their places around the table in the kitchen as they made ready for their evening meal. He thought of
that last beautiful sunset, the sky reddening as the fiery orb of the descending sun fell slowly
towards the horizon. He thought of the world he had left behind, and of all the things he would
never see again.
It all seems so long ago and far away now, he thought. As though all those things were a million
kilometres away from me. The sad thing is they are even farther away than that. Not just a million,
but millions of millions of kilometers, however far it was we came in that troopship.
“I don’t know,” he said at last, unable to find the words to say what he really felt. “It was
different anyway. A lot different from this place.”
“Hnn. I think our new fish is starting to feel homesick,” Davir said. “Not that I blame him, you
understand, any place would seem rosy when compared to this damn stinkhole. You find me in a
strangely magnanimous mood however, new fish, so let me give you a piece of advice. Whatever
wistful longings you may harbour for the world of your birth, forget them. This is Broucheroc.
There is no room for sentiment here. Here, a man must keep himself hard and tight if we wants to
live to see tomorrow.”
“Is that it then?” Larn asked. “I remember Scholar told me you were all that had survived from
over six thousand men. Is that how you did it? By keeping yourselves hard and tight?”
“Ah, now there you have touched upon an interesting question, new fish,” Scholar said. “How
was it we survived when so many of our fellows didn’t? You can be sure it is a regular topic of
conversation hereabouts. Each man has his own opinions. Some say that to have managed to live so
long in Broucheroc at all, we must have been born survivors to begin with. Others say it must have
been a combination of fate and good judgement, or perhaps only a matter of poor dumb luck. As I
say, everyone has their own opinions. Their own theories. For myself, I am not sure I put much store
in any of them. We survived where others died. That is all I can tell you.”
“I always thought the Emperor must have had a hand in it,” Bulaven said, his expression quiet
and thoughtful. “That perhaps He was saving us for some greater purpose. At least, that is what I
used to believe. After so many years in Broucheroc, a man begins to wonder.”
“The Emperor?” Davir said, throwing his hands up in a gesture of frustration. “Really, this time
you have excelled yourself, Bulaven. Of all the lumpen-headed stupidities I have heard pouring
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from your mouth over the last seventeen years since we were inducted into the Guard, that is
without a doubt the most idiotic. The Emperor! Phah! You think the Emperor has nothing better to
do than watch over your fat backside and make sure it comes to no harm? Wake up, you big pile of
horse manure. The Emperor doesn’t even know we exist. And, if he does know, he doesn’t care.”
“No!” Larn shouted, the sudden loudness of his voice in the trench startling them. “You are
wrong. You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Then, seeing the others looking at him in
bewilderment, Larn began to speak again. More quietly now, the words spilling heartfelt from his
mouth.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to yell. But I heard what you were saying and… You are
wrong, Davir. The Emperor does care. He watches over all of us. I know he does. And I can prove
it. If the Emperor wasn’t good and kind and just, he never would have saved my great-grandfather’s
life.”
And then, as about him the others sat quietly in the trench and listened, Larn told them the same
tale his father had told him in the farmhouse cellar on his last night at home.
He told them about his great-grandfather. About how his name was Augustus and he had been born
on a world called Arcadus V. He told them about his being called into the Guard, and how sad he
had felt at leaving his homeworld. He told them about the thirty years of service and his greatgrandfather’s
failing health. He told them about the lottery and the man who had given up his ticket.
He told them it was a miracle. A quiet miracle, perhaps. But, a miracle all the same. Then, when he
had told them all these things word for word the same as his father had told him, Larn fell quiet and
waited to hear their reaction.
“And that is it?” Davir said, the first to speak after what felt to Larn like an age of silence. “That
is the proof you talked about? This tale your father told you?”
“It is an interesting story, new fish,” Scholar said, his expression ill at ease.
“Hah! Story is right,” Zeebers said, looking sarcastically down at Larn from up on the firing
step. “A fairy story, like parents tell their children to make them sleep. You believe that crap, new
fish, maybe you should go tell your story to the orks and see if a miracle saves you then.”
“Shut up, Zeebers!” Bulaven snapped. “You’re supposed to be on watch, not flapping your lips
about. And it is not as though anyone asked for your opinion. Leave the new fish alone.” Then,
seeing he had cowed Zeebers to silence, Bulaven turned towards Larn again. “Scholar was right,
new fish. It was a very interesting story, and you told it well.”
“Is that all you are going to say?” Larn asked, surprised. “You all sound like you think
something is wrong. As though you don’t believe what I just told you.”
“We don’t believe it, new fish.” Davir was blunt. “Granted, Scholar and Bulaven are trying to be
soothing about it. But they don’t believe it either. None of us do. Frankly, if the story you just told
us is what passes your benchmark for a miracle, you are even more of an innocent than you look.”
“I would have expected you to say that Davir,” Larn said. “You don’t believe in anything. But
what about the rest of you? Scholar? Bulaven? Surely you can see that what happened to my greatgrandfather
was a miracle? That it is proof that the Emperor watches out for us?”
“It is not a matter of believing you,” Scholar said, lifting his shoulders in a helpless shrug. “It is
just that even if we accept the details of your story are true, new fish, those same details are open to
a variety of interpretations.”
“Interpretations?” Larn said. “What are you talking about?
“He is saying you are being naive, new fish,” Davir said. “Oh, he’s doing it in that scholarly way
of his, of course — just tip-toeing around the subject rather than coming right out and saying what is
on his mind directly. But he thinks you are naive. We all do.”
“You have to understand our experience of life makes us see these things differently,” Scholar
said.
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“But how is there any different way to see it?” Larn said. “You heard the story. What about the
man giving my great-grandfather his ticket? Surely you can see that must have been the hand of the
Emperor at work?”
“Far be it for me to shatter your illusions, new fish,” Davir said. “But I doubt the hand of the
Emperor had anything to do with it. No, likely the only hands involved in it at all would have
belonged to your great-grandfather.”
“I… What do you mean?”
“He killed him, new fish,” Davir said. “The man with the ticket. Your great-grandfather killed
him and took his ticket from him. That’s your miracle.”
“No,” Larn said, looking quietly from face to face in disbelief. “You are wrong.”
“Course I can see how it could have happened,” Davir said. “There’s your great-grandfather.
He’s sick. Ailing. He knows winning the lottery is his only chance of making it out of the Guard
alive. Then, when someone else gets the winning ticket, he realises only that one man’s life stands
between him and freedom. And he was a soldier. He’d killed before. What is one more life in the
grand scale of things, he tells himself. It’s a dog-eat-dog universe, new fish, and it sounds like your
great-grandfather was a dirtier dog than most.”
“No,” Larn said. “You’re not listening to me. I’m telling you, you’re wrong about this. You are
sick, Davir. How could you even think something like that?”
“It is the name, new fish,” Scholar said sadly. “Or the lack of one, I mean’
“Yes, the name,” Davir said. “That’s what clinches it”
“What are you… I don’t understand…”
“They’re talking about the name of the man who gave your great-grandfather the ticket, new
fish,” Bulaven said with a sigh. “It wasn’t part of the story. And you must be able to see that makes
all the difference? I am sorry to tell you this, but that is what proves your great-grandfather killed
him.”
“The name?” Larn was floundering now, his stomach churning, his head dizzying as though the
world about him had suddenly begun to turn strangely on its axis.
“Think about it, new fish,” Davir said. “This man is supposed to have saved your greatgrandfather’s
life. Your great-grandfather must have known his name. He was a comrade of his,
remember? A man who had fought side-by-side with him through thirty years in the Guard? And
yet, years later, when your great-grandfather tells the tale to his son he somehow neglects to even
mention the name of the man who saved his life? It doesn’t add up, new fish. Especially considering
you told us your great-grandfather was a pious man. A man like that, if somebody does them a good
turn they remember them in their prayers to the Emperor for the rest of their life.”
“It does have the ring of a guilty conscience about it, new fish.” Scholar said. “Though, if it is
any consolation to you, it also suggests your great-grandfather was not given easily to murder. If
he’d been a more coldblooded man, presumably he’d have just told his son the man’s name and
thought no more about it.”
“Not really, Scholar,” Davir said. “Even though years had passed by then, he could’ve still been
worried about his crime being found out. Maybe he thought it was better to let bad dogs lie, and
never mention the name ever. Either way, it doesn’t really make any difference. Your greatgrandfather
killed the man, new fish, and stole his ticket. That’s all there is to it. So much for
miracles.”
“No. You’ve got it wrong,” Larn said. “There must be another explanation. One you haven’t
thought of. Surely you can see that my great-grandfather wouldn’t have done anything like that?”
But as Larn looked at them it was clear to him that was exactly what they did believe. Davir,
Scholar, Bulaven, Zeebers. All of them. Looking at the faces of each man in the trench, Larn could
see their minds were made up. There had been no miracle. No example of the Emperor’s grace. To
them, it was a simple matter. His great-grandfather had killed a man, then lied about it afterwards.
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“No,” Larn said at last, hating how weak his voice sounded and way it wavered. “No. You are
wrong. You are wrong and I don’t believe you.”
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CHAPTER TWELVE
18:58 hours Central Broucheroc Time
Sector Command and the Portents of a Coming Storm — Larn Sulks — Davir at Last Finds a
Reason to be Cheerful — Meal Time in Barracks Dugout One — The Culinary Arts as According to
Trooper Skench — A Discussion as to the Advantages of Artillery in the Hunting of Big Lizards
“Here are the raw contact reports for the last half-hour, sir,” Sergeant Valtys said, holding out a
sheaf of papers as thick as his thumb in his outstretched hand. “You said you wanted to see them
immediately, before they were collated.”
Sitting at his desk in his small office at Sector Command Beta (Eastern Divisions, Sectors 1-10
to 1-20), Colonel Kallad Drezlen turned to take the papers from Valtys and begin to read them.
There must be two hundred reports here at least, he thought. Each one recording a separate
incident of contact with the enemy. Two hundred, when usually at this time of day we would expect
to get no more than eighty or so in an hour. It looks like the orks are getting restless hereabouts and
that is never a good sign. Something must he coming.
“How bad is it, Jaak?” he asked, raising his eyes from the reports to look at the sergeant.
“Bad enough, sir,” Valtys replied, still standing ramrod-straight beside the colonel’s desk as
though he thought he was on a parade ground muster. “Five of our sectors report coming under
heavy shellfire from the orks. Another two report incidents of massed assaults. Then, we have
received something like a hundred different reports from across all sectors of contacts ranging from
raiding parties to an increase in the number of gretch snipers and scouts in no-man’s land. Looks
like there’s a real shitstorm brewing, colonel, if you pardon my language.”
“Hhh. You are pardoned, Jaak,” Drezlen said, looking up at the non-com’s grizzled face with a
quiet amusement born of long familiarity with his ways. “What about Sector Commands Alpha and
Gamma? Are they having the same problem with flying faeces?”
“No and I have to admit that’s what put the wind up me, sir. Our neighbouring Sector
Commands say they’re having a quiet time of it. Too quiet, if you ask me.”
“As though the orks were planning something, you mean?” Drezlen said, his face serious now as
he gave voice to the thought hanging communally in the air between them. “Concentrating their
forces here, as though they are about to launch a major offensive?”
“Yes, sir. Course, I know that’s not supposed to happen. I know General HQ say the orks aren’t
smart enough to coordinate something like that. But I’ve got a metal pin in me, holding my left knee
together from the time an ork shot blew a fist-sized hole in it. Ever since I got it, that pin has always
started itching whenever the orks were up to something. And right now it’s itching worse than a redarsed
monkey that’s been sitting in a mound of firebugs.”
“I know what you mean, Jaak,” Drezlen said. “My gut’s the same way. All the same, I wouldn’t
want to go to General Pronan asking him to order an alert based on the combined evidence of your
pin and my digestion. I’ll need something a bit weightier than that. Get me the collated statistics and
summaries for these contact reports ASAP. Then, I’ll go see the general and see if we can get him to
take some action.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but the general’s not on site. He still hasn’t returned from the Staff
Briefing at General HQ.”
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“Spectacular,” Drezlen said, sighing in irritation. “The one time we really need the old man he’s
off enjoying flatcakes and recaf with Grand Marshal Kerchan. All right, then. Looks like I’ll have to
