Carry This Banner

The atmosphere instantly froze.

Everyone held their breath, waiting for the inevitable outburst. By convention, the standard response for a newly arrived commissar facing such naked provocation was to draw his bolt pistol on the spot and blast the old soldier's head into pulp as a warning to the rest.

Yet Alexander did not move.

He merely looked calmly at the old soldier on the verge of losing control with his pale golden eyes.

He could clearly sense the abyssal pain, despair, and post-traumatic stress hidden beneath the old soldier's violent exterior.

He sensed no "malice" from him, only an urge to "seek death." He was using this method to test the limits of authority—or rather, he longed for authority to end him and free him from those endless, agonizing memories.

"What is your name, soldier?" Alexander asked. His voice was not loud, but it was exceptionally steady, carrying a power that soothed the heart.

The old soldier froze for a moment. He had not expected such a response.

"...Orik," he answered instinctively.

"Orik." Alexander nodded. "Which regiment?"

"...Former Cadian 8th Regiment. Kasrkin assault troops." Orik's voice sank. As he spoke the designation, an unmistakable flash of pride and pain crossed his weathered face.

"Kasrkin..." Alexander repeated the name. "Cadian's finest troops. Legends of the Imperium. I have read your battle reports. At Iron Gate, three of your companies held off the Black Legion for three hours, buying precious time for the main force of the 13th Black Crusade to withdraw. You are heroes, Sergeant Orik."

Orik was completely stunned.

He had not expected this young commissar, who looked barely out of his youth, to know their designation, let alone that insignificant battle long buried beneath countless defeats.

"Heroes?" Orik gave a self-mocking laugh, his voice hoarse. "In that battle, all three hundred and twenty-seven men in my company died. I was the only one who survived. What fucking hero am I? I'm just a coward who ran away by stepping over my brothers' corpses!"

His emotions flared again, and his bloodshot eyes turned crimson.

Alexander stepped forward and did something that left everyone, including Orik himself, utterly dumbfounded.

He reached out and gently, yet with unwavering firmness, embraced the old soldier, who was far taller and stronger than him.

He said nothing. He simply held him.

There was not a trace of disgust in that embrace. It was filled with warmth, understanding, and silent comfort.

Orik's steel-hard body went rigid. He could smell the clean scent of incense clinging to the young commissar. He could feel the other man's steady, powerful heartbeat.

An indescribable emotion, like a warm current, instantly shattered the thick wall around his heart, built from alcohol and rage. His eyes, so accustomed to death and terror, suddenly blurred.

He wanted to push the other man away. He wanted to roar. He wanted to prove that he was not some weakling who needed pity.

But his body would not obey him. The pain, grief, and guilt piled within him—enough to drive a man mad—found an outlet at last, like floodwaters bursting through a broken dam.

This Kasrkin veteran, who had never taken a single step back before the charge of Chaos Space Marines, this hardened man who had survived the apocalypse of a dying world, began to sob uncontrollably like a child before everyone.

He wept until his heart broke, pouring all his pain onto the young commissar's shoulder.

The entire camp fell deathly silent.

Everyone stared, dumbstruck, at the almost surreal sight before them.

The image they held of a "commissar"—cold, ruthless, and indifferent to human life—was utterly overturned in that moment.

Alexander continued to hold him quietly until Orik's sobs gradually faded into low sniffles.

Only then did he gently pat the old soldier's broad back.

"I know you are not a coward, Sergeant." His voice carried clearly to every ear. "You are alive because your brothers wanted you to live."

"With their sacrifice, they planted Cadian's final banner within your soul. They wanted you to carry that banner and keep fighting. They hoped that one day, you would personally plant it back in Cadian soil."

"Your life no longer belongs to you alone. It is the continuation of the lives of those three hundred and twenty-six brothers. You have no right to insult their sacrifice with alcohol and self-abandonment."

Alexander released him and looked directly into Orik's reddened eyes.

"Now tell me, Sergeant Orik. Are you willing to carry this banner?"

Orik looked at the young face before him, at those pale golden eyes that seemed able to see through everything.

There was no pity in them, no sympathy.

Only understanding, and an unquestionable... trust.

Slowly, he straightened the back that had grown somewhat stooped from drink. He raised an arm and fiercely wiped the tears and mucus from his face with his scarred, callused sleeve.

Then he came to attention, his heels snapping together with a sharp crack.

He gave Alexander a textbook-perfect military salute.

"Former Cadian 8th Regiment, Kasrkin, Sergeant Orik!" His voice no longer carried its earlier hoarseness and despondency, but once more rang with the clangor of steel. "Willing, Commissar!"

Alexander smiled and returned the salute.

Then he turned to face the soldiers, who were still lost in shock.

"My name is Alexander von Lawrence. I am your new commissar."

"I know who you are. You are survivors of Cadian, orphans of Taro, ghosts who crawled back from countless battlefields forgotten by the Imperium. You lost your homes, your comrades, and your honor."

"You believe yourselves to be trash, scraps, disposable parts in the Imperium's war machine."

His words were like sharp blades, piercing precisely into every soldier's heart.

"But today, I stand here to tell you this!" His voice began to fill with the uniquely stirring force of a "heretic leader." "You are not trash!"

"You are embers!"

"You are the toughest, most tenacious embers—the embers that survived even after being seared by the fires of hell!"