Gav Thorpe - 13th Legion

I'm out on Glacis Formundus, back on garrison duty again, with the Trobarans and Typhons for company. I still don't really know anyone, I've spent every night here drinking my pay away, trying to forget the past three years, but it isn't easy. Parades and drills are so dull, my mind wanders back. To Deliverance, to Promixima Finalis, to False Hope and all the other places I fought and my comrades died in their hundreds. I swill the Typhon wine around the silver goblet for a while, pretending I can smell its delicate bouquet through the smoke of the ragweed cigar jammed into the corner of my mouth. Gazing up at the thousands of candles hanging from the dozen vast chandeliers that light the marble hall with their flickering glow, I wonder if there's a candle there for each dead Last Chancer.

The mess seems filled with Typhons today, giving me surly looks like they know something but they can't, I'm sure of that. We won a great victory at Coritanorum, we won the war and preparations have begun to receive Hive Fleet Dagon, which is why we're stuck out here for the moment. A great vic­tory, but nobody else seems like celebrating. Everybody in the mess is sombre. I don't know what they've got to be so unhappy about, having to eat fine meat, dining on fresh veg­etables, drinking, whoring, gambling and wasting their lives instead of fighting. I guess that's why I haven't fitted in, because I've begun to miss combat. Shouting orders at a bunch of uni­formed trolls as they march up and down the parade ground is no substitute for crawling about in the mud and blood, kill or be killed situations that bring you to life. Miserable bastards, don't they know we've just won a war?

Everyone else's grim mood has brought me further down. I think about the other Last Chancers. The dead ones. The ones who got their pardon too late. Three thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine of them. All dead. Except me. I start to wonder why I'm alive and they're not. What makes me special? Was I just lucky? Have I been set aside from harm by the Emperor? I'm tempted to think the latter, which is why I joined up again, to pay him back for watching over me these past three years. Emperor, I wish these Typhons would cheer up, the miserable fraggers.

'What did you say?' a man demands from over towards the bar, three metres to my right. He's decked out in blue and white, the Typhon colours, gold braiding hangs across his left breast, a cupboard full of medals adorning the right. A colonel I reckon. I must have spoken out loud.

'Wha?' I mumble back, unable to recall what I was thinking trying to drag my brain out of the drink-fuelled murk.

'You called me a miserable fragger/ he accuses, stepping through the haze of ragweed smoke to stand on the other side of the small round table. I sit back, letting my elbows slide off the table and peer back at him.

We've just saved the fraggin' sector, and everyone's moping around like their sister's died/ I say as two more Typhons, both majors or captains by the uniforms, step up behind him.

'I had to leave my wife and go to some bastard slime pit in the middle of nowhere/ the one on the left stabs a finger at me, some froth from his ale still stuck to his huge, drooping mous­taches. ЧУЬаг'в to be happy about?'

Welcome to the fraggin' Imperial Guard/ I say, shrugging my shoulders and knocking back the last glass of wine.

I try to get up but the first one, a bald, middle-aged man, thrusts me back onto the bench with a gnarled hand on my shoulder. As I thud back into place, one of them pulls my par­don from where it's been jolted out of one of the chest pockets on my jacket. I always keep it there, a good luck talis­man. The stub of the cigar drops into my lap and I brash it to the floor.

'What's this? Penal legion scum!' he hisses, looking at what's written on the parchment.

'Not any more. I'm a proper officer now/1 tell them, still half-baked with the wine. 'Look, I'm sitting around on my fat arse

doing nothing, shouting at the troopers and trying to jump a lass from the local town, I must be an officer/

Той should've been hanged!' Big Moustache adds, looking over his comrade's shoulder. 'You're a disgrace to the Imperial Guard/

'You'd all be dead if it wasn't for us/ I mumble back. 'Should thank me, ungrateful bastards/

You think so?' the third one demands, his piggy nose thrust into my face. You're nothing! You're scum!'

You should all be killed!' Baldy declares, face a bright red now.

'We were!' I snarl back sickened by their attitude. They were fraggin' heroes. You part-time soldiers don't even deserve to lick their boots!'

You traitorous filth/ Pig Nose bellows, pulling an ornate sword from its scabbard and waving it at me. Something inside me snaps, looking at these prissy, pompous, spoilt, officer-class weevil-brained snobs. A feeling I haven't felt since Coritan-orum surges through me, a feeling of energy and vitality, of being alive, infusing me with strength and power.

'I'm a man, a soldier!' I scream back at them, hauling myself to my feet. "They were all soldiers, real men and women! Not scum!'

Pig Nose makes a clumsy swipe with the sword, but he's too close and I easily grab his wrist. I trap the basket hilt in my left hand and twist, wrenching it easily from his grasp, as easy as taking sweetmeats from a babe.

You want it rough?' I shriek, slamming the hilt into his pig nose, causing blood to cascade over the white breast of his tunic. They begin to back away. I hear murmurs from around the room. You're Guard, can't you fight me? What did you get those medals for? Polishing? Shouting? Fight me, damn you!'

I take another step forward, lashing out with the hilt into Big Moustache's stomach, doubling him over. They stumble away again, eyes darting around looking for the trooper that's going to fight for them.

'No one else to fight this battle/ I snarl. You'll have to get bloody and dirty now/

There's a clamour all around as people scramble for the doors. Chairs and tables are overturned as people back off from the madman screaming and waving a sword around. This is the

closest half of them have ever been to a fight. The alcohol mixes with my anger to fuel me with blood lust, a red mist descends in front of my eyes and I keep seeing litde piles of ashes, faceless strangers clawing at me from my dreams, men cut down and blown apart. My head whirls with it and I feel dizzy. It's like four thousand voices are crying out for blood in my head, four thousand men and women crying to be remem­bered, asking for vengeance.

This is for Franx!' I shout, plunging the sword into Pig Nose's guts. The others try to grab me, but I lunge back at them, slashing and hacking with the sword.

'ForPoal! Poliwicz! Gudmanz! Gappo! Kyle! Aliss! Densel! Harlon! Loron! Jorett! Mallory! Donalson! Fredricks! Broker! Roiseland! Slavini! Kronin! Linskrug!' The litany of names spills from my lips as I carve the three arrogant Typhons to pieces, hacking into their inert bodies, blood splashing across the light blue carpet to create a purple puddle. With each stroke, I picture a death. All the ones I saw die, they're stored up there in my head and it seems like they want to rush out. 'For fraggin' all of'em! For Lorii!' I finish, leaving the sabre jutting from the chest of Pig Nose.

People are shouting and grabbing at me, someone's throwing up to my right, the coward, but I push them away, remember­ing at the last second to turn back and snatch the pardon from Baldy's dead fingers. I stumble out of the door and start run­ning off into the streets, the rain cascading off my bloodied hands as I stuff the pardon back into my pocket.

I wake with a banging in my head loud enough to be all the forges on Mars. My throat feels as if several small mammals have nested in it for a year and my limbs feel weak. With hazy recollection the events of the night before come back to me. I can feel the Typhons' dried blood caked on my hands. I really should try to control my temper. My next instinct is to check that I have my pardon. I fumble in my pocket and my heart leaps into my throat when I find it empty.