Commissar Morrow had found his years with the Astralgators to be far more pleasant than he'd expected. He'd come from a well drilled, smartly dressed and well disciplined regiment of Mordians. During his time with the Iron Guard and the Cadian Shock before that, he'd only ever glimpsed them in passing or heard them over the vox, never actually met any of them, but they'd all heard the rumors. Catachans had a reputation that went beyond their freakish bulk. Just by looking at them you could tell they were fierce fighters but the rumor was that the reason there was almost no uniformity of uniforms in their rabble was because they had no discipline because they always killed their discipline officers. Commissars lost their lives in the line of duty all the time and yet he'd never even heard of a Commissar of a Catachan regiment which leant a suspicious amount of believability to the rumor. This was what he was not looking forward to finding out about when he received his reassignment orders to the Catachan 16th. 

      Despite what he'd been led to believe about these feral deathworld gangers, upon disembarking at the landing pad he was met promptly by a squad of the musclebound guardsmen, moving as a cohesive unit, led by the one presumably in charge due to the powerfist around one of his massive bare arms. "Commissar Morrow? Colonel Taggert, Catachan 16th, welcome to the Astralgators" he looked at the powerfist on his right arm and deciding against it, held out his massive left arm, tattooed with a band of belt linked stubber rounds. As the two men shook hands in this unorthodox manner, the Commissar could see the rest of the squad had fanned out, scanning around, weapons at the ready, searching for threats. "We should get off this airfield sir, it's a bit too exposed for my liking, we can talk in the truck."

      Over the next hour or so he'd been appraised of the regiment's strength and position as well as the mission and ongoing situation, all while the squad checked over weapons, scanned their surroundings with the turret and auspex and monitored the vox network. Despite the lack of shirt sleeves, the Commissar was beginning to see a different kind of martial discipline but one that was still definitely there. In the coming weeks he'd learned that his position as the regimental discipline officer was redundant to the point of obsolescence as the jungle fighters were self disciplined moreso than most Imperial Guardsmen and self policing at the individual, fire team, squad and platoon levels. After the first week hed learned the real reason high command had assigned them a new Commissar in the first place was because none of them could speak, read or write High Gothic and this had lead to a breakdown of communication between the Regimental Command and Crusade Staff. Within a month he'd given up searching for disciplinary infractions as he couldn't even begrudge the troopers the state of their uniforms or lack therof, as his greatcoat had been stowed in his footlocker and his uniform sleeves rolled to his biceps by the end of the first day, due to the heat and humidity. Within a year he had adapted nicely to his position as the Regimental Political Officer, translating communications between the unit and high command and even successfully pushing through commendations for the exceptional service of his troopers. They'd even come to appreciate him as their supplies had started getting restocked more frequently by the Munitorum and they watched one of their Sergeants get pinned with a medal he'd been written up for, the first medal any of them had ever actually seen but not the last. As time went on, he'd grown quite comfortable with his position as he really only had to be the middleman between high command and the unit's leadership and deduced that the best thing for him to do was stay out of their way and let them do the jobs they did so well.

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He'd managed to make it almost five years without having to execute a trooper when he was approached in the Command Crassus that was serving as their Regimental Headquarters by one Corporal Lenson. They had been on Farmeccca for the past 3 months cleaning up pockets of insurrection that had been popping up on the agri-world. Raids on suspected rebel hideouts had finally turned up something that explained the source of the insurrection as amidst a weapons stockpile, they'd found and killed a purestrain genestealer. "Need to talk to you, immediately sir" the sniper said in a tone that told the Commissar he wasn't giving to like the topic and he took off his comms headset. 

   "What is it trooper?" He asked hoping it was a supply shortage that was in need of an immediate restock, that was about the worst things typically got. "I know this is a bit above my pay grade, but those xenos, the genestealers, they're supposed to be some kind of infiltrators for the 'Nids right?" He frowned "That's correct trooper, that IS above your pay grade...but yes, why?" He narrowed his eyes studying her hard edged face. "When Sergeant Avery breached that building, that thing ran out the back and Lieutenant Tyce ran it through with his chainsword..." "And then you shot it in the head, yes?" He asked skeptically. "That's correct sir but not before it got him, some kind of thing from its mouth shot out and stung him in the neck before I could get the shot off." The Commissar clenched his jaw as they came to the crux of it "He told me he'd impaled it on his chainsword and then you blew its brains out, but he did not  say that he'd been bitten..." "I watched the whole thing through my scope, that thing tagged him." The Commissar nodded as he put on his headset and called Lt Tyce to the Regimental HQ. "You may have just saved everyone in this regiment Corporal." he said as he put on his greatcoat and peaked cap and grabbed his book of benedictions and power sword feeling the full weigh of the responsibility of his office come crashing back down on his shoulders as he strolled out to meet the Lieutenant. 

       Walking him over to a less busy area of the encampment he smiled as he drove his sword tip down into the dirt and unhooked its power cable from the power unit strapped to his forearm before they shook hands. "I wanted to personally congratulate you on your first kill with the new chainsword, how was it?" He asked as he looked into the Soldier's eyes. "I miss my fang honestly, but I can't deny the power this thing has. I could have killed it with the machete but I can tell you this thing will make it possible to cut some of the bigger xenoforms down to size. Thank you for requisitioning it for me sir!" He said, earnestly. "Its only fair, making the leap from non-com to officer is a big step, the troops have to see you as a leader now and a weapon like that in your hands is what they see when the think of a leader." He smiled meaning every word as he noticed in his peripheral vision, the pock mark in the Lieutenant's thickly muscled neck. "Get used to it Lieutenant, in time I think you'll find that it suits you. Now get back to your platoon and get some chow. Dismissed." He said and as the Lieutenant gave him a nod, and turned to leave. He knew the terrible implications of that scar hat hadn't been there last time he'd seen the man. He was infected with a genestealer implant that had already started making the man lie and omit information to cover it up. With the rank and authority he weilded, the devastation the brood mind could do with him under it's control would be incalculable. Commissar Morrow quickly opened the book to the page that he'd bookmarked, read the prayer to the Emperor, begging for the salvation of this soul, held the book behind his back and drew his bolt pistol and carried out the Commissar's Duty.