Outlooks

by Imperaxum

Flickering

Rhia slowly came to, reflexively stretching out her thawed limbs. She was still so cold though!

Oh, yeah. She nearly froze to death, didn't she?

The storm was still howling outside.

And the Kriegsman . . .

She stopped moving and slowly opened her eyes, resisting the urge to blink at the flickering light directly in front of her. Looking on silently, she watched the Guardsman of the Death Korps of Krieg curse as the pitiful little fire winked out, clearly not the first time this had happened.

They cursed?

More importantly, he hadn't noticed her wake up yet. She shut her eyes quickly as he turned to face her, and when the temptation grew too great, she cracked them back open. The soulless black lens that covered his eyes looked a little less intimidating when scratched and cracked as they were; in fact, now that she really looked, his entire uniform was alternatively torn and frozen.

After a few seconds of the stare-down, with only one side knowing of it, the Kriegsman stiffly made his way over the wall of the cave and leaned against it, sliding down to a sitting position. Slowly, he slung the lasgun off his back and rested in crookedly in his arms. To her great surprise, he reached up and unfastened the clasps on his gas mask, before taking it off awkwardly. Next, off came his helmet. She imagined he didn't have much practice with doing that.

His face was hard, almost chiseled out of rock. Yet, getting past the iron features every Kriegsman probably had, he looked pretty young. Ooh, she wanted a conversation with a face right about now.

Also, any vestige of warmth in her legs had faded with that fire. Moving was also a good idea in general.

She yawned dramatically and stretched her arms, and while out of the corner of her eye she saw the Kriegsman swivel at her with his lasgun up in alarm, all she had was a broad grin.

"Good morning!" she said cheerily. To her relief (and mild surprise), he lowered his gun, albeit suspiciously.

Making her way over to him while trying to act like she wasn't half frozen, she plopped down next to him. His fingers twitched for the helmet and mask next to him.

She shook her head. "Nah, I like talking to a face." She got a distrusting stare for her troubles. "So, nice human emotions."

". . . yes?" he replied hesitantly, his voice less rough with the mask off.

She sighed. "You're not the best at conversations, are you?"

He thought over the words. "I atone for my ancestors." he stated flatly.

With a roll of her eyes, Rhia stood up and offered him a hand. "Well, let's get this fire started, then!" He took it, and she was nearly thrown off her feet as three hundred pounds of human and equipment used her arm as a ladder.

"I know what you're thinking." Rhia, after regaining her balance, continued. She spared a glance at the remains of the Kriegsman's failed attempts at fire-making - in many cases, the branches were charred on one end yet still frozen on the other.

"I do?" the Kriegsman asked.

She ignored him for the time being. Bending down over the pile, she unslung the her pack and pulled out her survival kit. Opening it with trembling hands, she grabbed the small package of matches inside.

The Kriegsman, while still keeping an eye on the entrance, squatted down beside her. "I've already tried that," he said, pointing at his discarded match container, "fifteen times."

"So you know numbers . . ." Rhia muttered. To the Kriegsman: "That was fourteen times too many."

She dumped the entire container's worth of matches save one onto the wood, and swiftly scraped that last one a few times on the side of the container. It lit up into a pitiful little fire; when she tossed it onto the pile of matches, that little fire burst into a pillar of flame.

Reaching into her pack again, she brought out a small syringe. Before the Kriegsman could get a good look at what exactly it was, she hurriedly dumped its contents onto the fire, and the flames practically exploded, turning a sickly green as they roared with renewed vigor.

"Hive city trick," she explained, "and, admittedly, not the best one."

They lapsed into silence, watching the frozen wood gradually succumb to the blazing chemical fire. Rhia stretched out her hands, and winced as it felt like a thousand needles stabbed her fingers. Once she'd made certain they hadn't frozen too badly, she drew her legs up to her chest and clasped her arms around them. The Kriegsman remained sitting stiffly, completely still, glancing at the entrance of the cave every few seconds.

"So," Rhia finally broke the silence, "what're we gonna do?"

"Not freeze." the Kriegsman replied with deadly seriousness.

Rhia grinned a little at that, albeit grimly. "How about that, humor."

He gave her a quizzical stare. "Never mind," she said hastily, waving her hand, "I mean, after that. The temperature's not so bad after the sun rises."

The Kriegsman grimaced. "We keep moving, and contact the Imperium of Man."

"What if this isn't an Imperium world? Emperor knows, I can't think of any that're this beautiful," Rhia observed, "and think about it - not one machine in the sky? What kind of Imperium world is this?"

"Could be a feral world." the Kriegsman guessed, drawing on his limited knowledge of the Imperium's planets.

"Probably not. This place is absolutely pristine." Rhia snorted. "A place like this would be colonized the second the Administratum got around to it."

"You know much about planets you don't live on." the Kriegsman pointed out.

Rhia shrugged sheepishly. "Hey, just 'cause I'm a hiver doesn't mean I want to live and die in the same stinking factory without knowing what happens beyond me." Her face fell. "I'm nothing."

"You have your life to give." the Kriegsman said, presumably as encouragement.

Rhia only groaned. "Yeah, don't remind me." Suddenly, she perked up and snapped her fingers. "Wait, I know! We're on a feudal world!

The Kriegsman thought for a moment. "What's that?"

"Uh, kinda like a normal Imperium world 'cept they have really primitive tech. I mean, they aren't very interesting, that's why I don't remember much about them, but then again," she raised her arm in the direction of the cave entrance, "once you get past the beauty of this place, it isn't very interesting either."

The Kriegsman nodded.

"Yeah," Rhia continued, nodding herself at her own logic, "yeah. Tau worlds would have stuff flying around, Chaos worlds would be pretty hard to miss, Ork worlds - well, I don't wanna think about those . . ."

She nodded decisively. "Yeah. Whatever Emperor-damned flash of light sent us here, 'here' is just about the best place I could imagine,"

The Kriegsman eyed her suspiciously. "You seem uninterested in the specifics of you getting here."

"I - well," Rhia began, paused thoughtfully, then continued in a lowered tone of voice, "to be honest, why should I care?"

Seeing the Kriegsman's disbelieving look, she elaborated; "I mean, I got thrown into the PDF and sent into Hive Tzaek with barely any training, and I'm pretty sure only as cannon fodder. It was pure luck I managed to survive long enough to get to that shell crater. Now, here, it's gorgeous and nothing's tried to kill me yet. I'm free!"

She stopped when she noticed the piercing of the stare of her companion. "You wish to escape death for the Emperor?" he asked dangerously.

She gulped. "This is something new," she said softly, "I didn't have a choice, but it sure beats my life in the hive. Like I said before, I'd die happy right now."

"Well," she added laconically a second later, "maybe death could wait until the morning."

"I see. We continue on foot tomorrow." the Kriegsman said with finality. "I'll take first watch."

"Right . . ." Rhia nodded, glad he'd seemingly dropped the matter, for now at least. "Damn, it's still cold."

As the Kriegsman swiveled in place to face the entrance, he felt a meager pressure on his side. Glancing down briefly, he saw Rhia had curled up beside him with her eyes closed. "Much better," she yawned, adding, "I don't think you waking me by moving'll be much of an issue."

He frowned at her, before shrugging and turning back to the entrance. Reaching over to his left, he grabbed Rhia's autogun off the stone floor and placed it beside her.

Finally, he cast a glance in the direction of his helmet and gas mask. He started to get up to get the equipment - then, remembering the sleepy woman beside him, sighed and remained in place.

It was going to be a long night.

Author's Note:

I prefer the interpretation of Kriegsman that they're merely cold and stoic, not practically brain-dead. Once you engage them in conversation, they prove capable of carrying on one like any normal human. It's just the opportunities for that don't come along often . .

So! It only six weeks! Well, t-that's better than thirty, r-right?

Right?

I'll just stab myself with a pitchfork under the light of a torch, and save y'all some trouble, then.

Anyway, now that it's Finals, pretty soon I'll be pumping these things out like it's nothing. Truth be told, I started this shtick with no idea of how it'd end, but now I think I have a half-way decent finale, so there's that. Stay tuned, and fear not, loyal readers!

Plus, I was working on Distant Shores. Those 10,000 words may have been better spent here . . .

Comments

[Nightmare Wolf]

I never liked Kriegsmans and the whole idea of dying for the Emperor that they, and most of Imperium practices. Think about it, if you die for the Emperor, that that means that your enemy has succeeded, he won, because he killed you. Killing for the Emperor on the other hand, now that's the idea!

[Kobster22]

4487480

You don't win a war by dying for your country. You win a war by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his.

-George S. Scott playing as Patton

[Nightmare Wolf]

4487678 Wanted to use my own words, but that's exactly my point.

[FenrisianBrony]

4487480
But you forget that in dying for the Emperor, they pave the way for another guardsman to get one step forward, and when he dies, the next one gets another step forward. Now multiply that by millions of guardsmen, all uncaring, and you get a steady wall of infantry, constantly moving forward, and while the death toll is horrendous, it is brutally effective. You only have to look at Vraks, a world that would have taken hundreds of years to retake, and yet was taken back in 18 years by the Death Korps, to see that the strategy works.
Maybe it's not ideal to have the sheer amount of dead soldiers who could be killing for the Emperor, but they get results, and when all else fails, they don't.

[Nightmare Wolf]

4490012 True, but wouldn't it be better, if instead of "... and when he dies, the next one gets another step forward", we would have "... and when enemy dies, they take step forward, and then another one, and another."?
Sometimes surviving is not an option, but willingly dying instead of killing chaos is almost heretical.

[FenrisianBrony]

4490075
I suppose, but that doesn't address the fact that Kriegers think of themselves as borderline heretics anyway, thanks to the betrayal. They think the only was to get absolution for their sins is to throw themselves at whatever is a threat, and trying their up most to kill it, even if they have no choice. They don't just lie down and die, they make sure to do what all guardsmen should do. They die standing.

[Lord Commissar Alexer]

Just don't make him too....human.

[Redemption]

I like it, keep going.

[Truly Luminous]

More, the Inquisition demands more.