Commissars were not supposed to feel remorse over the deaths of their Imperial charges, yet Senior Commissar Schultz could barely contain the trembling rage in his heart as he stood over the bodies of his thirty-seven stormtroopers. They were all covered and per his orders, they would receive a proper burial in space and not on this forsaken planet. It was the least he could do for men he considered like sons.
Their still forms became too much for him to bear and he turned away, walking past the rows of other bodies. The hundreds of dead Vanguard troopers that he and his stormtroopers had been too late to save. He stopped and stared at one uncovered mess, more so a pile of limbs and bones than a man. The dead trooper's mask was still on, but Schultz could feel the dead man's gaze, penetrating, asking, demanding. "Why?"
He often wondered that himself, but he had long ago numbed himself to the horrific answer. “Keep sleeping son, you did your duty. They can’t take anything more from you now." The fallen soldier did not answer, but Schultz resolved that he would answer for him in time. He and all the others spent in this war like so many rounds of ammunition.
Continuing through the camp, every man stopped to salute Schultz, even the other commissars in their black power armor and coats. His stormtroopers walked with a renewed sense of confidence that he made sure every man who joined his corps learned. Each one he knew by name since he took time to interview every man who served him. The only ones who did not seem to recognize him were the few survivors from the original Vanguard regiments. Tens of thousands of men had been sent to this world and only two hundred remained. Nearly every one of them was a One, but sitting in their huddled circles, in their remote part of the camp, they carried themselves like High Enders. Broken and hoping to be forgotten.
Only one amongst them seemed to notice his passing presence and had the state of mind to rise and greet him. The fellow’s uniform was ripped and bloody, and he looked like he had not bathed in weeks like all the others, but there was a clarity to his eyes that caught Schultz’s attention for a moment.
The other Ones then noticed the commissar and started to hurriedly stand to attention, but Schultz did not want to interrupt their moment of peace between storms and he marched away without a word. There was another time and place for that, for fire and blood. Yet for now, he held his rage to himself.
The Command tent, boldly placed at the top of the hill, was already filled with the sounds of someone being harshly berated and junior commissars milled outside it, pretending not to listen. When Schultz went in he saw Lady Collette scolding one of her Magical Girl prospects in front of an audience of the other Magical Girl students.
"If I find out that you consorted with one of the Imps again, I’ll have you expelled from the academy. No third chances. Do you have any idea why these rules are in place?”
The girl being talked to was a tall waif, white-haired and golden-eyed. She was even taller than her teacher, but the way she kept her head down and shoulders slumped masked that reality. The girl murmured, “I’m sorry, Madame Collette. I won’t do it again.” She looked like she wanted to cry, but the tears had not spilled out.
“Discipline is essential in this line of work girl. I don’t think you have what it takes to be a Magical Girl. Prove to me otherwise or else your future is going to be long nights spent recharging mana batteries and bonding Mana Marines.” Lady Collette turned and spoke to her other five students. “The rest of you, if you have a question or problem, you find a Magical Girl or one of the commissars. Do not speak to the Imperials, understand?”
“Yes, Madame Collette.”
The Magical Girl proctor waved toward the exit. “All of you, leave. Wait for me outside.” Each of the freshman girls walked past Schultz at the entrance. Of them all, only the last one, the girl who had been getting chewed out, greeted him. When they were gone, it was only Schultz, Lady Collette, and Commissar Langrin left in the command tent.
Schultz approached Lady Collette and Langrin and swept a bow toward the Magical Girl, saying, “I do not know if I had the opportunity to thank you for last night, my lady. My men and I may have been overwhelmed if not for you.”
Lady Collette was doing everything except looking at the two senior commissars, it was as if she was speaking to herself when she replied, “Yes, yes. All part of the plan. See to it that you two keep the Imps out of our way and execute tomorrow’s assault accordingly. I want to recoup at least some of the points I've spent so far.”
“Of course, my lady, our forces are mobilizing as we speak.”
“Good. If there is nothing else, I have other matters to attend to.” Lady Collette did not wait for either of them to speak, but regally turned on her heels and strolled out of the command tent. Then, there was only Langrin and Schultz.
Langrin eyed his fellow commissar and pulled out one of his tablets, checking the messages from various adjutants and subordinates. “Ah, Schultz, good day to you.”
“I wish I could say the same to you Commissar Langrin.”
Schultz’s tone made Langrin stop eyeing his tablet. “What’s in your craw now?”
“This operation has been a farce.”
“I’ve never known ‘Iron Jaw’ Schultz to be a jokester before. I have no idea what you are talking about, the plan has gone perfectly.”
“I lost thirty-seven stormtroopers last night. My regiment has not had a casualty rate this high since the Crestline campaign. Even then if that was not bad enough, the Vanguard regiments that we sent in ahead of us have been nearly wiped out to a man. We should have provided better support for the initial attack.”
"You saw the results for yourself, Schultz, how Lady Collette wiped out that Screamer host. Imagine your stormtroopers' losses if we had tried breaching those mountain tunnels with that army waiting for us on the other side. No, as far as I am convinced, this operation has gone beyond expectation."
“Your expectation planned for at least two thousand regimental survivors,” Schultz growled and held out his own tablet. “Do you mean to tell me that the assault plan is still going forward with only two hundred of those poor grots left?”
“Of course it is. Two hundred or two thousand, it makes no difference. If they’re not enough, we’ll send in another wave. It’s what they’re for…Don’t be getting native on me.” Langrin said the last part with hooded eyes, made especially menacing by the red glow his commissar power armor lent to his features.
Schultz sighed and met Langrin’s eyes. Though their chain of command was foggy when it came to the two of them, Langrin was still one of the Three, so Schultz could only push so far.
“Very well,” Schultz conceded. “Fifty at each opening then?”
Langrin broke off their staring contest, satisfied, “Yes, and twenty of your stormtroopers per Magical Girl team.”
Schultz nodded. “They will be ready, I’ve hand-picked them myself, but while we are at it, might as well assign those leftover regimental commissars to join the strike teams, be useful for once.”
Looking at the ceiling, Langrin considered Schultz’s proposal and nodded. “A sound idea. The better to protect the Magical Girls under our charge. Anything else? I’m busy.”
As a matter of fact, there was something else. Schultz leaned toward Langrin and said, “I want command of the camp’s defense.”
This statement seemed to catch Langrin off guard since he set his tablet down entirely and squinted at Schultz. "You? I thought you were going to come here and demand to be a part of the attack. With you always saying 'lead from the front' and all that. What’s making you change your mind?”
“I don’t want last night to happen again.”
“It won’t happen again, the enemy has been depleted.”
“Just give me something here, Langrin, I’m not pushing back about those Vanguard troops.”
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Langrin had to admit that he was surprised that Schultz was not being more of a pain than he usually was. The steel-eyed commissar liked putting his nose in the middle of every operation his stormtroopers were involved in, so if throwing this bone got the dog to stop barking, then he’d gladly agree. Besides, passing off the camp’s defense took a massive load off his own full plate.
“Very well, Commissar. The defense of our forward base is yours.” Langrin saluted Schultz, though neither of them were wearing covers. It was more mockery than modesty and Langrin put the nail in it when he whispered, “Get out of here, Schultz. Send my staff in on your way out.” Schultz put his black hat on without a word and saluted, did an about-face, and marched out of the tent.
When he went back outside the tent, he ordered the junior commissars milling at the entrance to go back inside. They all jumped to obey him and after the last had filed in, a figure stepped from the shadows by the tent.
“Everything go as you hoped, sir?” It was one of Schultz’s stormtroopers, the regimental commander that acted as his second in command.
“Indeed it did, Tellaz. Get every man who is not in either in a strike or reaction team tomorrow to one of the defense emplacements. I want every gauss cannon, plasma mortar, and missile battery, ready for inspection by eighteen hundred tonight.”
Schultz glanced back at the command tent and the large, boxy shield generator next to it. He could barely contain the smile that no one could see under his mask. “I also want every void shield generator ready to be placed online or off at a moment’s notice. Take three spares, I know we have them, and place them at remote locations, far from anywhere else and with minimum manpower. Especially do not put them near any of the emplacements.”
Tellaz asked, “Sir, is your ‘gut’ telling you that’s necessary?”
Schultz nodded and Tellaz saluted, “It will be done. I’ll see to it myself, sir.”
The Senior commissar knew he could trust his executive officer, but his eye could not help but be dragged to the looming presence of the mountain before them. He would prepare the camp's defenses as best he could, but all his experience on the battlefield told him that even the best-laid plans fell apart. Tomorrow would be no exception.
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“Did you see that old stormcock? He looked like he chews nails and spits out staples.”
Tanlon shrugged at Haylock. “He certainly didn’t look like any commissar I’ve seen before. Figured it’d be for the best if I gave him a wave.”
"Figures that the first thing a One like Tan does after dodging death's bullet is trying to catch another. Who just waves at a commissar like that?"
“Wasn’t no normal commissar you idjits,” Mad was scrubbing at his uniform with sand, trying to get some of the stains out. “That was a senior commissar.”
“Ohhhhhh,” Haylock nodded, he had heard of them on previous jumps, but had never encountered one, so he asked, “What’s the difference?”
“One commissar runs a thousand men, but a senior commissar runs a bunch of the black coats themselves. He could probably order Gourke to strip to his johns and slog around the mountain if he wanted to.”
“Now, let’s not change the subject to our dear Commissar Gourke’s underwear,” Snell snickered, “Tan here was telling us all about that girl he saw.”
“Not just a girl, I think I heard the voice of God.”
“Oh yeah, right, the voice of God,” Haylock murmured. “You probably just imagined that cute girl too.”
“That’s not fair, I know what I saw!”
“I don’t know what’s more unbelievable, Tan. That you spoke to the Almighty or saw a school girl walking around without a mask on Paradise of all places.”
A soft, sad voice broke into the group of Ones’ conversation. Tamil was sitting by himself, looking at his hands, and said, "I don't know about any gods or something, but I do know that Tanlon may have actually seen a girl.”
The other troopers had given Tamil his space, being one of the few regimental officers to have survived last night. The younger men were trying their best to temporarily forget the terror of last night, but hearing Tamil speak set something off in Snell.
“What would you know? Lead enough men into slaughter to start hallucinating little girls yourself too, Tamil?”
“Calm, brother, calm,” Mad grabbed Snell’s shoulder, but the other One shook him off.
“No, I think our dear commander has something to say, don’t you comrade?”
Tamil kept staring at his hands and rubbing dirt into them, but no matter how much he tried, they felt dirty. The other man’s questions did not get a rise out of him, since he understood the fellow’s feelings all too well.
“This would be my fifth jump, so I’ve seen a bit more than you boys. Usually, jumps are bad, but not this bad." He paused and swallowed some of his spit to keep going. "My last jump, we lost half our regiment, including most of the officers. That’s why I was your assigned wave commander this time around, but near the end of that battle, I saw a bunch of women too.”
“Ah, your own white-haired girl to take you up to heaven and eternal paradise,” Snell sneered.
“No, not exactly. They had strange armor and wielded weapons that demolished buildings, like walking artillery they was. In less than an hour they destroyed a fortified Yabanchi position that they had been throwing us against for a week. At the debriefing the commissars pulled us together back at the jump ship and told us what we had already concluded: the women were mana users.”
“Witches,” Haylock hissed.
“Why would the empire consort with their sort?” Tanlon asked.
“Didn’t they make you all watch the orientation videos after being thawed out?”
“Well, yeah,” Tanlon nudged a rock with the tip of his boot, “but they only just told us that we conquered that lot. Not much else.”
“Plus we were yarfing our brains out from all those cryo poisons they leeched out of us," Haylock said. "Besides, I've been on more jumps than all of you put together and I've never seen a mana user in the field.
“I don't know the specifics, but the commissars further informed us that with the Witch Queen and her hellions subdued, their mana users are being used as auxiliary forces to supplement our own.”
“If a witch wants to take a bullet instead of one of us, that’s fine with me,” Mad joked, but Tanlon was a little more somber.
“So, that girl and voice were real.”
“Now, hold on Tan,” Haylock held his hands up. “Maybe the girl was there, probably not, but maybe, but the voice thing is a little weird.”
“Maybe you should get checked out when we’re back at the ship,” Snell said, but Tamil quickly interjected and shook his head.
“That would be a one-way ticket to getting iced out. I knew another man who started hearing voices. The commissars nabbed him in the bay, right before a jump, and we never saw him again.”
“What, they shot him?!” Mad asked and Tamil replied, “The official answer is that he was put back in cryo until the end of the war, but unofficially,” he lowered his voice, “there are rumors.”
Scared that he would get iced, Tanlon spoke up. “I don’t hear any voices right now, I think it was just a blood loss thing.”
Snell replied, but he was not looking at Tanlon, “Don’t worry brother, even if you were going a bit crazy, we wouldn’t report you to those jackals. They want us all to die anyway.”
“Hold your tongue trooper,” Tamil hissed, “That commissar is coming back and if he hears you, then we’ll all get iced.”
Indeed, the Commissar from earlier was coming back, flanked by an imposing stormtrooper, and rather than passing by, it looked like he was heading directly to the group of Vanguard soldiers. Tamil took the reins and shouted for everyone to get into formation, but with their chain of command broken so many times, the best the men were able to form was a ragged block that vaguely resembled a formation. The commissar reached them and stopped, his eyes seemed to glow red under the lenses of his power armor, regarding each man like a vulture does its meal.
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Schultz felt an immense feeling of love swell in his chest for the Imperial troopers standing before him. They had been beaten, degraded, and spent like disposable things, yet when they saw him coming, their training kicked in and they formed a somewhat coherent line before him. Every head was held tall and not a single back was stooped, though each one of them surely carried weeks of a hard-fought campaign on their shoulders. It was so impressive that Schultz's voice failed for a moment and almost lost himself in sympathy.
“At ease.” The troopers slackened somewhat, but the tension still buzzed in the air with silent intensity. They were all wondering what he was about to say, but they all knew it was probably nothing good.
“Men of the Empire, I am Commissar Schultz, the head of the Imperial Stormtrooper Corps. With the corps, I have fought our enemies on every clime and planet where a man can carry a gun, so know I do not exaggerate when I say that this day you have done the Emperor proud. The host of our enemy has been laid to rest, by your spear and shot, and all of you have earned your blood patch in one injury or another." Schultz paused, he knew what he was about to say next, and perversely they did too. The demand always follows the compliment, but not this day, for Schultz thought too much had already been paid.
"There is one last battle, one final effort that we would ask of you, though you have already done so much. Before us, the enemy hides in their mountain fortress, reeling from the losses you have already inflicted on them, but like a festering wound, they must be cleansed with nothing left behind." It was happening as he spoke, the men's eyes lost a little focus, their spines their iron. Schultz decided what he would do then, the consequences of which he would deal with later.
“Asked, but not demanded. For if any of you does not wish to join the stormtroopers in tomorrow’s assault, then I will not force you. You may leave, now, and return to the ship with a full jump accounted to your service. Yet if you do join us, then I promise you, five full jumps will be accounted for instead of one." This made the men listening shift somewhat as if they did not hear him correctly. Not only was it optional, but if they did jump, then they would automatically be Midders and halfway through their mandatory service. Schultz had their attention, so he took his opportunity to ask, “Step forward no shame, no retaliation, if you wish to leave, speak now.” It was almost a full minute for the first man to take the step, but when he did, more followed after him. Schultz waited as the eight men lined up in front of him and was not surprised that aside from a couple of Ones, the rest were Midders. What was surprising was the Midder who had been calling the men together for formation was there. The young man looked like he was about to cry, but Schultz put a hand on him to steady the lad.
“You have all done your best. On behalf of the empire, I thank you. Tellaz, please see these men back to the jump point. Warm baths and meals for all of them.” While his executive officer brought the eight men back to their jumpship, Schultz turned his attention back to the remaining two hundred who stayed behind. The lies always made his stomach twist, but worse than that now was the truth twisting in his gut.
After tomorrow’s assault, most of these men would be dead.