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Commissar Yorke was practising blade work in the fencing hall, when his personal vox channel buzzed loudly in his ear, causing him to briefly drop his guard. The coach pulled back at the last moment, narrowly avoiding slicing the commissar's face with his sabre.

"I'm sorry, I've got to attend to this." Yorke bowed, and handed over his own sword to his opponent, before stepping off the piste.
Those bloody cadets. He tore off his jacket and plastron, stowing them roughly in his locker, and grabbing a speedy shower.
He loathed it, but if they were going to keep picking at scabs, he was going to have to use one of Delano's bonding techniques to stop them tearing the unit apart. They'll either come out of this stronger, or half of them will be dead, he mused.

His hair still damp, and striding back towards the barracks, Yorke had a sudden thought of how to raise the chances of getting more of the younger commissars herded back into their dorm, and cut across the quad instead of the most direct route. There he nearly collided with Cadet Alenko heading toward the exit.
"You should be in your room, cadet." he growled.
Alenko looked startled at the unusually stern tone, "But sir, this is free st- Yes sir." he matched pace with the commissar and returned to the dorm with him, sitting neatly on his assigned bunk as Yorke stood in the doorway, mentally counting heads. Six. Seven?
"All of you, sit your arses down and stay here. Apart from you," he pointed to an extra pair of small feet sticking out from under a bunk, "you, get out."
There was a muffled squeak, and a young medic appeared from under the bed, managing to pull her shirt closed as she stood up and fled, "Sir I-"
"Don't care. Out." Yorke snapped his fingers towards the doorway. He then leaned on it, sighing heavily in the stunned silence,"Lads, let me be clear: you have ten minutes to produce your squad mates or I will start getting very interested in the rest of this room."
There was a flurry of hands reaching for vox sets, and within six minutes, the room was full.

Yorke closed his eyes, and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingers, before flipping off his cap and running a hand through his hair in an attempt to concentrate. Then with an exceedingly tired expression he looked up again, and began to speak quietly, "In view of how poorly our initial deployment went, we need to learn to function more cohesively as a unit. That means no more looking out for the individual. You must be the eyes and ears for ten people at once. You must think as a group, and even if you do not like the man next to you, he is your left arm, and you his right," Yorke gazed around the room slowly, the cadets were focused keenly on him, despite the low voice, "as such for the remaining time until deployment, you are confined to barracks. It is crucial that you get to know one another as a working party."
The collective groan was cut short by Yorke's cold glare scanning the room.
"That means no trips out, no special visitors in, and you will hand in your wide access vox sets." Delano spoke from the doorway, causing a second collective groan.

As the pair stepped away from the room, Yorke felt the prickle of nine pairs of eyes boring into his back, wishing him a very painful comeuppance. Despite himself, he smiled tiredly. At least hating him, they were briefly united, which hopefully meant they could finally agree on something.

NOTE: this blurb takes place directly after Buttery's last bit

Ardo was having trouble with his lasgun, as he had run out of lubricant for the few moving parts. As he scrabbled around in his kit, he found that he had no extra bottle, but had found something that he didn't know he still had. He settled back on his bunk slowly, holding a battered and torn picture in his hand. A faint smile grew and faded as he looked at the picture, then placed it inside a pocket in his coat next to his bunk.
His rifle still wasn't fully functional, and he briefly considered sneaking out for the oil. Then he decided, as he was the one who had called Yorke, that he should truly take the consequences of his actions. Raillin called across the room "Hey, does anyone have extra grease?"
Hadj reacted quickly, "Right here Ardo!" He called as he tossed the bottle across the room.
Barbary snickered, "What happened to taking care of your gear 'Savage'?" Ardo bristled at the comment, but decided that this was not the time.
"What happened was that I actually take care of my gun, so I actually use my grease for more than just, personal use." He shot back with a wink.

Love it.
Your guys can leave the room, but they'd only be allowed around the canteen, supply area and surrounding corridors.

I'll leave it up to you guys who the girl was visiting, by the by.

Just to be clear: This wasn't to curtail the library stuff, you can still go and do that before Yorke's actions.
It was to try and unify the cadets in the upcoming conflict. It also gives them a small indication that he's not always lenient.

I'm waiting to see if theCrowe posts any more blurbs about Khan being suspicious of Alenko. That'll determine where I go with it. not much unity in this squad at the moment..

Well, nothing brings folk together like hate.
Between Tau and schoolmaster Yorke, they've enough to grumble over.

Yeah, I'm thinking (in vain) about the unification and not so much the snooping. I wasn't planning anything immediate there anyway, just sewing seeds for later. It'll be some time, probably before I'll be posting more story but I'm hoping it'll be a unity one and not more argy-bargy.

If it'll help things lie we can say that Khan and Alenko had a chat about Barbary and Alenko is satisfied that Khan has the wrong end of the stick.
Khan thinks Alenko is worked up about Barbary's retribution for the trial but has no idea that really Alenko is worried that Barbary might know his secret, namely his identity as the son of a heretic. Khan suspects nothing of the sort so Alenko has let it be for now.

I'm happy to say Yorke's curfew took place on the last day before deployment if it helps, and just because Yorke wants them to get on, doesn't make it compulsory.

I don't know, I kind of like suspicious Khan... it makes for interesting writing.

Real life seems to have hit this thread pretty hard.

Aye. I've been working on a few pieces for after the tau fight.
But I was waiting to see if you guys were up to anything before I launch that battle.

I say go ahead and post them buttery, I was waiting for you.

I agree with AUG. Go ahead and post it, I think we've exhausted our current ideas already.

I'll get writing on the Tau. A few combat lead ins do it?

Yeah, I'd like to write Khan's pov of the battle, or reference to it as he's at the medicae getting checked on for injuries, I just want to know how it happened.

Some lead-ins would work yes

I'll tell you where various tau groups are, what they're doing, and you can run from there. It was a success, so you got knocked about a bit, but stayed roughly as a formation and wiped them out.

The one after that may be a squad changer, plot-wise.

As it should be. No xenos can stand before the commisariat and Khaaaaaaaaan!

 2BlackJack1 wrote:
As it should be. No xenos can stand before the commisariat and Khaaaaaaaaan!

Son I am disappoint.

Don't worry, that wasn't the reason I named him. It just was a happy little coincidence, is all. Gaelos Khan just seemed to fit for me.

Did close combat happen or no? I want to know if Ardo got any scalps...

I'm interested to see if any of the other cadets start looking into my cadet's backstory. It makes for interesting writing, and I'm with AUG on this, I hope for glorious close combat.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Aye. I've been working on a few pieces for after the tau fight.
But I was waiting to see if you guys were up to anything before I launch that battle.

Sorry, man. I got nuthin'. I really tried to come up with some sort of togetherness-for-the-cause story but it was just no good. Maybe we can safely assume that there's no team building exercise quite like an armed alien invasion. I say Bring on the battle!

 War Kitten wrote:
I'm interested to see if any of the other cadets start looking into my cadet's backstory. It makes for interesting writing, and I'm with AUG on this, I hope for glorious close combat.

I always charge. It's an unwritten rule for that squad.
Yesterday they took out a 150pt Lord Commissar with all heinous relics available. Sadly Delano had to issue the challenge, so got taken out, but he only managed to knock out one other cadet.

Welp, I totally forgot this existed. Anyone got a list of things that have happened that I can write about ?

The cadets are not exactly getting on. What would you expect when you throw a bunch of young, intelligent and charismatic gents together and call it a squad.

 Avatar 720 wrote:
Welp, I totally forgot this existed. Anyone got a list of things that have happened that I can write about ?

There's going to be a scrum with the Tau. I haven't been on top form lately, so I've barely been up to date with the other group writing topic. When I've got the next prompt up, I'll give everyone a buzz.

I also have a question for every cadet after the Tau fight, because the one after it went so badly that a change in command is necessary.
Also theCrowe very kindly armed my remaining commissar, so there are now 12 figures and 11 spots... It's a cruel world.

The cadets are not exactly getting on. What would you expect when you throw a bunch of young, intelligent and charismatic gents together and call it a squad.

So far they've had a few personal altercations, been mauled by Space marines in a "friendly" training exercise and now they've just been told that they better shape up and start working as a team cause they're about to be shipped out to Tau country to do some xeno-bashing.
So far Barbary is a roudy drunk when he's down. And Ardo hates him.
Alenko has a secret in his past and thinks Barbary might hold a grudge relating to it. Only Khan has figured this out.
And everyone else is kind of doing their thing in the middle of it all.

Yep. Alenko is trying to figure out what everyone else knows about his secret. So far he's not doing too well

Anything new going on here BC?