Reassignment
Outside the bunker the snow eased, drifting slower on it’s way to quilt the already thick white blanket covering the hills. Dimly aware of the change, you stared out the gunport towards the bay below, iced edges broken by the turquoise swirl of briny slush in the center of the cove. Beyond, the colour eased into it’s signature deep lapis. Nothing marred the waters. No ships from either side, no skimmers skirting along the whitecaps.
She’d been too quiet, too intent on the lasgun stock she had been crafting from a broken hardwood bough the quartermaster had hefted outside the pillbox. Even though all Vostroyans give one in every ten hours in the service of the Emperor to creating weapons for the cause, it had never been like this. There would be idle chatter. Reminiscing about conflicts. Laughing about Commissar Dorf’s freshly acquired clipped accent, in an attempt to curry favour with Command. This was absolute silence, steely and almost hurtful. You leaning on the Heavy Bolter, her focusing her soul into the wooden stock. Nothing more.
It got too much for her after a few more minutes.
“I’m being transferred.” She had said it so bluntly that you could scarcely believe it. Outside in the snow would have been more hospitable.
“What?! Why? Where to?” you managed to stammer. She didn’t even look up from her work.
“Inquisitor requires my services.”
“Who, Bryce?” She nodded detachedly. Images of the one-eyed bastard conjured in the empty space between the two of you. How he had ordered Karker, Webs and Arlsby to their deaths in the ice caves and sipped his Distillac while their screams echoed across the tundra outside. The tortured wailing still kept you awake at night.
You wanted to do something. To go to Command. To approach the Planetary Governor. The Ecclesiarchy. Anyone who could stop this Bourgeois from taking her. But there was nothing. He was a Holy Inquisitor of the Istvaanian sect. You were a lone Vostroyan Firstborn. The best possible outcome would be a lashing for contempt of Command.
After the horrible moment eased into a bleeding agony, you stared across at Tory. The pair of you had been posted together just after basic, and were part of the same heavy weapon detail throughout your military careers. You weren’t friends, it was more. Comrades. Mates. Two soldiers combined to be one, united in the defense of the Imperium of Man.
And now that she was being taken away with less than a thought from some arrogant Inquisitor, it wasn’t the separation that killed you inside. It was her cold, uncaring detachment. As if all those years of action together, almost your very lives, meant nothing to her.
“So that’s it?” you said, voicing the screaming pain your viced heart felt. “After all this time, you’re leaving us, me. And you can’t even look me in the eyes?” At a loss you strode to her side and stared down at her, almost contemptuously. “Don’t you feel anything, Tory?”
At the sound of her name she threw the stock aside, the wood hitting the Bolter as she locked eyes with yours. Tears had welled up in her brilliant green orbs, and her soft face was paler than the cold should have been able to make it.
“Of course I do, you bastard!” she screamed, leaning her head against your leg and bashing it with a closed fist before she heaved once, a speck of water pattering onto your boot. “Can’t you see that my heart is breaking?”
Her tears flowed, dampening your uniform as you realized what a dick you’d been. So certain that she had discarded all that time together that you couldn’t see the throes of her emotional death.
Sighing, you knelt beside her, taking her in your arms softly. She leaned her head on your shoulder and wept unashamedly as you looked out the viewport, not seeing anything at all. She filled your senses as you realized that soon all of this would be just a memory. Her long, black hair which cascaded down her back, over her greatcoat. Her pleasant smell mixed with the damp plascrete of the pillbox. Her very presence alone, one of the reasons it had been so good to be alive at all.
She leaned into you until all of her tears had dried up, still unable to let go. She knew that these times would be gone soon too, nothing more than pleasant reverie for her to remember whimsically. You broke the silence, touched by the strength of her emotion.
“Tory… I’ve only ever seen you cry one other time.” It was on Blackspire, when you had taken a round from an Ork mob. The Medicae had worked on the wounds as she knelt next to you, refusing to leave. No-one else had seen it, but through the pain and system shock you recall tears rolling down her cheeks to mingle with the obsidian and dirt under you. It had always been a source of warmth for you that she had cared so much, that someone may be there to cry and mourn for you after all if you died. So much more than anyone else could hope for.
She sniffed once softly and nodded, rocking back on her heels so that she could return your soft gossamer gaze. Her eyes were a little red, and the water on her cheeks had begun to disappear, the droplets frozen on the floor already. Her arms remained on you as she smiled a little. “I was so sure you were going to die.”
“Not rid of me so easily, huh?” you said playfully, despite the mood. Tory laughed a little before wiping the tears from her cheeks through a gloved hand before it was returned to you.
“You know, I had already decided that if you died I would charge the Ork lines.”
“Why? It’s just me. Someone else would have come along.”
At the words she smiled sadly, a distant gesture. “It’s not ‘just you’. I don’t want to live in a universe without you. Out of everyone I have ever met, you’re the only one who has looked out for me and cared about me.” She pulled you in and embraced you warmly, her tight body seeming closer than both your uniforms away. “That means worlds to me.”
Her uniform always hugged all the right places, and you had broken more jaws than she had hearts just protecting her honour. Not that she really needed your protection. Once she had said that the Emperor himself would have to take absolve her of her chaste lifestyle, until she had found the one she had wanted to spend eternity with. True, it wasn’t very soldierly chatter. But you two had never had much of a soldierly relationship; more like awesome friends who got paid to liquidize aliens and heretics with a huge gun.
“I’m going to miss you more than you’ll ever know.” You whispered resignedly, rejoicing in this Emperor-sent moment. Tory stiffened for a second before drawing back for a moment, a slight rose bloom on her cheeks.
“I just decided something.” She declared before breaking the embrace and walking over to the bunker door, grit grinding underfoot. She swung it closed softly and activated the electromagnetic lock, a light hum audible for a moment, before crossing to the gunport and shutting the blast shutters. An amber light flashed on automatically, bathing the bunker with a golden candescence. Leaning against the bolter, she was smiling shyly. Her gloves were already on the plascrete floor as she slowly undid the gleaming buttons on her overcoat.
“I know now who I would rather spend the rest of my life with. And seeing soon I won’t be able to live that life with you, I want you to do me one last favour…” her voice was husky, a tone only used in jest before now. In shock, you slowly approached her, the dark eyes beckoning you. You were completely powerless, compelled to obey your best friend. As you undid the last buttons she timidly shrugged the overcoat away, the shirt’s top three clasps already open, as they always were on the hotter climate planets. The amber light played on the top slopes of her perfect breasts as slowly you reached forward, her shuddering an inhale gently and Command got scared and said “You’re moving with the Five-oh-Fourth to Voltaire.”
You whistled for a Lander and when it came near there were fresh painted dice on the landing gear. If anything you could say this ‘Hawk was rare but you thought, ‘Now forget it’ – “Yo Holmes! To Voltaire!”
You touched down planetside about seven or eight and you yelled to the pilots “Yo Holmes, smell ya later!”
You looked at your posting, you were finally there. To sit on your throne as the law on Voltaire.”