Void
"Ser Mamaduke preparing for embarkment! All Imperial Guard Personnel, can I have your attention? Imperial Guard 22nd Division(Terra) please proceed to dock for embarkment."
"Shall we proceed?"
"Sir, yes Sir, Lord Militant-Sir!" The two colonels and the two commissars replied smartly. Colonel Adelard Francouz was resplendent in his antique uniform, a relic of a bygone age, while Commissar Petit's formal breastplate, soot-blacked, was scarcely less impressive. Sophia Van Stoat's own dress uniform, with medals, was paling in comparison, and Michael Goldenrod's Commissar getup matched it, except for the ridiculous hat.
The Lord Militant saluted the four officers, and the parade review began, starting with the Van Doos' regimental flag. Rumour had it the thing had been repaired and recycled until none of it had remained from the original, but at the same time, at no time was any part of it ever entirely new. 1912, 1945, those numbers look low... thought the Lord Mil, as he was called by some subordinates out of hearshot. And what could they have done back then that wasn't improved upon?
He had no idea that this banner was a miniature, bearing a single patch for every single conflict the regiment had participated in, including all the regiments it had been amalgamated with over the millenia. An inquisitor had even investigated the regiment for heresy, for daring to have battle honors dating back to before the imperium!
Few people suspected, such had been the records lost in the senseless brutality of information lost in the millenia-old Imperium, but the Fusilliers were 14 days younger than the Van Doos, if you could trace back the proper records, but only one of the tech-priests of Mars could have done so, and they kept their own council.
Embarkation on the Ser Marmaduke was a complicated affair, but the colors' section and band of both regiments had been well trained, and everything proceeded smoothly, soon, everyone was inside the ships' cavernous interior, including the many vehicles that a Regimental Assault Team needed to function, earthshaker guns and tractors, as well as tanks. The section and team leaders were in a small knot next to the colors band, from Sniper-Warrant Hume, Artillerist-Warrant Van Stoat, Captains Benjamin Armstrong, Cynthia Goldenrod, Wintermint and Narvik and Van Stoat, hmm, that's a lot... Wait, that's the colonel's name too, isn't it, he walked to Captain Goldenrod, who was in the senior-most position, at the beginning of the row, and asked her, gently: 'Captain, I seem to be having many duplicate family names in this unit's officers, would you help me untangle that, please?'
"Of course Sir, Artillerist-Warrant Officer first class Dacapo Van Stoat is Colonel Sophia Van Stoat's youngest brother, while Captain Niels Van Stoat is the middle child. Whereas I myself am Commissar Goldenrod's younger sister.
"Isn't that unusual? I thought for any one child to be a Commissar, one had to be an orphan sent to a Schola Progenium?"
"We both were, Sir."
"But you didn't become neither a Sister of Battle nor a Commissar?"
"No sir, I shortly became a Tempestor, sir. But after I had a close shave, I decided I'd rather not be caught between a pair of Inquisitors having a mild difference of opinion, if you take my meaning, Sir. I asked my brother about a transfer."
"And he approved it?"
"Of course not Sir, I asked him if he thought it was a good idea, which he most empathetically did not, and sent it anyway." She looked younger than she must be, a Tempestor, a Tempestu Scion Squad Leader, took years to make. Despite this, she was young looking and almost childish in her glee at disobeying her older brother. "Of course, part of the reason he thought it was a bad idea, he did not explain, and so I ended up called to the regimental HQ, answering the questions of his newest commanding officer, whereas he'd been considering asking for transfer himself and didn't really feel like telling me.
"Hmm, and why would he ask for a transfer just for a new commanding officer?"
"Err, I don't know if I should say sir, not the particulars, but Colonel Van Stoat knew me and my brother, before we were sent to the Schola... Her family were close family friends of ours."
"I see, carry on."
"Welcome, fine guardsmen, did you know that the words Astra Militarum come from an extinct tongue of ancient Terran origin, and mean Weaponized Stars?" That was a well known half-truth, an urban legend common to many units in the Segmentum. "Today, we leave this place, we enter the Void, the blackness of space, to travel. I'm told we are expected in Urdesh in a month. Please give any and all collaboration to the Navy Provosts whose task it is to ensure the ship, and all aboard arrive safely. The Emperor Protects."
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