A Bad Day in the Astra Militarum

It was not a good day to be in the Astra Militarum.

Oh, sure, the Commissars always said it was a good day, because who would say otherwise in their presence and not undergo forcible trepanning? But everyone knew it was not a good day.

It had all started with Jonick, the idiot, running his mouth about ork assassins. “I saw one! I swear! It was as pink as my daughter’s blankets.” Everyone knew an ork didn’t have two brain cells to rub together, much less knowledge of tactics, strategy, or subtlety. And pink? When had anyone ever seen an ork wearing pink?

Then half of the sniper contingent had been found face-down on the battlements with their throats cut. The whispers had spread like wildfire, whispers of pink-clad orks appearing and disappearing like hallucinations after a long night of bathtub amasec. More than one Guardsman caught spreading stories came back from the command depot with nasty bruises and a distinct unwillingness to say anything further.

Days passed with nothing else to report besides the usual hit-and-run skirmishes, and the whispers died down again, only to start anew when an immense cloud of oily black smoke billowed from the south. The rumors this time were of monstrous war machines stomping, clanking and clattering up and down the landscape, and one fantastical tale of a Grot holding the reins of a tyranid beast ten times its size. The smoke continued for two weeks, and it took more than bruises and threats to stop the whispers, as the thud of bolt rounds echoed dully from the Commissariat tent.

The last straw was the lightning dancing on the horizon. The officers tried to say it was weather, but no natural lightning on this side of the Eye of Terror went up from the ground through the clouds, much less colored that shade of green, and no amount of threats from the men in the peaked hats would change that.

The moons had just gone down when they made their move. The rest of the snipers had been found the night before with blades in their backs, and a shred of pink cloth around each hilt. The oily black smoke spewed once more from the south, drawing closer like an oncoming storm, with peals of toxic lightning to match. As the first shells began to fall, a thunderous voice boomed to complete the grisly analogy: “OI! ‘UMIES! I’z Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka, and you iz in my way!”

It was, indeed, not a good day to be in the Astra Militarum.