It's no Joke

A Valhallan, a Necromundan and a Cadian walk into a bunker…

Not the beginning of a joke, but three fugitives fleeing westwards meet the Kado 540^th Infantry coming the other way.  Fortunately the Valhallan manages to convince his world-brothers not to shoot them and they are escorted to C Company HQ, at that time, a log and earth bunker no longer required by it’s previous owners.

The three fugitives are given and hot drink and the Valhallan, Serjeant Lik, is questioned by   Comrade Major Gogebic.  Kommissar Tora is sat at the back of the bunker, allowing himself to be mostly obscured by the stores and equipment therein.  Pte Yoshida, the Necromundan, has noticed him and signed to his Cadian comrade that the Commissar is there, but cannot get Serjeant Lik’s attention.  He just hopes Lik doesn’t say anything too dumb.  

"So how did you all get away ?"

Sergeant Lik licked his lips and began his account "Well, I understand that it was the Cadian Master Sergeant; apparently he’d been in the Interior Guard at some point.   We were kept in a series of pens and he was in one of the others with some Death Korps.   Turns out that he was hardest bastard in that pen, which is a turn up for the books, eh ?"

Comrade Major Gogebic nodded encouragingly "Well, what did he do ?"

"We all got taken out once a day for interrogation, which was really just intimidation and brutalisation to soften us up, there was no real intent to get meaningful information out of any of us.  The Cadian had apparently been whispering to each of them that he was psychic and that one of them, the guards, was weak and that he was going to make the weak one kill the rest of them."

"What ?" the word came out of Comrade Major Gogebic's mouth perhaps little fast, he hoped he hadn't spooked Sergeant Lik.  But the man just shrugged and delivered his explanation.

"It was a bluff, apparently, something he’d dreamt up whilst he was in the Interior Guard.  But the odd whispers had set the guards on edge and watching each other, we could see that in the other pens.   Over eleven days we reacted to their edginess, they became even more jumpy.   Now I imagine that the Cadian, on one of his interrogation trips, just made eye contact with one guard and nodded towards another and one of the guards had become so freaked out he just shot the other.  The Master Sergeant then took down the other one and sprung the rest of us.

The Master Sergeant and about half a dozen Cadians and all of the Krieg boys stayed in the pens.  We could still hear the gunfire and explosions as we crossed the outer perimeter." 

Serjeant Lik took a mouthful of recaf and paused a moment, savouring it before continuing.

"We’d been heading West for two days; we lost about half of the men actually breaking out of the heretic camp, but were all arming ourselves from their bodies on the way out; once we’d made it about an hour we split down into small groups, mostly on unit lines, but some of the more veteran guardsmen made sure that their groups were mixed, I started out with three other Valhallans, one from my own Battalion, but when we saw others splitting down and mixing up. I saw the sense and so I left them.  They wanted to stay together, they could not see how having men from different worlds improved the chances of the small groups.  We've made it."

Comrade Major Gogebic nodded; “Go and see Corporal Jenkski, he’ll have breakfast on, you three look as if you could use a good meal.”

The three men drew themselves up to attention.  Sergeant Lik saluted and the three of them ducked out of the bunker and went in search of the promised hot meal. 

“Well ?”

Kommissar Tora exhaled through his nose as he pursed his lips.  He’d had instruction from his own chain of command; not to be delinquent in his own duties, but to ensure that such men were not drawn to the attention of the Inquisition.  Not hidden, but not fed to godless torturers for no good reason. 

“Assign them to me.  I can watch them and you can release Jenkski and Serich back to their Platoon.  We’ll keep them until we roule back to the rear.  There’s no point in trying to pass them back when we’re going forward, you can’t spare the escort or the transport.

Is it snowing yet ?"