Apparition

Lady Commissar-General Simone Thanh's hololith flickered, like an apparition. She was a petite, middle-aged woman with an augmetic eye that wouldn't have looked out of place on a psyber-eagle. She had the thankless task of rooting out chaos corruption on the entire second front of the Crusade, and none who had met her doubted her ability to do so.
"Michael?"
"Yes, Commissar-General?"
"How are the 8745th doing?"
"We're still reeling a bit from losing our sister unit, Commissar-General, but it's like shakes, give us something worthwhile to do and it'll go away."
"Hmm."
"Yes Commisar-General?"
"I wish more of my subordinates, especially the Commissars, displayed such can-do attitude, it wouldn't be out of place on a regiment of field engineers."
"It comes from us being raised from Progena, Ma'am."
"Progena? All of you?"
"Well, all progena or progena-rejects ma'am. Six of us graduated, but the rest made themselves useful."
"Six? And which progenium?"
"Springfield Nor-am, Ma'am."
"Oh, you're all TERRANS?"
"Terran-born ma'am, not that it affects anything, we bleed the same as anyone else."
"But everyone wants to make the pilgrimage you have to make in reverse... Going to Holy Terra, not coming from it."
"Everyone wants to see the Sanctum Imperialis, not the wheat, corn and barley fields of Nor-Am, nor the greenhouses."
"Oh, it's agricultural?"
"No, Ma'am, not technically, but it is almost self-sustaining now, which considering the population of the hive-cities it has, is an achievement."
"Oh. And you say six of you graduated?"
"Of two entire progena year, yes."
"Oh, over two years? That's about average then. Five in a year would have been astounding."
"Yes." He said nothing, he'd been the only one in his year to graduate, while five had graduated from the year after. A statistical anomaly the progena still investigated to this day.
"Tell me about the other graduates."
"My sister, Captain Cynthia Goldenrod, became a Tempestus on graduation, and a Tempestor, less than a year later."
"Oh, a young prodigy, at that, but she isn't one now though?"
"No, she asked for honourable discharge and transfer after... an incident. The request was granted by my commanding officer."
"Let me guess, next you had an ecclesiarch?"
"No, we had two more Tempestus scions, and two more Officio Prefectus members. My sister's the only one to make Tempestor, though, and my classmate Rajiv the only one to make Lord-Commissar."
"I will have to reassign him, he can't be your discipline superior if you went to progenium together."
"I'm sure the commissar-general knows best, but we've had no issues before."
"No, and that's what worries me, not assigning progenium-mates over each other is to prevent cover ups, mostly, not because we expect conflicts of personality, or just long-seated differences, even if those do indeed happen. I do find it interesting that he never mentioned his progena, nor that he was the second-best marked graduate in his year."
"You've read our files?" Michael stuck his tongue out of his mouth and bit the tip, as he was wont to do when he was nervous. It flickered in the 'lith, and was distracting.
"I had to, after I read that Commissar Petit was the best graded commissar-cadet in the last twenty years, across the entire segmentum solar."
"Oh."
"You're entirely too calm for someone who tried to steal a lord-commissar's girl, Michael..." She knew it was more than twenty years ago, but still, she wanted to probe, wanted to know what was hidden there. The reports of Michael spending days at Carmine's bedside, while Rajiv only had shown up once, had left her with so many questions...
She's rejected me, he wanted to scream, Rajiv had nothing to fear from me. But instead, impasssive, he said: "I am a Commissar assigned to the second front of a crusade against the Primordial Annihilator, my enemies are countless, Rajiv would be a formidable foe, but he is not my enemy."
"I swear, you sound like Commissar Cain right now." That made Michael blush, Commissar Cain was his hero. "Or maybe Lord Executor Gaunt." Who, of all the charges Commissar-General Thanh had under her command, was the only one who'd given her pause. He'd caused her predecessor to be replaced, after all, but misjudging the Warmaster's future second in command was never good for one's career.