Chapter Text
Khorus Rift, 997 .M41
Tanya stood ankle-deep in the sucking mire of the Krieg forward trench, mud clinging to her polished boots like some hungry thing that refused to let go. The air down here was thick enough to chew — a choking stew of wet earth, mold, and sharp chemical residue that crawled up her sinuses and settled behind her eyes.
Every breath tasted of rot and rust, undercut by the acrid sting of cordite drifting from the lines ahead.
Above the trench lip, the world was nothing but violence and gloom. Artillery belched fire along the horizon in a ceaseless, stumbling rhythm. Great gouts of earth and shattered men erupted skyward under each fresh impact. There was no finesse to it, no careful rolling barrage like she might have orchestrated back home — just relentless, brute shelling that felt almost lazy in its indiscriminate savagery.
Beyond the forward parapet, the staging grounds spread out in grim formation. Thousands of grey-coated soldiers stood arranged in neat ranks, each one unnaturally still. Their gas masks turned every face into a blank, insectile horror, glass lenses catching the flickering torchlight without giving anything back. They looked like a line of dead men already frozen in rigor.
Among them drifted robed priests, intoning hymns that carried oddly well through the shell-churned air. The words felt more like funeral rites than blessings, delivered as each priest smeared crimson aquilas across masks and shoulder plates with deliberate, almost tender care.
Tanya’s lip curled despite herself. It was disturbingly familiar. Back in the Empire — in her second life — soldiers gathered like this too, arrayed in perfect formations, greatcoats neat, weapons held just so. They’d looked disciplined, silent, every inch the iron phalanx she’d relied on to keep the enemies at bay.
But there was something different here, something in the way these Krieg troopers stood so perfectly motionless, not even the smallest shuffle or whispered aside to break the tension. It felt less like the uneasy calm before battle and more like waiting for a funeral to start. Tanya dismissed the faint chill creeping up her spine.They’d probably crack once the real killing started — most did.
‘Well,’ she thought, almost cheerfully, ‘ that’s where I come in; to shove them back into line before they take me down with them.’
Her eyes drifted to the Krieg regimental standards planted deep in the muck — torn black banners marked by skulls and tangled scripture that flapped lazily under the sulfurous sky. Bayonets below them gleamed wetly, polished for the slaughter. Tanya’s assessment was cold, mechanical, comfortable: standard-issue lasguns, some trench shotguns, shovels ground to wicked edges — clearly meant for close, ugly work. Probably rigid in formation. Likely brittle if the lines collapsed. All things she could handle.
Her mind ran through the familiar catechism drilled into every Commissar of this galaxy.
‘
Maintain morale. Keep the machine fed with bodies. Execute cowards to stiffen spines. The same work, in every universe. Someone has to make sure the gears don't seize up when the blood starts to flow.’
It struck her, with a sour twist of amusement, that this had always been her job deep down— whether pushing quotas and severance notices across a polished boardroom table, leading mages through the war torn skies of Europa, or now, standing ankle-deep in filth as the Imperium’s iron hand. Different uniforms, same machinery. Same wretched functionary keeping the engine of slaughter running smooth.
A smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth as she finally looked sideways at Colonel 203 — neat uniform somehow still crisp despite the ankle-deep muck, hands clasped behind her back in textbook posture, her eyes a quiet mirror of old loyalty Tanya didn’t like to examine too closely.
“Keep morale stitched together with fear and ceremony, shoot the cowards, win the war,” Tanya murmured, almost amused.
“Shouldn’t be hard.”
That earned a subtle shift. The Colonel’s throat worked around words she clearly wasn’t eager to say. Finally she settled on, very gently, “Ma’am... you’ll want to see how they do things here. It’s... different.”
Tanya arched an eyebrow at that, then let out a light, dismissive laugh, waving away the concern.
‘
At least this time,’
she thought, with a private glimmer that might have been affection under all her razor edges, ‘
I’m not the only one dragged across realities. Small mercies.’
“I’ve broken harder regiments, Visha,” she said flatly.
“Men are men, no matter what planet or Emperor they chant for. Give them enough spectacle and a little terror, they’ll hold.”
Another ripple of artillery shivered through the trench walls, dust cascading from the sandbags overhead. Out beyond the parapet, the Krieg soldiers didn’t so much as twitch. Not even the priests missed a beat. Tanya let out a short, dismissive laugh that didn’t reach her eyes.
‘Same doctrine. Same problems. Easy money,’
she told herself.
‘
All I have to do is keep the cogs turning…’
Tanya set off down the trench line with Colonel 203 half a step behind, the two of them weaving through the narrow, twisting earthworks like rats in a damp maze. The walls on either side were slick with old seepage, boards swollen and dark from years of runoff and worse.
The floor was little more than churned muck and standing water, scattered with spent charge packs, discarded ration tins, and the occasional ugly smear that looked too dark to be just mud.
As they passed clusters of Krieg infantry, she noted how they stood in small groups, utterly silent, their bayonets cradled against armored chests. No idle chatter, no nervous jokes — only the faint hiss of respirators and the distant growl of artillery rolling over the trenches.
When they reached the bunker, Tanya ducked through a sandbagged doorway into close, humid air that smelled of lamp oil and stale sweat. The walls were hung with pinned maps and rough field charts, corners curling with damp.
A battered table occupied the center of the space, littered with dataslates and little brass markers. Several Krieg officers were already assembled there, standing at parade rest, their greatcoats still impeccably buttoned despite the mud outside. A few had removed their masks and hooked them at their belts, revealing impassive, rigid faces.
Tanya took it all in with a professional calm, stepping up beside Colonel 203 and letting her eyes skim the layout on the table. This was the part she understood best — men in ranks, plans etched on paper, campaigns to be executed with cold arithmetic. It was all very familiar. And if these officers seemed unusually reserved, well... that was something she’d address soon enough.
Across the table, A Krieg colonel traced attack arrows with a gloved finger, dragging fresh lines through the damp. His voice was dry and steady as he laid out the coming operation: simultaneous multi-battalion assaults on three fronts, with only the briefest artillery prelude.
No adjustments, no alternative contingencies, no questions invited.
Tanya’s brow twitched. That was... bold, she supposed. Or perhaps simply naive.
She cleared her throat, then stepped forward with her most confident, clinical smile. “You’ll want to extend your preparatory bombardment here and here,” she said, tapping two prominent bunker clusters with her knuckle. “Let your heavy guns work them over a bit longer before we advance — fewer of our men bleeding out on concertina wire. Standard doctrine.”
The reaction was instant and unnervingly unified. Every Krieg officer turned their head at once, the motion so perfectly synchronized it might have been rehearsed. They stared at her in absolute silence, respirator lenses catching the low light like rows of dark, empty eyes. The silence stretched, heavy and damp, until Tanya felt a faint prickle crawl along her spine.
‘Did they even hear me? Are they already planning their own funeral formations?’
Beside her, Visha shifted uncomfortably, offering a small, tight smile that did nothing to ease the tension. Her voice dropped to a low murmur, pitched for Tanya alone. “They... don’t really do questions, ma’am. Or counterpoints.”
Tanya blinked, momentarily caught between irritation and something that nearly bubbled up as laughter. But the way the Colonel continued to stare at her, unblinking and patient as stone, drained any trace of amusement.
Then, still holding her gaze with that eerie, unblinking calm, the Colonel reached out and took up a small wooden pointer from the edge of the table. Without saying a word, he dragged it across the damp map, slowly redrawing the lines of the preparatory barrage to sweep over the very bunker clusters she’d indicated. The stick moved with deliberate precision, scratching faintly over the stained parchment.
He never looked down at his work — his eyes remained locked on Tanya’s the entire time, cold and unreadable, as though daring her to find fault with the bare concession. When he finished, he simply set the pointer aside and folded his hands neatly behind his back, the silence resettling like a shroud.
The Colonel inclined his head by the smallest fraction, his expression unchanged. “We have faith in the Emperor. We will advance at your mark.”
Tanya’s eyes narrowed, her stomach giving a faint, disgusted twist as she tracked the new firing line. Even with her adjustments, it was painfully clear they’d still be dropping shells dangerously close to their own advance — close enough that fragments would tear through the first waves just as surely as enemy fire.
Tanya opened her mouth, then closed it again, exhaling a slow, measured breath through her nose. Faith in the Emperor. That wasn’t what she was asking for, not by a damn sight. But fine. Let them prove how far their faith carried them when the machine guns opened up. Faith was exactly the sort of liability that got people like her shot or court-martialed when it failed.
From her right, Colonel 203 cast her another sidelong look, shoulders tense as if bracing for something she couldn’t quite say. Tanya just set her jaw a little tighter and folded her arms behind her back, watching the Krieg officers return to their quiet, meticulous preparations.
We’ll see, she thought, whose doctrine holds up best under fire.
Tanya stepped back out into the trenches with Colonel 203 close behind, the damp air hitting her like a wet slap after the lantern glow of the bunker. The world beyond was a maze of sagging timber braces and narrow duckboards slick with filth, the walls scored with old shovel marks and dark stains that had long since stopped being just mud.
Around them, Krieg infantry stood in silent clusters, bayonets resting across their shoulders, respirators fixed in place and lenses glinting dully in the half-light. They parted automatically to let the officers pass, offering no salute, no murmur of greeting — only a heavy, watchful stillness that seemed to follow Tanya down the winding trench line.
She squared her shoulders, kept her hands clasped behind her back, and told herself this was all perfectly normal. Just another regiment. Just another war. The thought was almost comforting.
Tanya stood atop a rough firing step hacked into the trench wall, field glasses pressed so tightly to her eyes that the rims bit into her brow. Her breath fogged the lenses in quick, shallow puffs, forcing her to wipe them against her sleeve every few seconds. Below, the vantage was a slaughterhouse waiting to happen — muddy ground slick with blood and scattered shell casings that crunched underfoot like brittle husks.
The regiment assembled with eerie precision. Thousands of grey-coated figures lined up in perfect columns, shoulder to shoulder, their silence broken only by the soft hiss of respirators and the faint, haunting mutter of prayers that drifted between ranks.
Priests moved through them with measured solemnity, pressing bloody thumbs to helms and mask lenses, murmuring benedictions that sounded suspiciously more like farewells than battle hymns. Standard bearers raised black banners high, cloth emblazoned with skulls and the twin-headed aquila tearing into carrion, each flag snapping in the cold wind like a funeral shroud.
Tanya narrowed her eyes behind the glass. Perfect formation. Perfect spacing. It was so neat it made her teeth ache. Not a single man fidgeted or shifted from his mark. No one turned to speak to a comrade, no one dry-heaved from nerves. Some even dropped to their knees in the churned muck, heads bowed, whispering catechisms to the Emperor as if eager to explain themselves to Him before the day was done.
She blew her whistle. The shrill blast cut across the field like a blade, joined a heartbeat later by a chorus of others up and down the line. Officers raised their sabres, held them for a frozen moment, then dropped them in a single, crisp motion.
The entire mass surged forward at once. Thousands moved in eerie unity, boots splashing through water-filled craters, bayonets lifted high. Almost immediately, lasfire from the enemy lines opened up — brilliant spears of ruby light punched through the first ranks, bodies jerking and collapsing by the dozen. But the columns didn’t even hesitate. Men simply stepped over the fallen without a break in stride, ranks tightening automatically to fill the sudden gaps.
Then the artillery began. Great black plumes of dirt and shredded bodies erupted across the field, brutal geysers that hurled limbs skyward in grotesque cartwheels. Tanya caught flashes of pale hands, a flutter of a tattered cloak, before it all rained back down.
When the smoke cleared, the survivors were still moving, pace unbroken, pressing on with that same dreadful steadiness. One trooper staggered past with half his helmet torn away, grey cloak fluttering wildly, blood matting his hair. He was chanting hoarsely, voice ragged but somehow fervent.
Tanya lowered her glasses for a moment, staring with wide eyes. When she spoke, her voice cracked into something thin and strained.
“They’re not even ducking... they’re not trying to avoid it. They’re running straight into it.”
Beside her, Colonel 203 shifted uneasily, her mouth drawn into a tight line. Her hands worked at the strap of her holster, fingers fidgeting, eyes carefully not meeting Tanya’s.
A second whistle sounded — this time a long, descending note that seemed almost mournful. New waves of grey figures poured over the trench lip, priests stumbling after them, vestments dark with mud as they tried to keep up and press frantic blessings onto shoulders before the charge carried the soldiers too far ahead.
Another shell came down with a teeth-rattling crack, obliterating an entire platoon in a single monstrous blast. When the haze drifted clear, more Krieg were already picking their way through the smoldering ruin, stepping over torsos still clutching lasguns in death’s rigor.
That was when Tanya’s carefully honed control finally shattered. Her shoulders began to tremble, field glasses rattling so badly she nearly dropped them. She clutched her red Commissar cap with both hands, knuckles whitening around the stiff fabric, breath tearing from her in short, strangled bursts.
‘I’ve trained battle maniacs before,’
her thoughts scraped raw against the inside of her skull.
‘
I’ve driven men to hold lines no sane person would. But nothing—nothing—compares to this. These lunatics... they’re trying to die!’
An especially close shell burst sent clumps of mud — and something darker, something warm — splattering across her greatcoat. Tanya flinched, a sharp little bark of laughter ripping from her throat before it cracked into a sob.
Beside her, Colonel 203 finally cleared her throat, voice low and brittle, barely rising over the endless roar of the guns. “I tried to warn you, Colon... I mean Commissar.”
Tanya didn’t answer. Her eyes stayed locked on the advancing masses — Krieg troopers vanishing into choking curtains of smoke, only for more to appear behind them, an unending tide of grey.
Overhead, the sky was choked with oily contrails from fresh shells streaking toward the horizon. For the first time in three lifetimes, Tanya von Degurechaff wondered — with a cold, hollow certainty that almost made her laugh again — if she might be the only sane creature left in the universe.
The battle had raged for hours, a grinding, relentless horror that seemed determined to outlast sanity itself. Now, at last, the guns fell silent, leaving behind a gutted landscape of shattered trenches and burning shell holes.
Bodies lay everywhere in grotesque heaps, twisted into shapes that defied anatomy, half-buried in mud or propped unnaturally against blasted earthworks. Smoke hung low over it all, curling around the wreckage like lazy carrion.
Tanya sat on the edge of a broken emplacement near the command dugout, elbows resting heavily on her knees, cap dangling from limp fingers. Mud caked her boots up to the calves, stiff and cracked where it had dried, and there was something dark splashed across the front of her overcoat that might have been blood. She didn’t bother checking. Her shoulders slumped, head bowed under a weight that felt far older than this single battlefield.
The remains of the Krieg regiment began trickling back in ragged clusters. They came in tattered squads, many missing limbs, half their greatcoats torn away, respirators cracked and dark with soot.
Some carried comrades on stretchers made from torn canvas and rifle slings; others simply slung an arm over a buddy’s shoulders and limped on in mutual silence. Not a single voice rose in complaint. No curses, no groans, not even a hollow cheer for having survived.
Under torn tarps hastily strung between shattered support beams, field chirurgeons set up crude triage. Steam hissed from cauterizers as they worked, the harsh smell of burned flesh mingling with mud and cordite.
Tanya watched in numb disbelief as wounded soldiers refused sedatives, demanding only to be bandaged quickly so they could return to the line. One trooper, his arm reduced to a bloody stump wrapped in rough gauze, clutched his lasgun to his chest like a child with a beloved toy. Through the cracked lens of his mask, Tanya caught a glimpse of glassy eyes that held something almost like relief.
Nearby, Colonel 203 moved among the injured, her voice low and gentle, coaxing the most gravely wounded to accept proper treatment. Her face was pinched with worry, but she still offered them small, practiced smiles — the sort that tried to promise it would all be alright even when both of them knew better.
Tanya dragged a trembling hand back through her hair, her breath catching in her throat.’
I’ve seen men embrace war. I’ve seen them break, run, piss themselves.’
Her thoughts scraped at her skull like broken glass.
‘
But this... there’s no fear to drive out. No cowardice to purge. They don’t even seem to want to live. This is such a waste!’
A fresh wave of chanting rose from somewhere beyond the next trench line. More Krieg replacements had arrived, already forming up in fresh columns, gas masks bobbing slightly as they recited litanies of atonement. Tanya let out a short, strangled bark of laughter that died as quickly as it came.
‘Sanity was always relative,’ she thought bleakly, ‘ but this? This is beyond madness!’
Colonel 203 squelched up through the mud and crouched slightly to meet Tanya’s eyes. Her voice came out small, almost guilty. “Ma’am... you understand now, don’t you? Why I tried to—”
Tanya cut her off with a short, broken laugh that cracked into something hollow. She pressed the heel of her palm hard against her forehead, eyes wide with the raw horror of it. “All my life in the Empire... all my training was about driving men forward. Keeping them from breaking, from running. But here...”
Her hand dropped, and she stared out across the ruined field where fresh Krieg formations were already assembling again, eager to throw themselves into the teeth of enemy guns as though drawn by some divine magnet. “Here I’ll have to do the opposite. I have to calm them down. Keep them alive. Teach these lunatics how not to die.”
‘
Keep them alive — or else this war, this entire miserable Imperial galaxy, would collapse on top of her, and Being X would be right there to savor it!’
Somewhere — and she knew it in the marrow of her cursed little soul — Being X, with his stupid ugly feathers, was laughing at the irony.