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Range

"You ever meet other militia like me?" Rhia asked as the star of the world reached its peak and their shadows disappeared.

"PDF?" the Kriegsman intoned.

"Eh, not really. I'm milita, the Governor's Trade Guard are PDF, their kit costs a dozen workers. Say, you know what happened to Hive Doran?"

"I do not."

"Damn. It's the one with the huge arch, two peaks, Governor's palace is in the center."

"I see. If the arched hive is Hive Doran, then it was destroyed by an orbital bombardment during my regiment's descent."

"Oh, I didn't know that," Rhia shrugged. "Outlived the Governor, who woulda thought it?"

There was an uncomfortable silence, though Rhia hardly knew if the Kriegsman was disturbed by it under the mask. "The Emperor has blessed you abundantly," he finally said.

"I wouldn't say that," Rhia sighed, rubbing her arm. She grimaced when she saw the Kriegsman snap his head to stare at her, and she realized the blasphemy.

"I'm just a damned wretch," she added, and the Kriegsman seemed satisfied, returning to his routine of constantly swivelling his head to scan their surroundings. Rhia shuddered, wondering at how a faceless soldier could put a greater fear of the Emperor in her than the factory preachers ever did. One eyeless stare was worth more than an hour's breathless screaming and hymns could. Rhia hated the hymns, she was an awful singer.

They went on for another hour, working their way down ridges and gradually relaxing inclines, the temperature rising as their altitude decreased. They were silent, but Rhia did not feel so uneasy anymore - the Kriegsman was no longer some eldritch monster, and his warning about the danger of a xenos world had fallen on deaf ears. It was his own fault, really. The Kriegsman was so obviously good at his job, there was nothing that this primitive world could have that could possibly threaten Rhia while her companion was around. In that terrible battlefield that Rhia had been snatched from by the Emperor's grace, she had seen the men of Krieg roll over a defense line that her company had been pointlessly grinding against for a week.

The Emperor's grace. Rhia was not a particularly faithful person, but she was at a loss to describe what had transported her to this xenos world.

"You're right, you know," she said as the shadows began to stretch out across the melting snow. "I'm really blessed."

"Good to hear," the Kriegsman said flatly.

Rhia couldn't think of anything to add, and they continued on for a while.

"How has be blessed you?" a voice asked, Rhia twitching in surprise. Even she awkwardly raised her autogun, she knew it could only be the Kriegsman speaking - yet the idea of him talking with minimal provocation was totally foreign to her.

She looked at her companion - the Kriegsman was looking at her clutching at her autogun, his posture relatively relaxed. "You need to improve your reaction. Good to be suspicious, but the benefit is minimal with that sort of panic."

"Right. Thanks."

They continued on a bit, before Rhia remembered that her companion had asked a question. "Right, blessed. I'm very glad that the Emperor saw fit to send me here. That's all."

"Away from battle in His name?" the Kriegsman said instantly. Rhia winced, but there was no anger in the Kriegsman's voice. He almost sounded conversational.

"I don't know. Maybe." Rhia looked at ground, concentrated on the blades of green plants poking through the snow. "This place is so beautiful."

"It's xenos," the Kriegsman spat, then his voice relaxed. "Acknowledging your own cowardice is a good sign, however. Cowards die early in the Korps - it is the Krieg way - but it seems you will have a better chance of absolving yourself of it."

"Well, that's... good, I think."

"It is. Outside of Krieg, there are many cowards who act better than they are. Your Governor was a coward, and he cost the Imperium his planet."

Rhia glanced at him oddly. "How do you know this? You Krieg men never seemed to care much for our world, from what I saw," she shook her head. "I can't judge you all on what I saw. Can't see how the Governor pisses from the underhive, as they say."

A rasping sound came from under the Kriegsman's mask. "That sounds accurate. I know of your Governor because of the briefing the Colonel gave my regiment before it went down."

"Huh," Rhia said, but to her continued surprise, her companion continued to elaborate.

"You do not understand the... significance of that. Explaining the situation to your soldiers is not generally thought of as the Krieg way."

"So?"

"The Krieg way is to be sent anywhere and to absolve our sin in combat. Where or why is not relevant in the slightest. The Krieg way is everything. When I left Krieg, I was part of a replacement shipment to the 1372nd Siege Regiment. My first impression of the Colonel was of madness, but I think I've come to understand his reasons for his transgression - we are much more effective, I think. A cowardly Governor means a notably bad PDF. Another transgression. Relying on non-Krieg soldiers is dangerous, but our Colonel is..."

A minute passed. "You... 'replacement shipment'. That sounds like a box of tools, not a group of people," Rhia said.

"Your analysis is accurate. You don't seem to be understanding what I'm trying to explain." the Kriegsman intoned.

"Look - I'm a little taken aback, that's all. You are explaining something, about a culture and a way of life I don't know at all and all sorts of military things -"

"A colonel is the commander of the regiment. The Colonel was the commander of the 1372nd Siege," the Kriegsman clarified.

"Oh, I know what a Colonel is. I watched Against the Green Menace!, leader of the 'Lucky Sevens' was a Colonel on that pict-show. Say, you ever see an Ork?"

"I have killed one or two. What I am saying is that my Colonel was not a strictly conventional man of Krieg."

"A lot of words just to say that," Rhia observed, cracking a smile.

"That is your way, is it not?" the Kriegsman asked flatly, and Rhia laughed. "I'm being inefficient with my speech, but the 1372nd Siege is not inefficient."

"Boy, so, you guys ever get trouble? For not following the 'Krieg way'?" Rhia asked, still full of good humor. She liked to imagine that her companion was too, after a fashion.

"No. In the end, we did. We are an effective Regiment, and our Colonel's tactics ensure we have not been wiped out in the campaigns we have participated in. I was not there personally for most of them, but it is in service to the Emperor that we absolve our sins - and the 1372nd has greatly aided many of our needy allies in ways that other Colonels would not concern themselves with."

"So, you're sorta proud, right?" Rhia smiled.

"You would call it that. We are not cowards, and the Colonel is not - how did those Saggarts describe their ways - he is not thrifty with our lives. But he does not have us die for the sake of dying and little else. I think it is a good way."

"I hear a lot about your sins. And I watched you and your buddies run through that hell-field with no care. It's very interesting to hear you just talk, though. I won't press. I'm sure we have a lot of time." Rhia said quickly, still smiling, putting a skip into her step. It was reassuring to see your immediate future become a lot more social.

"Yes," the Kriegsman merely said.

After a little while, he spoke up again. "We should find another shelter. It is less cold down here, so the emphasis must be placed on defensibility."

"Sounds good," Rhia said, "I ought to bore you with stories about underhive air tunnels. Stuff like that."

"I will listen," the Kriegsman replied dutifully, and they kept walking into the fading light.

Author's Note:

Oh, shit, it's been a really long time. Partly life, and partly working on a couple of other stories that captured my imagination more thoroughly than this one, including my other Warhammer 40k story that is much more heretical than this one. Well, I've gone and thought up a proper conflict and ending for this story, so expect updates to be drastically quicker. I've promised that before, but I've got the proper foundations for it now, I think.

Also, I'll spend some time editing previous chapters. My grip on the 40k universe, and specifically civilian life in the Imperium, has vastly improved - I'm cringing at Rhia casually mentioning Tau, Chaos, and Ork worlds and how they don't fit the sights of Equestria. Ordinary hive worker does not know that shit. Anyway, thanks for reading!

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