Imperium Tremens

 “You’ve been drinking again.”

“How can you tell?”

“You’re awake.”

“An insulting insinuation,” Lord General Vortigern Axis grumbled and rubbed his bloodshot eyes with the heels of his hands. It was, of course, a perfectly accurate insinuation. He tried to glower at his new aide-de-camp but the damnable woman stood framed in the doorway, silhouetted by a bright lumen behind her that drove a million white-hot photonic needles into his eyeballs.

“Quite right sir, I do apologize,” Colonel Persephone Veil inclined her head a fraction in mock-bow, making him wince as even more punishing light spilled into the Lord General’s office. “I’m sure mere unconsciousness would be no barrier to a man of your skill and determination.”

The Colonel took a step inside and allowed the door to swing shut behind her, returning the office to blessed dimness. A single amber lumen illuminated the Lord General’s desk, and the empty bottle of amasec that lay on its side there, an emetic drool of liquor beneath its open, almost gasping mouth.

On the other side of the desk, the great and glorious Lord General Axis, Victor of the Third War for Brightness Falls, Hero of the Lesser Cyclades, mastermind of the Vargas Sector campaign, one of the most decorated generals in the Imperium in the last 100 years, lay in a crumpled, ethanol-scented shadow. His pale skin slouched on tired bones and his gold-braided jacket, overloaded with ribbons and medals, hung half-open and was liberally smeared in the dried outlines of half a dozen different drinks.

“Quite the sight, aren’t I Colonel?”

“Mere words cannot express my feelings at this moment, sir.”

“I get that a lot,” Axis gave a hacking half-cough, half-laugh and ran a trembling hand through lank, grey hair, then ran it down his features and ended with a rasping massage of his stubbled jaw. “Rendered speechless by this incredible honor, no doubt.”

“No doubt.”

“Well, you are in the presence of an Imperial hero,” he spread his arms, allowing the jacket to fall further open and reveal a stained undershirt beneath. “The one, the only Cyclades Psycho, Vorpal Vortigern, the Vargas Vandal. They’ll probably make me a Saint when I’m dead – which shouldn’t be too long now.”

“Indeed sir,” Veil replied stiffly, as she did to everything. “I have been an admirer of your great victories —”

Axis tipped his head back and gave a hacking, bubbling laugh. “‘Great victories’,” he wheezed to himself. “You hear that? ‘Great victories’.”

Veil watched him, expressionless, yet nonetheless radiating disapproval. Despite the darkness, Axis still hesitated to look at his ADC. The creases in Veil’s uniform were sharp enough to cut the eye; Every line was perfect, almost geometrically aligned. Every follicle of hair was arranged with pinpoint precision, then lacquered in place with a transparent shell of gel-cream. In her own way, Veil was as inhuman as an Astartes.

Throne, he needed a drink.

“Ah, a true believer,” Axis muttered as he hunted about his desk for anything vaguely liquid. “I take it that yours is a military family, Veil?”

“A Veil has always served the Astra Militarum for the last nine generations, sir.” In the set of her jaw and in her voice, she came close to betraying a hint of actual emotion, a kind of grim and solemn pride.

“In that case I can see how assignment to this old derelict might sting. Well, have you just come to bask in my glory or was there some point to this visit, Colonel?”

Wordlessly, Veil held out a dataslate she had kept tucked flush against her side. Axis paused in his search and regarded it dubiously, as one might after being offered a fanged serpent.

“Yes?”

“The Charybdis campaign, sir.”

Axis frowned but made no move to take the slate. “What’s that got to do with me?”

“You are the commander-in-chief of the Astra Militarum forces committed to this campaign, sir.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Axis waved a dismissive hand. “But what’s it got to do with me?”

“You mean, aside from issuing orders regarding force dispositions, offensive and defensive operations, reconnaissance and other intelligence-gathering, propaganda and morale concerns, medical support, rearmament, resupply and other logistics, combat casualty replacements, and reporting to the Lord Commander Militant on all of the above, aside from that sir?”

“Ah. Well. Yes, aside from that.” Axis reached for the bottle lying on his desk, missed, fumbled, and finally managed to pick it up on the third attempt. He closed his eyes and tipped it up, until a single tiny drop of amasec landed on his tongue. He opened his eyes, looked at the bottle accusingly, before tossing back on the desk. “Well, what of it?”

“I took the liberty of arranging a staff meeting with the other senior generals and officials in one hour.”

“Generals? There you are then, I’m sure they all know their business, far be it for me to interrupt.” Axis opened the top drawer of his desk, looked inside hopefully, then shut it when the contents proved decidedly nonalcoholic. He opened the bottom to no better result. He tried the top one again, just in case. Nothing. He sighed.

“Your absence will be noted.”

“Very well, as my ADC take a note and pass it along: Just order the men to shout ‘For the Emperor!’ and charge the enemy,” Axis said. “Isn’t that our usual strategy?”

Veil took a deep breath and activated the slate, turned it so it faced towards Axis and laid it on the desk in front of him. Axis frowned and leaned forward. The slate showed the portrait of a man, blunt of feature and heroic of mien, dressed in a Lord General’s finery much like Axis’s, though somewhat cleaner, in better repair and considerably less fragrant. Axis raised his bleary eyes to meet Veil’s gaze. She was as patient as a statue.

“Handsome fellow,” Axis said at last. “Who is he?”

“He was Lord General Ortalion Laspis.”

“Was he now.”

“Your predecessor as C-in-C of this campaign.” There was a long pause. Veil reached forward across the desk and tapped the page tab button on the slate. “You’ll find the details of his arrest and execution appended.”

“Will I now.”

“Along with details of the executions of his two brothers,” she tapped again, “His partner and three children,” tap, “His wife’s sister and her two children,” tap, “Nine senior and 17 junior officers who served with him,” tap, tap, “Every instructor and survivor from his graduating class at the academy, the owner of his favorite drinking establishment, and the extended families inhabiting the four housing units closest to his in Margram Hive.” Tap, tap. TAP.

Veil straightened, until she stood so rigidly at attention that made the standard drill manual look slovenly by comparison.

“The Imperium is so very efficient, when it wants to be,” Axis grunted. He scrolled back a few pages and tried to force his eyes to focus on the faces. “Senior officers, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any Colonels?”

Colonel Veil nodded slowly. Her eyes were utterly unforgiving. “A few, sir.”

Axis puffed his cheeks and blew a long breath. “I suppose we both have a staff meeting to attend then.”

#

The windows were gold-tinted, drizzling the room in brandy light. The planet Fulcrum’s star squatted just above the horizon, like an uncooked egg yolk swimming in grease. The image made Axis’s stomach churn.

A long rectangular table of black stone veined with gold nearly filled the room, with a hololith projector set into its center, encircled by a score of high-backed chairs. Those chairs were filled now with ornately uniformed and robed figures, all surreptitiously sizing him up without appearing to. He was glad the clear liquid in the glass before him wasn’t water.

To his right sat Colonel Veil, body and hips no doubt forming a perfect 90-degree angle. Beyond her clustered a dozen generals including dumpy Occam Prosate, then the regal figure of Lord Admiral Nalia Trexone and beside her, Magos Zepine’s masked and robed form lurking among their curled mechadendrites like a bloated, sessile spider. The ecclesiarchy’s representative, Cardinal Wernick Sojourn was next, followed by assorted Adeptus Administratum bureaucrats and functionaries, and the entourage ended on Axis’s left with the white-eyed Astropath, Mina Lament.

Last to arrive was the neat, slim figure of Lord Commissar Remic Korsakoff. A man with clear eyes, a high forehead and an easy smile. The man who had arrested and executed Axis’s predecessor.

He took the chair directly opposite Axis.

“An honor to meet you, Lord General,” Korsakoff smiled thinly as he sat. “I see you are everything your reputation hinted at.”

Axis grinned back weakly. The compliment could be taken more ways than one – he didn’t doubt Korsakoff had heard about Axis’s habits. Veil had found him a clean jacket, and a powerful cleanser to rinse out his mouth that had made his eyes water. Still, he could tell Korsakoff was not deceived. “Likewise, I have heard much of your exploits Lord Commissar.” It was a weak sally and they both knew it.

“Good,” Korsakoff’s smile grew wider. “Good. Glad to hear it.”

Axis found he really did need that drink. The clear liquid soothed and burned, though Axis needed two hands to hold the glass. A fine vertical line appeared between Colonel Veil’s eyes as she watched him drink, but she said nothing.

“Can we get on with it?” Magos Zepine’s grating, synthesized voice seemed to come from a speaker somewhere down their chest.

“Right, so, what’s the situation?”

Axis caught some of the generals looking sidelong at one another, some quickly suppressing smiles. Well, let them smile.

“Following a suspected genestealer infestation on the world of Memory’s Lure in the Charybdis Sector, it was subject to Exterminatus by orbital bombardment,” Veil began.

Lord Admiral Trexone inclined her head, as though accepting a compliment.

“The planetary defence garrisons and Imperial Guard units assigned to the other worlds in the sector then mutinied and either imprisoned or murdered all loyalist Adeptus Administratum officials,” Veil continued. “An initial assault ordered by Lord General Laspis on the sector capital world of Spiral failed with 100 percent casualties.”

There was some nervous shuffling down the generals’ end of the table. Axis closed his eyes and messaged his temples.

“I saw a man, drowning,” Lament suddenly said. Her blind, milky eyes bored straight into Axis. “I saw hands holding him under the water, and the hands were the hands of his mother, his father, the hands of his ancestors. The waters were a maelstrom, pulling the man under. Then a cleansing fire swept across the waters, and the hands were burned to ash.”

“A blessing, a blessing from the God-Emperor,” Cardinal Sojourn murmured.

“What blessing?” General Prosate demanded. “It’s utter nonsense.”

“I would have thought it was perfectly clear,” Korsakoff interrupted. His smile remained kind and understanding. though his eyes narrowed. “Destroy the rebellion, burn away this filth, depravity and corruption. Wipe them out. Sounds simple to me – unless you have an objection, General Prosate? Some complaint about the orders of the Lord Commander Militant?”

Prosate hesitated, then shook his head sullenly, and sat back in his chair, looking at the tabletop.

“I believe the general requested clarification regarding methods, not objectives, Lord Commissar,” Veil kept her voice cool and level. “The Lord Commander Militant directs policy. It is up to those here to decide how to implement it.”

Korsakoff’s serpent gaze swung from the general to the colonel. There was a tense moment of silence as the two regarded each other. Korsakoff’s nodded infinitesimally, recognition of a gambit defeated.

“Quite right, Veil,” Axis said to break the tension. “So, what tools have we been given?”

Lord Admiral Trexone coughed into the back of her hand. She was old blood, the kind that prized manners and breeding above all else. Axis waved to her. At Trexone’s command the hololith activated, displaying a scrolling list of warships, their tonnages and weaponry, crew compliments and positions.

“Battlefleet Charybdis numbers 72 warships,” Trexone began, “including my flagship, Blessed Martyrs of the Siege of Holy Terra, the battleships Memory of Istvaan and Memory of Isstvan with two S’s, the cruisers Defeat of the Second Black Crusade, Victory Over the Third Black Crusade, Annihilation of the Fourth Black Crusade –”

Axis felt a headache begin to knife its way through his comforting haze, and raised a forestalling hand. “Yes, thank you Lord Admiral Trexone, I think I get both the picture and the history lesson. Our ground forces?”

“Five million men organized into 12 armies, of which eight are infantry and four armoured,” Veil supplied immediately. On the hololith, warships were replaced by rank upon rank of infantry, cavalry and armoured formations. “Three dozen divisions of Olympian Defenders, a score of Vorozhi Cossack cavalry divisions, the 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, 5^th and 6^th Persepolis Immortals –”

“What happened to the 4^th?” Axis asked absently.

“Annihilated in the assault on Spiral,” Veil said without pause, then smoothly continued. “Nine divisions of the Bandarroan Borderers…”

The scrolling numbers were giving Axis vertigo. He took another pull from his glass, settled back into its numbing embrace.

“What support can we receive from the Adeptus Mechanicus?” he asked.

Magos Zepine’s mechadendrites twitched slightly, an eight-limbed shrug. “An expeditionary force might be committed, if certain guarantees can be made.”

Axis stopped listening. There was always a catch with the AdMech, always a price to be paid for their help. Some things never changed. He knocked back another slug.

“All of this is hardly necessary,” Trexone sniffed when Zepine finally fell silent. “Orbital bombardment, Lord General Axis. We shouldn’t have to annihilate more than a world or two before the rest get the picture.”

“Hear, hear,” Cardinal Sojourn pounded the table in agreement.

That suggestion penetrated Axis’s fog and struck him as enormously funny. He giggled, and that was funny too, and he began to laugh. Until he noticed the entire table staring at him.

“I fail to see the humor of the situation, Lord General,” Trexone said frostily.

“Aw c’mon,” he giggled again, unable to stop. “Orbital bombardment to stop a rebellion sparked by orbital bombardment?”

“This is the third time in the last millennium this sector has rebelled,” Trexone said. “They need to be taught a lesson.”

“The third time?” Axis felt another wave of giggles coming on. To make matters worse, the room was now beginning to wobble and gently revolve. “Lemme guess, the first two were ended inna orby whatsit – bomblement?” Trexone nodded. “Oh sweet God-Emperor on his sparkly gold chair, how’re you not seeing this?” He took a steadying drink, ignoring Sojourn’s hiss of disapproval at the blasphemy. “Cure’s worse’n disease.” He drained the glass and belched.

Trexone’s lip curled slightly and she looked away.

“Lord General –” Veil hissed warningly, but she was cut off by Korsakoff slowly and deliberately leaning forward, elbows on the table and fingers tented before his face. Korsakoff tilted his head slightly as he regarded Axis, and shook his head.

“I believe I understand the Lord General’s distress,” Korsakoff said, and smiled tolerantly again when Trexone muttered something rude under her breath. “No, no, I do. I do. I have studied the Lord General’s campaigns. I know he has always sought to conserve resources, to win with the minimum casualties. His sentiments are quite … touching.”

Although the room continued to spin, Axis found that Korsakoff’s figure was locked in place, centered in his vision. Pinned under the Lord Commissar’s gaze, the humor of the situation drained away.

“The Lord General appears to be sweating,” Korsakoff soothed. “Perhaps he requires some air. A walk in the gardens perhaps, yes? A fresh perspective.” The Lord Commissar stood. “Walk with me.”

It was phrased as an invitation, delivered like a command.

“If you’ll forgive me,” Axis burbled, rose unsteadily to his feet in a daze and stumbled after Korsakoff, aware of the fuzzy shadow of Colonel Veil scurrying in their wake. The others watched them go, some with contempt or disgust, others with pity. Mina Lament, the Astropath, smiled at nothing.

#

The gardens outside the palatial headquarters building were laid out in a hedge maze pattern, with narrow grey-gravel paths shouldered in thick, dark needle trees, tracing a winding, recursive path around and around the grounds, forever looping back on itself. It was autumn on Fulcrum, the warm spell of a brief false summer just ended, the promise of winter whispering on the wind.

Korsakoff waited patiently at the first bend in the path, hands clasped behind his back, watching in mild amusement as Axis shambled out the doors and into the garden, Colonel Veil hovering at his side.

“Vortigern,” Korsakoff sighed as Axis approached. “Vortigern, you’re a mess. A wreck. How much have you had to drink this morning? Two bottles of amasec, or was it three?”

“Not s’mush,” Axis protested, weaving slightly on his feet. “Jus’ the two.” It had been three, actually.

“What happened to you? The Hero of the Imperium? The Victor of the Second War for Brightness Falls?”

“Third,” Axis automatically corrected, holding up four fingers, blinking at them, then lowering one.

Korsakoff twitched an eyebrow but said nothing.

“Are ya spying on me?”

“Of course I am, Vortigern. It’s my job.” Korsakoff sighed. “As soon I learned you would be assigned to this campaign, I started spying on you, everyone you’ve ever served with, every member of your extended family, your drinking buddies, your hairdresser, the women you hire to –”

“What do you want, Kors-koff?”

“Victory, of course, Vortigern. It’s what we all want, isn’t it?” Korsakoff looked to Veil for support, who nodded, glacially slow, once, twice.

The Lord Commissar swung back to Axis. “An end to this rebellion. I want the traitors and threats to the Imperium crushed, annihilated, ground so deep into the dust this sector never dares rise up again. And I am willing to pay any price to accomplish that. Any price. Can you say the same, Vortigern? If you can, I will happily stand at your side and be the loudest to sing your praises. But if you can’t – and your performance so far does nothing to inspire my faith – then I will stand at your side as the executioner swings his blade.”

He shot Veil another look. “Get him sober, Colonel. Sooner rather than later. Both your lives depend on it.”

Korsakoff made the sign of the aquila, thumbs interlocking and palms against chest, although mockingly close to his neck, his outstretched fingers tracing a double line across this throat. Axis and Veil watched him turn smartly and march back towards the headquarters, gravel crunching under his boots like old bones.

“Why?” Veil whispered, half to herself.

“Cos he’s an asshole.”

“No, I mean why take his command if you knew you couldn’t handle it? And on that subject, why drink at all?”

A simple stone bench stood by the side of the path. Not trusting his feet any longer, Axis lowered himself onto it slowly, gingerly, like a sailor on a heaving ship. He thought about Veil’s question for a moment, tried to corral his swimming thoughts.

“Well, in the firs’ place, the Imperium don’t give you mush choice. As to that last ‘un, I think there once was a ‘why’, way back when it started, but it’s a thing beyond reason now,” he admitted. “It jus’ kinda keeps going. It’s got a power of its own now, the cause and the cure, the solution to every problem it creates.”

The warming blanket of alcohol had faded, leaving Axis weak and sick and shaky and cold, shivering beneath his jacket in the wind. Wishing he had a drink. It was hopeless, the whole thing, so immensely and utterly hopeless.

“We’ve been set up to fail, I’m afraid,” Axis said. “A drunken, washed-up general with a few dozen centuries-old warships named after millennia-old defeats and a mere five million men, a quarter of them cavalry – cavalry, for throne’s sake – against the entire populations of 30 worlds across six sub-sectors. Totally inadequate for the job. Impossible. I think Laspis knew that, that’s why he risked everything on a knockout strike on Spiral.”

“You’re saying the Lord Commander Militant is undermining his own forces?” Veil protested. “Why would he sabotage himself like that?”

Axis belched, tasted bile, and shrugged. “The Imperium always asks its soldiers to do too much with too little. It’s just a habit, I guess.”

“Things will look different once you are better, sir. I have faith in you. If anyone can do this it is the Victor of –”

“Shut up, Veil. Brightness Falls was a disaster,” Axis said bitterly. “So was Vargas, only ten times so. I’m a fraud, I’m afraid.”

“But you won,” Veil objected.

“At the cost of a third of my men and billions of civilian casualties. They say the true art of war is to defeat the enemy without ever fighting them. That’s what I believed. What I tried to do. Surround them, cut off their supplies, make them see how hopeless their position was. Instead? My orders were ignored or countermanded, and the legions charged the enemy. Brightness Falls was a bloodbath. A slaughter, a massacre, millions of brave and loyal men and women dead. Even Salo – even some of the very best.”

Veil’s perfect, arrow-straight shoulders slumped. Any other human would have screamed. “Then we are dead too,” she said flatly. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders again, and marched after the Lord Commissar, leaving Axis there on the bench.

He opened his mouth to apologize, to tell her retreating back that he was sorry and ask her to forgive him, but he couldn’t find the words.

Instead, he was noisily sick into the hedges.

#

In the darkness of his office, Axis stared at the star chart of the sector, a half-empty bottle cradled on his lap. A spiderweb of connections between each star glowed in lines of red and blue and green. The lines ran together at the six hub worlds of the sector – the population centers with their hives and manufactoria – then flung outwards towards the spoke worlds, the agricultural and resource-mining worlds that supplied them.

The hub worlds were the key, he mused, but they were impregnable. At least, for the forces he could command they were. The assault on Spiral had proven that. They were stone fortresses upon which the waves of his men would dash themselves to destruction.

Tired, he was so tired. So very, very tired. That was the thing about the drink, of course, it was both a stimulant and a depressant, it urged you on and held you back. He needed it to stay awake. It made him so very, very sleepy.

He’d only meant to close his eyes for a moment.

He was crouching behind a piece of fallen machinery, taking cover, the air hot with lasfire and shrapnel, the ground beneath him ankle-deep in water, the level rising, ever rising. The room was under a lake and a hole and been blown in the ceiling and now the lake was thundering in and the rebels held the only exit.

He knew where this was. Brightness Falls. The past. Major Salome Morphia was beside him, gripping his arm, but she was dead. Dead because this was the past, and everything and everyone in the past was dead. She was shouting, her dead mouth making dead-word sounds, but all he could hear was the seashell roaring of the waterfall crashing into the room. That, and her last words, the last one’s she’d ever spoken: ‘Forgive me.’

The water was up to their knees and then their waists.

Axis wanted to say he was sorry. Sorry about her and everyone else being dead. But then she was standing, she was firing, and then she was dead and it was too late for apologies. Still, he had to say something. He opened his mouth and the waters rose over his face and he was drowning, drowning again, always drowning.

Axis blinked awake. From somewhere close by, a dead woman was whispering in his ear.

The corridor outside his office creaked and footsteps shuffled. Axis frowned and sat up, setting his amasec bottle on the edge of the desk. The noises stopped. Axis sighed to himself. Nothing. Just the drink, just a mirage of memories and regrets. He sank back into the chair, into the past.

The door shuddered once, then disintegrated into a storm of metals shards and splinters. The detonation blew Axis backwards out of his chair, impacting painfully first with the wall behind him, then with the floor. The amasec bottle teetered on the edge of the desk for a moment, then tipped into air, landing heavily on Axis’s skull before thumping to the floor.

Axis yelped and clutched his head, tried to get the ringing out of his ears and the smoke from his eyes. Three black-clad figures stood in the smoking ruin of the doorway, their faces masked behind nightvision equipment, lasrifles held ready in their hands.

“That him?” asked one. In the aftermath of the explosion, the voice sounded like it came from the other side of the ocean.

“On your feet, general,” the middle figure ordered. “You’re going for a ride.” He motioned the other two men forward.

Axis got to his knees and then feet without hesitation or complaint, his hands raised in surrender. He knew what was coming: Taken to some quiet, deserted location. Then a bolter round to the brain.

He should be terrified, Axis knew, but instead all he felt was a kind of relief. Of all the possible outcomes, this was probably the best. Assassinated by heretics? He was assured of Sainthood, and nobody else had to die for it. Not Veil, not his family, none of the poor bastards who’d had the misfortune to cross his path over the last 50 years.

“Bind him. Gag him.”

It wasn’t necessary, Axis wanted to protest as the two figures came cautiously closer, he’d go quietly, willingly. Eagerly, even. They wouldn’t believe him though. Best just to cooperate, get this over with quickly. He held out his wrists.

“Gah, he reeks worse than a backed-up ablutory,” one growled as they looped and ink-black vine about Axis’s wrists. “Are you sure this is him?”

“Just hurry up and bind him. Bring him.”

They fit an armorplas collar about his neck, high enough that it clamped about his jaw and mouth but left his nose free. Then one figure took his left armpit, the other his right, and they hustled him out of the office door.

A tracked Rhino APC grumbled to itself in the courtyard outside the headquarters building. Another four men in black clamshell armour and bug-eyed helmets stood guard about it, lasrifles held at low ready. Invisible night insects chirped and chittered at each other. At a hand signal, Axis was hustled towards the rear loading ramp while the other men closed in about him in a knot.

Axis had seen no guards as he was dragged outside, nor were there any bodies here, and he wondered who’d sold him out. Lord Admiral Nalia Trexone, perhaps, or Cardinal Sojourn, either were certainly petty enough to hold their noses and deal with the enemy if it meant getting rid of Axis. General Prosate, maybe, figuring on a promotion with Axis gone. Betrayal was probably a kind of blessing though. Let nobody die trying to save him. Let him vanish into the night. It would be for the best.

A voice floated from the inside of the headquarters building.

“Lord General Axis?”

His abductors froze. Insect-eyed faces swiveled, seeking out the source of the noise. Lasrifles were held to shoulders.

Axis closed his eyes and fought the urge to cry. It was Veil. Of course it was Veil. Of course. Stupid, perfect Veil. Appearing in the nick of time to save her commander. And get herself killed. Stupid, dead Veil. She was still going to die, after he’d tried to save her and the others, tried to just let events take their course. The commandos would gun her down and she would die and then security would be alerted and the commandos would die, and many of the guards too, death and more death, all because of him. Just as there had been on Brightness Falls.

A hand forced Axis’s head down and the barrel of a lasrifle jabbed against the collar around his neck, warning him to stillness.

“Sir?”

He could hear her footsteps now, snapping smartly closer, from somewhere behind him. He couldn’t turn, couldn’t see her. Wouldn’t see as they burned her down. Nothing he could do; They’d kill him the moment he moved.

But then, he was dead already. Why not? Salvage one last decent thing from the miserable wreck of his life.

“Lord General?”

Axis threw himself sideways, lashing out blindly behind him with a foot, felt his heel crack against something solid. The man he’d kicked yelped, and the night was shattered by a lasrifle firing wildly. A beam struck Axis in his left shoulder, piercing straight through, sending him sprawling helpless to the ground. He couldn’t even scream.

Dead, he was dead, they were all dead.

Light blazed. Night turned into blinding, eye-searing day. Massive search lumens mounted on the headquarters building rooftop and about the perimeter were all turned inward upon the courtyard, bleaching everything out in a sheet of pure white light that hit like a demolition hammer.

“Fire!” Veil was shouting. “Fire! Fire! Fire!”

From about the perimeter of the courtyard hundreds of lasrifles hissed and snapped and seared the air with beam after beam after beam, coming so thick and fast it was impossible to distinguish one from the next, merging into a single murderous sheet of red fire that slashed across the air and through the clustered commandos.

From where he lay on the ground by the side of the Rhino, Axis could only see the burning lasfire above his head, feel the intense heat, and hear the cries as the commandoes fell, one by one, until the last survivor, the leader, staggered forward and aimed his rifle at Axis’s head.

A dozen lasbeams hammered into the commando and nailed him to the Rhino’s hull. He struggled to rise, then slid down the hull, leaving a wide red waterfall behind.

There was a moment of blessed silence, then the maelstrom of noise began again. “The Lord General is down! Apothecary! APOTHECARY!”

And then the pain was too much and he was floating, drifting away, and he thought he saw Veil’s face, and he thought he asked her for forgiveness.

#

The conference door swung open.

Colonel Veil entered, making the others look up. One or two gasped in shock. Her ceramic-smooth features were smudged with soot, her uniform was singed, her gelled helmet of hair was a tangle. In her hand lurked a Mauler bolt pistol.

“You seem upset, Colonel.” Lord Commissar Korsakoff said and arched an eyebrow.

“There was an attack on the Lord General’s office last night.”

“Hm, so I hear.”

“The terrorists were aided by somebody now in this room.”

The generals eyed one another. Some shook their heads to protest their innocence. Lord Admiral Trexone was a brittle and immobile ice queen. Darker looks were aimed at the Magos, the Cardinal, and even the Lord Commissar – though only by those out of his field of view.

“A serious accusation, Colonel.” Korsakoff emphasized her rank. “As Lord Commissar, I trust you will bring all relevant evidence to my –”

“Lord Admiral Trexone, come with me.”

Trexone opened her mouth several times, lips moving soundlessly. She turned in mute protest to Korsakoff.

“Colonel,” a faint frown creased Korsakoff’s normally pleasant features. “Any accusation of treason must be brought to me.”

“I haven’t accused anybody of anything,” Veil said. “All I’ve asked is for the Lord Admiral to follow me.” She titled her pistol slightly, examined the ammunition counter and safety, then looked back up at Trexone. “Well?”

Korsakoff gave a tiny nod. Trexone shut her mouth, rose to her feet with wounded pride. She pointed a long and accusing finger at Korsakoff, thought better of it, then strode past Veil without pausing – then came to a startled halt.

In the doorway, blocking her exit, stood Lord General Axis.

“Ah, Lord Admiral, you look surprised to see me. In a good way, I hope. But I see you were on your way out. Please, don’t let me delay you.” Axis spoke to Trexone, but looked at Korsakoff.

The Lord Commissar’s eyes had flown wide open. With visible effort, he relaxed, even managed a smile. “When we learned of the attack, we feared for the worse, but I am delighted to see my fears were ungrounded. You look as fit as an Astartes.” Korsakoff stood, went to the doorway and clapped Axis on the shoulder, making him grunt and stiffen. “Ah, but you are injured?”

“I assure you, I am fully recovered,” Axis ground out between his clenched teeth.

“Pity,” he thought he heard Cardinal Sojourn mutter.

“Cardinal, you may think your position protects you, but if I hear another word, you’ll be joining Trexone in her cell.” Axis ignored his outraged sputtering, and turned towards Magos Zepine next. “And you – if you’re not hear to help, get the hell out of our way. I won’t ask again.”

Axis didn’t wait for an answer. He strode purposefully forward to the table, yanked back his chair and slammed himself into it. Both palms slapped the tabletop with a crack. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, we have a war to win.”

“What’s the strategy, sir?” Prosate asked.

“We win without fighting,” Axis replied. He reached for the hololith controls, bringing up the sector map. The hub worlds faded, the spoke worlds glowed like fireflies. “We offer total amnesty to these worlds. No reprisals against anyone, anyone, no matter their rank or position or whatever crimes they supposedly committed during the uprising. Any worlds that accept receive immediate support, medicine, technology, infrastructure. We use our legions not to fight, but to build roads, bridges, hospitals, manufactoria – anything the people need.”

Korsakoff regarded him in reptilian calculation. “Perhaps the Lord General would care to explain his thinking,” he said.

“We can’t take the hubs by assault,” Axis said. “Instead, we break the spoke worlds’ dependence on the hubs. Once they see they are better off in the Imperium than on their own, that we do not intend to extract vengeance, they will return to the fold. Leaving the hub worlds without food or resources. They will surrender or starve, and with the amnesty, why not? Those who reject our offer will face another rebellion from their own people. Again: We win without fighting. We win by apologizing for our past mistakes, and forgiving others for theirs. We win by building a stronger Imperium.”

#

He kept the bottle he’d had that night on the desk, as a visual reminder, as a talisman, as a safeguard. What was the saying? You didn’t have to stop drinking forever, you just had to not take that one next drink. Each day Axis would sit and look at the bottle, and very carefully, not open it.

It was hard. It was awful. There were days he wished he was dead. There were days he was sure he was dead, and this world was an eternal torment inflicted on the souls of the damned. (Imagine, he sometimes though, imagine a universe where humanity discovered the immaterium, and found a warp filled with love and kindness instead of chaos and hate, imagine what that world would be like). Slowly, slowly, agonizingly slowly, those days grew fewer. Reports from the front lines improved.

Soldiers downed their lasguns and bolters, picked up shovels and picks and hammers, and forged new and better lives for the worlds they occupied – no, not occupied. They protected.

And one day Colonel Veil walked into his office, and smiled. Actually smiled. She was trying so very hard to keep her usual iron face, and was failing so very badly. She smiled. Not a little grin, no, a huge smile that smashed right through her cold reserve and warmed her face from cheek to cheek in a genuine, unguarded smile. “Victory, sir.”

“Victory?”

Veil pushed a dataslate into his hands. “A message from the Central Council of the rebels, sir, addressed to you. ‘We seek an immediate end to hostilities,’ etcetera, etcetera. They are suing for peace, sir. We’ve won! You did it, sir!”

It took a moment for it to sink in. When it did. He whooped. He bounded for his seat as Veil ran forward and grabbed his shoulders and crushed him in an embrace. They pounded each other on the back. They laughed. They wept. They drew apart and looked at each other, smiling through their tears, happy beyond words.

“This calls for a drink –” Axis reached for the bottle on his desk.

His fingers halted. Axis swallowed hard. He glanced up, saw Veil’s rigid face watching him, watching his fingers. He looked down, feeling the pull of the drink, a deep and dark gravity well. His fingers closed. On nothing.

He pulled back his hand. “Forgive me. A glass of water, perhaps?”

Veil smiled, nodded in clear relief. She turned to go when the door opened again and Lord Commissar Korsakoff stepped in, followed closely by Mina Lament, the Astropath. Korsakoff quickly took in the scene and saw Axis standing by the bottle on his desk.

“Celebrating already, Lord General Axis, Colonel Veil?” Korsakoff nodded at the bottle and beamed. “A double for me, if there’s any left. You having anything Mina?”

Lament looked at nothing and said less.

Axis suppressed the urge to sigh in irritation, lowered his glass. “I’m drinking water, Korsakoff,” he snapped, ignoring the Lord Commissar’s disbelieving smirk. And just like that, the pleasure of the moment was gone, draining out the room like brandy out the bottom of a broken glass.

“I will be going,” Veil saluted, turned and marched from the office with a nod to the Astropath, never looking at the Lord Commissar.

Korsakoff watched her go, a small and secret smile on his lips. “A fine officer,” he said. “She’ll go far, if she makes the right connections.”

Axis folded his arms across his chest. “What do you want, Korsakoff?”

“I came to offer you my congratulations – and my apologies, Lord General.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

“I deserve that, I suppose,” Korsakoff gave a little shrug and nodded to himself. “I misjudged you, Vortigern. I thought you weak, craven, the ruin of a once-great man. Instead, you have brought the entire sector back to the Imperial fold with its populations and manufactoria intact. Masterful, simply masterful.”

Korsakoff began to clap, slowly, loudly.

Axis watched him, and waited.

“That propaganda trick about the amnesty was a nice touch, too,” Korsakoff went on, still clapping. “You know, I think they actually believed all that tosh about not taking reprisals. As if we would ever allow such criminals to escape from our righteous fury and implacable justice.”

Axis thought he was done feeling like death. He felt it again, now. Scrabbling cold claws in his belly. He tried to put that tearing sharp edge into his voice: “That was not propaganda.”

“We’ll have to double or triple their tithes to pay for all the infrastructure you’ve been building, too,” Korsakoff blithely ignored him. “Still, it’s better than the alternative, I suppose.”

“That was not propaganda, Korsakoff.”

“Oh, but it was,” Korsakoff lowered his hands, and the smile vanished. “It most certainly was. I’ve expressly reassured the Lord Commander Militant that it was, haven’t I Mina?”

“The signs have been clear, the waters stilled.”

“I do so hope you agree with that position, Vortigern. For your sake. And dear Colonel Veil’s. The Lord Commander was quite clear these people need to be punished, Vortigern, the seeds of rebellion need to be stamped out. forever. It would be a shame to have to arrest the victorious general in the hour of his triumph for sympathizing with rebels, traitors and heretics.”

Listening to the words, Axis felt physically ill. His knees threatened to give way, and he clung to the edge of his desk for support. He fumbled blindly along its edge, and lowered himself slowly into his chair.

“This was our chance to break the cycle, Korsakoff.” His face was in his hands and he didn’t know if he ever dared raise it again. “A real, lasting change.”

“Kindness is a weakness, Vortigern. The Imperium must remain strong. Now, you will issue the orders for the immediate arrest and execution of every traitor and collaborator in the sector.”

“You wouldn’t dare move against me,” Axis tried to rally. “I’m the hero of the hour.”

“No, you’re right. We’d wait a few weeks, perhaps a month, to let everyone forget before we put you and all your friends and associates in a cell, starting with Colonel Veil.” Korsakoff leaned forward. “The Imperium has no shortage of heroes waiting to fill your shoes. I might even pardon Trexone and put her in charge. Think about it, Lord General. Give it some careful thought. I’m sure you’ll make the right decision.”

Axis lowered his hands and stared at the door for a long time after Korsakoff and Lament had gone. His eyes unfocused, seeing nothing. There was the door, and the door was shut, and when it was opened again, he would either have betrayed the people of an entire sector, or everyone he’d known and cared for. Either way, it would be for nothing. With or without him, the Imperium would come crushing down on the sector, fertilizing the ground for yet another rebellion.

The bottle was still on the desk. Axis could feel his hand ache to reach for it.

“Forgive me,” he whispered.

END