40 Thousand Reasons

Lord Commissar Cain was not happy. By every single rule of the universe he should have been long since dead, by claw or bite or bolt, even old age.

Instead, his body was still in its prime, barely a day over 30 years old. The Adeptus Munitorum had already decreed that Commissar Cain was to be considered alive and well even when presented with clear evidence to the contrary.

So far, he had been declared lost in space, devoured by Tyranids, chopped to bits by Orks, fallen into a Warp Vortex, blown apart by a volcano, drowned in a massive tidal wave, even enslaved by the Dark Eldar.

But to nobody's surprise, Cain had always survived.

Even now, when his new Mordian_Iron_Guard regiment was being overrun by genestealers in the underhive of Phodia, the capital of Hive World Asphedex, nobody really expected him to actually die.

After all, the regulation of the Imperium stated that he could never die.

Slashing left and right with his relic sword called Peace, Commissar Cain advanced to the front lines, to lend a hand to his brave guardsmen.

'Good men, all of them. So brave...' thought coursed through his mind, as he kept watch for any cowards or defectors. Fortunately, the Iron Guard had excellent recruiting standards and the guardsmen died with fury in their eyes, even as the corrupted mutants sliced them apart with their impossibly sharp claws.

Not sharp enough to block Peace. Nothing was. Damn sword could cut steel or bone with same deceptive ease.

'Damn Lancefire! Why did you have to give me this crazy sword?' Cain complained as he drew his blessed Inferno pistol and blew a hole through a giant genestealer, with tendrils coming out of his mouth. Better make sure, the larger xenos didn't reach the weak flesh of the Mordians.

At his back, the last pair of Amazons kept watch from their Armed Sentinel walkers, making sure that nothing attacked him from behind. Kelya and Mirage, the last of his Catachan bodyguards still alive after a century of service were mostly machines by now, their limbs and organs replaced with bionic components following scores of crippling injuries. Beside the giant chainswords, each Sentinel had a Lascannon arm, and those artillery-class weapons sliced though a dozen enemy ranks each shot.

To the right, his own children formed the Chrome Company, all wearing burnished power armor with pauldrons made of blackstone. Using multi-meltas and storm-bolters his children had a field day in these dark and polluted catacombs, as they held the line strong and blocked any attempt at envelopment.

Sadly, to the left the situation wasn't good at all, as the Mordians lacked Sentinels or power armor, and were thus getting massacred by the damned genestealer cultists.

Just then, a trio of large Broodlords burst through the rusted walls and crashed into the weakened left flank, creating a dangerous breach.

Cain drew back a few steps to analyze the situation and try to find an escape route. It seemed this battle was lost, once more. "Reserves, strike to the left!" he ordered while sneakily retreating towards the right, where the Chrome Company should be able to escort him out of this bloody mess.

The last Mordian battalion charged bravely into the maws of the genestealer Broodlords, while the Amazons focused fire on the middle Broodlord.

An Iron Guard Sergeant jumped bravely right into a giant maw, then detonated his melta bomb, while a second Broodlord fell on its side due to losing a knee to the Amazons lascannons.

However, the last Broodlord wasn't scared at all, and plowed through the final Guard battalion right toward Cain.

'Damn it! Why me?' Cain complained inward, while shooting the second shot of the Inferno pistol, and only burning out a single arm of the genestealer boss.

Cain slammed the pistol back into the hip holster and grit his teeth. 'I was leaving, why do you have to follow me?' he cried inside.

"Hold strong, for the Emperor!" he shouted outward, since morale was quite important, even in defeat. Especially in defeat.

A measured retreat would be much better than a panicked rout. Some people might survive that way, especially himself.

The monster jumped forward and slashed wide with its diamond talons, then gulped the poor Commissar whole. 'This is it! I am dead.' Cain thought as the maw closed around him and began crushing his light armor.

---------------

"Huh? It seems luck is not enough, after all." I commented out loud, while storing the brave Commissar in my tesseract.

"Woo?" Canis argued at my side.

Hmm. My wise wolf might be right. I did change this man's luck, or perhaps I was part of Cain's story now. Everyone deserved a Deus Ex Machina rescue, and my Titan Legion deploying right now on Asphodex was even named after this trope.

Still, that kind of dedicated targeting on the part of the Hive Mind, it didn't sit well with me. The last Broodlord had intentionally ignored easier targets just to reach the good Commissar, possibly in an attempt to shatter morale or weaken the defenses of this planet. Ever learning and adapting, the damn xeno godling.

With a flick of my fingers, the Iron Guard was returned to their barracks, while my techmarines continued the task of clearing the underhive, and get some live training too.

Aspirants in their new Armed Sentinels and the proper Lamenters with their Dreadknights Leviathans formed the main force striking towards the psyker genestealer Patriarch, at the bottom of the Hive City.

I kept a lazy watch over my troops, not that I expected any injuries against such weak opponents. My children and I trained on Space Hulks after all, without any armor or heavy weapons. Today it was merely a warm up, as my fleet tried to reduce the number of Tyranids approaching the planet from below the galactic plane. Lady Cassandra commanded the harassing fleet this time, from the Singularity battleship, while I had the task of creating a strong anvil to crush the bugs with, anchored by the Black Lament fortress.

The genestealers themselves would be considered mere biomass and devoured by the Tyranids once they made landfall, their purpose fulfilled by sowing rebellion and sedition inside the human defenses.

But for that, the Sororitas and the Inquisitors in my fleet were now scouring and interrogating the nobility in the upper spires, using their Jokaero-made detectors to filter out infiltrators and infected among the rulers of this world.

Some of the nobles including the Governor tried to fight back, urging their house Enforcers to resist, but since each Inquisitor had at least a Deathwatch company as escorts, plus thousands of Battle Sisters and their own retinues of agents, interrogators, assassins and techpriests...well. It rained blood.

Meanwhile, the stockpiles of vehicles and munitions were being transferred onto the surface, while cooperating leaders were tasked with recruiting ten thousand PDF regiments to help defend the planet from the incoming bugs.

With less than a month remaining, the training of the new soldiers would be rather low, and they would lack modern weapons or even standard Guard equipment.

But hollow metal spears and spinning flails weren't that high of technology that local factories couldn't produce, and even plasteel helmets and chest plates should help protect the PDF troops to some extent.

A hundred new manufactorums were converted from local factories to start producing new Hellguns and Heavy lascannons, while the chemical factories were being repurposed to produce explosive and incendiary munitions.

Luckily, I did have thousands of techpriests to oversee the militarization process, while the Hive World would easily afford millions of tech-servitors to be converted from the local criminals and gangs.

A few days later, I gathered my staff and the local commanders for a strategy meeting.

"Commissar Cain, my old friend!" I exclaimed over the holotable as the brave man gulped his third glass of amasec.

"... Yes?" he asked a bit fearful.

"In recognition for your devotion to the Emperor, and your formidable service record, I herby promote Lord Commissar Cain to the rank of General-Commissar!" I commanded with a glance towards my Inquisitor wife.

Lady Valeyne Lancefire grimaced for a second and nodded, a bit too slow. She wasn't happy then. But I knew better.

"Me?" Cain wondered while looking around for a hole to hide into.

"Yes, Lord Cain. You will take command of the local troops, roughly 10000 regiments being raised to defend this Hive World, a meager 100 million men with nearly no modern weapons. My own forces will support you, wherever the fight is thicker or titan-sized enemies are present." I explained in a polite tone.

In a few seconds, the man changed a dozen faces until he realized he wouldn't have to lead from the frontline anymore. It wouldn't be possible to command so many troops from the front anyways. A bit more relaxed, he set down his empty glass and leaned back into his chair.

With a glance towards the enormous holomap depicting the situation on and around Asphodex, the new General-Commissar turned towards me and observed me for a long minute. "Why me, my lord?" he asked eventually.

"There are a dozen reasons Lord Cain, but the most important is that the Hive Mind fears you. And if such potent enemy fears you, then you're the best man for the job. I dare say, there are few individuals in the entire galaxy that the commanding intelligence over the Tyranids actually fears." I answered with a wry grin.

All around the holotable, Astartes, Sisters, Generals and Inquisitors focused their gazes on this powerful menace that even the Hive Mind feared.

"... That Broodlord, it jumped towards me. Priority target?" the Commissar wondered, mostly to himself.

I shrugged carelessly, leaving the man to his delusions. I knew the man quite well, and he was mostly motivated by a powerful survival instinct, aided by a great amount of luck. And if the enemy was strong, that meant his survival depended on defeating the enemy, rallying troops and raising their morale. But no matter his reasons, once properly motivated the man was quite a genial commander who had trampled over Ork Bosses, Chaos Lords or genestealer Patriarchs by mere lucky aim or superb swordsmanship.

And his Chrome Company was almost at the level of a Deathwatch bodyguard, the lucky survivors of his Catachan concubines donated by myself nearly 150 years ago.

I was also certain the Emperor did have plans for the good Commissar, possibly something in the vein of a new Adeptus Terra order, that would bind the security of the Imperium with the Commissar's personal safety.

As the saying went, the Emperor was always watching, and Cain did have a holy relic Aquila marker glowing on the guard of his nice chronophage sword named Peace.

"Lead us to victory, General Cain!" Lady Regina shouted, raising her own amasec glass in salute.

Left without an avenue to escape, Cain raised his own glass and drank his sorrow away.

Then, we began planning how to massacre the filthy xenos, and people began throwing ideas and stratagems forward. Some of them wouldn't work on Tyranids, but humanity had plenty of other enemies. I had already located the Necron Magnovitrium weapon hidden under Phodia, and thus victory in this Cryptus_Campaign was already certain.

I made sure to remember every proposed trick or strategy, and began planning the next war, after this Hive Fleet was destroyed.

For in this grim dark future, there was only war.

The End.