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++ INCOMING VOX TRANSMISSION
++ RECEIVED FROM: ULTRAMAR RELAY STATION GAMMA-231, OCTAVIUS SECTOR
++ POINT OF ORIGIN: MACRAGGE
++ AUTHOR: HIS MOST HUMBLE MAJESTY, THE ULTIMATE ULTRAMARINE, THE KEVIN MCCALLISTER OF CHRISTMAS, LORD MARNEUS CALGAR
++ AUTHENTICITY: VERIFIED
++ ADDITIONAL ENCLOSED: SONG FOR THE DAY: “WHAT DO LICTORS DREAM OF”

++ TRANSMISSION BEGINS ++

“Citizens of the Imperium. I address you now not as the leader of a Chapter, not as a citizen of Humanity, but as your Spiritual Liege.

A curse has come upon our Emperor's galaxy. A primal terror from the deepest reaches of history. Fully eight hundred of our worlds are dead. The rest may well be screwed too, but fear not: there is a way to fight this menace.

The Fang-Shuul are a xenos race of incalculable might. They do not exist in a way we understand. Fang-Shuul do not have physical bodies or physical needs. They do not eat or sleep. They desire neither victory nor... a bigger victory. They do not come to conquer, and have no care for our worlds or our technology. And yet, when given the opportunity, they... er... note to self: find out what the fethers actually do.

How can we survive this abominable evil, you say? I ask only this of you: stay hidden. Stay inside. Do not congregate outdoors in large numbers. If you do, you risk bringing your world to their attention. Evidence exists that these foul abominations will ignore planets which appear deserted. In essence, they can see and hear you, but only when you are outdoors, away from the blessed protection of your hovel.

What is this, I hear you cry? I can ensure the survival of my species just by sitting on my arse? And I say to you, yo! It is true! I have done this on many occasions. Now it is your turn. Our vaunted tech-priests have determined that the Fang-Shuul are migrating across the galaxy in order to leave it. The speed of this migration is astounding. Let them go! We do not need their crap. Our tech-priests expect that the danger will be past in six standard months, provided that every man, woman and child in the Imperium plays their part.

Stay at home. Stay safe. Protect your species.

I am at once your humble servant and your heroic overlord. I am Marneus Calgar.

Right, that's the plebs motivated, somebody switch this thing off.

Sir, you're still broadcasting! You need to press the –

MILO! The next time you provide bacon sandwiches for a staff meeting, don't microwave the bacon, it took forty-five minutes to chew the rind.

Sir, you need to end the recording, this will be heard across –

Bannerman, stop blabbering and clear a route to the ablutions chamber, Milo's cooking is playing my colon like an accordion. I'm holding back a fart they'll hear in the Emperor's throne room. Apothecary, with me, this may need stitches.

SWITCH IT OFF!

Switch what off?

The fething recorder! It's still broadcasting! This isn't a recorded speech, we're figging live!

Oh for fu-

++ TRANSMISSION ENDS ++


MARNEUS CALGAR'S BARMY LOCKDOWN SPECIAL: CALGAR, CELL BLOCK H

On the first day of lockdown, Lord Calgar gave to me
An immature story filled with knob jokes!

Just when you thought this year couldn't get any more crap, the first non-Christmas Marneus Calgar story in twenty years* has arrived to ruin your day. Well, it's not like most of you are up to anything any more, is it? So switch off the news, delete those Leo memes and stop spreading idiotic “Bill Gates is the Borg” conspiracy theories, and join Marneus Calgar's Barmy Army in their latest misadventure.

A xenos race of terrifying power (remember when 40K was about these?) has spread across the Emperor's Galaxy. If they pass a world showing signs of life, they eat it. This foe is beyond anyone; not even Gandalf the Grey, the physics-defying hero who fell down a chasm and landed alive on top of Mount Everest, would stand a chance against the Fang-Shuul.

Every man, woman and child of the Imperium has a sacred duty. They do not have to charge into hails of bullets, nor fight Tyranids hand-to-hand. All they must do is stay indoors and avoid the attentions of the Fang-Shuul.

The Imperium is fethed.

These are the misadventures of the Ultramarines Chapter and their Tanith allies. The MCBA series came about to mock the Mary Sue that was Marneus Calgar, and as a parody of the fluff-wrecking Tanith First-And-Only. Prepare to have your intelligence insulted, prepare to be offended... and prepare for another Christmas in the trenches.


* Or thereabouts

MCBA Dramatis Personae

THE GOODIES

ADEPTUS ASTARTES, ULTRAMARINES CHAPTER
Marneus Calgar: Chapter Master, Spiritual Liege, Insufferable Prat.
Dick Bannerman: 1st Lieutenant, Chapter Standard Bearer and Lord Calgar's long-suffering best friend.
Nerdingham: Tech-Marine, master of the forge and rather irritating.
Mender: Chief Apothercary, a foul-tempered stranger to hygeine.
Derrick: 1st Chaplain, fiery, aggressive and somewhat kinky.

ASTRA MILITARUM, TANITH FIRST-AND-ONLY
Brin Milo: Regimental pipe-player, excommunicated from his regiment for reasons that are rude and serving his penance with the Ultramarines Chapter.
Nessa Bourah: Sniper, excommunicated from her regiment for reasons unknown, serving her penance with the Ultramarines Chapter.

THE BADDIES
The Fang-Shuul: Xenos Horrificus.

To be continued...

PART ONE

RUDE AWAKENING

The stasis chamber was wider than a tomb, colder than Fenris and darker than an episode of Breaking Bad. The chamber's size was necessary to accommodate the largest Yuletide collection in the galaxy, and the darkness would protect the unwary from seeing the embarrassing cheesiness of this collection. A nativity scene ripped straight from Home Alone, with a statue of Marneus Calgar as the baby Jesus? Check. Santa's Grotto from Santa Claus the Movie, complete with a mile-long landing strip for reindeer? Check. Hundreds of cards addressed to Calgar, supposedly from the galaxy's greatest heroes, all in Calgar's own handwriting? Check. An altar with a copy of Home Alone 2 protected in a stasis field, with all manner of heavy weapons pointing at it in case some heathen tried to nick it? Check.

Blue-armoured tech-marines attended a sarcophagus within the chamber, a sarcophagus adorned with a bas-relief of Marneus Calgar fighting Abaddon one-handed while shagging five supermodels at once. Tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus filed into the room swinging censers filled with burning oil. They assumed positions surrounding the sarcophagus, impeaching the Machine God to awaken the man, the myth, who slept within.

“It is done,” intoned Nerdingham, the greatest and most irritating of all tech-marines. “He is awakening.”

The droning of tech-priests drowned out the cursing of Ultramarine warriors. Then the sarcophagus lid raised itself with the same sound as the Colonial Marines' hypersleep capsules in Aliens. Cold air billowed out like smoke. A cogitator bank beside the sarcophagus displayed the name CALGAR, MARNEUS A. Almost quicker than the eye could follow, a blue-clad fist reached out from the sarcophagus and hit a button on the cogitator. A tape-player built into the computer bank wound up and began to play.

“Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, sing a song for the glorious season!” the Home Alone choir bellowed from speakers set around the stasis chamber. A figure began to rise from the sarcophagus, arms crossed over its chest, like Dracula from that Leslie Nielsen film.

Marneus Calgar opened his eyes and cast a stern gaze across the gathered dudes. The effect was somewhat spoiled by the frost on his face and hair, and the way his teeth chattered incessantly; and as the smoke cleared, his nipples could be seen pushing his armour outward like Madonna's cones, presenting a threat to eyeballs.

Nerdingham cleared his throat to address the Master of Ultramar, but Lord Calgar cut him off.

“Sing merrily, merrily, loud and strong, welcome the wintry season!” Calgar boomed. This atonal ear-rape was nothing compared to the halitosis that propelled it. Calgar had level five morning breath on his best days, but now he'd been asleep for almost four months. The stygian wretchedness “couldn't be described” in a Lovecraft story. Those tech-priests lacking full augmentation began to cough.

“My Lord,” Nerdingham said again.

“The reindeer fly, if you need any proof, it's merely a matter of reason!”

“My Lord, it's not –”

“Just listen, you'll hear when they land on the roof, Santa is here again, yes!”

“It's not Christmas!”

“Sing merrily, merrily, what the feth?” said Calgar. He stood fully upright in the booth. If his hands weren't glued to his chest by a layer of ice, they would have gone straight to his hips. The music stopped playing as if someone had scratched a record.

“It's not Christmas, my Lord,” Nerdingham said again. “It's Fourthus. There has been a development.”

“Fourthus?” said Calgar. “You mean what people in the Second Millennium called Aprilus? Why are you waking me now, we can't even put the tree up!”

“As I said, Lord, there has been a development.” Nerdingham touched a control on a pad built into his vambrace. His stomach armour opened and a camera popped out on a spring. It took Calgar's picture, the flash so bright it blinded the Master of Macragge.

“Aaaargh!” cried Calgar, clutching his face.

“My apologies, Lord, I appear to have pressed the wrong button.” Nerdingham pressed another button but the camera failed to retract. He had to literally wrestle it back inside his armour, but lost his grip just as Calgar had finished rubbing his eyes, and it went off in the Chapter Master's face again. The flash was brighter than a plasma destructor.

“AAAARGH!” yelled Calgar, clutching his face again. “You dildo-brained codswallop, you did it again!”

Nerdingham blustered apologies as he wrestled the camera back into place and closed his armour. Calgar climbed down from the sarcophagus, blinking heavily. Nerdingham pressed a different button on his vambrace. His stomach armour opened up again. This time a giant boot on a pole went straight into Calgar's nuts.

“EEEEEYAAAAAA!” Calgar squealed in a Matt Bellamy falsetto, before collapsing and vomiting on the tech-marine's boots.

“Here we go again,” said Nerdingham. “Apothecary!”

To be continued...

PART TWO

GALAXY IN FLAMES

Dick Bannerman, Chapter banner man and second-in-command of the Ultramarines, had convened a meeting of the Chapter elite in Calgar's briefing room. A score of Ultramarine heroes sat around the horseshoe-shaped table in anxious frustration, waiting for Calgar to put in an appearance. The room had not been tidied since last Christmas, so faded tinsel hung slack from the ceiling. Dick found it weirdly painful to see Christmas trimmings at this time of year. They looked beautiful in the sunlight shining down from windows along the tops of the walls. The baffleglass was strong enough to resist the winds at this altitude – Smurf HQ was located at the top of a mountain – and allowed nothing but light to pass through.

A blackboard dominated the chamber's far wall. It still displayed plans for last year's Nutcase Death Run, which had not just resulted in failure but had nearly seen the Chapter excommunicated. The Ultras had considered wiping the blackboard clean, but decided to leave it as a penance.

“Where the feth is Flat-Head?” said Dick, checking his watch. “Don't tell me he's soiled himself already.”

“He promised to behave with more decorum this year,” said Captain Lukan.

“He said that last Christmas,” said Dick, “and ended up showing his bare bottom to the whole universe. Who knows what he'll do this year?”

“We are going to have to start without him,” said Captain Astriid. “Time is short.”

“Right, feth it,” said Dick. “Most of us know the story: the Fang-Shuul have emerged from the galactic south-south-east. Sixty-four Imperial worlds have already been scoured of life. Imperial citizens are not complying with edicts to stay inside, so the blasted xenos are chowing down on them. All the people need to do is stay indoors. It's not like we've asked them to join penal legions in the path of Hive Fleet Kraken – well, not yet anyway.”

“Heretics!” growled Chaplain Derrick, slamming his fist on the table. “They will burn for their treachery!”

“Actually, they did,” said Dick. “That's the point. If this kind of stupidity takes root here, then at the rate the Fang-Shuul are migrating, we'll be dead by next Tuesday.”

Company captains murmured assent. They paused as someone came into the room, but it was only Nerdingham, fresh from cleaning his boots.

“Did you show him?” asked Dick.

“Negative,” said the tech-marine. “I have installed my vambrace console with the buttons in the wrong places. Consequently, Lord Calgar is in the apothecarion, having his testicles removed from his throat.”

Dick blinked, but chose to remain ignorant.

“Has there been any communication from Terra?” Astriid asked Nerdingham.

“Negative,” said Nerdingham, sitting down. “They are waiting for a report from us. The Fang-Shuul are in our neighbourhood, not theirs.”

“For now,” said Chaplain Derrick.

Captain Lukan started to speak, but paused, sniffing the air in disbelief. The other Ultramarines did the same.

“Feth!” said Dick. “Who ordered ten thousand litres of manure?”

“Sorry I'm late!” Calgar said as he jogged into the room. “I was delayed by... a couple of issues.”

His morning breath swept the room, toppling veteran Ultras like skyscrapers before a tsunami. Chaplain Derrick screamed like a little girl and fell off his chair.

“Open a fething window!” bellowed Captain Lukan, pulling his armour up to cover his nose.

Oblivious to the panic his stonk-breath was causing, Calgar stretched and yawned. It seemed to his men as if Nurgle had reached from the warp to tug directly on their nose-hairs. Paint began to peel from table surfaces and then from Ultramarine power armour. Company Captains crawled away, sobbing prayers.

Alarms sounded. Lights flashed. Servitor voices boomed across the vox: “Librarius division to the primary briefing chamber. Infernal incursion in progress.”

Of the Chapter elite, only Dick Bannerman remained on his feet. He didn't move, or say anything, he just stood there facing the Master of Macragge.

“Are you all right, mate?” Calgar asked him. The Spiritual Liege was beginning to twig that something was wrong.

Dick's face was expressionless, but as Calgar watched, the whites of the banner-bearer's eyes turned a red so fierce they seemed to glow. Bannerman saluted his master, then fell backwards, stiff as a statue.

Calgar looked at his men on the ground. Nerdingham was desperately trying to fit a respirator to his face; several of the Captains were unconscious; Chaplain Derrick was in the process of losing his faith.

“Maybe I should just give my teeth a quick brush,” said Calgar. He turned to leave the room, to be confronted by Chief Librarian Tigurius. Technically, in the Barmy Army timeline, Tigurius is supposed to be dead, but whatever.

The Chief Librarian's face was wild with horror at what he saw: Calgar standing in apparent victory over his own subordinates, and that smell! The last time something so vile shafted Tigurius up the shnozz, it had preceded an attack by the Death Guard.

“Heretic!” said the Chief Librarian, drawing his force-sword. “I always knew you'd fall to Nurgle some day.”

“Eh?” said Calgar. “Are you talking to me?”

“I name three Traitor,” said Tigurius. “Thou art a fat, flatulating, spotty-arsed, miserly, probably-ginger, incompetent product of a gang-bang, who everyone thinks is a tosser. Prepare to meet thy doom, slave of Mortarion.”

“Who do you think you're thee-ing and thou-ing at, you vicious little git?” Calgar struck the Tanith cuwuhl-wuhl-wuhl pose, which greatly resembled the crane kick from Karate Kid. “I'll flush your head down the crapper!”

“Call upon thy new god, traitor, for only he can save you now.” Tigurius reached out with the power of his mind, using his free hand to manipulate reality. Lord Calgar had stupidly been expecting the Librarian to attack with his sword: instead, the Master of Ultramar found himself clutched in an invisible grip. Tigurius swung his hand up. Calgar smashed against the ceiling, leaving a dent in the adamantium. The Librarian brought his hand down and Calgar slammed into the floor. Again and again this was repeated. The language that left Calgar's lips cannot be repeated on a forum that I respect, so I'll probably just post it on 1D4chan.

“He will not die!” Tigurius said. “His foul god protects him after all. It seems I must tear him apart.” The Chief Librarian swung Calgar around the room at 100mph as if the Chapter Master were in a centrifuge. Calgar opened fire with his gauntlet-mounted bolters, hitting nothing but the baffleglass windows. Most held, but several started to crack.

“Stop!” the Chapter Master yelled, turning green. “You cheating bastard, you win!”

“Librarian,” said Chaplain Derrick. “Desist, Calgar may be the Donald Trump of the 41st Millennium but he's on our side. Besides, the Spiritual Liege looks like he's going to chuck.”

Tigurius didn't hear the warning. The briefing room was equipped with the loudest sound system for fifty light-years, and it was loaded with Christmas songs. Psychic runoff engaged the system.

“When men of goodwill live in peace, rom-pom-pom-pom-pom!” Bowie and Crosby screamed at 194 decibels. Blood spurted from the ears of everyone not wearing a full battle helm. Cracks spread across every pane of baffleglass.

Nerdingham lay on the floor, stone fething deaf. He'd managed to fasten the respirator in place and his heart rates slowed as he gulped pure, blessed oxygen. The tech-marine looked around, seeing his brothers crawling on their bellies; frost on every surface; hazard lights flashing; witch-fire pouring from Tigurius' eyes as Calgar flew around and around in a great circle, vomit splashing the walls and slapping Tigurius in the face.

“Another first-class briefing,” Nerdingham thought before the baffleglass blew out, unable to withstand the combined onslaught of bolter damage, psychic force, noise vibration and the 120mph winds outside. Everyone in the chamber was sucked out through the windows and scattered to the corners of their world; and as Calgar vanished over the horizon, the ungrateful people of Macragge finally had something to cheer.


To be continued...

PART THREE

RECOVERY PHASE

Nessa Bourah found the door marked BANNERMAN, P. She knocked, waited a moment, then went in.

Bannerman lay in the apothecarion bed looking miserable. He still had a plaster cast on his left arm. Space Marines possessed accelerated healing abilities, but recovering from a 2000-foot fall wasn't a five-minute job. The banner man was hooked up to a machine which hissed and beeped, and a medical servitor moved around the room, cleaning things with a long tongue. Bourah couldn't hide the pity in her smile as she stood beside Dick's bed.

How are you feeling? she signed.

Dick gestured to a pile of newspapers on his bed and held one up.

It's Raining Men, declared the headline, above a pict of Ultramarine warriors screaming in terror as they fell from the sky. Dick was central in the picture. He was looking straight at the camera with an expression that said “I'm going to die”.

Don't worry, signed Bourah. It's been three weeks, they'll report on something else soon.

Dick put the paper back and chose another.

We're Still Laughing
Calgar's pratfall becomes first video in history to surpass 5 trillion hits

Well it was quite funny when you think about it, signed Bourah.

Dick gave her a look that could freeze lava and opened his mouth, revealing the metal contraption holding his teeth in their rightful places. Bourah winced. Dick held up one newspaper after another.

Calgar's Clowns Catch Some Air
Astartes prove less than adept as skydiving – as it happened

Ultramarines Make Unexpected Arrival at Children's Hospital
Third Company Captain drops in on the under-privileged. “I've never seen anything like it, it was horrendous” - Mum

That's The Way to Poo It
Master of Ultramar lands head-first in outhouse – pictures on page 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21

Bourah decided to change the subject.

Have they found the Chaplain yet?

Dick shook his head. Chaplain Derrick had disappeared during the incident, presumably swept away by an air current. Search and rescue teams had been working around the clock, but Macragge was a big place with awkward terrain.

How about Flat-Head, has his condition improved?

For the first time since the accident, a smile spread across Dick's battered face.

=|U|=

“Whatever you do, don't laugh,” Apothecary Mender warned Milo. “Lord Calgarse will send you to the nerve-glove quicker than a fething wink.”

Milo nodded, feeling his heart begin to race. He'd passed several First Company sentries on his way to Calgar's suite. The veteran bodyguards could face down Tyranid swarms without raising an eyebrow, but today they were on the point of cracking. Not from concern for their leader's fate or fear of the Fang-Shuul: the veterans were sweating with the effort of suppressing laughter. They were dams about to burst. Milo wondered what could have happened that was so extraordinary it turned Ultramarine veterans into trembling, beetroot-faced wrecks.

Mender pushed the door open and Milo stepped into Calgar's room.

It was larger than a typical medical chamber and the air was freezing cold. Calgar wasn't lying in bed – he stood with his back to the door, filling a glass with water from a sink. The Chapter Master wore a medical smock which couldn't quite embrace his flab. As a result, his bare arse smiled at the world. Those pudgy, acne-sprinkled cheeks held no new horror for Milo, not after last year's sledge race, which Calgar had run with his trousers round his ankles “due to a lack of forward planning”.

Milo didn't know what he'd expected to see. Missing limbs maybe, or a broken neck, but from this angle Calgar seemed intact. Then the Spiritual Liege turned to stare imperiously at his visitor. The Master of Ultramar's expression was stern, but it wasn't his face which commanded attention. Milo's eyes went straight to Calgar's forehead.

Calgar must have banged his head during the Briefing Room Incident. It wasn't uncommon for a Space Marine's body to react to injury in the same way as any human's – a knock on the head could result in localised swelling. However, Space Marine biology was far more aggressive than a mere mortal's, and the Astartes had a penchant for doing things big.

Marneus Calgar had a six-inch, flesh-coloured lump protruding from the centre of his forehead.

“Do you know what I look like, Milo?” said Calgar.

For the most terrible moment of his life, Milo thought he was going to laugh.

“Er, I, er, well –” he stammered, before shaking his head. He felt heat radiating from his face, as if his head had become a light-bulb.

“I look like a unicorn,” said Calgar. “I'm supposed to be on telly at seventeen hundred, addressing the fething Imperium and telling them to act in a patriotic manner. The plebs are expecting to see their Spiritual Liege, not Twilight Sparkle. What the bloody hell are we gonna do about this thing?”

“Maybe –” Milo started, but he paused to swallow a hysterical scream of laughter. “If you want them to feel patriotic, maybe you could fly the Imperial flag from it.”

“Oh, bugger off you little fethwit,” said Calgar, throwing his glass at Milo as the Tanith pipe-player fled from the room.


To be continued...

Having never read the Tanith books or really anything Ultramarine focused I feel you should know that your Calgar is basically cannon to me, being the version I've read most. I just don't think I could revise my expectations of him to a more serious and grim character. What would be the point, it certainly wouldn't be as much fun.

Thanks for the laughs as always.

 theCrowe wrote:
Having never read the Tanith books or really anything Ultramarine focused I feel you should know that your Calgar is basically cannon to me, being the version I've read most. I just don't think I could revise my expectations of him to a more serious and grim character. What would be the point, it certainly wouldn't be as much fun.

Thanks for the laughs as always.

Thank you very much mate. I've been ill with some kind of virus (supposedly not covid) and am struggling to string sentences together at the moment, so hearing someone appreciating this story is welcome. All I want to do is make people feel better until covid finally gets its arse kicked. I cannot imagine life without the Barmy Army version of Calgar, it wouldn't be Christmas without him, and I always grin when I see the "official" version of him in the fluff.

The Tanith books are well worth reading, but be warned, they are about as fluff-compatible as the Barmy Army stories. And truth be told, that's why I started writing them in the first place!

well, if there are as many toilet jokes and the occasional comedy reference to Home Alone in the Tanith books I'll give them a read but otherwise, I mean, what's the point?

Hope you get healthy soon no po. Don't let the rogue microscopic DNA fragments keep you down. Laughter is great medicine so you should keep reading and writing funny stuff. I occasionally flatter myself that Smirking is sometimes good for a laugh. If you like grots in sticky situations I'd encourage you to give it a whirl while you rest up.

Thanks mate, that means a lot. I'll read your story over tonight and tomorrow.

Update: there is more of this story to come. There will not be a Christmas Special this year, I'm just going to keep the Pandemic Special running to brighten the coming weeks.

There was a Christmas Special planned for 2020, but this will be held back until next year. It is the duty of every Calgar fan to hold on through the next 12 months and to report back here in December 2021, safe and well.

Stay safe everyone, and fear not: Calgar knows. Calgar is watching. Even when he's in the bathroom.

It's good to see you're keeping these up, mate. Brings me back to the days of Astronomicon.com. I'm glad I've met you and many others back there! Keep up the great work!

 Adrassil wrote:
It's good to see you're keeping these up, mate. Brings me back to the days of Astronomicon.com. I'm glad I've met you and many others back there! Keep up the great work!

Cheers mate, that means a lot. Your determined efforts are inspiring to say the least. Just what I need during these bleak times!

I'm struggling to write new Barmy Army material as I realised something important: pandemics aren't funny!