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So keep them hands where I can see em like you want freedom
You know that saying - if you can't join 'em, beat 'em
- Ghostface Killah

Commisar Yarrick poked his uber-grizzled face through a mortar-blown hole and watched the sky turn red. Red skies were a common sight on Hive World Amena, caused by atmospheric algae and gamma waves or some s#*t. But Yarrick did not care about atmosphere science! Amena was a fethole 2 him, a place of stinky people and heretics, home of the hip-hop band Slammin' II Crew. Grrrrr! Yarrick hated hip-hop muzak!

With deliberate intensity he lifted a standard-issue voxcorder to his tight-lipped mouth and rasped out a status report:
"Nineteen minutes past. No sign of Ecclesiarchal rep. Skies red... for some f*#@ing reason."

"Algae, sir."

Yarrick turned to face the Guardsman behind him. The Guardsman blinked.

"What?"

"The atmsophere... it's algal. The reaction, I mean."

Interrupting a superior officer: INSUFFERABLE! The Guardsman's forehead exited the back of his helmet and thudded against the wall five metres away. Good poltpistol.

"New report in one (1) minute. The Emperor prevails!"

It took Yarrick a while to notice the howl of excrutiating pain emanating from the hallway. This was becuase the smell of burning flesh initially distracted him. When a flame-engulfed Guardsman burst though the door, the commissar was only slightly aware of putting him out of his misery. Most of Yarrick was focused on something else: the distant screech of a Valkyrie, louder by the minute! WTF?! This was no controlled descent he was a-hearin'! It was the mad, senile screech of space metal out of control! OH SHI-

BLAM! The building disappeared as a hundred tons of plane slammed into it, engulfing everything in flames! Rubble and concrete dust enveloped the surrounds. When Yarrick came to, his vision was like shaky-cam footage of the Haiti earthquake. Man, that deserves a painkiller.

"Commisar Yarrick, this is Sister Alicia Dominica of the Order of the Ebon Chalice. By our Holy Edict, you have been declared heretic and are now anathema in Imperial space. PREPARE TO BE PURGED, FELL HERETIC!"

Great, thought Yarrick. Moar ruff times...

2 B CONTINUED

For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow.
- Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, Monty Python

Commisar Yarrick flew out of a mortar-hole in the side of Amena's Hive Delhi, his cape partially ablaze. There was a mortar-hole in the spireside because, in the grim darkness of the far future, EVERY building is shelled BEFORE being inhabited. Yarrick landed on a spire-dweller's balcony with the kind of thud that makes the adjective splat wonder why it wasn't used instead.

"Ow," the grizzled veteran informed himself.

Sudddenly the sky eclipsed. Yarrick could vaguely make out the shape of a Battle Canoness of the Ecclesiarchy blocking the sun from his vision. Hmmm, he thought, that's sort of hawt. As her chainsword slammed into the concrete beside him, Yarrick rolled into an Aikido combat dive and ended up at the feet of a puzzled slash pissed-off spire dwelling banker's wife. Expediency demanded her sacrifice! In a second he was sort of behind her, pushing her towards the oncoming banshee shape of Sister Alicia. SMACK! SMACK! SLAP! went the bolter-rounds as they tore into the banker's wife's chest. By the time her lifeless shape fell to the floor, Yarrick was already out the door of the spirepartment an on his way to the elevator.

Sister Alicia glanced at her chipped nail and pouted. Battle injuries: not good. At least the heretic Yarrick had fallen into her trap. She activated the comlink next to her ear and spat into it:

"The heretic is approaching the elevator, sisters! Is the Eversor prepared?"

Yarrick slammed his powerfist into the going-down button, ignoring its invulnerable save. The heat wuz ohn now, mofokkrz! Only way to run was down, to Level 329 and the merchant craft there. If he could sneak aboard one of those, perhaps he might survive the paint-blistering fury of the SOB's. But he had a feeling the Ecclesiarchy would hunt him down no matter where he went. He was guilty, after all. Suggesting that Space Marine camaraderie was the outcome of more than just EATING together was not exactly party line, true though it may be...

"DING," said the elevator, and opened to reveal two Battle Sisters, a monk, a bellboy and a wookie sprawled on the ground bleeding around an Eversor Assassin wait a minute AN EVERSOR ASSASSIN-

"NYAAARGAH!" The Eversor screamyellched.

Yarrick managed to lean back sufficiently in slo-mo time to evade the assassin's deadly furylunge. He kicked it in the nutsack. So unfair.

"NGAHHHHHOOOW"

Yarrick stared down his boltpistol at the centre of the assassin' forehead.

"Prepare 2 eat solid-slug retribution, puke face!" he growled. BANG!

Yarrick stepped into the elevator and made his way down. Sister Alicia reviewed her battle corps of Sisters, standing at the entrance to the flight deck on Level 329. Flame on, baby!

2 B CONTINUED...

The elevator door closed, saying "DONG". As the Sisters lobbed their incendiary grenades at the opening, they glimpsed the bloody corpses of an Eversor assassin atop two of their number and a large wookie. However, when the resultant BANGWHOOP didn't yield a flaming commissar, Sister Alicia Dominica and her Battle Sisters let their shoulders sag significantly, signifying sadness since their snare was suddenly spoiled. As they watched the interior chemicals of the Eversor force themselves outward in a violent and fiery post-mortem fart, a feeling of intense disappointment seemed to be pulling them down, like an adjunct to gravity, into a really low beaten-down depro bummer, man *burps*.

"Canonness-san," said Battle Sister Agatha, her teary eyes pleading, "No heretic?"

Sister Alicia turned to face her bummed-out protege. "No. No heretic." The Sisterhood slowly started shuffling towards their space planes.

However, Commissar Yarrick hadn't been expecting the incendiary grenades, and it was getting mighty stuffy and warm under all that wookiefur. He counted to three, then pushed the offending dead fluffball off him and lunged out of the lift, screaming.

The SOB's didn't have to be told twice. A few hundred bolter rounds whizzed at the commissar's position, mincing several Scottish terriers and a caged cat. A few watermelons blew up too. Yarrick, however, had stealthily ducked behind a crate marked "Munitions", indicating how terrible ideas are apt to masquerade as good ones when one's vital functions are governed by a sudden flow of adrenaline.

"Terrible death for the enemies of our Emperor!" yelled Sister Carmilla, just as a smoking crate marked "Munitions" smacked into her left temple. And now for a typically biased media report:

Level 329, Hive Delhi
- Pusblob Nuggins, Imperium Press

A devastating explosion ripped a 30-square foot hole in Hive Delhi's Level 329 yesterday. The incident occured some time before lunch and resulted in the gruesome deaths of an entire squad of Battle Sisters, some of whose mangled corpses were discovered up to 100 yards from the scene of the blast. The commercial district was closed off by Adeptus Custodes on the orders of Governor Burpus. Also, a reward has been offered for information concerning the whereabouts of an Ecclesiarchal Canoness and a renegade commissar known as Yarrick. The reward is not being shot by Imperial Guardsmen when they ask you for information concerning the whereabouts of an Ecclesiarchal Canoness and a renegade commissar known as Yarrick. Now GET BACK TO WORK, SLAVES!

Yarrick blinked rapidly, his first action since waking up next to Alicia Dominica in what seemed to be a very small square of light in an ocean of dark. Since this was the 41st millenium, it didn't bother him too much. He eyed the Canoness. The Canoness eyed him back, coldly, the way a bored person eyes a goldfish. WTF was this? Yarrick dimly became aware of being on some kind of stage. At least, he guessed that it was a stage, since he seemed to be in the centre of a large auditorium filled with what sounded like hordes of slobbering people and a spotlight. The spotlight was trained on a now-glowing personage some distance above him. It was horribly fat.

"Greetings, commissar. I am Burpus, Governor of this planet and its moon, FYI. Now," it said, pointing its big fat finger at Yarrick, "we will watch you duel!"

2 BE CONCLUDED...