Chapter 66: Passing On Experience
Duvette walked the metal corridor back toward the lower deck with a mind that was sharper than it had any right to be.
That was the Veteran's Frame making itself known. He was aware of it. He was also aware that soldiers with surplus energy and no productive outlet would inevitably create problems, especially aboard a troopship carrying newly merged units that were still learning to exist alongside each other.
There was also the more pressing matter. Before they reached Parmenio, he needed to give his officers a lesson that could not wait.
He worked through it as he walked. Based on what he carried in memory from his previous life, he was almost certainly the most comprehensively informed person in the entire Imperial system on the subject of Tyranid tactical behavior.
That knowledge kept to himself was a death sentence for his regiment. Converted into tactical doctrine and driven into his soldiers' heads before the first contact, it was a fighting chance.
He stepped out of the lift and into the 112th's camp.
It was exactly what he had expected. Every light burning. The entire regiment awake.
Soldiers had come out of their narrow cabins and were filling the corridors and rest areas, moving in aimless clusters, talking, restless in ways they could not quite name. A few were fieldstripping and reassembling their lasguns in repetitive cycles. Others were on their hands, doing push-ups with a relentlessness that should have had them gasping but did not.
Near the end of one corridor, a small crowd had formed around an Eisenmark armoured trooper who had produced a lho-stick from somewhere. He had it burning in the corner of his mouth and the surrounding infantrymen were pressing close, angling for a drag, apparently hoping to channel the excess energy into something they understood.
Duvette left them to it.
The moment he appeared in the corridor, the noise stopped. Soldiers came to attention, right fist striking left chest in salute. Duvette gave a minimal nod and walked through them toward the back of the barracks, looking for Evan.
The cabin door was unlocked.
Evan was sitting on the edge of his bunk, his well-maintained autopistol held in both hands, his eyes clear and alert. On the other bunk, Lena was asleep.
The small girl's breathing was steady, her brow uncreased. No nightmares this time. She was simply and deeply asleep.
Duvette registered this immediately.
Lena sleeping normally meant Veteran's Frame had not applied to her. The System, in its own assessment, did not count this girl with no formal establishment as a member of the Legion.
He did not disturb her. He looked at Evan and tilted his chin toward the door.
Evan understood at once. He reholstered the autopistol, stood, bent over his sister's bunk to press a brief kiss to her forehead, pulled the blanket straight around her, and followed Duvette quietly into the corridor.
"Commissar. What are your orders?" Evan kept his voice low. His eyes carried the same bright, undeniable energy as everyone else's.
"Gather all officers at Captain rank and above," Duvette said, moving as he spoke. "Tell them I have important tactical matters to communicate. I'll be in the vacant briefing room at B-3. Move quickly."
"Understood." Evan was already gone, disappearing into the crowd before Duvette had taken another step.
Duvette arrived at the briefing room alone.
The compartment had originally served naval officers for tactical exercises. A large hololithic projection table occupied the center, ringed by rows of cold metal seating. He pulled out a chair, sat, closed his eyes, and waited.
It did not take long. Boot steps in the corridor, dense and close together.
The automatic door slid open and more than twenty officers filed in. The compartment had not been designed for this many bodies and it showed.
Duvette scanned the room. Familiar Ash Watchers faces: Major Dylan, Stroud, Finn, Anderson. Eisenmark faces from the merger: Major Kleist, Captain Ronan. Others he recognized from the Shrine World campaign.
When the last of them had found a place, he raised one hand.
"Find somewhere to sit. I know you are all running at full capacity right now â€" some of you probably feel like there is something burning under your skin. If you have questions, hold them until I am finished."
His voice was not raised. It did not need to be. The commissar's register needed no volume behind it to do its work. The briefing room went quiet. Every pair of eyes came to rest on him.
"We are proceeding to Parmenio for reorganization and resupply. After that, we go to the Macragge front lines."
No preamble. No easing them into it.
"The enemy we will face there is called the Tyranid swarm. I want you to set aside everything you know about fighting traitors or greenskins. That experience is worthless against the swarm."
He stood, walked to the hololithic table, and put both hands flat on its surface.
"They do not fight for territory, faith, or glory. They are biological predators of the purest kind. Every word I tell you tonight will directly determine whether you and your soldiers live or die."
Around the table, expressions that had been attentive became something else. Even Kleist, who did not generally adjust his posture for anyone, straightened in his seat.
"First: the synaptic network."
One finger extended.
"The Tyranid swarm is not disorganized. They are controlled by a vast collective consciousness. What you will see on the battlefield are large creatures â€" heavily armored, carrying biological weapons grown directly from their own bodies. These are nodes. In the doctrine I am about to give you, they are called Synapse Creatures."
He looked across the room.
"Their function is to relay the hive mind's commands to the smaller organism types that move like wild animals. Your snipers and heavy weapons teams will have one standing first priority above all others: Synapse Creatures. Kill them. Always. Every time."
"When a Synapse Creature is eliminated, the smaller organisms in its vicinity lose their command link. They revert to instinct, uncoordinated, and frequently begin damaging each other in the absence of direction. Remove the nodes. That is how you break a swarm that would otherwise be unbreakable."
Second finger.
"Second: Genestealers." His tone shifted slightly, dropping a register. "Some of you have already encountered them. On the space hulk. These creatures are the Tyranids' advance infiltrators."
"They will have established themselves in the sewers, the mine workings, and the poorest districts of any target world long before the fleet arrives. They infect humans and build extensive cult networks from inside the population. Some Genestealers are effectively indistinguishable from an ordinary human being at a glance â€" slight differences in skull structure and skin tone are the only external markers."
"Others are not subtle at all."
"Before the hive fleet makes its approach, these cults systematically sabotage the planet's defenses, its communications infrastructure, and its supply lines from within."
"In any future combat zone: do not extend unqualified trust to local defense forces or to senior planetary officials. Maintain vigilance without exception. Anyone displaying abnormal levels of fanaticism, or any physical deformity that cannot be explained â€" take them into custody or eliminate them on the spot, then report to me directly."
A pause. Third finger.
"Third: Spore Mines. During the fighting you will encounter fleshy spherical organisms drifting in the air."
"These are living munitions. They track heat signatures and life signs. When they close to range, they detonate. The detonation releases a concentrated acid capable of dissolving ceramite armor, combined with a lethal toxin cloud."
He looked at the armoured regiment officers.
"Do not let your tanks run them over. Do not permit infantry to close with them. Identify them at safe distance and put precision fire on them before they can close the range. Every time."
The briefing room was completely silent. Only the sound of controlled breathing. The intelligence was too detailed, too specific, too far beyond anything the standard Departmento Munitorum briefing packages had contained â€" it cut against assumptions these veterans had held for their entire careers.
"Commissar." Major Kleist was the first to break the silence. The grey-blue eyes were full of a searching quality that had not been in them during the Shrine World campaign. "This intelligence is remarkably detailed. The Departmento Munitorum briefings have not even described the enemy's full profile. How did you..."
"This intelligence comes entirely from Lord Inquisitor Juno Karol." Duvette laid out the prepared shield without a moment's pause.
He held Kleist's gaze. The voice left no opening.
"What price the Ordo Xenos paid to obtain these classified files is not a question any of us should be asking. Before she left the ship, the Lord Inquisitor placed these keys to survival in my hands. I am passing them to you because we need to live through what is coming."
The words "Lord Inquisitor" pressed down on the room's remaining skepticism and held it there.
In the Imperium, the Inquisition's authority sat above every other institution without exception. No one in that room was going to question a Lord Inquisitor's intelligence sourcing. The associated risks were too well understood.
Duvette had no concern on this point. With Juno's name behind him, there was no one aboard this troopship in a position to challenge his standing.
"I want every person in this room to commit what you just heard to memory."
He stood straight, hands behind his back.
"When this meeting concludes, you will transmit it to every soldier under your command. Word for word. You will convert it into tactical doctrine. You will put it in their heads until it becomes reflex. This is not optional. It is the difference between surviving and not."
"Understood!" The officers' answer came together, sharp and clean.
"Good." Duvette was ready to dismiss them.
Stroud raised his hand from the front row.
Duvette tilted his chin slightly, acknowledging.
"Commissar." Stroud was grinning. "I feel extraordinary right now. Not even slightly tired. I genuinely feel like there is enough strength in my body to go hand-to-hand with a greenskin right now."
He looked around at the officers surrounding him, most of whom wore the same bright-eyed quality. "Same for everyone here. Even the armoured regiment's lot aren't yawning. Commissar â€" is this something to do with you?"
Duvette raised an eyebrow. "Why would you think that?"
Stroud let out a short laugh, lowered the hand he had been using to scratch his bald head. "It was like this on Farrak IV as well. After a certain point in those fights, our sharpness, our will â€" it all felt different from before."
Around the room, the 101st veterans nodded. Anderson and Finn both looked at Duvette with the settled certainty of men who had already reached their own conclusions about the answer.
The Eisenmark officers glanced at each other. They had joined the formation later. But tonight's inexplicable physical state defied any rational explanation available to them.
Duvette looked at these faces â€" every one of them worn by the things they had survived â€" and allowed a brief, quiet sound.
He neither confirmed nor denied what Stroud was suggesting.
"Since you all feel so full of energy," he said. The brief warmth left his expression. The exacting tone came back. "Since you all believe you could tear a greenskin apart with your hands. That is a useful thing to know."
He moved toward the briefing room's automatic door, stopped in the frame, and turned back for the final order.
"Beginning tomorrow, until we arrive at Parmenio â€" all companies, all squads â€" daily physical conditioning and tactical coordination training is doubled across the board. Armoured crews are not exempt. Go to the deck and do your weight and conditioning drills there."
"Huh?"
"Commissar, that'sâ€""
Behind him, barely-suppressed groaning filled the room. The Eisenmark armoured officers â€" men who had spent the last decade living inside their vehicles â€" wore expressions that suggested they had received news of a personal catastrophe.
Duvette did not acknowledge any of it. He pressed the door control. The automatic door slid open. He walked out and left the noise behind him.
Long metal corridor. The ventilation system producing its steady, featureless white noise. Duvette drew a breath of oil-scented air.
Before the next meatgrinder, he intended to make the most of this last stretch of peace that still belonged to a commissar.
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