Typhons for company. I still don't really know anyone, I've spent every night here drinking my pay away, trying to forget the past three years, but it isn't easy. Parades and drills are so dull, my mind wanders back. To Deliverance, to Promixima Finalis, to False Hope and all the other places I fought and my comrades died in their hundreds. I swill the Typhon wine around the silver goblet for a while, pretending I can smell its delicate bouquet through the smoke of the ragweed cigar jammed into the corner of my mouth. Gazing up at the thousands of candles hanging from the dozen vast chandeliers that light the marble hall with their flickering glow, I wonder if there's a candle there for each dead Last Chancer.
The mess seems filled with Typhons today, giving me surly looks like they know something but they can't, I'm sure of that. We won a great victory at Coritanorum, we won the war and preparations have begun to receive Hive Fleet Dagon, which is why we're stuck out here for the moment. A great victory, but nobody else seems like celebrating. Everybody in the mess is sombre. I don't know what they've got to be so unhappy about, having to eat fine meat, dining on fresh vegetables, drinking, whoring, gambling and wasting their lives instead of fighting. I guess that's why I haven't fitted in, because I've begun to miss combat. Shouting orders at a bunch of uniformed trolls as they march up and down the parade ground is no substitute for crawling about in the mud and blood, kill or be killed situations that bring you to life. Miserable bastards, don't they know we've just won a war?
Everyone else's grim mood has brought me further down. I think about the other Last Chancers. The dead ones. The ones who got their pardon too late. Three thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine of them. All dead. Except me. I start to wonder why I'm alive and they're not. What makes me special? Was I just lucky? Have I been set aside from harm by the Emperor? I'm tempted to think the latter, which is why I joined up again, to pay him back for watching over me these past three years. Emperor, I wish these Typhons would cheer up, the miserable fraggers.
'What did you say?' a man demands from over towards the bar, three metres to my right. He's decked out in blue and white, the Typhon colours, gold braiding hangs across his left breast, a cupboard full of medals adorning the right. A colonel I reckon. I must have spoken out loud.
'Wha?' I mumble back, unable to recall what I was thinking trying to drag my brain out of the drink-fuelled murk.
'You called me a miserable fragger/ he accuses, stepping through the haze of ragweed smoke to stand on the other side of the small round table. I sit back, letting my elbows slide off the table and peer back at him.
We've just saved the fraggin' sector, and everyone's moping around like their sister's died/ I say as two more Typhons, both majors or captains by the uniforms, step up behind him.
