Editing Commissar Techpriestess love story (section)

=== Chapter 23 ===
Rogal stood beside Capitan Brian Erriksson, the afternoon sun obscured by clouds. The battalion stood, ready to mount up and move out. The past day had been chaotic, as full mobilisations always were, but now, they stood ready. The Capitan finished his speech, offering Rogal a chance to speak to the men. He squared his shoulders and looked out over the battalion.
“You all know I hate speeches, so let’s keep this simple. You are combat engineers, that means you’re a special type of crazy.”
A chuckle ran through the battalion, and Rogal continued, “A type of crazy needed so much in war that Him on Earth saw fit to make an entire Astartes legion dedicated to it. You all stand here, regular men, you have no fancy armour, you have no giant gun. What do you have? An entrenching tool and more courage than anyone else. So we’re going to do what combat engineers are best at. Digging a hole and letting the enemy die in it.
The men barked out in agreement, as Rogal filled his massive lungs with air,
“FIRST WE DIG THEM,” he bellowed
“THEN THEY DIE IN THEM” The battalion roared back,
“YOU’RE DAMN RIGHT THEY DO, NOW MOUNT UP, WE GOT SOME GREENSKINS TO KILL.” Capitan Erriksson howled over the noise of just over a hundred and fifty engines roaring to life. Rogal climbed up into the turret of the Leman Russ Exterminator, removing his hat to put a headset on, before jamming the peaked cap down firmly.

“Welcome back sir,” came the friendly voice of Danarius, the driver of the behemoth, revving the engine experimentally as they waited to move out.
“Good to be back, Danarius,” the commissar responded, settling as comfortably as he could in the turret’s seat. His huge frame made riding in an enclosed vehicle bothersome, so he opted for turret duty as much as he could.
“That pretty little priestess of yours sure did a good job on the old girl, even fixed that ghost image on the targeter,”
Rogal smiled to himself, that was his girl. He swung the pintle mounted storm bolter, left and right, testing the bearings it was mounted on. The huge gun moved smoothly, responding perfectly to Rogal's touch. He opened the ammo box to check the feed, and was greeted with a small white envelope with his name on it sitting atop the huge bullets. A huge hand reached out for the delicate paper, the commissar admiring the penmanship before he flipped it over. A small white wax skull and gear sealed the envelope, and Rogal smiled. He reached down to grab the spare combat knife he usually used to carve with, and sliced the end of the envelope open, puffing into the packet to free the letter inside. The tank beneath him lurched forward, Rogal quickly storing the envelope down in the turret, Danarius’s voice filling his headset,
“We ride in his name, we ride for his glory,” the driver intoned, and Rogal quickly made the sign of the Aquila. Danarius had done that before every journey in the tank, and it had always brought him luck. The commissar grinned, he didn’t believe in luck, he believed the Emprah helped those who helped themselves. As the huge metal behemoth surged forward, Rogal unfolded the letter, and began to read, using the pintle mounted gun to protect the thin paper from the wind.

The huge commissar looked up at the night sky, the clouds of the afternoon having dissipated, leaving a clear black expanse, peppered with pinpricks of light. The huge moon hung low, softly illuminating the swarm of vehicles as they drove. Rogal reached into his jacket, pulling the letter from its pocket, and reading it once more. He looked up at the moon, Octavia’s words in his head,
“And when it is night, I will go out and look at the moon, and wonder, are you looking at it too?” He smiled, and wondered if his petite lover was doing the same. The vehicular tidal wave slowed as they approached the blasted clearing where the orkish warship sat, their campfires bright through nightspex, before coming to a halt at the line where plains stopped, and burnt, cracked earth began. Orders were barked across the voxnet, as troops began dismounting from their vehicles. Rogal sat in his turret, watching as a sniper team shouldered their packs and disappeared into the gloom. He gave them a quick salute, hoping the Emprah would watch over them. Fire teams broke off, the crack of lumesticks filling the air, as they began to dig.
Octavia sat, staring at the package that lay on her table. Caelistis said it had been delivered earlier in the day. The small note pinned to it with an official commissarial hat pin told her more than she wanted. Her fleshbrain mewed weakly, and a mechadendrite slid forward to unpin the note. A mechanical hand took the folded paper and opened it. In writing that was elegant in its simplicity, she read, “I know you’ll miss me, and I already miss you, but this should help keep you warm at night.” Her fleshbrain let out a squeak, her small hands grabbing for the package. The sound of tearing paper filled the room, Caelistis poking her head in out of curiosity.

Mechadendrites held the huge black coat up to the light, golden braiding gleaming. Tears welled up around augmented eyes, as Octavia hugged the onyx jacket to her chest. Her tiny shoulders heaved with sobs, Caelistis quietly coming to hug her petite friend from behind. The slender techpriestess stroked gently at her friends hair, whispering soothing nothings in her ear, trying her best to comfort her. Octavia sucked in a breath, Rogal’s smell filling her with a sense of longing. She knew he was a solider, and that he would have to go and do what every solider did, but her fleshbrain didn’t care. Her cognitor tried to reason with it, but was rewarded with sulky silence.
“Look, ‘Tavia,” Caelistis said quietly, “if you want to wrap yourself in that jacket and sleep in my bed, I won’t say no”
Octavia sniffed, wiping her face with her sleeve, “I don’t want to be alone tonight,”
“I know, that’s why I’m offering,” The slender techpriestess said with a grin. Octavia scowled,
“No funny stuff though, and I’m only sharing with you. No friends of yours, you understand?”
Caelistis put the back of her hand to her forehead in mock horror, “But whatever will I tell Elsa? I promised her I would cuddle her tonight,”
Octavia glared at her friend, “I mean it Cael, you try anything like you tried back in the collegia, and I will personally make you into a servitor.”
The cable haired priestess laughed, “Alright, alright, I was kidding, just trying to cheer you up.” She said, before producing a dataslate, “Look, here’s something to take your mind off things. It’s ghosting the noospheric connection, so it appears to connect twice, but doesn’t connect at all, and the screen skips sideways if you try to run any motomated content. Fix it for me?”
Octavia folded her arms and glared at her friend, who softened, “Please? Octavia? For me?”

Rogal still sat in the turret of the exterminator, his long legs over the rim of the hatch, as he chewed pensively on a mouthful of jerky. He was on watch, the relatively quiet sound of men digging and fortifying the position around him a whisper in the background. His dataslate buzzed, and he pulled it from the holder inside the tank. A datacast was unusual, especially considering the voxteam had barely set up. He thumbed the rune of opening and was greeted by another message from inquisitor Geergori.
“Commissar Hephaestus, by a quirk in the will of him on earth, we no longer require you to investigate Magos Radigan. She has made contact with another of our agents, and has been found clean of taint. We wish you luck on the battlefield. The Emperor Protects.” Rogal let out a sigh of relief, he had not wanted to deal with the inquisitor in the slightest, and he gave thanks to the Emprah for providing for him. He took another bite of jerky and leaned back, his eyes scanning the sky. He hated this part of war the most. The waiting. It would take a few days for the trenches to be built, a few more spent playing glorified slapsies, before they got down to the real thing. The huge commissar sighed, swallowed his mouthful and took another. He hated waiting.
The night wore on, as did the next day, and the next. Rogal busied himself with helping dig trenches and build bunkers, almost relishing the few times where an orkish scout team was “discovered” and slaughtered. The men enjoyed themselves, the commissar making himself content with standing back and taking potshots, his sword arm still not fully healed. Every night, he lounged in the tank turret, and looked up at the sky, penning a short letter to Octavia that would be sent with the morning dispatches. The voxnet and noosphere were on full combat alert, so no personal messages, even commissarial ones were allowed through.

Octavia stifled a yawn, her mechadendrites pulling Rogal’s massive coat around herself tighter as she shuffled over to Caelistis’s bed. The slender techpriestess hadn’t returned from her adventure, and Octavia was tired. She crawled up onto the gigantic bed, pulling pillows this way and that, fashioning a fort around herself. She rested her head on her arm, and studied the fine gold braiding at the wrist of the jacket. She sighed to herself, breathing in the scent of sawdust that permeated the dark woollen fabric. Had he found the letter, was he okay, had she done everything right when she serviced the tank, these thoughts and more whirled around her mind, her fleshbrain sitting wrapped in a copy of the jacket her body currently lay under. Her cognitor sent a signal to dim the lights, her lithe body curling up, and she tried to sleep. Emerald green eyes dimmed, her cognitor beginning the sleep sequence, when the door was thrown open. Caelistis staggered in, talking loudly to herself, bottles in her mechadendrites.
“Ochtavia,” the inebriated techpriestess slurred, throwing her outer robe over a chair “I am home now, and I am so very pretty,”
She took a nip from one of the bottles, pulling it away and shaking it, confirming its emptiness with great disappointment as she sat down beside her friend. A mechadendrite began undoing the clasp of her tunic, the heavy red fabric falling to the bed with a whump. Octavia pulled herself up to sitting, Rogal’s jacket over her legs, as Caelistis put an arm around her,
“Ochtavia, I am home now, and am so very pretty, and also my tunic is open,” she said, giggling merrily. The dark haired priestess sighed, taking one of the full bottles from her friend and drinking deeply from it. Lowering the bottle from parted pink lips, Octavia sighed heavily.