Sonata for a Rose

Sonata for a Rose v0.78
Tags: Action, guardsmanxguardswoman, romance, incomplete

	“Damn it, Kowalski, get down!” the commissar yelled, tackling him to the ground as deadly lasers scorched the air above them, the convection currents lightly singing the lapels on his greatcoat. The soldier’s lho-stick flew through the air and splashed into the mud. The commissar crawled off of him and to a lower area in the trench, where it was safe to return to his feet. His normally immaculate military suit, carapace armor, and coat were all dripping with mud. He scowled at the mess, wiping some murky grey off with one of his gloved fingers and then shaking his hand to rid the black leather of the dirt.

	“S-sorry sir,” the ragged guardsman said, coughing heavily in the smoky air. He clutched at the handkerchief in his hand and dabbed at his eyes with it, trying to wipe away the irritating residue left by the noxious fumes in the air as well as the incessant tears that ran down his cheeks as a result of the damage. Blinking rapidly in a futile effort to sooth the pain, he was effectively incapacitated, as his vision was far too blurred from the streaming droplets to be able to function normally.

	“Shut up and crawl for your life, corporal,” the commissar barked, before turning to stomp away towards another section of the trenches. Kowalski obeyed to the best of his ability, reaching forward and dragging himself across the wet ground until he was able to barely make out the shape of a feminine hand, clad in fingerless gloves, in the air in front of him. He grabbed it and was immediately yanked up onto his feet, face to face with a familiar woman, able to recognize her even though her face swam and warped in front of him.

	“Throne, you can’t just stand on the high of a slope, Don, gas in your eyes or not. Come on, we’d better catch back up with him,” the black-haired woman said, immediately turning and tugging on the corporal’s hand so that he would follow. He continued to rub at his eyes with the tattered cloth and cursed softly, dimly aware of the fact that she was still holding his hand all the way until she stopped and he could hear the commissar yelling orders out to the nearby heavy weapons emplacement over the din of the gunfire.

	“…and for the Emperor’s sake, do something about the Defilers that are about to come over that damned hill!” the commander said, somehow audible despite the deafening blasts going off seemingly on all sides. At his orders, the squad hefted a mounted lascannon onto the emplacement, setting the usual heavy bolter aside for the time being. When the first Defiler crested the hill, a tremendous beam of light slammed into its core, blasting right through its armored hull and erupting out through the back a fraction of a second later. Its daemonic metals screeched as the laser superheated them, melting the entire area around the hole the laser had created into tainted scrap metal. The vile machine collapsed as its power vacated its shell in a catastrophic explosion.

	The commissar, peering over the top of the trench with magnoculars, slid down the slippery wall and nodded to himself approvingly, stowing the device back on his belt. The lascannon produced another another roar moments later, and yet another one some seconds after that. The crew manning the gun produced loud whoops each time they fired, scoring kill after kill on the enemy thanks to their accuracy.

	Kowalski took the time to nurse his wound, and was finally able to open his watery eyes more than a mere squint, and his vision cleared up moments later, the commissar and his comrade coming into focus. The commander was a tall, proud figure. His face was chiseled like a classical statue, and the bulk of his body indicated that he possessed the muscle mass of a hardened, elite soldier. His green eyes seemed to stare into empty space even when he was looking at something, granting him a strangely majestic expression, like an eagle watching over the land from his perch.

	The corporal’s attention naturally drifted to his female companion, whom he noticed was staring at the sky again. She did that a lot lately. Her dark hair had been cut short for her service, wavy locks hanging out from under her flak helmet. Her face was soft and pretty and her brown eyes were surprisingly complimentary to her features. Her frame was toned from training and soldiery, though she remained fairly feminine and slender as her natural body type was not so readily altered. The eyes of any observer were automatically drawn to her considerable bust and her wide hips, both surprisingly easy to notice even despite the thick flak jacket she wore. She was truly beautiful, and the war had not marred her splendor in the least. Kowalski knew that best of all.

	“Andrea?” Kowalski said. The woman startled and turned to him, blinking.

	“Yes?” she asked, a slight, surprised blush on her face.

	“Thanks for, you know, guiding me.” He glanced down at their hands, still locked together, and she finally noticed it and quickly let go, clearing her throat.

	“Oh, yeah, welcome. You really need to stop smoking, though. If the wind blows it into your eyes again, Commissar Quentin might execute you for incompetence.” She glanced at a passing red beam that streaked over their heads.

	“Yeah, yeah. So… we still on for that game of loggins?”

	“Uh, yeah,” the woman said, shrugging.

	 “Good! I mean, good. ‘Cause, you know, we haven’t really had many chances to do-“ Kowalski said, but he paused in shock when a grenade dropped into the trench at their feet. She immediately pushed him down, while the commissar dove down as well. It exploded, the shrapnel flying into the walls of the trench and the shockwave rattling all three of them.

	“Sound off, Jubblowski,” the commander said, rising to his feet and admiring the fresh coat of mud on his uniform before dusting off his ostentatious hat and placing it back on his head, covering up his neatly-kept hair.

	“Still alive, sir,” Jubblowski said, climbing off of Kowalski, who had completed his mud collection and was now covered from head to toe in it, both front and back. She had avoided getting too much on her thanks to his being a buffer, at least.

	“Good, because if the enemy is close enough to lob ‘nades, they’re close enough to charge our position. Prepare for close quarters combat!” Quentin yelled, drawing his chain sword and flicking it on with a loud vrrrroom as the engine whirred and chugged. “Heavies, switch back to the bolter! We need crowd control!” The heavy weapons team dutifully lifted the steaming hot lascannon off of the mounting and replaced it with the bolter, which they immediately began to unload on incoming traitors with.

	Kowalski stood up just as the commissar climbed up the wall again to peer over it, immediately ducking back down and dropping to the mud as the edge of the trench was peppered with an assortment of lasers and bullets. “There are… many of them. It seems they sent a battalion of light infantry at us. Suicidal, but then, it seems the enemy has no regard for the lives of its men. Kowalski, get over here, I’m calling in air support.” The soldier obeyed, pulling the vox receiver off of the large machine on his back and handing it over.

	Quentin scraped mud off of the device, then held it up to his mouth and clicked the button. “Command? Do you read? This is Commissar Quentin, over."

	“Affirmative, sir.”

	“I need a bombing or strafing run on the No Man’s Land in sector phi. They’re sending an infantry charge at us and we don’t have the men or the firepower to stop them all.”

	“Roger. We have some support in the air already for sector delta, but they should be able to do a few fly-bys on their way back. Hold out until then, over.”

	“Wilco. Out.”

	“Emperor be with you,” the operator said. The commissar handed the receiver back and promptly whirled, pulling the trigger on the handle of his sword to accelerate the chain and cleave a heretic clean in two, who had thought to leap down at him while he was distracted. He had not eluded the warrior's honed senses.

	“Affix bayonets!” Quentin screamed at the top of his lungs as he stepped over the fresh corpse at his feet, his voice carrying through the battlefield and most definitely reaching every soldier under his command. “Jubblowski, get up in the emplacement and supplement their fire with your own. Pick off the ones that look important, they’re too stupid not to wear their trophies in plain sight. Kowalski, you have that grenade belt for a reason. Start tossing them.”



	“Ugh,” Jubblowski groaned, taking her heavy flak jacket off and tossing it onto her bunk before sitting down beside it, the wood of the two-story bed creaking. Due to the heat of the summer, she wore nothing but the standard-issue and poorly fitting bra underneath her armored jacket, and most of her fair skin was exposed the moment she disrobed, including much of her cleavage. She wiped the sweat off of her brow with the back of her fingerless glove, sighing deeply as she leaned back on the bed and propped herself up with her hands. “Emperor, that was a mess. Why are things getting so crazy all of a sudden? We’ve been dug in for months and they haven’t been this zealous about trying to take our line once.”

	“I wish I knew,” Kowalski shrugged as he pulled his helmet and flak armor off. He stole a few glances at the pretty woman with whom he shared quarters due to being in the commissar’s retinue together, but eventually averted his eyes, sat down in a chair by a small table, and focused on unstrapping his combat boots. “Well, at least things seem to have settled down. We’ve got a little bit of time, ready to play? I’ve got five thrones here that say I’ll win two sets in a row,” he said, grabbing for the small box of tokens and cards used to play loggins out of his personal belongings.

	“Actually, I’m pretty exhausted,” the dark-haired woman said, laying back on her bed and staring at the bunk above her. “And I don’t really feel like it anyways. I have a bad taste in my mouth right now. I just want to get some sleep.

	“Oh… okay. That’s cool.” The corporal put the box back in his bag.

	“Sorry. If you aren’t tired, why don’t you write something? I’ll read it in the morning,” Jubblowski said, yawning and closing her eyes.

	“Yeah… sure. I’ll do that.” He glanced back at her, and saw that she had already fallen asleep. He cast his eyes downward, clicking his tongue and sighing. Then he reached up and flipped the switch to turn the single hanging light in the room out as the entire bunker shook and an explosion echoed in the distance.

	He stood up, walking over to untie the laces of Jubblowski’s boots and yank them off of her before setting them neatly beside her bunk, placing her flak jacket over them, and picking the woman up and setting her back on the bed at a proper angle. He took a moment to adjust her pillow under her head, then he grabbed her sheet and pulled it up and over her. She naturally rolled onto her side and her mouth opened, her breath soft and barely audible.

	Kowalski, tired as well, swung up and onto his bunk above hers, laying back and lighting the small electric candle that hung from the ceiling above him, casting a soft glow down upon the room, just enough for him to be able to see into the small journal he retrieved from under his pillow. Another blast came that caused dust to spill from the ceiling, the supports of the bunker groaning with the burden. He glanced up and thought to himself for a while, then grabbed his pen and began to scribble onto the paper. Moments later he shook his head and scratched out what he had written before starting again.




	“I’m telling you Don, that girl I told you about before, the one studying under Professor Boimont? She’s stunning!” the bespectacled and pudgy man said to Kowalski as he reclined in the lounge’s grox-hide armchair. He pulled a lho stick from his coat and wrapped his lips around it, chewing on it absently. Kowalski gave a grunt of acknowledgement as he stared at the data-slate on his lap which displayed a musical score for an upcoming orchestral performance, tapping his index finger on his knee to keep the beat as he played through each instrument’s part in his mind.

	“You don’t get it. I’m not talking about her looks! It’s her hands, Don! I’ve never seen anyone play that well at her age! She’s got the gift! She could go far! She could go to the top!” The mildly obese young man waited for his words to get through, watching his friend’s eyes dart left to right across the data-slate.

	“That’s nice, Petre,” Kowalski said, his eyes continuing to scan through each measure.

	“Emperor, Don, listen to me! I want her! I’m in love with her!”

	“Again?” the slender man asked, finally glancing up from the music with a raised eyebrow. “What size are her breasts?”

	“That has nothing to do with it, you testicle!” Petre said, his cheeks flushing.

	“They’re large, aren’t they?”

	“Well, if you must know, then yes! But I love her for her talent! The way her heart is laid bare every time she plays!”

	“Mmmhmmm. I’m sure she’s quite the rising star if you praise her so much. So are you going to court her?” Kowalski asked.

	“I intend to! Yes!”

	“So why bring it up? Need some help wooing her?” he asked, setting the data-slate aside and giving his companion his full attention.

	“Nonsense! I can do it quite well on my own, thank you!” the rotund fellow said as he tapped his foot on the carpet in a nervous rhythm.

	“Oh, so you wanted to run your plan of attack by me?”

	“Er, no, I was simply informing you of my current affairs.”

	“Sure you were. You do have a plan, right?”

	“A gentleman like myself requires no plan to steal the heart of a maiden!”

	“I won’t deny that you have a good track record, but what makes you think this one isn’t used to being the subject of men’s advances? Assuming she’s really as good as you say she is, your usual methods may not be sufficient to romance her.”

	“We shall see, dear boy, we shall see,” Petre said as he retrieved a lighter from his pocket to light his lho stick, taking a nice, long puff on it.




	The crashing of artillery right on top of the bunker, the deafening roar reverberating through the concrete and heavy duty alloys, jolted Kowalski awake. After frantically scanning the room for any structural damage, and finding none, he sighed and laid back down on his pillow, noticing that he had fallen asleep with his journal on his chest. He grabbed it and climbed down from his bunk, finding Jubblowski’s bed empty, already made and tidy. A cursory glance revealed the absence of her boots and flak jacket. He sighed, shoulders sagging, and tossed his personal book back up beside his pillow and threw on a relatively fresh set of clothes before putting the usual apparel on over it – jacket, belt, boots, armor, helmet.

	After making his bed as per Imperial Guard regulations, the corporal stepped out to the mess hall, seeing some familiar faces amongst the men and women gathered for breakfast, but not Jubblowski. He grabbed a tray of gruel and recycled water and sat down by third squad, nodding respectfully to them.

	“Hey Kowalski, how many times have you boned Jubblowski?” one of the men asked. Kowalski did not recognize him, and he shook his head as he spooned up some of the hot, gooey white mess in the bowl. “Oh come on, you share bunks!”

	“We share a room, not the same bed.”

	“But look at her, man! That babe gets dressed around you!”

	“We have a folding screen for that. Besides, we’re just friends.”

	“Friends? Buddy, you cling to each other like grox-butter on synth-toast.”

	“Except right now? And when she takes showers? And when we get different orders?” Kowalski asked.

	“Man, don’t get all pedantic, you know what I mean.” The man grimaced at the recycled water. “Damn, this stuff tastes worse and worse every day. They sure the machine’s working right?”

	“I get what you mean, but it’s still wrong.”

	“Alright, alright, bud, chill out. So, would you like to bang her?”

	Kowalski listened to the question, then sighed and stirred the gruel around with his spoon. “Sure I do, she’s beautiful, but I want more than that.”

	“You what?”

	“He’s a hopeless romantic,” one of the girls said helpfully. “It’s not about the sex, but the love.”

	“That’s… pretty true,” Kowalski said.

	“Damn, ace! That must be rough! Has she reciprocated at all?” the unfamiliar soldier asked.

	“She’s kind, helpful and caring.”

	“She’s like that with everyone!” the girl said.

	“Yeah. I haven’t been very able to work up the courage to confess how I feel to her. And every time I actually do, the whole war thing gets in the way.”

	“Shit, man. You’re too young to be that head-over-heels with someone and in a war.”

	“We were conscripted. Our home world came up short on the mineral tithes and had to make up for it with able-bodied citizens.”

	“What were you, before the conscription?”

	“Students at a college of musicians,” Kowalski said as he finished his gruel and dropped the spoon onto the bowl. “I studied composition more than any particular instrument, and she was a performer. She was primarily a pianist, but she also studied the cello, organ, and vocals.”

	“Did you know each other?”

	“Yes.”

	“How’d you end up in the same regiment?”

	“Her teacher, Boimont, pulled some strings with some old friends from his days in the Guard. Our whole little group was put in the same unit.”

	“Group?” the guy asked. The rest of the table’s conversation suddenly stopped.

	Kowalski’s mouth twitched. “Yes.”

	“I don’t get it, which unit? I thought you two were under the Commissar, not in a unit. Where’s the rest of your friends?”

	Kowalski just looked at the clueless soldier. The silence hung over the table, while quiet chatter continued elsewhere.

	“Oh.”

	The rest of the squad continued to eat quietly, eyes directed firmly at their food and not the conversationalists. Kowalski got up, taking his tray to the washbin, and then left the mess hall.




	The lanky soldier leaned back against the wooden wall of the trench, sliding down it until he was sitting, folding his legs in to make room for first squad, whom were passing by in a light trot to relieve twelfth squad at their position.  He reached into a pouch on his belt, pulling out a crumpled package of lho-sticks. Slipping one from the crinkled plastic, he bit down on it while he patted his other pouch, finding it to be empty. He sighed, pulling the lho stick out of his mouth and shaking his head in frustration.
His tongue ran over the back of his teeth, the bitter taste of the lho already present, without the soothing buzz of inhaling the toxic chemicals. He just sat there, the narc-tube between his knuckles, arms on his knees, looking up and watching the endless stream of tracers and lasers flying around above the trench.

	Kowalski clicked his tongue, climbing back up to his feet and slowly raising his hand up, the paper tube full of lho outstretched. Gingerly, he reached further and further out, towards the wild streams of gunfire – and suddenly, a passing beam of light’s convection currents caused the end of the narc-tube to ignite. He pulled his hand back down and stuck it back in his mouth, taking a long, satisfying drag on it as the corners of his mouth curled up smugly as loud footfalls on wood and dirt approached him from behind.

	“Damn it, Don, I told you to stop smoking. Don’t risk your frakking fingers just to light one up!” Jubblowski yelled suddenly, jolting the soldier out of his reverie and causing the lho stick to slip from his lips. He frantically grabbed for it, and the burning end bounced on his palm, hot ashes singing his skin a little before falling down onto the dirt.

	“Owch!” Kowalski said, checking his palm while the dark-haired woman stomped on the narcotic and grinded it with her heel to put it out. “Hey! Don’t do that!” he said, reaching down, but stopping when she lifted her boot and revealed the ruined tube. “Frak.” The busty woman sighed and reached under her flak jacket to pull out his expensive lighter, tossing it to him.

	“If you’re going to be suicidal without it, you’d better just keep it, then.” The man looked at the lighter in his hand, then back up at Jubblowski, with an expression of disbelief. “What? You weren’t listening to me. You need to quit.”

	“I’ll do whatever I want,” Kowalski said, his fingers closing around the ornate silver lighter into a fist.

	“Do you think you’re honoring his memory when you do that?” Jubblowski asked, scowling and crossing her arms.

	“I do it because I like the buzz.”

	“You hate lho-sticks. You hate the flavor they leave in your mouth. You hate the smoke, and how it blinds you, screws up your lungs, and ruins your voice. You always have. That’s why you complained whenever he smoked around you.”

	“I changed my mind.” Kowalski’s fingers tightened around the lighter, and his other hand moved to grip his belt.

	“After he died? You were exposed to them way more before then.”

	“It’s my decision to make!” Kowalski snapped, jabbing his finger towards her.

	“You’re hurting yourself!” Jubblowski said, grinding her teeth. “You’re letting yourself be addicted to crap. You think you’re cool? You think it’s sweet, or meaningful, to pick up the torch he left behind? Well I have news for you, Donald, that’s not a torch, it’s a goddamn lighter!”

	His hand moved in a blur, slapping her across the face. Her cheek flushed red with his handprint, and she slowly looked at him again, her lips quivering. The rush of fury faded as quickly as it had come, and Kowalski’s heart withered from her glare. He averted his eyes from hers, instead looking at the engraved lighter in his hand, and swallowing heavily.

	“Your voice is too beautiful to waste on that groxshit.” Jubblowski turned and walked away slowly, as if all energy had left her. She unbuckled her helmet from her belt and slid it down on her head, buckling the strap across her chin. Kowalski slowly put the lighter away, dumb and dazed.




	“Jubblowski! Kowalski! Hurry the frak up with that ammo!” Quentin yelled. Both of them grunted and groaned under the immense burden of the satchels of bolt shells stowed over their backs, as well as the boxes full of lascannon power packs in their hands as they trudged through the trenches. They were legitimately moving as quickly as they could without falling over. The sound of yells and screams echoed through the dusty battlefield, a chilling sound for the experienced trench fighters.

	“Belay that, we’re being charged again! Fifth squad, your ammo is down here and you’d better come frakking get it unless you like the idea of being overrun by heretic scum!” he shouted, drawing his bolt pistol and his chainsword in preparation for the coming battle.

	Both of his personal soldiers dropped the heavy gear into the mud without a second thought, and Jubblowski unslung her carbine and flicked the safety off as Kowalski drew his combat knife and autopistol, both of them backing up to the rear wall of the trench to give as much space as possible when the attackers arrived. The soldiers of the regiment, spread out along the trenches, began to peek over the trenches to take potshots at the approaching hordes, attempting to thin them out as much as possible.

	The first traitor that appeared leaped down into the trench before he saw what was in it, and landed awkwardly on the boxes of ammo, his ankle twisting in an unnatural way as he fell over with a cry of pain. Jubblowski fired two lasers into his helpless form, roasting his flesh and presenting the aroma of burnt flesh to both of them.

	The second and third heretics appeared together at the edge of the trench, and the woman raised her carbine and dropped both of them before they could even descend with the ease of months of practice in killing. Meanwhile, the commissar easily dispatched an equal amount of human scum with his chainsword while a couple of fifth squad heavy weapons crew climbed out of their fortified emplacement to retrieve the ammo.

	However, only the vanguard of the attack would be so considerate as to appear in small, manageable numbers. Moments later, the main body of the enemy forces reached the trenches, the lack of heavy weapons fire to impede them leaving far more survivors of the perilous trek across the No Man’s Land than usual. The heretics poured down into the trenches, immediately met by the company’s finest blades and sidearm fire.

	Jubblowski, her face stoic and her eyes hard, breathed smoothly, hammering the trigger of her lascarbine as quickly as she could, swinging it around and firing from her hip as the targets just kept coming. Poorly equipped, poorly trained, and malnourished, the heretics proved to be no match for her steady aim and experience. Kowalski likewise fanned the trigger of his autopistol, careful not to waste the whole clip by holding it down and letting it fire in a wild and inaccurate burst. Even so, the enemies kept coming, and the autopistol’s action clicked dry in less than a minute.

	The corporal remained cool under the pressure. He slid his thumb over the magazine release, letting the steaming hunk of metal fall to the ground while he stowed his knife between his teeth, grabbed a fresh one from his belt, and slapped it into the base of the grip. He pulled the slide back once to engage the action, just in time to shoot a charging heretic in the throat, a spurt of blood flying out as he went down.

	Commissar Quentin let the dull roar of his chainsword’s motor and the thunderous blasts of his bolt pistol answer the heretics that assaulted him. Blood and limbs scattered around the trench, the red seeping into the grey mud as he stepped into it for a swing of his blade into the cranium of another fool who challenged him. Though the enemy was terrifyingly weak, inexperienced, and for the most part armed only with jagged, dull blades, there was no mercy in his heart for those who had forsaken the Emperor.

	While three remained in the emplacement, shooting down at the attackers with their lasrifles, the other two soldiers of fifth squad dashed down the trench for the ammunition, using their burly mass to intimidate and then stab any traitors who stood in their way. The enemy had one strength, however – numbers, and since the heavies were in a rush, inevitably one of them found himself stabbed in the back with an improvised blade, groaning and slipping on the bloody soil to his knees. The commissar leaned back for a shot around the heretics before him, pulling the trigger and emancipating the formerly lucky one’s head from his shoulders.

	“I’m alright, damn it, get the frakking ammo!” the wounded soldier gasped, reaching back and yanking the gnarly dagger from his bulk, which he guided to a new home in a foe’s throat who charged at him, hoping to earn an easy kill.

	“Kowalski, get over here and cover Franco, get him back in the emplacement! Kingsley, you better put those muscles to good use and carry all of it solo! Jubblowski, cover Kingsley!” Quentin yelled as he fervently cleared a path for the soldiers. The lanky guy weaved around a sloppy axe-swing, shot the heretic twice, then bolted towards the wounded soldier, ducking under one of the Commissar’s deadly slashes on the way.  He passed by Kingsley who was headed in the opposite direction, but had no time to pay him any attention, as a traitor was about to stab a makeshift spear into Franco.

	He raised his autopistol, but remembered at the last second that he had fired his last round moments earlier. Thinking fast, he sprinted forward and screamed, garnering the attacker’s attention just before he swung up one of his feet, jumped into the air, and planted it against the heretic’s face, sending him stumbling onto the ground. He handed his combat knife to Franco and quickly reloaded before dumping two bullets into the fallen cultist’s form before he could stand up. Bending down, he grabbed the spear from the corpse and lifted the pointy end up, planting the other side firmly into the ground and wielding it as a pike when a frenzied traitor with a pair of machetes charged at him. The fool impaled himself on the long wooden shaft, struggling for air and collapsing as Kowalski gunned down another three assailants behind him.

	“Thanks,” Franco grunted as he struggled to his feet, the blood running down his back proof of the severity of his wound. He leaned on the wall of the trench, panting for air, his entire body swaying weakly as he took things step by step. Kowalski glanced behind himself and saw that the Commissar was doing a bang-up job of keeping their rear clear, and focused on the way towards the fortified tower.

	Jubblowski gunned down the walking sacks of meat in droves, only pausing long enough to detach the dry power pack from her carbine, slip it onto her belt, and grab a fresh one and load it in. A few beads of sweat ran down her face. Before long, Kingsley fought his way to her and the ammo, and began to sling the satchels and lockboxes over his shoulder, the burden causing him to sweat and grunt with effort as he twisted around to make the return trip. He was forced to rely on his laspistol for self-defense due to the weight of the supplies on his back, but he was a decent shot, and as long as Jubblowski was covering him, and the heretics had only improvised weaponry, it would not be a problem.

	Kowalski ran through the last of his magazine in record time, leaving him armed with merely his fists. As luck would have it, at that moment, a grizzled, buff man dropped into the trench in front of him, his sinewy muscles rippling as he straightened up to stare calmly at the soldier. He had a lasrifle in his left hand and a saber in the other, and on his chest was a carapace chestplate. The numerous scars over his pale flesh indicated his prior participation in countless unknown engagements, and the fact that he waited so long to enter the fray was proof of his experience. The meatshields had done their job, wearing down the far better trained and equipped foe. Now, he would mop them up and take all the glory for himself.

	The hardened heretic immediately raised his lasrifle towards Kowalski, but Franco threw the knife at him and the handle thumped into his hand, merely bruising it, but disorienting his aim. It distracted him long enough for Kowalski to dive to the ground, scoop up a handful of blood-soaked mud in his hand, and hurl it at the brigand’s face, the projectile splattering all over his eyes and causing him to recoil with a furious yell. He lifted the hand holding his saber up and wiped the gunk away with the back of his glove, but by the time he was able to open his eyes, Kowalski was taking advantage of his helmet and headbutting him in the nose, breaking it with a nasty crunch. The scum’s head bounced back and he nearly slipped, but he planted his foot firmly in the dirt behind him to keep his balance.

	The lanky soldier immediately followed up by punching his foe in the throat. The cultist simply shrugged the hit off. Kowalski felt a chill run down his spine when he realized he was completely outmatched. The enemy reversed his grip on the saber, intending to stab down with it to skewer the corporal. However, initiative was not so easily lost, and the soldier was already bullrushing the heretic into the trench wall, grabbing and slamming his arm against the wood to force him to drop the blade. With a bestial growl, the massive man swung his knee up into Kowalski’s gut, under his chestplate, knocking the wind right out of him and pushing him back. He raised the lasrifle and yanked the trigger, but the barrel was too long, and it smacked into Kowalski’s side, firing into the other wall pointlessly.

	The heretic grunted, spitting out the blood that was running into his mouth from his broken nose. He swung his rifle around so that he was holding it like a club, bringing the butt down into the reeling soldier's back and sending him to the ground. The Commissar, keeping wary of his surroundings, saw and raised his bolt pistol to blow the enemy away, but realized at the last second that he had already spent the last round of his magazine. “Jubblowski! Cover Kowalski!” he roared, ducking down to give her a clear shot and also taking the opportunity to saw the legs off of the three traitors standing in front of him.

	Jubblowski finished off the traitor below her with a stomp to her throat that snapped her neck mercilessly, whirling and raising her rifle to peer down the sights at what was happening down the trench. She saw the buff heretic slowly lowering his rifle’s barrel to Kowalski’s temple, and she immediately set her sights on his brain and her finger moved to the trigger to drop him – but before she could depress it, Kowalski had grabbed onto the rifle and was wrestling with the much larger cultist over it, being literally dragged around in the mud but refusing to let go of it. With him so close to the heretic, and both of them moving erratically, her eyes narrowed, her mouth hung open, and her hands shook, her normal acute aim gone.

	“Jubblowski! Shoot!” Quentin shouted, but her nerves were shot, and she could not line up anything anymore. The huge traitor slammed his elbow into Kowalski’s shoulder, the armored pad holding firm, but the sheer force loudly dislocating his arm from its socket. He dropped that hand from the gun, and the scum quickly yanked it away from his other hand and stomped on his chest to hold him down. Kowalski grabbed onto his boot with his good hand and struggled to lift it, but failed, his face contorting in agony as he tried to move his other arm, but to no avail. His heart pounded desperately, every muscle in his body straining, but the impossibility of escape was all-too-apparent.

	The heretic, panting and grinning, pressed the barrel of the lasrifle into Kowalski’s mouth, his finger pulling the trigger. There was a beam of red light, and the heretic stumbled back, clutching at the burning hole in his throat, gurgling and collapsing as death took him moments later. Quentin quickly returned his holdout laspistol to the inner pocket of his commissar’s coat. He faced and kicked the last remaining enemy combatant in the area in the groin before cleaving him in two with his chainsword. He shot Jubblowski a fierce glare, and she averted her eyes and backed against the wall, only just now realizing how badly her legs were shaking.

	Franco stumbled over to Kowalski, having been occupied with a few enemies of his own, but he had been able to overpower them with brute strength. He checked his wounds, grabbing his dangling arm and eliciting a pained gasp from the corporal. He looked back at the commissar and nodded. “He’ll be fine, jus’ needs rest.” The attack was finally over, apart from a few stragglers being dealt with in other parts of the line now. Kingsley marched past the pair of wounded ones and hefted the ammunition up to the waiting crew in the emplacement.

	“Jubblowski! Escort Franco and Kowalski to the infirmary,” Quentin barked. He glanced towards the corporal expectantly, then recalled that he had left his high-quality vox equipment behind to carry the ammunition, and he marched over to the shoddy vox system built into the trench wall by the emplacement, picking up the receiver. His voice boomed through the announcement system built into the entire front line trench system, though it was riddled with static. “Fighting Fifths! Notch one more victory onto your tallies! The Emperor is proud of you, all of you! But there is no time for rest. The corpses need to be gathered and sorted. Take inventory of remaining supplies and losses. Repair all structural damage. You know the drill.”




	Franco was whisked away by the medics, his skin pale and his eyes glazed over from all of the bleeding, but Kowalski was set aside while more urgently hurt soldiers kept pouring into the infirmary after they arrived. “But what about Kowalski?” she asked. She was handed a bottle of painkillers, instructed not to give him more than one at a time, and when she was sure nobody was looking, promptly fed two tablets to him, hoping they would kick in before he needed his shoulder to be set.

	“You’ve been trained in basic field care, just like everyone else. That’s all he needs right now. You can handle it,” said one of the Sisters-Hospitaller who was rushing around with a cart full of assorted medical equipment. The Imperial Guard Medic Corps. and the Sisters-Hospitaller had set up a combined infirmary in the bunker, seeing that it was more efficient to combine supplies and forces than to work separately in such a brutal front.

	Realizing that she and the corporal were taking up valuable space in the infirmary, and weary of the cries of the wounded and the thick odor of chemicals, she grabbed him and slung his good arm over her shoulders and reached around his back to help walk him to their quarters. Kowalski was panting from his exhaustion and pain, but powered through until Jubblowski finally deposited him on her bunk a few minutes later.

	“Alright, let’s get you patched up,” she said, grabbing the medical kit from the cupboard in the room and setting it down beside him, crouching down in front of him so she was eye-level with him. She waved her hand in front of his face. “You with me?”

	“Yeah… I hear you,” he said between pants.

	“Where does it hurt?”

	“The nurse asked that already!”

	“Just tell me again.”

	“My frakking shoulder, my back, and my gut,” he groaned.

	“Okay. We’d better get your armor off,” she said, reaching up to help him remove his helmet and the armor chestplate, but doing so unfortunately meant pulling it off of his bad shoulder, which caused him no small amount of torture. Next came his jacket, which had the same issue as the armor, and then finally the tank-top he wore below that, which was much easier on him. As soon as the white tee came off, Jubblowski saw the immense dark purple bruise growing on his stomach. There was also the old scar on his right pectoral, a round burn mark from a year ago. She swallowed, and he glanced down at it and winced.

	“Guess I won’t be sleeping on my front tonight.” The woman stared at the burn mark a little longer, then stood up and peered around him at his back, closing her eyes and shaking her head at the sight of the far larger, far deeper, far worse streak of black across it from the strike with the rifle. The other burn scar was in the same position on his back as on the front, the evidence of his having been shot with a lasrifle so long ago.

	“You won’t be sleeping on your back either,” she said after a moment of hesitation, turning her attention to his shoulder. It looked weird, like his whole arm was unnaturally limp and long. She reached out and touched it as gently as she could, and he hissed with a sharp intake of air. She sighed and reached out to grab hold of the arm in two places for optimal leverage. “This is the worst of it. Alright, turn your head, close your eyes, and count to three.”

	“You’re going to do that thing where you fix it on one, aren’t you?” Kowalski asked, the displeasure evident on his tense face. Jubblowski smiled venomously and immediately yanked and pushed his arm up, guiding it back into its socket without any warning. He screamed as the acute agony shot through him, but it soon began to fade, though a fundamental level of pain of course remained.

	Jubblowski patted her hands off. “Guess the pills haven’t gone active yet. Oh well. Now that that’s done with, I’m going to sling your arm and you aren’t allowed to move it for a week.”

	“A whole week?”

	“Yes. It really should be longer, but given the circumstances, we don’t have that kind of time.”

	“We don’t even have a week! I need to be out there!”

	“No, you don’t. We can survive a week without you.”

	“I am not wearing a sling and staying in here for a week. I don’t care if the adversary declares a ceasefire for two months, I am going out there.”

	Jubblowski sighed, pulling her helmet off and running a hand through her messy hair. “Alright, how about three days?”

	Kowalski considered it, and opened his mouth to object, but her glare silenced him. Finally, he nodded.

	“Good. Now, I’m gonna bandage your bruises too, but after that you get in your bunk and you stay there until you need to piss, take a dump, or eat, or so help me, I will give you a reason to stay in bed for months. Understand? If you get bored, just write something and I’ll read it in the morning.”

	He nodded again, his eyelids starting to droop. His tense, sore form began to slowly relax as she ran the bandages around his back and gut, wrapping most of his torso in the soft white material before tying some cloth from his around his bad arm onto his shoulder so that he would not use it and let it heal. By the time she had finished, he was slouching, his head tilting down as he nodded off.

	“Hey, wake up!” Jubblowski said, but he simply fell onto his good side, laying on the bed with a strangely serene look on his face. She looked at him with pursed lips, sighed, and then pulled him into a better position on her bed, took off his boots for him, set up her pillow underneath his head, and took a moment to just look at him. Her eyes traveled to the scar on his chest, and she reached down to touch it, running her fingers over the coarse tissue pensively. She  pulled her sheets over him and shut the lights off, leaving to report back in to the commissar.


	The slim but tall student plinked away at the keys of the gilded piano in the grand auditorium, glancing up at his notes and grabbing a pen to mark corrections and adjustments every now and then before continuing to play the music on the sheets. He would occasionally pause to stare at his music, then down at the keyboard, then back up at the paper with a frown. Little by little, he filled in the empty staves with notes, scratching out the time signature several times to change it. Soon the sheets were all a mess of blue ink, and he sighed and grabbed some clean sheets of paper from his bag and transcribed the finished parts onto it before continuing the process from there.

	After a while, he grabbed onto his neck and carefully bent it side to side, popping the sore joints. His stomach rumbled, and he glanced around, seeing the empty seats, and got up and walked out through the side entrance. Moments later, the main door swung open, a black-haired, professionally dressed girl of the same age briskly walking down the aisle between the seats and stepping up onto the stage. She saw the bag beside the stool by the piano, as well as the notes on it, and scanned the room before shoving the notes to the edge of the frame and placing her own music where the mess had been. She sat down, adjusted the stool for her height, placed her fingers on the keys, and slowly pressed down on them, so slowly that they produced no sound, testing the weight behind them.

	Then she played a chord with each hand, and slowly walked her hands up and down the keyboard in her favorite major and minor scales. She took a deep breath, looked at the music on the frame, relaxed her shoulders, sat up straight, placed her foot on the pedals, and simply began to play.

	Her hands hovered over the ivory notes, only her fingers touching anything. She performed impressive-looking gymnastic movements with her fingers without slowing down a beat, following the wisdom of countless millennia in how to orient her fingers upon each note in the song to move around the keyboard towards the next note as best as possible. The sound she produced was precise and refined, and not one of her fingers slipped and played an improper note as the piece went on. It was a baroque song, excessively complicated and ornate. With practiced ease, her left hand would bolt up to turn to the next page of the music, losing only a couple of chords from its absence on the keyboard, her eyes running along each staff a few seconds ahead of the notes her fingers coaxed from the instrument.

	The smooth stroking motions of her delicate fingers – quite unlike the barbaric pounding of keys that an untrained pianist might do – allowed her to easily control and measure the volume of the song. Her foot gently depressed and released the rightmost pedal of the piano, carrying some notes and chords over through the next few measures for the accumulation of sound to harmonize. Her technique was flawless, her skill brilliant. Even this basic practice, of a piece she had never seen before, sounded like a performance.

	She finished the song, held the pedal, and allowed the remaining harmony to slowly fade away before gently releasing it and sighing. She shook her head, glancing back up at the sheet music – and she grabbed it all in her hands and threw it away, placing her elbows on the keyboard with a discordant noise and resting her face in her hands as the paper fluttered to the ground around her.

	She groaned, opening her eyes and spreading her fingers to peer through them at the piano. White caught her eye – and she glanced over at the music she had set aside before, reading it on reflex. Her right hand slid down to the ebony and ivory, and she slowly played the melody on the sheet. She stopped, and let the silence linger, before playing it again, this time louder and more purposefully. Her other hand moved to pull out the next page of music, and she played the melody on that as well. The next page came, as did the next, and soon she had all six pages laid out on the frame side by side, playing them in order with both hands.

	Her hands moved with vibrant energy and her technique began to slip away, her shoulders no longer perfectly relaxed but instead moving with excitement as she played and played the song over and over again. She realized she was smiling, and stopped playing. At that moment, the side door opened and the skinny guy strolled in with a half-eaten sandwich in his mouth, another one still wrapped in his hand and a bottle of rotgut in his other hand. He saw her sitting at the piano and froze. Nobody came into the grand auditorium this late at night.

	The beautiful woman saw him, blinking in surprise. She got up and gathered the papers she had thrown away, re-organizing them and slipping them into a folder in her bag as he came up the steps slowly. He crammed the last of the sandwich into his mouth, chewing around it noisily until he swallowed it all down. “Uh, sorry about leaving my things here, I didn’t think anyone other than me was even awake right now.”

	“No! No, don’t be, it’s totally okay, I should have waited for you to come back!” she said, brown eyes transfixed on him. He felt self-conscious, and glanced at his bag.

	“I need to hit the sack anyways, let me just grab my stuff and I’ll be out of your hair.” He stuffed the other sandwich into his coat pocket and bent over to grab his bag up from beside her, naturally smelling her sweet fragrance due to the proximity. He immediately turned and began to walk out when she called out to him.

	“Uhm, wait, are these yours?” she asked, grabbing his notes from the frame and holding them up for him to see them. He stared at them for a second, then cleared his throat and nodded, walking back to her and grabbing them. He tried to pull them out of her fingers, but she did not let go, and he glanced up at her with a raised eyebrow. “I hope you don’t mind, but I played it because I was bored and I really liked it!” she said.

	“You played my song?” he asked.

	“Yeah, it’s really fresh, and creative! I like it a lot!”

	“Er… thanks.” He glanced away nervously.

	“But I think the E in measure 174 should be a natural, the minor chord fits the progression better, you know?” she said, pointing at the sheets.

	“Uh… okay. I’ll take a look at it when I get back to my dorm.” She finally let go of the paper and allowed him to slip the bundle into his bag.

	“Hey, do you write in here often?” The male student was just turning away to leave when she said it, and he turned back to her with his best, but admittedly shaky friendly smile.

	“Yeah, most nights I do.”

	“Why is that? Can’t you just use normal practice rooms during the day?”

	“Because I want the most authentic sound I can get when composing,” he said, scratching at his cheek with a finger. He kept looking at her and then averting his eyes nervously.

	“Me too! That’s why I practice in here whenever I get the chance to, but lately there’s been a lot of productions going on in here so I wasn’t able to get my practice in… but then I couldn’t sleep, so I came up with the idea of coming in here. I didn’t think anyone else would have the same idea, least of all a composer!” she said, enthusiasm bleeding into her voice and movements.

	“Oh,” the man said. He was unsure of what to say next. After a brief pause, she began to talk again.

	“So if you don’t mind, I’d like to see more of your material! Could you bring it tomorrow night?” He finally locked eyes with her, trying to determine if she was serious, and her glittering brown irises answered his stare.

	“Uh, alright. I’ll bring some of my other work with me. Tomorrow night? Around this time?”

	“Yeah! By the way, what’s your name?”

	“Um, I’m Donald Kowalski.”

	“I’m Andrea Jubblowski! Nice to meet you!” she said, holding out her hand. He looked at it for a moment, then took it.


	He could smell her all around him. She smelled wonderful, alluring, loving. “Hey, Kowalski, get up,” said a familiar voice as someone pressed on his back. His half-asleep reverie in her scent was torn away with the sharp pain.

	“Ow!” he said, and the hand recoiled. Jubblowski smiled as warmly as she could when he rolled onto his bad shoulder to look at her, immediately groaning and rolling onto his stomach, which was no better.

	“Sorry, I forgot about the bruise. But you’ve been asleep for ten hours. It’s dawn, now. The commissar wants to talk to you.” She walked around the bunk beds, heading for the corner of the room, where she pulled the folding screen out and began disrobing.

	“Wha – were you on duty all night?” Kowalski asked, slowly sitting up and finding how badly his whole body ached, but especially his formerly dislocated shoulder.

	“Yeah. There was another assault but we repelled it. I pity them.” Her helmet flew out onto the chair from behind the screen, followed by her combat boots and her flak jacket.

	“You pity them? They’re traitors to the Imperium!”

	Jubblowski did not reply, at first. Her black bra flew onto the top of the screen, hanging from it. The corporal rubbed his face with his hands, feeling the stubble that had grown on his chin. He glanced at the screen, and saw his friend’s side silhouette, slowly pulling down her pants.

	Her lithe form was still curvy and voluptuous, her bust immense and shapely, while her rump was pretty fine too. Every now and then, Kowalski was reminded of how sexually alluring she was. But after seeing war for two years, it no longer had the same impact on him as the first time he had seen her scantily garbed, during an opera performance where she played a kind-hearted prostitute on the street of a hive. Her standard-issue black panties went up on the screen as well, and she opened a drawer to retrieve new clothes.

	After the silence filled with only the sound of her changing passed, she folded the screen back, wearing just a white t-shirt and some shorts. She walked over and sat down beside him, staring at the ground. Her bare feet rubbed together, and her lips opened to speak, but then closed, and she sighed.

	“What’s wrong?”

	“There was a strange one last night. A lot of strange ones. They had the tattoos and the markings of heretics, but… they dropped their weapons and surrendered when they got to the trench, begging to be spared.”

	“What?”

	“Yeah. They were crying, some of them. They were clearly starved, exhausted, a lot of them were already hurt, apparently before they even crossed the No Man’s Land… they weren’t fighters. Some of them were old. Some were not even men or women yet. Children. We had been shooting children and the elderly.”

	“And the ones who surrendered?”

	“The commissar… praised their bravery and loyalty to the Emperor, and told us to give them His Mercy. So we did. I shot three of them. An old man, and the boy and the girl he was cradling in his arms. They were crying. They were afraid. All of them – all of them only had sticks and rocks. No armor. Barely even the clothes on their back.” Jubblowski’s lips closed, her eyes staring into the horizon beyond the room. Kowalski listened to the silence. He wanted to reach out and hold her, but the arm on her side was still wrapped up in the sling. And then he realized that he had no right to hold her.

	He stood up, grabbing his jacket and throwing it on, then pulling his boots back on with his good hand. “I’m… gonna go meet the commissar.”

	“Yeah.”

	He walked to the exit of the room, pausing to look back at her only once. She just sat there, on her bunk, staring at nothing. He swallowed, and stepped out.


	The commissar’s quarters were spartan. While a normal commander might gleefully display their decorations on the walls around them, his walls were simply the same wood as every other room in the bunker. He stood at his desk, tinkering with an antique recaf machine as it slowly filled up a pitcher with the strong dark liquid. “Recaf?” he asked, when he heard Kowalski’s boots click on the threshold of his open doorway.

	“Yes please, sir,” the corporal said, saluting and standing at attention.

	“At ease. Have a seat, corporal,” Quentin grunted as he poured the fluid into two separate cups, replaced the pitcher, and carried the cups over to Kowalski, who sat down in one of the two chairs before the commissar’s desk. The soldier graciously accepted the recaf and sipped at the steaming refreshment, feeling the heat spread through his core and awaken his mind. To his surprise, the commissar did not sit behind the desk in the fine leather seat, but instead spun the chair beside him around to face him and sat down in it, frighteningly close.

	“May I ask why you called me in, sir?”

	“Several reasons. First of all, how is your arm?” the commander asked as he sipped at his own cup.

	“It’s still very sore, but I do not believe it to be broken, sir.”

	“Can you use it?”

	Kowalski hesitated. “I was told not to try to do anything with it for at least three days.”

	The commissar frowned, then reached out and slugged him right in the shoulder. Kowalski yelped and nearly spilled his recaf all over himself. Quentin, watching his reaction carefully, leaned back and sighed. “I suppose that is reasonable, but we do not have the luxury of time. You can hold a pistol, you can fight. The orders have come down from the general. We are to advance on the enemy’s lines and take them by dusk tomorrow.”

	The corporal stared at the commissar, his heartbeat quickening. “No, that’s insane! We can barely hold the line, we don’t have the manpower to take anything!”

	The commissar merely drank more recaf, any opinion he held on the matter tightly sealed behind his lips. “Those are our orders. And we will execute them to the best of our ability. The good general also said that Adeptus Astartes reinforcements are coming to all key battlefronts on the planet.” The soldier’s heart began to swell with hope, but the commissar’s grim face beat it back down before he could entertain any delusions.

	“And we aren’t a key battlefront?”

	“Indeed.” He set his cup aside and pulled off his regal hat, revealing his grey mane. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and his tense brow with his fingers, sighing. “But that does mean the war will reach its conclusion that much more quickly.”

	“We’ve been deadlocked for months.”

	“Yes, but with their aid the other fronts should be able to push forward.”

	“And we?”

	“We will simply have to keep up with them, support from the Angels of Death or no.”

	Kowalski glanced down at his recaf, his features drooping with despair. The commissar stared at him for a few moments, then spoke.

	“I put in a requisition form to get you a laspistol. Your autopistol has served you well, but you have to reload too often with it and ammunition is limited. Laspistols are far more reliable anyways. That is why I still have mine, for when everything else is broken.”

	“Err, thank you sir,” the soldier said, blinking in surprise. “I will use it to the best of my ability, sir.”

	“You’re damn right you will. Now, I have some questions for you.”

	“Questions, sir?”

	“Your records say that you were part of a demolitions squad last year, during the early stages of the campaign here. Apparently your whole little group was all from the same planet, city, and even university. Two men, three women. You were sent in to blow up an enemy bunker sixteen months ago. Only two of you emerged from the wreckage, and according to the medical reports, you had a fresh laser wound in your torso. You nearly died.”

	The corporal nodded.

	“You and private Jubblowski’s official statements were that it was an enemy who shot you. But that is untrue, isn’t it?”
	“What are you getting at?” Kowalski asked, looking around the room.

	“Yesterday evening, during the battle in which you were wounded, I gave her the order to cover you when I saw that you were faced with a clearly superior opponent. She froze up, and I was forced to save you myself.”

	“So?”

	“She’s one of the finest marksmen in the regiment. Risky as the shot may have been, she had plenty of time to line it up and take him out without harming you. She’s done so with me, before. Yet here she could not, and she was shaking for a few minutes even after you were safe. There is clearly some sort of trauma there. She shot you, didn’t she? There is little point in denying it. I would not court martial one of my finest men for an offense that was before my time.”

	The soldier’s hand moved up to touch his shirt, where the scar was. “…Yeah. It was an accident. She was trying to hit the guy behind me, but got me too. She wasn’t all that great at shooting back then. She hated guns. After that, she threw herself into it and improved a lot. I didn’t realize it still bothered her so much.”

	The commissar picked up his mug and took another sip. “I appreciate the honesty, corporal. Now the pieces are falling into place.”

	“What pieces?” Kowalski asked as he gulped down more recaf.

	The aged man shook his head and dismissed his question with a wave of his hand. “You’ll find out soon enough.” He swirled the liquid in his cup around a little bit, then set it back down and looked into his subordinate’s eyes. “Do you love private Jubblowski?”

	He slowly looked up at his commander in surprise. “I’ve got a little crush on her. Who wouldn’t, after living with such a beautiful woman for so long?”

	The commissar snorted and growled out his next words. “I was asking to be polite, not to listen to more of your flagrant lies, corporal. Do they comfort you?”

	“Huh?”

	“Do your lies comfort you? Answer the question.”

	“I… don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”

	“Do you think they make you cool or admirable? Do you think they are for the best, that obscuring the truth prevents tragedy? Or are you just afraid of being honest with the people around you?” he asked, thumping his fist on his desk.

	“I think that there is a right time and wrong time for all things,” Kowalski said, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. “And in the middle of a war, it is never the right time.”

	“The right time, hmm?” Quentin thought aloud. “Sounds like an excuse to me.”

	“What’s your point, sir?”

	“It will never be the right time to do anything you want to do if you try to wait for an opportunity to appear. Sometimes, you have to make an opportunity for yourself, even if it is hard.” The commissar sat forward as he spoke, folding his hands together and speaking in a frank tone.

	“Sir, I’m not going to tell her my feelings in the middle of a war, not when she’s not ready for them, not while she’s hurting so badly. It’s disrespectful. It’s cruel to burden her with that. And I don’t even know if she would reciprocate. She’ll find out how I feel when she’s ready, not the other way around. It’s in my jou-” Kowalski said, stopping himself when the intensity of the commissar’s ferocious glare dawned on him.

	“Kowalski, what do you know about Jubblowski?” he asked, eyes boring into the corporal’s brain. The soldier glanced around the room, scoffing and shaking his head in amazement.

	“Sir, no disrespect, but I know her better than anyone.”

	“Then tell me about her,” Quentin said. He walked over to the recaf machine and slowly refilled his mug with more of the steaming brown liquid as his subordinate spoke.

	“She’s beautiful. She’s a hell of a shot. She’s strong, brilliant, and sweet. Probably the best musician I’ve ever seen. She deserves better, much better, than to be stuck in the trenches fighting a war against the horrors of the galaxy.”
	“Hmph. Go deeper than that.”

	“She hates lying, is a diligent worker, prefers modest clothes because she hates it when men get distracted around her, despises cruelty, believes in justice and the glory of the Emperor, and is willing to fight for what she loves,” Kowalski said, finishing his recaf and setting his cup aside. The commissar sat back down beside him.

	“Is that all?”

	“What do you mean, sir?”

	“Do you know nothing more about her than that?” he asked.

	The corporal blinked and looked around. “Uhm, sure I do, but I don’t know how to put it all into words. A lot of it is, y’know, instinctual. I can tell how she’s feeling and what she’s thinking and stuff.”

	“Are you certain about that?”

	“Of course. She was pretty upset about last night. She told me what happened. Anyone would be, in her position,” Kowalski said, glancing at his commander with an almost accusatory glint in his eye.

	“Hate me for what I made her do if you want, but the Emperor’s work will never change, corporal. If not her, then who would have done it? Burns? Zaenus? Twunty?” the commissar asked, looking at his ornate hat on the desk.

	“I… don’t actually know any of those people.”

	“Burns is from second squad, Zaenus is a field medic, and Twunty is one of our techpriests. Burns has a wife and kids at home, and has been struggling to overcome the guilt of surviving when the rest of his squad did not, four years ago, in the Windigo Crusade. Zaenus is a womanizer who has been trying to shack up with one of the Sisters-Hospitaller for months, and has charged straight into enemy fire countless times to drag a fallen brother-in-arms back and administer treatment or mercy to them as appropriate. Twunty is a fine magos who specializes in dealing with chemical warfare. She’s the reason all of the gas attacks recently have been ineffective, thanks to her aerial toxin neutralization machines. She faints at the sight of blood, but still fights as best she can to save all our lives.” He paused, letting it sink in before continuing.

“I could have allowed Jubblowski to keep her hands clean, but then someone else would have had to do it in her place. Nobody sane would relish taking the lives of those rabble. Would you have preferred that someone else would endure that? Everyone has a sob story. No good citizen ever deserves to be ‘stuck in the trenches’. I will not play favorites with my men.”

	Kowalski felt his cheeks heat up, starting to feel stupid and selfish. “Do you just have everyone’s details memorized or something?”

	Quentin chuckled humorlessly, drinking more. “Yes, I do. All ten thousand soldiers, all of the support staff, even the Sisters-Hospitaller – I have committed all of their files to memory. That is what we are trained to do, because it is our job to manage and maintain the troops of any regiment we are attached to. And of particular importance to us is morale. That is the real reason why I called you in, you see. Jubblowski’s morale has been plummeting, and it is having an effect on the rest of the men and women of the Fighting Fifths.”

	The corporal thought to himself for a moment, subconsciously tapping out a rhythm on his knee as he was wont to do. “Well, of course it has, in light of last night’s circumstances.”

	The commissar shook his head and set his recaf aside. “That is, of course, a concern, but her spirits have been low for months. And the more I’ve observed you two, the more I’ve come to understand why she is so miserable. I have been patient and given you time to notice the problem and correct it, but you have not.”

	“Sorry to disappoint, sir. May I ask what that problem is?”

	“She feels lonely, homesick, and disgusted with herself, and it’s all eating away at her,” he said.

	Kowalski’s brow furrowed. “She mentions how much she misses music sometimes, and I know that she feels guilty about what she’s done, but lonely? Everyone in the regiment has been friendly and I’ve been with her every step of the way. I don’t think it’s really bothering her that much, I mean, she’s stronger than I am.”

	“Stronger, perhaps. I do not know. I believe that Jubblowski is frightened. I believe that she is mortally afraid of loss, after having experienced it so vividly before, and that you are the last pillar of normalcy in her life, the one thing she can still rely on.” The commissar paused, his finger scratching his chin thoughtfully.

	“But you have been changing. You have taken up smoking, you lie about how you feel, you make light of grave situations. You do this to cope with war. But all you are doing is hurting her. She feels like her grip on her former life is crumbling away, and she is constantly reminded of it every time she sees you.  All that she is left with is the horrors of war, raw and real and chilling to the bone. And they wear down her mind and heart and soul.” He set the recaf aside, crossed his legs, and locked his fingers together over his knee as Kowalski stared at him.

	“So, in other words, while nothing can be done about her longing for her former life, nor the horrors she faces, her loneliness can at least be remedied. And you are the only one who can do that. You must stop pushing her away and reach out to her. I suspect that is the only way to help private Jubblowski.” Quentin finally ended his lecture with a heavy huff, downing the last of his drink in a few gulps.

	The corporal looked down, deep in thought. He gripped the arms of his chair. The commissar watched his eyes shift left and right as he ran through thought after thought. Finally, he looked up, his voice betraying his frustration. “I’m not pushing her away! She’s been distant for months! She doesn’t want to hang out anymore! I ask to play loggins, or go watch some holovids with the guys, but she always declines!”

	The commander raised an eyebrow. “People do contradictory things. People are contradictory creatures. She sees your invitations as what little is left of your friendship, something weighing you down, and refuses so that you can be free from her. She is gently pushing you away as well. She thinks that is what you want.”

	“What? That’s crazy!”

	“Is it? Have you ever actually been honest with her since you came here? Do you think she doesn’t see through your charades? She knows that you lie to protect her. She thinks your invitations are more of those helpful little lies you are so fond of.”
“Shit!” Kowalski yelled, slamming his fist down on the desk. “Are you sure about all of this?!”

	The commissar nodded calmly. “It is my job.”

	The soldier thought to himself for a moment. While he did not want to agree with his superior’s words, he knew deep down that he could not deny them. He opened his mouth, trying to figure out what he should say. Finally, he managed to form words. “Sir, what can I do? How can I fix this?”

	“Being more honest with her would be a start. But if you want the truth? You must fight, corporal. Fight for what you want. This galaxy is a cruel place. You cannot afford to be afraid of rejection, or loss, or the future. Focus on the here and now. Defeat any obstacle that would stand before you and deny you what is rightfully yours. You are clever, intelligent. You can find a way to get through to her. All you have to do is prove that you do want to be a part of her life.”

	Kowalski fell silent as he absorbed the words, deep in thought. A thought occurred to him. “But why go so far as to do this? I didn’t think someone like you would care…”

	“Even a commissar has regrets, corporal.”

	A tense silence settled in as Kowalski considered the cryptic words. There was a boom, and the supports of the bunker rattled again. Both of them stared at nothing in particular. Then, the commander sighed and cleared his throat.

	“I’ll ask you again. Do you love private Jubblowski?”

	“…Yes, sir.”

	“Then you are a spineless coward!” he roared, bolting to his feet and backhanding Kowalski across the face. The soldier slowly turned his head back to face Quentin, eyes wide in shock. “What are you still doing here?! Do you not understand what I’ve told you?!”

	“S-sir!” he said, leaping to his feet and saluting. The meaning of the commissar’s harsh treatment and words was not lost on him. “Request to be dismissed!”

	“Dismissed, corporal,” the commissar said, leaning back in his chair and putting his hat back on. His subordinate rose and briskly walked out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him. The man with the grey mane sighed and rubbed his face with a hand when the rumble of an explosion shook the room, one of the massive hills of paperwork spilling over all over the ground. He groaned and bent down to slowly gather it all up.



	Kowalski walked briskly, then jogged, then dashed towards his quarters. He had already decided what he would do, even if he was rejected for it. He had to tell her how he felt. She deserved to know, and he could not bear to hurt her anymore. He finally reached his door, pushing it open and stepping in. He froze. He had expected to see Jubblowski still sitting there on her bunk, or otherwise asleep. But she was gone.

	He walked in and looked around. Her boots, flak jacket, belt, helmet, and rifle were all still there. But she would never leave the room without them. He looked at the open doorway. All he could hear were the murmuring of other soldiers walking through the bunker. He recalled her despondent face from earlier. His heart skipped, and dread filled his soul.



	The battlefield had grown quiet, aside from the occasional blast of artillery echoing in the distance. It was a lull, in which both sides found it safe to stand up straight for once even if it exposed their heads to the enemy’s sharpshooters. No shots rang out. Sometimes, one of the soldiers would glance across the muddy partition between their trenches and simply look at their foes, seeing their faces, their interactions with their comrades. Then they would avert their gaze and continue trudging along.

	The dark-haired woman stepped out of the bunker, walking towards the earthy wall of the trench. She had on only a white shirt and shorts, the sun glowing down on her tanned form. Without a word to anyone standing nearby, she climbed up onto the high ground. She began to simply cross the wide No Man’s Land. She walked slowly but resolutely, her destination clear. “Hey! Jubblowski! What the hell are you doing?!” yelled one of the men in alarm, but she did not stop or answer.

	The men and women on both sides of the barren wasteland stared in shock at what they were seeing. Her bare feet sank into the mud as she stepped over an undetonated grenade, the glass and jagged metal debris scattered across the field rending her soft flesh. The red scattered over her feet, but it did not slow her journey, even though her face contorted in pain with each step she took. Her dull eyes scanned the trench, looking at the faces of the weary troops before her as she went. The tension skyrocketed as everyone held their breath.

	The lanky corporal sprinted out into the open air, immediately seeing her. He paused for only a moment before yelling and charging forward, leaping up and grabbing onto the edge of the ground to pull himself up. One of his comrades seized his waist, trying to yank him back down, and Kowalski whirled, swinging his elbow back to beat the unfortunate man over the head and knock him down. He scrambled up and ran for Jubblowski, his violent movements snapping both sides out of their daze.

	The Fighting Fifths were the first to shoot, fearful for the safety of their comrades. A few heretics, unprepared, were blasted through the head, and the rest immediately raised their weapons and returned fire. The focus was on the combatants – Kowalski and Jubblowski, one clearly unarmed and the other clearly wounded, were ignored, but that did not prevent the occasional laser or bullet from straying dangerously close to them.

	Jubblowski remained unfazed by the ordinance flying past her in both directions, but when she glanced back and saw Kowalski coming towards her, her eyes widened and she fled away from him, hoping to reach the other trench before he could stop her. The pain of her torn feet caused her to gasp and wince, stumbling and tripping over a broken rifle. She caught herself with her hands and staggered to her feet, but Kowalski moved like a man possessed. Just as she was up straight again, he was already upon her, tackling her down. They tumbled into a crater left by an earthshaker shell, deep enough to be considered a foxhole – deep enough to be safe from the lethal volleys flying over their heads.

	The corporal immediately straddled her, holding her down with his body weight while he pressed his good arm against the back of her neck. She cried out and wrestled against him, squirming hard enough to wrench her form around to face him and try to pry him off. Though she was able to shift his arm off of her neck, she could not budge him off of her, and continued to fruitlessly struggle against him.

	“Stop this, Andrea!” Kowalski yelled over the roar of the gunfire all around them as he planted his forearm against her face. He noticed that there were lumps in a diagonal line under her shirt as the fabric clung to them. Grenades. The woman screamed and bit down on his arm with all of her strength, sinking her teeth through his flesh and drawing blood. He gasped and gritted his teeth, enduring the pain, absolutely desperate to hold her down.

	“Damn it, get a grip!” he shouted, wincing as she beat his sides with her fists and bit him harder. For some reason, he kept being reminded of the dull soreness in his bad shoulder even though he was experiencing far worse. An artillery shell blasted into the dirt only several meters away, the shrapnel flying overhead and the heat and shockwave washing over the pair. Both of their faces distorted in pain, and when Kowalski opened his eyes, he realized he could no longer hear anything. There was only a ridiculously high-pitched ringing in his head.

	Jubblowski finally released his arm from her mouth. He reflexively pulled it away in fear of her changing her mind, and as he leaned back, her palm shot up, smashing into his nose. He felt the cartilage give way, the keen pain causing him to fall backwards, his weight leaving her abdomen. The taste of his own blood reached his tongue as he gripped his nose and cried out weakly.
The private immediately jumped to her feet and spun around to sprint out of the crater. The corporal saw her vanish out of the foxhole through squinted eyes, his heart pounding with dread. To leave cover was to face certain death. Though he could only hear a shrill whine in his head, though his head ached harder with each beat of his heart, he rolled onto his knees, swinging himself up to stumble after her.

	He saw her back flying away from him at the speed of light. All around them both, lasers and bullets traced arcs through the air, forming a vivid tunnel. His legs tensed, and he stepped forward, feeling so heavy and so slow. As the distance between them grew wider, he felt as if he was merely walking, tripping over his own feet in his dazed struggle.

	He forced himself to move faster and faster, the dull weight in his legs refusing to fade. She was already so close to the other trench – could he reach her in time? He breathed in as much oxygen as he could, and accidentally inhaled some of his own blood. He coughed uncontrollably and felt all of the power leave his form, nearly collapsing right there. Kowalski’s foot slid forward and stopped his descent, and he pressed onwards, gripping his chest and spitting out the blood in his mouth as he gasped for air.

	His mouth opened, trying to call out to Jubblowski, but she did not respond, if she could even hear him. He saw her hand moving under her shirt as she neared the edge. The painful ringing in his head and the sore pangs seemed to crescendo. He stepped on a piece of a chimera’s hull at an awkward angle, his foot twisting the wrong way. The additional pain in his ankle was dulled by the fresh burst of adrenaline coursing through his veins. The dryness of his mouth told him that he had left it open, and he realized that he had been screaming at the top of his lungs the whole time.

	He saw her drop into the trench. His thoughts slowed and thinned as despair gripped him. The only things he felt were pain and fear. It was a deep, primal fear, too fundamental to be defined in terms of what he was afraid of or why. His instincts told him that there would be an explosion in a matter of seconds, and she would be turned into a pile of meat and bones. And he would see it all. He reached the edge, and without a moment of hesitation, dove down at the woman standing below him. She looked up and saw him, and her face, still wet with his blood, twisted in anguish.

	 His momentum slammed both of them into the dried mud. When his faculties returned, the man realized there had been no explosion. No death. Underneath him, the private turned her head away from him, her eyes glazed over and her face expressionless. “Andrea?” he asked as his hearing slowly recovered, and he heard the yelling all around him and the footfalls approaching before him.

	Kowalski looked up and saw two traitors standing over him. A young man was aiming down the sights of his lasrifle at the grounded pair, while a grizzled, middle-aged one stood tall and conducted himself with the airs of a commander. The corporal’s heartbeat quickened. Sweat ran down his face, mixing in with the red as he panted weakly. His hoarse voice squeaked out of his mouth. “P-please, don’t kill us!” he said as he raised his hand.

	“Shoot them,” said the older man, looking at the young soldier. Kowalski swallowed, tears forming in his eyes, and he bent down to hug Jubblowski tightly, choked sobs coming out of his throat. The soldier began to pull the trigger, but something stopped him. The rifle began to shake in his grasp, and he breathed faster and faster, his eyes locked on the miserable man before him. “What’s wrong? Kill them. Now.”

	The green soldier tried to force his finger against the thin sliver of metal. He shook his head, and the commander drew his laspistol, holding it threateningly. “Pull the goddamn trigger, now.” The young man hesitated for a moment longer, and Kowalski glanced up, seeing the officer place his laspistol against the soldier’s temple and flick the safety off. An impulse jolted through his body, and before he knew what he was doing, he seized the officer’s arm and pulled it away. He held the gun in the air, while the old man pulled the trigger reflexively as he tried to pry the wounded man away.

	Streaks of red bolted up into the sky, and the corporal threw his entire body weight into directing the weapon towards the commander. The old man was too weak to stop him, bashing his other hand into Kowalski’s back frantically and irritating his bruise. But the pain was nothing to a man with everything to lose. The pistol was slowly turned inwards, and the next beam tore through his shoulder, and the next one through his chest. The grey-haired man fell down, the laspistol falling from his fingers automatically.

	Panting, his body’s aches returning to him, the lanky soldier whirled to look at the young one. They locked eyes, and Kowalski gave a slight nod as he tried to think of some way to express how he felt. “You… you should run,” he said eventually, glancing around the unfamiliar trenches in search of more traitors. The young traitor soldier simply turned and fled away without a word, leaving only the two guardsmen there. Kowalski reached down to pick up the laspistol, wincing at the sharp sensation in his ankle and the sight of the bleeding bite wound on his forearm.

	He tucked the laspistol under his shirt behind him, then rooted around the commander’s slowly breathing, rapidly dying form until he found another two charge packs. He stuffed them into his shirt’s pockets and turned his attention to the dark-haired woman on the ground, whose eyes were locked directly upwards, towards the sky. Kowalski looked up as well. The sky was cloudy for the first time in months, the dark, billowy forms characteristic of an imminent thunderstorm.

	Groaning, he bent over to grab Jubblowski’s shoulder. “We need to move. We can’t stay here. Andrea? Are you listening?” A moment after he spoke, she slowly sat up and climbed to her feet sluggishly. She refused to look him in the eye, staring only at the ground. He grabbed her hand just as the yells of a squad neared the corner. He pulled her along as quickly as he could manage, limping slightly with each step on his sprained ankle. There was an unmanned weapons emplacement only a few dozen meters away. He headed for it.



	The pitter-patter of the rain on the roof of the pillbox seemed to almost drown out the distant screams and gunfire. Kowalski sat with his back against the wall, the laspistol in his hand firmly trained on the small entrance. He had kicked the ladder down and lowered the leather flap. Grenades would rebound off of the flap and if they raised the ladder he could just kick it down again. For all intents and purposes, it was the best refuge in the entire enemy line.

	He could hear the voices outside discussing how to kill him and Jubblowski in great detail. What they would do to him if they caught him alive. What they would do to her. He nearly gagged at what they described.

	The tanned, striking woman had not spoken a word for hours. He almost appreciated the silence. Almost. He looked at her, then away. He had been doing so for a while, struggling to find something to say. What could he even say to her that would express his feelings properly? How could he get through to her?

	He glanced down at the belt of grenades in his lap. He had divested her of it immediately after determining that they were safe in the emplacement. A cursory examination told him that the metal wire tied to the keys of each grenade, a makeshift method of arming all five of them simultaneously, had simply snapped when she tried to pull it. It was not a weak wire. She was a trained in demolitions and had access to proper materials. It was simply a fluke. Luck.

	However, he had been unable to stifle a humorless chuckle when he noticed that it was not actually a belt of fragmentation grenades. They were krak grenades, designed to penetrate armor, not for anti-personnel purposes. Jubblowski had screwed up big time. Her suicide bombing would have gone spectacularly poorly if it had worked.

	The aching soreness had spread to his entire body, though it was most heavily concentrated in his shoulder and ankle. The bite wound on his arm was not particularly deep, thankfully, and the bruises were fine as long as he did not touch them. The grizzled veteran found himself missing his bed back at the university. Soft, and warm. He was tired. His eyes drooped, but he could not let himself sleep. The enemy could try to take the emplacement at any time. If he could just hold out until dusk of the next day, the Fifths would assault the lines. They could potentially slip back to allied lines in the chaos. Or they could be gunned down the moment they left the fortified room.

	He looked back at Jubblowski, his eyes tracing the contours of her soft face. “Andrea, I love you.” She did not acknowledge what he said. “I love you.” Still, she did not respond. “Andrea.” Nothing.