RED REWARD
Mitchel Scanlon


THEY HAD COME upon the body by chance. Buried in frozen mud, it had been found by two Guardsmen as they hurried to resurrect the fallen wall of a firing trench in the lull between ork attacks. But for the man whose remains now lay at their feet there would be no such resurrection, only reburial in some less vigorously contested section of the city, with just a battered set of dog-tags to give name to the dead.
'It's Rakale, sergeant,' Trooper Davir had said, standing over the body that was still half-concealed in the mud of the trench floor. 'Or that's what his tags say at least. Now his own mother wouldn't recognise him.'
Even from the lip of the trench wall above them, Chelkar could see what Davir meant. Rakale's face was only a memory now, his features reduced to a gruesome flattened smear marked with the striated imprint of the thing that had killed him.
'It could only have been an ork tank,' ventured the hulking Guardsman to Davir's side. 'An ork battle truck. Look, you can see the marks of its tracks on his face. Or what's left of it. It must have rolled over the trench while Rakale lay underneath. Then the trench wall collapsed and the poor bastard was crushed. He would have seen it coming, too. A bad way to die.'
'Bad way to die, my arse,' Davir spat, flat ugly features alive with sudden anger. 'You know a good way, Bulaven? We're all poor bastards. And whether we die with throats cut, heads blown off, or crushed like Rakale here is beside the point. It's all the same in the end.'
'Phh. If you feel that way about it, why don't you end it all now, you stunted idiot?' Bulaven rumbled back. 'Put yourself out of all our miseries.'
'Because, my fat friend, it is a well-known fact that the average ork couldn't hit its own arse with both hands and a guided missile. While I - as you so charmingly put it - am a ''stunted idiot'', a small target. One who confidently expects to outlive you all, I might add. Especially you, Bulaven. A blind man with a thrown rock and the palsy would be hard-pressed to miss your broad and capacious backside.'
'Enough,' Chelkar said, with just enough quiet force to let the squabbling pair know he meant it. 'I want a four-man detail to move the body and bury it by the old plasteel works. Davir, Bulaven: you have both just volunteered. You may choose the others yourselves. And before I hear anyone complain about how hard the ground is, I want you to remember something: Rakale was one of our own.'
Without another word, two more Guardsmen jumped into the trench to join those already there. Then, with as much reverence as was practicable given the conditions, all four set about the delicate task of extricating Rakale's remains from the mud. Occasionally a spade-head would strike a particularly hard-packed knot of earth, the impact shivering painfully up the handle to the hands of the digger. Then there might come a muffled curse, but for the most part they worked in silence. Four men, mindful of their duty to a fallen comrade and the code between all the defenders of this battle-scarred city: We bury our dead.
But by then Chelkar had already turned away to supervise repairs to another part of the company's defences. The last attack had been a bad one. Twelve men dead - thirteen counting Rakale. And, with the remorseless logic of this place, Chelkar fully expected the next attack to be harder and more ferocious still. It was the way of things here. In the city of Broucheroc a man could rely on one thing at least: each new day would be worse than the last.
For a moment, casting tired eyes over the wearingly familiar landscape around him, Chelkar found himself distracted. Before him lay no-man's-land: a great grey expanse of frozen mud and mounds of rubble, punctuated here and there by the fire-blackened silhouettes of dead ork vehicles. Behind him lay Broucheroc itself: an endless, seemingly all but abandoned cityscape of ruined and burned-out buildings. A ghost town, thought Chelkar, and we are its ghosts.
'Sergeant?'
Turning, Chelkar saw Corporal Grishen hurrying towards him from the comms-dugout, four unfamiliar Guardsmen trailing in his wake like black-coated vultures. He did not need to see the crossed-swords-and-prayer-beads insignia at their collars to know who they were: Kessrian Guard. Or to know their arrival here could only mean trouble.
'What is it, Grishen?'
Plainly discomfited, as though struggling to find the words, Grishen paused before answering. Behind him, the Kessrians stood in a rigid line with hellguns held at waist-level, safeties off. Though not normally given to nerves, Chelkar could not help but feel a certain unease to see the muzzles of their guns pointing his way.
'We have received a message from Sector Command, sergeant,' Grishen said, fidgeting as he spoke. 'Well, two messages actually. The first is a communique forwarded from General Headquarters, a thought for the day, to improve the morale of the troops. The message reads: ''It is better to die for the Emperor than to live for yourself''.'
'I am sure the men will find that very comforting, Grishen,' Chelkar said, doing his best to keep any trace of sarcasm from creeping into his voice. 'And the second message?'
'The second message is from Commissar Valk at Sector Command,' Grishen replied, lowering his eyes as though suddenly noticing something of interest in the mud. 'It instructs that you are to be disarmed and placed under arrest on charges of heresy and treason. These men have been sent to escort you to Sector Command for interrogation. And sergeant? They have orders to shoot to kill should you try to resist.'
Yes. The guns were pointed his way all right.

HERE, IN THE rubble-strewn streets behind the front lines, amid the warrens of ruined tenements that once used to house the city's workers, Chelkar could see some signs of life at least. No, life was too strong a word. There was movement: weary Guardsmen huddled round braziers for warmth, militia auxiliaries dispiritedly hauling supplies, even the occasional feral child hunting rats. But it was all no more than the last twitching spasms of a vast and dying corpse. Had every man, woman and child still alive in Broucheroc gathered in the central square, no one could have mistaken it for anything other than what it was. A gathering of the dead, like grimy-faced shades, who refused to face reality.
They were ghosts, these people. Ghosts with pulses perhaps, still able to love and laugh - even bear children - but ghosts just the same. They, and their city, lived only through some quirk of borrowed time. One day the big push would come and Broucheroc would fall. Then, whether by the orks or at their own leaders' decree, these people would join all those who had gone to their deaths from this city before them. Although Chelkar was forced to admit that even these ghosts probably had one advantage over him. They, at least, might live to see tomorrow.
His captors had stopped short of putting his legs in irons. That was something. But Chelkar knew better than to see it as any great cause for hope. It was a practical matter, they would have to walk to Sector Command. And, if his escorts did not want to carry him, his legs would need to be left unfettered.
Not his hands, though. There, the Kessrians had followed regulations to the letter. It was a new experience, walking these debris-choked alleyways with hands manacled behind him. Already he had suffered several bruisingly abrupt encounters with what the propagandists liked to call ''the sacred ground of Broucheroc''. Enough to learn that the frozen soil was every bit as impregnable to the sudden impact of a human face as to the blade of an entrenching tool. But even the taste of his own blood, and the painful awareness that he had probably broken his nose three falls back, was not the worst of it.
Chelkar felt naked. He had been a Guardsmen seventeen years, the last ten spent bottled up in this damned city by the orks. Long enough to know there was no easier way to get killed than to be wandering around unarmed in the middle of a war zone. Your gun is your life; lose one and you'll soon lose the other. It was a lesson every Guardsman lived or died by. A lesson Chelkar had learned as a snot-nosed recruit on his first day of training, courtesy of a kick up the arse from his drill instructor's boot by way of emphasis. A kick that had probably saved his life a hundred times since. In the last seventeen years, whether he ate, slept, washed - even in the latrines - his shotgun, hellpistol and knife had been his constant companions. Now, without them, Chelkar knew what it was to lose a limb. He felt a sense of incompleteness, a phantom itch, impossible to scratch.
'Get up, damn you!' one of the Kessrians barked, hauling Chelkar painfully up by the arms in the wake of yet another fall. 'And next time, be more careful where you put your feet,' he added, apparently convinced this constant headbutting of the ground could only be some act of ill-conceived defiance.
Other than that, and the occasional sharp dig of a gun muzzle against his back, his escorts seemed disinclined to converse. What contact Chelkar had had with Kessrians in the past convinced him this was more blessing than curse. They were humourless fanatics, dour even by the standards of Broucheroc - where to live at all was to live with the threatening weight of despair constantly at your shoulder. Some men succumbed to it, ending their days with the barrel of their own lasguns clenched between their teeth. Others sought refuge in false hopes, gallows humour, or a simple dogged refusal to die. But not the Kessrians. They were devoted to the Imperial creed, and lived with all the mean smugness of men who believed they need only follow orders and, come death, they would sit with their Emperor in paradise.
Though perhaps there was a subtle wisdom in their piety. Counted the most loyal troops in all Broucheroc, they had been detached to the permanent service of the city's commissars, while more ''suspect'' troops, like Chelkar and his men, suffered the brunt of the fighting. Still, their silence was a mercy. He might have to endure the Kessrians taking him to the gallows, but he saw no good reason why they should be allowed to try and bore him to death first.
'Keep close,' one of the Kessrians said. 'If you run, we will shoot.'
For a moment Chelkar wondered why the man thought it necessary to state the obvious. Then, even with his nose broken, he could smell the stench of burning ork flesh and knew the corpse-pyres were close. They turned a corner, heading up towards a low hill whose summit was shrouded in an acrid haze of smoke. He did not need to see through it to know what they would find at the top. The corpse-pyres: great burning mounds of dead greenskin bodies dragged here from every corner of the city. Through the smog Chelkar could see the outlines of perhaps half-a-dozen such pyres, each containing a hundred alien corpses or more. And for every mound he could see, a dozen other pyres would be hidden in the smoke. As many as ten thousand orks might lie burning here, but they were no more than drops in the ocean. For every ork on that hill, a thousand more waited outside the city.
Once this would have smelled like victory to me, Chelkar thought. I am past such delusions now.
It was a tradition started in the first days of the siege. Every morning Guardsmen armed with long hooks would collect the orks killed in the previous day's fighting, drag them up the hill, stack them in great mounds, douse them in promethium, then set them alight. At first, it had been done to prevent disease: this city manufactured so many corpses that they could not all be left to rot in the streets. Then someone - a commissar, most likely - had proclaimed the corpse-pyres were more than just an act of hygiene. Broucheroc was sacred ground, he said, sanctified by the blood of all the heroes who had died defending it. And to bury even a single alien here would be to dishonour that sacrifice. Only heroes were worthy to be buried in Broucheroc; the bodies of the alien scum must always be burned, both to preserve this sacred soil from their taint, and so the orks outside the city would see the smoke rising on the wind and know what awaited them.
So went the dogma, anyway. Chelkar could not help but reflect how ten years of corpse-burnings had done little to dissuade the orks thus far. But there was a certain symmetry to it. Broucheroc had once been one huge refinery, where crude from the oilfields further south was brought to be refined into fuel. Even now, the city sat on billions of barrels' worth of promethium in massive underground storage tanks. That was why the orks were here: without fuel to feed their armour, their assault elsewhere on the planet had been brought grinding to a halt. They were here for the promethium. And, thanks to the inspiration of some long-dead commissar, every ork that died here got some small taste of the stuff.
They were at the summit now, the air about them thick with smoke and drifting fragments of ash. Eyes watering, almost retching from the stench, Chelkar could see ghostly figures moving through the haze, as masked Guardsmen worked to add more orks to the fires. The heat was stifling; he was sweating under his greatcoat. Here, in the warmest spot in all of Broucheroc, the city seemed even more like hell. Then he felt a stern hand suddenly grip his shoulder, as though his escorts were afraid they might lose him. But they were wrong to think he might run. Where could he go? Between Broucheroc and the orks, there was no escape.
For better or for worse, Chelkar would have to put his faith in Imperial justice.

HE WAS COVERED in bruises and every part of his body ached. On arrival at Sector Command, Chelkar had been delivered to the custody of two new Guardsmen who had promptly taken him to a cell, stripped him naked, then beaten him bloody with fist and club. Softening him up, they had called it. Groin, stomach, kidneys - especially his kidneys - they had done their work so well Chelkar had no doubt he would be in tremendous pain for a week. Always assuming that they let him live that long.
Now, he lay prone on the stone floor of another room, waiting for Commissar Valk to acknowledge his existence. A thin man, with thin lips and nose, the commissar sat at a desk at the other end of the room, eyes glued to the display screen of the data-slate he held in his long thin hands. Silent minutes passed as the commissar kept reading. Then, without raising his eyes from the screen, he spoke in a voice every bit as thin as his lips and nose and hands.
'Bring the prisoner a chair.'
The guards complied, dragging a chair to the middle of the room, propping Chelkar up in it with a hand on each shoulder. But still, the commissar did not so much as glance his way. Instead, keeping his eyes on the data-slate, he leaned back in his chair and began to read aloud.
'Eugin Chelkar. Sergeant, 902nd Vardan Rifles, with service in the Mursk Campaign, Bandar Majoris, the Solnar Restoration and, most recently, Broucheroc. Decorated six times, including the Emperor's Star with Galaxy Cluster, presented for extraordinary bravery in the face of the enemy. Though never convicted, you have also faced disciplinary proceedings six times in the past on charges ranging from insubordination to failure to salute an officer. You would seem a remarkable study in contrasts, sergeant. I wonder, which is the real Eugin Chelkar: the hero or the malcontent?'
With that, Valk finally looked his way. But Chelkar stayed silent. The time for expressions of love and loyalty to the Emperor would come later. For now, better to hold his peace until he knew the substance of the charges against him.
For a moment, the commissar stared at him with cold piercing eyes, the smallest touch of a graveyard smile twitching at the corners of his lips. Valk turned away then pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk. He lifted out a vox-recorder. Setting it on his desk, Valk fussed for long seconds, ensuring the recording spools were aligned and the long wire of the vox-receiver properly connected. Then, pressing a stud to set the device working, he turned back to Chelkar once more.
'There now, sergeant, I see no reason to delay the start of these proceedings any further. Speaking clearly, and being careful not to leave anything out, I want you to tell me all about your dealings with one Lieutenant Lorannus...'

CHELKAR SLEPT A deep and even sleep. A sleep untouched by dream or nightmare. He slept, cocooned in blessed moments of peace. Then, he heard Corporal Grishen's urgent voice in his ear and knew his sleep was done.
'Sergeant! A message from Sector Command! Auspex has picked up an object falling to earth in the northwest quadrant of the sky. A drop-pod, sir!'
With a start Chelkar awoke to the darkness of the barracks dugout, Grishen's voice buzzing insistently in his comm-link's earpiece. He dragged himself from his bunk, then, after grabbing his shotgun, helmet and greatcoat, he stepped blinking into the grey light of dawn outside.
Although still half-asleep, what came next was second nature. Half-crouched, keeping to cover as best he could, he ran zig-zag across the open ground between the dugout and the forwardmost trench. Upon reaching the safety of the trench, he found Davir and Bulaven waiting within.
'I don't see anything,' Bulaven said, squinting up at the sky.
'The pod is still too far away, pigbrain,' Davir replied, perched on a stack of empty ammunition boxes. 'And anyway, the corporal said north-west quadrant: you are looking at the wrong part of the sky.'
Bulaven made some unpleasant comment about Davir's parentage, but Chelkar ignored them. Had he even wanted to follow the progress of yet another of their endless disputes, now was not the time. Not with Grishen's excited tones still pulsing in his ear.
'It is one of ours, sergeant - Command is sure of it! We are awaiting verification as to its contents, but auspex has it on a vertical bearing of forty-nine degrees - I say four nine degrees. You should be able to see it soon.'
Raising his field glasses, Chelkar scanned the foreboding heavens. There, he saw it. A black speck, haloed by flame. A drop-pod, all right, and it was headed their way.
'Perhaps it is a relief force,' Bulaven said, his usually booming voice now an awed whisper. 'A space-borne assault, to destroy the orks and break the siege.'
'With a single drop-pod?' Davir sneered. 'I find such stupidity surprising even from you, Bulaven. Most likely some distant bureaucrat has decided to send us a supply pod to reassure us we have not been forgotten. Something remarkably useless no doubt: insect repellent, or paperclips. Remember when they sent us a whole drop-pod full of prophylactics? I never could decide whether they wanted us to use them as barrage balloons, or simply thought the orks must have a morbid fear of rubber. Still, whatever is inside this one, I shall be content so long as the bastards have aimed it right and it doesn't land on top of us.'
The pod was closer now and visible to the naked eye. With a tail of fire streaming behind it, it looked like a comet. Glancing at the network of trenches and foxholes around him, Chelkar could see dozens of fur-shrouded helmets peering over parapets as every man in the company craned their heads up towards the sky, every one seeing in this man-made comet some different portent, whether for good or ill. All but Chelkar. He had lost his faith in portents some time back.
'You are an evil runt, Davir,' Bulaven growled petulantly. 'It would kill you, wouldn't it, to leave a man's hopes intact?'
'I'm doing you a favour, Bulaven,' Davir shrugged. 'Hope is a bitch with bloody claws. Still, if you must hope for something, hope the greenskins never develop a fatseeking missile. If they do, you're f—'
'Sergeant! We have verification!' screeched Grishen in his ear, so excited now that the top end of his voice became a squealing squall of static. 'They're reinforcements! Command says the drop-pod is full of troops!'
'Thank Command for the good news, Grishen,' Chelkar said into his comm-link mouthpiece. 'But advise them they may wish to post more men on gravedigging detail. The pod looks set to land smack in the middle of no-man's-land.'
The pod fell closer, and with every metre a roar grew louder. It was big now, so big Chelkar could pick out the design of the Imperial Eagle embossed on its side. An eagle wreathed in flames, and about to land right under the ork guns.
'Take cover!' he screamed.
There came a deafening boom and the whoosh of air as the shockwave passed overhead. The ground quaked. As the tremors subsided, Chelkar stuck his head back over the parapet. He saw no sign of casualties amongst his men. The pod had landed so far away the tidal wave of uprooted earth and stone had fallen short of their lines. Ahead, Chelkar could see it half-buried in a newly-created crater, steam rising from the rapidly cooling hull. For a moment there was silence, the air itself seemingly as frozen as the ground underfoot. Then, the orks opened up with everything they had, and the apocalypse began.
Bullets, rockets, shells - even the occasional energy beam - fell roaring all about the pod, turning the ground around it into a churning sea of leaping soil. As ever, ork marksmanship was appalling, so far they had not even come close to hitting their target. But given the sheer volume of fire, it was only a matter of time.
'Sergeant!' Grishen screamed through the static. 'I have Battery Command on the line. Permission to request artillery counter-fire?'
'Negative, Grishen. Their marksmanship is every bit as bad as the orks'. We must give those poor bastards out there a chance at least. I want you to take a range estimation on the centre of no-man's-land and await my instructions.'
Out in no-man's-land, the pod doors opened, disgorging shaken Guardsmen. Seemingly leaderless, confused to find themselves delivered into the middle of a firefight, they milled uncertainly in the shadow of the pod, heads moving as hundreds of eyes scanned hopelessly in search of more permanent refuge. Though Chelkar had long since come to believe the absurdities of this city could no longer surprise him, even he was taken aback by the sight of the new arrivals' uniforms.
'There must be a shortage of paperclips and prophylactics,' Davir said. 'Now they are sending us painted lambs to the slaughter.'
They looked like toy soldiers. Several hundred Guardsmen standing all but doomed in the middle of no-man's-land, each wearing a powder-blue monstrosity of a uniform, festooned with a dazzling array of gold braids and epaulettes, and topped with a tall pillbox hat bearing what appeared to be a feather. Toy soldiers, delivered into the most coverless section of no-man's-land: an empty wasteland that, for them, might as well have been in hell. Still, toy soldiers or not, Chelkar could only hope they knew how to run.
'Targeteer makes the range six hundred metres, sergeant. Awaiting your instructions.'
'Keep the line to Battery Command open, Grishen. At the command mark I want you to give them that range and tell them to hit it with everything they've got. Confirm.'
'Six hundred metres, sergeant. With everything they've got. At the command mark.'
'All other troops: at the command ''fire'' I want suppression fire aimed at the ork lines. You have my command. Fire!'
From every foxhole and trench, the company opened up with lasgun, missile and mortar. At this range the chances of hitting anything were slim, but all Chelkar wanted was to encourage the orks to keep their heads down long enough for the new arrivals to escape. The only problem was that, so far, the toy soldiers showed no sign of moving.
A shell rebounded off the hull of the pod as the ork gunners finally found their range. Seeing two of their own cut down by shrapnel, the toy soldiers finally seemed to get the message. They began to run towards the human lines, legs carrying them with a speed born of desperation as bullets and shells flew all around them. Six hundred metres to go, and men fell and died in great waves, bodies pierced by shrapnel and bullets, or else just ripped to bloody pieces by blasts. Four hundred metres now, and already more than half were dead.
'Give me smoke!' Chelkar yelled into his comm-link. 'I want smoke now!'
In answer there came a flurry of grenades and mortar fire, and in seconds all Chelkar could see before him was a drifting white wall of smoke. A desperate gambit. If the toy soldiers could reach the cover of the smoke they might survive. But the same smoke cloud could offer cover to the orks as well.
'Sergeant, auspex reads movement in the ork lines. They are advancing into no-man's-land! The line to Battery Command is open and ready, sergeant, let me give the order!'
'You have your instructions, Grishen. Wait.'
There. Finally. He could see human figures emerging through the fog of smoke. Five. Six. Eight. Perhaps no more than two-dozen men left from hundreds, stumbling gratefully to safety at last.
'Sergeant! Auspex reads a large ork force moving towards us on foot! You must let me order the bombardment! There are thousands—'
Chelkar was about to give the order, his lips moving to frame the words, when he saw something that set him cursing in disbelief. There, amid the smoke, he saw the figure of a single remaining soldier. A last straggler who, spurning the chance to run for cover, turned instead to fire his laspistol towards the unseen horde of approaching orks hidden somewhere in the smoke cloud behind him. A fool, who probably deserved everything that was coming.
'You have my command, Grishen!' Chelkar yelled, already out of the trench and running. 'Mark!'
Half a dozen footsteps, and already in the distant air above him the scream of falling shells could be heard. A dozen, two-dozen steps, and the screaming grew louder. Reaching the man, Chelkar grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, giving him a swift kick in the backside by way of persuasion. Then, dragging his gasping catch back to the parapet, Chelkar threw him into the trench and leapt down on top of him just as the first of the screaming shells began its final deathdive shriek. A shriek that reached its crescendo in a sudden cacophony of explosions that set the ground shaking.
Now, thought Chelkar, hugging the straggler to him at the floor of the trench, assuming the barrage does not fall short, we may just survive this. And, if we do, it will be my great pleasure to kick this stupid bastard in the arse again.
For long minutes the bombardment continued, close enough to send clods of frozen earth falling into the trench. An eternity of ragged heartbeats and racing pulses. Then, abruptly, the explosions stopped.
Within an instant, Chelkar was on his feet, scanning no-man's-land for orks. The barrage had blown away the last of the smoke and he saw the normally grey landscape was now painted with dark green blood and body parts. It made a pleasing contrast. Their luck had held and the artillery had seen off the attack.
'Sergeant, it's Corporal Grishen,' Davir said, stubby fingers fiddling at the comm-link in his ear as Chelkar realised he had lost his own comm-link somewhere in no-man's-land. 'Lookouts report the ork survivors have returned to their lines. Also, we have received orders from Sector Command as to the disposition of the new troops - they are to be attached to our company. And, sergeant? Grishen says according to Command we should find our new company commander among the reinforcements - a Lieutenant Lorannus.'
'Thank Grishen for the news, Davir,' said Chelkar. 'But tell him he may want to advise Sector Command our new company commander is probably lying dead with the majority of his men out there in no-man's-land.'
'Not at all, sergeant,' said a new voice from behind him. 'I assure you: your new company commander is still very much alive.'
Turning, Chelkar saw the straggler getting to his feet. Now he had the chance to see the man clearly, he saw that he wore a single gold bar insignia at his collar. Lieutenant's bars.
It looked like kicking him in the arse again was out of the question.

'ONE BIG LINE, sergeant,' the lieutenant said, jabbing an unbending finger into the map before him. 'That is the best way to defend our position. One big line, and we will break the orks like waves against the rocks.'
Two days had passed, and Chelkar stood with Grishen and Lieutenant Lorannus in the command dugout, around a map of the company's defences. Two days, and now the unveiling of Lorannus's grand design had forced Chelkar to a re-evaluation. His new lieutenant was not just a fool, he was a madman.
'Of course, a great deal of work is required,' Lorannus continued. 'But the failings of the present system - this array of trenches and foxholes in which our men hide like so many rats - should be self-evident. If we are to break the ork resolve, we need a show of strength. We must concentrate our forces in a single great trench running the length of the sector, protected by minefields and barbed wire.'
Perhaps the lieutenant was simple-minded. It was the only explanation Chelkar could think of which made any sense. Already, two days under Lorannus's command had been enough to turn Chelkar's initial dislike of the man into a deep loathing. Lorannus was a by-the-book soldier, a shrill martinet who, Chelkar was sure, would probably soil his uniform if he ever saw an ork. And that damned uniform, that was another thing again. Despite repeated urgings, Lorannus had refused to dispense with his sniper-bait uniform or even to wear a greatcoat to cover it.
'Well, sergeant? You have an opinion?'
'We don't use mines any more, sir. It only encouraged the orks to take prisoners and drive them across the minefields to clear them. Then, when they ran out of prisoners, they'd use gretchin instead. Either way, minefields don't work.'
'We will use punji sticks then, sergeant. Or pitfall traps. These are just details. There is a bigger picture here.'
'Yes, sir, there is. With your permission, lieutenant, I think it is time Corporal Grishen went to see if comms has received any new messages.'
Lorannus paused, looking at Chelkar's weather-beaten face with searching eyes. Then, with a nod, he indicated Grishen should go, waiting until the corporal was out of earshot before he spoke once more.
'All right then, sergeant. We are alone. What is it you have to say?'
'Permission to speak frankly, sir?' Chelkar asked. At Lorannus's gesture he continued, choosing his words carefully. 'With all due respect, sir, wouldn't it be wiser if you waited to acclimatise yourself fully to conditions here before making wholesale changes to our defences?'
'I believe I am ''acclimatised'' as you put it, sergeant,' Lorannus said, looking Chelkar squarely in the eye now. 'And it is my intention these changes should be made without further delay. Should I take it you find some fault in my plans?'
'Yes, sir. Our firing trenches and foxholes are spread out for a reason, same as they are in every other sector of the city. We do it that way to catch the orks in multiple fields of fire and cut them down before they can get close. At the same time, because there isn't any one single strong point, if a trench is about to be overrun the men in it can pull back without fear of the whole line collapsing.'
'Are you telling me it is deliberate policy to give ground to the enemy?'
'We don't give them anything, lieutenant. We lend it to them just long enough for the men in the other trenches to shoot them down. Then we take it back.'
'No matter how you dress it up, sergeant, it is retreat. And retreat smacks of cowardice.'
'Call it what you want, lieutenant. This is Broucheroc, and war here is not like what they tell you about in the scholarium.'
'I am well acquainted with the realities of warfare, sergeant,' Lorannus said, his face flushed and his lips tight. 'My homeworld has a martial tradition that dates back centuries. And for generations my family has committed its sons to the service of the Emperor.'
'And you have personal experience of fighting orks, sir?'
'I do not see how that is relevant,' Lorannus said. A dangerous edge had entered his voice, but this was too important for Chelkar to back down.
'You talked about ''a show of strength'' and ''breaking the ork resolve'', lieutenant? Well, there's only one way I know to break an ork's resolve and that's to kill him. As for ''a show of strength'', take it from me: they're stronger than we are. The one thing you don't want is to end up going hand-to-hand with an ork. Let them shoot at you all day - chances are they'll miss. But go hand-to-hand and you'll end up being fed your own liver. That's what this is all about, lieutenant. Put our men in ''one big line'', without multiple fields of fire and with nowhere to retreat to, and you're giving the orks the chance to get close by sheer weight of numbers. And, if you do that, you might as well give them the keys to the city right now.'
'You sound as though you are frightened of the orks, sergeant,' Lorannus said, his expression dark.
'Yes I am, lieutenant. I've always made it a policy to be terrified of anything that outnumbers me five-hundred-to-one.'
For a moment, struggling visibly to control his temper, Lorannus was silent. But Chelkar knew it was only the lull before the storm. Any second now, Lorannus would either dress him down or tell him to shut up and follow orders. Worse, he might even summon Grishen back and order Chelkar to be put under arrest for insubordination. Whatever the result, the lieutenant would have his way. Their defences would be relocated to one big line and, within a day at most, everyone in this sector would be dead. All because Command had decided to shackle them with a madman. But, no matter the folly of his plans, in the end Lorannus was the officer and Chelkar the sergeant. The lieutenant could send the whole company skipping naked towards the orks and no one would stop him. Unless...
'Sergeant! Lieutenant! You must come quickly! There's something going on over in the ork lines!'
It was Grishen, his voice over the comm-link shrill to the point of panic. An unlikely guardian angel, but for now Chelkar would take whatever he could get.
'It seems we are needed elsewhere, sergeant,' Lorannus said, placing his pillbox hat on his head and adjusting the strap under his chin. 'We shall have to postpone this matter until later. But understand: this does not end here.'
'As you say, sir,' Chelkar replied, picking up his shotgun and shucking a shell into the breech. 'This is not over.'
Lorannus turned away, moving towards the dugout exit with Chelkar two steps behind him. Then, stepping outside, Chelkar saw something which only confirmed his doubts as to the lieutenant's sanity. Incredibly, instead of running or crouching, Lorannus went marching across the open ground towards the trenches as though it were a parade ground. Bad enough to be wearing that sniper-bait uniform, thought Chelkar. But the fool doesn't even have the sense to run or keep his head down.
Not that the thought of some gretchin sniper blowing the lieutenant's fool head off caused him any great concern. But there was always the danger the damned gretch would miss and hit someone else...

'YOU HEAR IT?' Grishen's voice was a dry whisper. 'That noise from the ork lines. Engines.'
The sound could be heard clearly now, drifting across no-man's-land from behind the barricades on the ork side. A growing cacophony of revving motors, grinding gears and rumbling exhausts. The sound of engines. And engines meant only one thing. Armour.
'I don't understand,' Lorannus said, staring towards the sound in utter confusion. 'Intelligence reports stated categorically that the orks had exhausted their last reserves of fuel.'
'Could be they found an old promethium cache somewhere,' Chelkar said. 'Either way, it doesn't matter. The reports were wrong, lieutenant. And, from the sounds of those engines, we don't have much time to get ready.'
'Yes,' Lorannus said, 'you are right of course, sergeant. We need to make preparations.' Looking into the lieutenant's eyes, Chelkar realised the man had no idea how to proceed. Confronted with an unforeseen situation, Lorannus was floundering.
'Artillery, lieutenant,' Chelkar prompted.
'Of course,' Lorannus said, his imperious facade abruptly restored as though somewhere a distant general had flicked a switch. 'Artillery fire. Grishen, contact Battery Command and tell them I want an immediate carpet bombardment of the area directly in front of the ork lines.'
Then, as Grishen hurried towards the comms-dugout, the lieutenant turned towards Chelkar once more.
'I'm sure, like me, you believe in leading from the front, sergeant. I suggest you take up position on the east of the line, while I take the west. It would be a tragedy, after all, if either of us were to wander inadvertently into the other's ''field of fire''.'
Without a word, Chelkar turned and ran crouching towards the forward firing trench on his side of the defences. Inside, Davir and Bulaven were already preparing for the assault; the big man was checking the pump pressure of the heavy flamer before him, while Davir flicked the safety off his lasgun and sighted in on no-man's-land.
'I am pleased to announce we are open for business, sergeant,' Davir said, glancing over his shoulder as Chelkar jumped into the trench. 'Just in time, too. From the sounds of it, we have a busy day ahead of us.'
'Yes we have, Davir. But for now I want you both to put the camo-cover back on the flamer and keep your heads down.'
'No offence, sergeant,' Davir said as, beside him, Bulaven stared dumbly at Chelkar, 'but I have found orks rarely drop dead of their own accord. You have to shoot them first.'
'Perhaps in your close study of the orks you have also noticed they rarely do much in the way of reconnaissance before an assault,' Chelkar replied. 'If we don't shoot at them, they are likely to think this trench is empty. And, if they do, they will concentrate their attack here. Then, once they get close enough, we will spring a surprise.'
'Not much of a surprise, sergeant,' Davir said, his tigerish smile revealing a mouthful of stained and crooked teeth. 'Three men with only a shotgun, lasgun and heavy flamer between them. Still, if the orks get too close, we can always try having Bulaven fart them to death.'
Overhead, the air began to scream with the sound of shells. Grishen had called in the barrage; shrapnel and explosives were turning the area in front of the ork lines into a quagmire. But it would take more than that to stop the orks from coming. The best the bombardment could do was thin out their numbers.
'Confirmation from all lookouts,' Grishen said, 'the orks are coming!'
No one with eyes or ears could miss them. From the ork lines the engine noises reached a crescendo, momentarily drowning out even the artillery barrage as dozens of ork vehicles smashed through their own barricades and sped into no-man's-land. A motley, mechanised army of scratch-built vehicles and buggies gunned their engines forward to come roaring across the frozen mud. In seconds they were past the limits of the bombardment, leaving a third of their number burning behind them. A third already gone, but it mattered not at all. The other two-thirds just kept on coming.
'All troops, upon my command,' Lorannus said, calm and even over the comm-link. 'Fire!'
A fusillade of missiles, lasbeams and mortar rounds hurtled into no-man's-land. Some found their marks, and more vehicles exploded. But many beams glanced off armour, missiles failed, mortar rounds fell short. The motorised horde kept coming.
With grim satisfaction, Chelkar saw the bulk of them were headed his way.
'Wait,' he told the others. 'I want them close.'
The death toll mounted as the other Guardsmen continued to fire. But the remaining orks kept coming in a mad dash to be first to the slaughter. One hundred metres. Eighty. Fifty. Twenty five metres now and closing. Twenty...
'Now,' said Chelkar.
Before the sound of the order was gone Bulaven was on his feet. Moving with a speed that belied his size, he pulled the camo-cover away, his finger already on the trigger of the flamer. He fired, and an oncoming tracked vehicle suddenly disappeared in an expanding cone of fire. It exploded, but Bulaven was already onto another target. And another, and another. One by one, speeding vehicles became fiery deathtraps for their crews, screaming orks leaping overboard as around them their comrades crashed and burned. And still Bulaven kept working the flamer, a bright finger of fire turning vehicle after vehicle into an inferno. And all the time, beside him, Chelkar and Davir worked the triggers of their own guns like madman, trying to make up for lack of numbers with sheer volume of fire. Before long, all Chelkar could see in front of the trench was a rising curtain of flame, all he could hear was the screams of orks, all he could smell was the stench of burning flesh.
He kept on firing.
'Reloading!' Bulaven yelled, as the flamer suddenly sputtered and died, his fat hands already working to attach the fuel-line to a new canister. With a machinelike efficiency born of long practice, Chelkar and Davir sent half a dozen frag grenades into the flames to buy Bulaven the seconds he needed.
But then, they were machines: machines made for the killing of orks.
The flamer sputtered once more, then spat fire again, sending more orks screaming to their gods. And, even through the haze of battle, Chelkar could see his plan was working. Having concentrated their attack here, the orks had become log-jammed. Already, their assault elsewhere in the sector was faltering and Guardsmen from other trenches were able to add their fire to back up Chelkar and Davir. It was the oldest tactic in Broucheroc: offer the orks an open door then slam it shut in their faces. The oldest tactic, and yet it worked every time.
Then, just as Chelkar began to think he might have survived yet another battle, he heard a message over the comm-link that made him think perhaps the orks were not so gullible after all.
'Lieutenant!' Grishen's voice crackled through the static. 'Lookouts report more orks advancing towards us on foot through no-man's-land. Sweet Emperor - their armour was only the first wave!'
For a moment there was only silence over the comm-link, then Chelkar heard Lorannus give an order of stark, staring madness.
'All troops: fix bayonets and advance into no-man's-land! You hear me? Forward, for the Emperor!'
In the trench, no one moved. Chelkar, Davir and Bulaven stood, staring at each other in disbelief. Turning to look at the other trenches, Chelkar could see they were not alone. Out of the whole company, only one man had left the safety of his trench. One man, who now charged forward single-handedly towards the army of orks hidden somewhere in the smoke. The only man who had followed the order was the man who had given it.
Lieutenant Lorannus.
Alone, while the troops he commanded stood watching him with total incomprehension, Lorannus leapt out of his trench and charged into no-man's-land with bullets flying all around him. Coming to a burning tracked vehicle, he vaulted on to its hull, pushing a dead gretchin out of the way, then grabbed the vehicle's twin stubbers and turned them screaming on a horde of approaching orks. One man, compelled by some unknown inner daemon to an act of suicidal madness.
It was the bravest thing Chelkar had ever seen.
'What are you waiting for?' Chelkar heard himself yell over the comm-link. 'Are you going to leave him to fight the orks on his own? That's your company commander out there! Charge!'
Before he even knew what he was doing, Chelkar was on his feet with Davir and Bulaven beside him. Together, they charged into no-man's-land with guns blazing, every other man in the company close behind them. A hundred men, inspired to the same madness as their commander, charging screaming to certain death.
Then, for the second time in a day, Chelkar saw something incredible.
The orks broke and ran.
Barely believing they were still alive, Chelkar and the others halted, looking at the backs of the retreating orks in dumb disbelief. Then, there came the sound of a single voice, soon joined by another, and another, until every man in the company - Chelkar included - was cheering Lieutenant Lorannus's name. And, from his vantage point above them on the burning hull of the ork vehicle, Lorannus smiled and raised his laspistol above his head in a salute of triumph.
Then the bullet struck.
Somewhere out in no-man's-land a gretchin sniper found his spiteful mark, the impact pitching Lorannus forward off the vehicle as a fist-sized spray of red gore erupted from the right side of his chest. Chelkar was by his side in seconds, his hands desperately trying to stem the flow of blood from the lieutenant's chest as he screamed for a medic.
'Tell them...' Lorannus gasped, blood bubbling from his mouth with every ragged breath. 'Tell them... it wasn't true. My family... we were loyal... tell them...'
'You will tell them yourself, lieutenant,' Chelkar said, not realising he was shouting. 'And you can show them the medal you're going to get for this. And not posthumously, lieutenant. You hear me? This is no more than a scratch - in a couple of weeks you'll be saluting when they pin that medal on you! Do you hear me, lieutenant?'
But his only answer came with a bloody-lipped and enigmatic smile.
Lorannus was already dead.

HE HAD EXPECTED questions, or another beating, but having finished his story Chelkar found himself left in silence as the commissar's attention returned to his data-slate once more. Minutes passed, the only sound in the room the quiet whirring of the vox-recorder and the scratching of a stylus as the commissar began to write something on the screen of the data-slate. Or perhaps it was hours: Chelkar could not be sure. He could only sit there, wondering. Surely, there must be more to it than this? If the commissar only wanted to ask him about Lorannus's heroism, why put him through this torment? Why the arrest? The beating? Why bring him here at all?
Then, Valk switched off the vox-recorder, the sudden click sounding like a gunshot after so long a silence.
'You may go, sergeant,' the commissar said. Then, seeing Chelkar staring blankly at him, he continued. 'Having read your most recent battle-report, I was understandably concerned to see you had recommended a traitor for posthumous commendation. But having heard your account first-hand, I can see you had no sinister motive. It was simply a regrettable lack of judgement. I am satisfied you were an innocent in this affair. As I said, sergeant, you may go.'
In shock, Chelkar stood and turned to leave, still half-expecting the guards to drag him back into the chair at any moment. Then, as he reached the door, he could not help but give one last look at the commissar sitting at his desk.
'Is there something else, sergeant?'
'Forgive my asking, commissar. But when you said ''a traitor'', did you mean Lieutenant Lorannus?'
'Yes. Some months ago a member of the lieutenant's family - a distant cousin, I believe - was denounced as a traitor to the Imperium. Of course, as is usual in these cases, his relatives were also purged. All except your lieutenant. Apparently some administrative oversight led to the order for his execution being delayed long enough for him to seek refuge among troops bound for this planet. No doubt he hoped to spread heresy and dissent here, but on this occasion it would seem the orks have actually done us a service. If nothing else, they have saved us a bullet...'

THEY HAD GIVEN him his clothes back. And his weapons. But all the same, as he limped alone back to the front lines, Chelkar felt little sense of triumph. Even cheating the gallows seemed no great victory. This was Broucheroc. At best he had lived to die another day.
Still, he had received better than Lieutenant Lorannus. It seemed strange, how he had gone so quickly from loathing the man to respecting him. And now, now they said the lieutenant was a traitor? Chelkar was too tired to think about it. Perhaps he would consider it tomorrow.
He smelled a familiar stench on the wind and Chelkar realised he was approaching the corpse-pyres once more. For a moment he contemplated going the long way round, but his body ached and it would have added another two kilometres to his journey. Besides, the pyres seemed to have burned down now, most of them little more than smouldering piles of ash. Of course new pyres were already being built; in Broucheroc, corpses were never in short supply. But for now, the smoke and stink had lessened.
It was then, as he made his way past a newly-constructed mound of unburned corpses, that Chelkar caught a glimpse of something. A flash of gold and blue amidst a mountain of green flesh. In a split second it was gone as a masked Guardsman put a torch to the pyre, the whole mound disappearing in a scarlet haze of fire. But Chelkar did not need to see it twice. He knew what it was already: a golden epaulette on the shoulder of the ridiculous powder-blue uniform of Lieutenant Lorannus. Consigned to the flames with its owner, no doubt at the order of Commissar Valk. It did not matter that the lieutenant had given his life defending this city. Broucheroc was sacred soil. There could be no final resting place here for a man condemned as traitor. No hero's burial for him.
Only a red reward.