Buttery-Commissar

Orks. Above us, trailing thick, oily smoke and screams, one of their terrible fighter planes was making its last descent. Pieces of fuselage, gobs of burning fuel and debris were raining down in volatile fragments. All around, men ran and took cover as I stared up in horrified fascination. The pilot was still furiously firing his cannon to the last, but I saw a small green blur as something ejected from the back of the torn-open canopy.

Hearing the tiny scream, old habits kicked in. Instinctively I ran, lined up with the path of the falling creature, and held out my arms, carefully catching an extremely bewildered grot before he hit the earth.

We looked at each other in confusion as time slowed down, and we both realised quite what I'd done. My eyes widened, and he was clearly terrified, having expected to slam into the ground, not the arms of an oddly helpful enemy morale officer.

I had no idea what to do, having purely reacted as I would in another lifetime.

"Um..." I managed, set him lightly down on the ground, and backed away, hoping nobody had seen my mistake. Something in me failed, and I couldn't kill the small xeno, having just saved his life.

The greenskin stared at me, before snapping out if its apparent daze, shrugging and running hell for leather in the opposite direction. An interesting tale to recall to its comrades, if it survived.

Horrified, and hoping nobody had witnessed the save, I dropped back into the nearest bunker in an attempt to clear my head. I found it occupied. Vox officer Ahde was weeping with laughter at my idiocy.

"Not a fucking word." I put my head in my hands.

He patted my back, and nodded, but was still unable to speak, his shoulders shaking and eyes streaming.

Bed. I crashed. More accurately, we returned from a month of absolute hell, with most of us pulling the last 4 days solid awake and fighting to break back out of a fortress that we didn't fucking want to begin with. We were finally retrieved, those of us that remained. Then without even debriefing, in my case without even getting into the bed, we damn well crashed.

"Your uniform is a disgrace." an unimpressed voice from behind me caused me to wake up with a start.

"Then it matches the rest of me." I muttered and rolled toward the wall, away from the irritating appraisal.

"Seriously. You must be the scruffiest commissar I've ever encountered." the voice continued. It sounded a combination of exasperated and surprised.

"Eat a bag of shit." I replied and didn't turn my head. Pausing, I sighed and immediately felt ashamed at my use of language, "I'm sorry. That was a disgusting thing to say. You didn't deserve that." I raised a hand from the bunk, "Just ignore my being foul, it's been a very... rough month."

The unseen interloper chuckled, "You're certainly honest, I'll give you that." The sensation of being damned by the faintest of praise snuck in again.

"Someone needs be. There's too much double talk, all the shifting goalposts... Too many unwritten rules to navigate. Conversations shouldn't be complex traps." I was starting to wake up slightly, and rubbed the side of my head groggily. Blood and grit were stuck to my hair, and now my hand.

"I agree entirely. Get some rest." the door clicked shut quietly as the speaker left.

I turned my head, wondering what had just happened. Sleep took me again, before I could rise to ask.

~

Much later that day, Gaskell caught up with me, as I returned to my office, "So you met him then."

"Who?"

"You know who, that top brass."

I stared at him blankly, with no recollection of what he was referring to.

"Fella came to give us a look over before we're next assigned, check we're functioning and all that. See if any changes need to be made." Gaz sighed.

I felt a spike of confusion, "That was today?"

The old captain, my friend, gave me an exceptionally tired look, "He said he spoke to you; that you gave a good impression."

"But, I didn't meet anyone today. The only person I spoke to-" I clasped my hands to my mouth.

I didn't need to look up to know what facial expression Gaskell was making as he asked, "What did you do now?"

Mumbling into my gloves, I replied, "I might have told him to eat a bag of shit."

"I very much doubt that'll make it into his report."

Soup. There’s always soup, and it’s not always great. Today it was grim and brown. But on the other hand, it’s honest. And doesn’t require a lot of attention to eat it. Which is just as well, considering that gobshite Ahde had been dogging my steps all morning. He was bored, and I was the current victim of his wandering mind.

“Cat?”

“Emperor’s throne, Ahde. What now?”

He picked up his meal tray and stepped after me, “How long have you been a full Commissar?”

“Long enough.” I sat down beside Gaskell and Halas on the bench, attempting to carefully place down my tray, without accidentally flinging soup across it.

“And you’re pretty good at it, otherwise you wouldn’t have lasted… So how come you’ve not got you know, medals like? Even Gaskell’s got brass and he keeps his head down. Hell, even I’ve got one.”

I squinted at his chest where a small circular brass disc with concentric rings sat, “Is that for shutting your mouth for half an hour? If you like we could try again, and I could put you in for another.” Next to me, Gaskell choked on his drink.

Ahde rolled his eyes, “You know what it’s for. My point is, why don’t you wear any?”

I chewed my bread roll, “Never had any. Why, do you think they’d suit me? Maybe they’d go with my purse?”

Gaskell leaned over, “Cat, stop winding him up. He did, Ahde. Stubborn bastard keeps sendin’ ‘em back. Commissariat thinks he’s making funny.”

Ahde looked bemusedly at the pair of us, “Ugh. Now I don’t know who to believe.” he grumbled.

Grinning to myself, I started on my soup.