*This is a little short story I had the inspiration for the other night in the shower. Strange the things I think of whilst showering! Anyway, I wanted to show the short-sightedness of most Commissars, and the Imperium in general. This is the first draught that I banged out this morning, so it’s subject to a lot of review and editing, but I wanted to get some feedback on it if I could…*
Commissar Nelum Bright was not a cruel man, though there were many that would disagree. He wasn’t a particularly vicious or violent man. He was however, a little too keen on exercising the power granted his position as enforcer of the Emperors will to the 51st Eritaen Badlanders regiment of the Imperial Guard. He was a member of the prevailing caste of Commissars who believed that the most suitable punishment for almost any infringement was a shooting.
Rifle discipline not maintained? Shoot him! Late to report for duty? Shoot him! Unlicensed drinking? Shoot him! Twice!
Whilst this approach was indeed effective at maintaining discipline – by its very nature it prevented re-offending – it did tend to create an immense dislike for the Commissar in the men he was responsible for disciplining. It also had further-reaching consequences which none save the Emperor himself could see, but which held sway over events directly involving the zealous Commissar and his charges.
Private First Class Den Grubber was not a bad man, as many people that knew him would attest. He wasn’t the galaxies best Guardsman, nor was he the worst. He was a stolid, God-Emperor fearing trooper who did his best. In short, he was one of innumerable billions of Imperial Guardsmen across the length and breadth of the Imperium of Man that constituted the bulk of its forces. He did differ in one way however – he was an extremely good reflex marksman.
He lacked the patience, snipers eye, and steady concentration that would have earned him a marksman’s beret. His innate skill lay in taking snap shots without preparation that had an unerring way of being fatal to high priority targets; enemy officers, heavy weapons operators, charging infidels – he’d changed the course of almost every battle he’d fought in without him or anyone else realising. The Emperor had smiled on Private Grubber, but the erstwhile trooper remained oblivious.
The Badlanders found themselves involved in the Siege of Brooknorth, one of the last rebel strongholds on a planet that had declared its succession from the Imperium. Brooknorth was an imposing bulwark. Perched atop and carved into a mountaintop, it’s high walls and ceramite gates had repelled all attempts at retaking it in the Emperors name. Atop the battlements enemy officers screamed encouragement to the defenders that rained fiery death down upon the attackers. Massive defence cannons obliterated armoured vehicles and whole squads of men, largely impervious to the return fire of the attackers.
From their billet in a bombed-out manufactory complex south of Brooknorth, the Badlanders sortied against the defenders. But as the months wore on and the siege became a stalemate, dissenting voices muttered that the city was un-takeable. Our ever-vigilant and zealous Commissar came down upon these voices wherever he heard them like a metric tonne of bricks. Shootings became a daily occurrence. One particularly unfortunate trooper had to wait in line to be shot for almost an hour after the Commissar ran out of ammunition and had to go to the quartermaster to requisition more.
So the siege wore on, and the Guardsmen grew restless. And where there are several thousand restless Guardsmen, there will be drinking, as surely as there will be brawling, whores, and Commissarial executions.
And so, after pressure from higher echelons, those responsible for the execution of the siege organised a grand attack, one last ditch effort to break the fortified city. Squadrons of aircraft, orbital support from the battleships high above, hundreds upon hundreds of armoured vehicles, and a veritable swarm of the humble guardsmen. All were made ready, and the date and time were set for the grand assault that would make or break the Siege of Brooknorth.
On the night before the dawn attack, tensions ran high in the billets of the Badlanders. Worse than the months of idle patrols and waiting was this tense waiting to charge the enemies guns. Everyone knew this would be a meat grinder; the attacking Imperial forces would hurl themselves against the high walls of Brooknorth until either the stones broke or they did. Many of them would die tomorrow.
Private Grubber sat around a small camp fire with the rest of his squad. Their sergeant was already asleep and snoring like a Rhinodon, but they were to tense to sleep. Someone suggested – as someone invariably does in these situations – that a drink would help settle their minds. After some discussion, Private Grubber drew the short straw, and was dispatched with accumulated credits in search of contraband alcohol.
He found it amongst the tents and shanties of the hangers-on that followed a Guard army around the universe. Here ladies of the night, food vendors, weapons dealers, gamblers, and retailers of myriad contraband items plied their trade, living off the needs of the men that weren’t taking care of by the Departmento Munitorum. After bartering with the trader for a bottle of black market joyliq – guaranteed as both an intoxicant and paint stripper – he headed back towards his billet and his waiting comrades.
Our dear Commissar was also abroad that night, well aware of the tensions in the men, and keen to nip in the bud any signs of cowardice or ill-discipline that could impede the regiments performance the following day. With a squad of hand-picked troopers commonly dubbed “Bright’s Brutes”, he walked the billet, correcting any infringements with either a beating or a swift round from his bolt pistol – mostly the latter.
Whether Fate, the Emperor, or the dark Gods of Chaos, or just plain old luck were responsible, it was largely agreed by his comrades afterwards that somebody “up there” had a rotten sense of humour. Just as Private Grubber entered the billet from one end, Commissar Bright entered from the other, and unknowingly the two wound their way through the tents and clusters of men towards one another.
In the darkness between scattered lamps and campfires, Trooper Grubber tripped on a guy line, and the bottle of joyliq fell from his hands, rolling across the floor and coming to a halt, miraculously unbroken. In between growling various coarse characterisations of the trooper that had stretched the guy line there, Trooper Grubber thanks the Emperor the bottle hadn’t smashed – his comrades would not be happy if he wasted their accumulated credits by spilling the booze on the floor. Then he looked up, whilst climbing to his knees, to where the bottle had stopped. Right against the toe of one of Commissar Bright’s polished jackboots.
The Commissar glanced at the contraband alcohol, and at the stunned, and now horrified trooper, and with only a brief “Violation of drinking laws! May the Emperor have mercy on you!” shot Private Grubber between the eyes. One of Bright’s Brutes dragged the body off to be disposed of, and the ever vigilant Commissar continued his rounds, executing no less than twenty-three other troopers before calling it a night, and seeking his own tent.
The grand assault went ahead the following morning, heedless of the missing troopers, and here is where we see the first of the far-reaching consequences of the Commissars actions in the night. There was a moment, mid-way through the assault, when the commander of the enemy defence was atop the battlements, personally screaming obscene encouragement at his men. The deceased Troop Grubbers squad crashed into scant cover, and there he was, un-observed by a single other soul on the battlefield through the scudding clouds of smoke and explosions, a clear shot for a standard issue Imperial Guard las-rifle. Exactly the type of shot Trooper Grubber had an unrecognised gift for spotting and taking.
Alas, Trooper Grubbers headless corpse lay in a mass grave, his spirit gone to the Emperors side. No-one took that shot. The firm leadership behind the walls broke the Imperial offensive, and indeed the back of the whole campaign. Imperial forces were beaten into retreat, and in fact to this day the system that is home to Brooknorth is still in rebel hands. Invisible shockwaves from the defeat at Brooknorth spread out across the Segmentum, strengthening the resolve of othe dissenters and heretics, and sparking no less than three other rebellions. These were quickly but messily put down, costing thousands more Imperial Guardsmen. And the Emperor knows what difference a single life can make. He knows how many of his brave warriors could have been saved to fight another day had Private Grubber been there to take that shot. Shame no-one else does
Oh, and the ever-zealous Commissar Bright survived the defeat at Brooknorth. After killing more of his own soldiers than those of the enemy.
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