"Gifts" from Terra

"Commissar," he said in a low voice, quiet enough that only the two of them could hear, "I know what you have done, and I know you have earned the Primarch's favor. But I must warn you: as long as I remain the military commander of this force, I will never allow any form of personality cult or heretical ideology to continue spreading here."

"My soldiers need obey only two things: the laws of the Imperium and my orders—not some illusory 'Hearth' and 'Eldest Brother.'"

"Oh?" Alexander raised an eyebrow. "And what do you intend to do, Colonel? Send all three hundred of them before a court-martial and charge them with... hmm, excessive 'loyalty'?"

"I will remake them into true soldiers, the Mordian way." Colonel Karsten's eyes gleamed with a will as unyielding as steel. "I will grind away the 'individuality' they should not possess with the strictest discipline, the dullest drill formations, and the most tedious inspections of uniform and conduct. I will make them forget those mad notions and remember what true loyalty to the Emperor means."

Alexander looked at him, then suddenly smiled. That smile was full of pity, as though he were looking at an innocent child trying to empty the ocean with a soup spoon.

"Colonel, I admire your courage. Truly."

"Well then, good luck."

With that, he ignored the stunned Imperial officer. Turning around, he spread his arms toward his more than three hundred "family members," whose faces were already filled with hostility and disdain.

"Brothers! Our new regimental commander has brought everyone their first gift from Terra!"

"Let us welcome him with our loudest roar!"

"For the Emperor! And for... Colonel Karsten!"

"ROAR!!!"

More than three hundred iron throats erupted in a deafening roar at once. It was filled with strength and fervor, but not a trace of respect for their new commander.

It sounded more like the bloodthirsty, brutal roar of beasts in an arena welcoming a challenger they were about to tear apart.

Colonel Karsten's face instantly turned livid.

He knew that his first war within this unit had begun. And his enemies were neither Chaos nor xenos, but his nominal partner and the three hundred and fifty-one mad believers under his command who had offered their souls to the Hearth.

The long and painful reorganization began amid that strange undercurrent of confrontation.

Just as Guilliman's decree had promised, the 99th Regiment of the Cadian Pride received reinforcements at the Imperium's highest priority. But before the vast, bloated Imperial bureaucracy, "highest priority" remained an irony-laden joke.

In the first week of reorganization, they received their first shipment of supplies: ten thousand brand-new, impeccably pressed ceremonial uniforms from some noble world, embroidered with ornate gold-thread crests and accompanied by ridiculous feathered hats.

The civilian official from the Imperial Departmento Munitorum responsible for escorting the shipment arrogantly explained to the dumbfounded Colonel Karsten, "These are the latest instructions from Indomitus Crusade Logistics Command. To demonstrate the Imperium's majesty, all newly formed units must adopt standardized uniforms. Here is your sizing chart. Fill it out, sign it, stamp it, make three copies, and submit them to the Departmento Munitorum's Uniform Office for approval."

Looking at those splendid uniforms, which offered no ballistic protection whatsoever, Karsten was so furious that he nearly drew his bolt pistol and blew the clerk's head off on the spot.

In the second week of reorganization, the thousand standard Cadian-pattern lasguns they had requested finally arrived. But when they opened the weapon crates, they found a thousand crudely made black-powder flintlock muskets from some feral world inside, weapons that even had to be manually loaded.

The Adeptus Mechanicus tech-priest handling the transfer explained in an emotionless synthesized voice, "...According to the will of the Omnissiah, Terra's manufactorums are currently prioritizing production for Space Marine Chapters. Calculations indicate that this batch of Loyalist Type I muskets possesses single-shot lethality 3.14 percent greater than standard lasguns within fifty meters. They meet combat standards. Please sign for receipt."

Colonel Karsten stared at those muskets, more primitive than museum antiques, trembling with rage and unable to say a word.

In the third week of reorganization, the first batch of reinforcements they had been eagerly awaiting finally arrived. They were three thousand criminals, gang members, and vagrants from the lowest Hive Cities of Terra, stuffed into transport ships like garbage by the Administratum and delivered to them in bulk.

Every one of them was sallow and skinny, their eyes filled with numbness, cunning, and hatred for authority. They could not even stand in a basic formation. The training uniforms issued to them were filthy within a day, and some even tried to wager them away.

As Colonel Karsten looked at this group of "soldiers" unfit even to serve as cannon fodder, his face of steel-like resolve showed, for the first time, an expression called despair.

He felt that he had not come to reorganize a heroic unit, but had instead been exiled to a galaxy-sized asylum filled with lunatics, swindlers, and scum.

And just as these bureaucratic "Terra specialties" and these "high-quality" recruits had driven him to distraction and brought him to the verge of collapse...

In stark contrast to Colonel Karsten's misery, his partner, Commissar Alexander von Lawrence, seemed entirely untroubled, living every day with remarkable fulfillment and happiness.

Faced with the ten thousand ceremonial uniforms, Alexander did not get angry. Instead, he waved a hand and announced the "99th Regiment's First Military Uniform Fashion Show." He had the more than three hundred veterans strut across the training ground in those ridiculous outfits, judging categories for "Prettiest Cross-Dressing Hunk" and "Most Charismatic Tough Guy." The winners received a bottle of vintage liquor from his private collection, brewed on some world that had long since gone extinct.

The entire training ground turned into a sea of laughter. The soldiers laughed until they doubled over, and the usual oppressive madness in the air faded somewhat. In the end, they used those uniforms as targets during shooting practice and blasted them to pieces.

Faced with the thousand primitive black-powder flintlocks, Alexander did not complain. Instead, he announced the founding of the 99th Regiment Vintage Weapons Research Association. Personally leading a group of veterans and recruits with a keen interest in machinery, he had them dismantle and study every musket, then conduct "extreme modifications" under the half-coerced "technical guidance" of the tech-priest.

They fitted the antique guns with laser sights, replaced their ammunition with high-explosive rounds, and even insanely strapped chainsaw bayonets beneath the barrels. In the end, these "antiques" became bizarrely shaped, astonishingly powerful close-range killing weapons, brimming with the style of "Ork technology."

And when faced with the three thousand replacement troops who were little better than trash, Alexander displayed patience and enthusiasm that Colonel Karsten could not comprehend in the slightest, like a loving father.