The old man was studying the dirt in grave detail when the Valkyrie landed. Wind from the turbines buffeted his stalks and stems that heβd poured loving hours of harsh labor into; he had found spiritual meaning in his flower garden. He thought of it as a small bastion of peace and beauty in a frankly terrible universe.
The dirt was still on his mind when the officers from the Munitorum came trampling up to him. The rainfall this year had been steady, but the soil was significantly less fertile than heβd had reason to suspect. Could there be some chemical agent dropping off the hills nearby that acted as salt for the flowers? But heβd ranged the area and seen nothing to suggest that...
He didnβt bother wondering why the soldiers and bureaucrats were after him. It was the same thing every time. But the dirt was an endless and cheerful mystery to him.
βββββββββββββββββββββββββββ
The old man had lost his comfortable overalls and straw hat, washed his hands and face, gotten a haircut. He donned his old uniform- a simple grey tunic with a tastefully small rack of awards on his left breast, golden epaulets on the shoulders, the holy Aquila embedded into his collar on either side.
He addressed the staff officers as one clot, not bothering making eye contact with any of them. It was all so tiresome...
βBrief me.β
They did.
A contingent of Ultramarines had touched down on the agricultural world of Albion, looking to acquire raw materials for some war off on a planet nearby against an Ork invasion, the details of which went in one of his ears and out the other. Something about logistics being easier than setting up a supply chain to Ultramar.
Their arrival had coincided with a Chaos incursion. Unbelievable though it seemed, it looked like the Ultramarines had gone heretic. Theyβd assassinated the planetary governor and seized key installations. Everywhere they went, Warp monsters and creeping corruption had followed.
The Space Marines, number about a hundred as far as anyone could tell, were dug in, and the ten Astra Militarum regiments on hand had been gutted over the course of three assaults trying to root them out. Unspoken but easily inferred was that it was cheaper and easier to rustle on an old man off of his farm than to divert reinforcements to brute force it.
The old man, now calling himself Hetman yet again, perked up slightly as he absorbed the details. It would at least be an interesting problem this time. Last time he had gotten stop-lossed,
... keep reading on reddit β‘
