Editing The Lampetie Accounts (section)

===The Veteran's Tale===
We catch ourselves on anything nearby as we shudder back into reality. For a moment, I hear whispered laughter along the pipes, familiar of the captain's. I tell myself its the cold that makes me shiver. 
I go out, get armed with what they tell me is lasgun. When I ask for a magazine, I get hit upside the head with the flat end of a bayonet. The quartermaster instructs me that I want a powerpack. Not a magazine. A powerpack. He replaces periods with flat, lazy swings of the dull bayonet. I stumble away, to wait with the troops in one of the drop crates. I don't know what their official name is. Its what the troops call them though. 

The conscripts are spread apart, some still wielding their chains. All of us with brands and hazard patches. I'm unsure why, as I file into my respective delivery box. Do they fear us together leading to revolt? Or are we supposed to value the kindness of mixing with those unimpressed. One squad fresh PDF soldiers. Another veterans. One officer, who I later found was a major. 
Like a fool, I admired the commanding officer's courage and bravery. 

All the veterans were bulky. Over burdened. We were dropping in a "clean" zone, all rumors had pointed to a safe drop, but nonetheless, I had to ask, what was under their battle vestments.
 
One of the nearer ones smiles, lifts his shirt. Two pairs boots. Nine sets of rations. Fourteen pairs socks, underwear. A small bottle of something pink. Gilded. He looks at me, as if I should be impressed. 
My, and the fresh troops', blank stare tells it all. They laugh to one another, as they called, echoed, "The economics professor, the economics professor." 

A smooth skinned, shining toothed, long haired veteran stood straight, and began to teach. 

"You may wonder why we, oh survivors and glorious soldiers of the fine, beloved Imperium of Man laden ourselves down with supplies?" His voice tucks high and low, exercising and dancing with practiced ease, as his smile grows, "What soldiers are we," He looks incredulous, as he leans in, "To carry such extra weight and tackle, when every education of war has taught you that this is a bad idea?" 
One of the fresher guardsmen sniggers a yeah I was wondering, before glowered into silence by the veterans. 

"Much less," the professor continued, "Much less with useless implements such as these? Pantyhose? Extra field rations? Tents, shoe laces, blankets, lights, and radios? What purpose could this be for the finest warriors of the Imperium," He gave us a moment, to digest. To think. 

"Because, we're not REALLY going into a war situation." 

The pilot performs some initial checks on the package containing us, and it responds with a low, cranky, hissing. 

"You see, we're getting deployed to one of the safer zones, and we're going to pots around and wait on the damn dirty island for a good, oh, whaddya think? Three?" The companion next to him grins a little, shaking his head, puts up two fingers, "Tch, an optimist, but I'll go with it, two weeks, while we marshal everything up, the generals settle their last minute arguments, and we get equipment deployed." 

He revels in the drama of the pause. He waits for our approval, our cluelessness. Our exhortation for conclusion. 

"And before that time, my friends, we are free men. The Vendolanders got the short stick, setting up perimeter and doing last minute secure sweeps, and sure, we'll get the occasional breach, but before then? We are waiting, bored, and surrounded by some of the poor, desperate people." 

He slaps his bag of hygienics, a knowing grin seeping across the faces of the others. 

"Our tradition," continued the man, "Is a long, revered one. Its roots lie in the Great Crusade." 

Fuck off Gluon, giggled one of the veterans in the back of the cab, enjoying the part of the heckler. 

"Oh, but it is so!" Veteran Trooper Gluon raised a finger, in solemn pose, "For, when the Emperor of Mankind beautifully, generously and nobly went forth to reunite all humanity, to liberate them from prey of Alien, Mutant and Heretic! He found he had a lot of supporters," Gluon smiled again, white teeth flashing, "Violent, normal, hungry supporters." 

"What shock, the Emperor faced, on his return from Holy Terra, when he found that those oh so ambitious brave mortal souls following in his wake engaged in... Less than wholesome acts." 
"Looting. Murdering. And the big one," His eyebrows waggled above darkened skin, unscarred, "Good 'ol beloved raping." 

The Lieutenant by now had raised an eye under his cap of office, focusing on Gluon, so the man hurriedly stumbled over his words, vomiting out, "OF COURSE the Emperor was right pissed about this, mass corporeal punishment, tithes to entire worlds and families receiving a personal visit of apology from the Emperor, but the important thing was, he set it into law: Whosoever follows me, befouls and besmirches not the territories they claim." 

Aside from the mutant, heretics and aliens, echoed one. Another stated that this was apocryphal, and that any in such a time would not dare to do such a thing. Gluon shrugged then. 

"It's how it was told to me," A thought springs to my mind, generation after generation of soldier, telling this same tale, delivering this same lecture.

"So," Said Gluon then, smiling benevolently at the soldiers in the box, "The Emperor singlehandedly delivered a slap to the face to the billions following him, telling them, 'No Imperial Army shall ever engage in such unprofessional acts'. Naturally, this has been broken over the years, but we," At this Gluon looked back to his cohorts, and smiled at them, "We know better. It's kind of a tradition in the Guard, something you pick up besides. Just goddamn logic, where we get into my economics." 

"Pretend your some dumb dirt farmer, who, thanks to Yours Truly putting his balls on the line against horrid threats he could never imagine, gets to enjoy the fine and beautiful range of products only the Imperium of Man can provide. Suddenly," Gluon brings his fingers together, "The prices jack up. 'Trouble over by the beta sector,'" the veteran's head wobbles back and forth, mimicking an accent strange to my ears, putting on the face of a put out old man, "the reason given," The fingers draw together tighter, "Then, you get word that some place you've barely heard of is lit up in rebellion, and you can't get no more chocolate, then the PDF are drawn up and you're on war rationing, then all of a sudden there's no more trade, no more merchants, no more nothing, and you can't get out because the orbital bombardments taken out the bridge, and the market, and you don't know what to do when suddenly!" 

His fingers come apart, with a soft, 'fftttsss'. 

"The Imperial Guard arrive off world. They're bored, and they have plenty of junk laying around." 

"Rogue Trader's've got nothing on us man, you sick and tired of smelling like a goddamn barn?" Gluon points to his bag of hygienics, "Some guardsman doesn't care, just says he lost it to some thief, he'll get another set." 

Long as you don't push your luck murmurs on of the veterans, rubbing his back. 

"Long as you don't push your luck, right, thanks Chive, and all of a sudden, when you get your bare essentials squared away, you gotta ask yourself, man, wouldn't it be nice to get some radio? Maybe, some chocolate? A blanket? Heater?" Gluon leans back, his hands spreading apart to indicate the room, "We got everything." 

And they? Asks one of the new troopers, leaned forward. Enraptured. Caught up. The Lieutenant even, though he leans back into the deck, has his eyes covered, has a grin on his face. 

"What do you think?" the veteran's face splits, the white teeth coming out again. 

Pussy. 

I glance back. It's another conscript like me that whispered it. Chained to the wall. He's practically slobbering. As he giggles.
 
"Exactly," Gluon smiles, "And that's why, we in the Imperial Guard don't rape. We don't need to." 

We're all sorta stunned a moment. Well. Those of us new to the business. It's. Intoxicating. 

"Not like it hurts," Says Gluon, as he leans back, his smile fading, looking left, wistful, "I mean, you lay down a half hour or so, maybe get something in your mouth, and then you get something from it. Y'know? And its not like they got anything else to sell." 

Too bad most of them'll be cancered out. 

"Hey now, hey now, we're dropping in a clean zone. Aside from that, cancer chick'll ask for less. And most of the women on world'll be sterile, so you can ride bareback. It's just the fact of life, they don't have things that we have a plentitude of." 

How do you know so much about this, asks one of the greens. 

"Well, I'm a veteran aren't I? Get around, don't I?" Gluon sits back, stiff for a moment. Before one of the veterans, the sergeant smiles. 

He lifts his hand, thumb and pointer finger connected in circle, the rest of the fingers following suit. He brings the hand up close to his lips.
 
Shluck. The other veterans smile. Imitate. Shluck. Shluck. 

The hands go back and forth in concert, as Gluon watched, seeing this once before. Before laughing. 

He stands, gathering the greens behind him, saying he'll take them to the armory. Teach them what to take. The noise follows him out, as some of the veterans can't hold it in. Start laughing, keeling over. 
I can't help but notice Trooper Gluon's tired look. His long, blond hair. His androgynous features. 

Not just the young women, I hear, whispered to my side. 

Later in the campaign, Gluon made sergeant. They were in deep, one of the sabotage jobs near the end of breaking one of the smaller groups. They, and his men were caught, ammo wasted, ordered to surrender. 
The soldiers say that Gluon laughed. He liked laughing. I remember his laughter, recognizable from across base, this tinkling, pretty, ephemeral sound. High bass kind of thing. I could only imagine that laughter. 
The rest of the men were taken alive. When they got returned to the Imperium, fished from the ocean on a raft they were meant to die on, they said the sergeant shot himself, rather than be taken prisoner.
 
When the Lieutenant made Sergeant Gluon a hero, a main propaganda piece, another piece of the story got out. That before shooting himself, Gluon laughed, placing his mouth over the barrel of his lasgun, looking at his tormentors, as he approximated fellatio on his weapon. Laughing at them. Before shooting himself. 

The survivors were executed to the man for Conspiracy to Destroy Morale. 

I remembered him, every time I passed the whore houses and alcohol shops that had mushroomed around our base. I remembered, every time I saw Imperial rations being cooked over a fire, tended by young mothers, as they kept an eye on their children, running in Imperial army boots. 
Very tired looking young mothers. 

We called them Gluon Girls.
 
Hour 'till planetfall.

[[Category:Stories]]
[[Category:Imperial]]
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]