Know your Heresy

“You’re late.” Commissar Raege stated flatly. “Tardiness is a symptom of idleness. Do you know what grows from idleness?” The youth shrugged. Whatever. Raege winced, well aware that the Cadet was trying to get a rise. “My name is Conrad F. Raege, but you will refer to me only as ‘Sir’ or ‘Commissar’. You have been selected from your unit to be trained and inducted into the imperial commissariat.  The reasoning is beyond me, but one of the higher ups seems to think you have what it takes.”

The cadet certainly looked the part, despite his slack expression. He was remarkably long faced and chiselled for one scarcely over 16, he also already had an impressive timbre to his voice. “Wait, Commissar Raege? Of the Kuluth 2nd to none? The Legion of Murdering Bastards?” the boy smirked incredulously “I’d always assumed you were male.” He said all the while unsubtly observing evidence to the contrary. “So did my father. He wasn’t as good a psyker as he thought” clipped Raege, raising an eyebrow sharply to indicate she wished to pursue this avenue of conversation no further.

Conrad began to pace. “The Commissariat is serious business. You are a leader. An inspiration. An ever-present bastion of both admiration and fear. Your training will be hard! I will be hard! I am not your friend. You will not like me. But you will d..” “I like looking at you” the lad chuckled “You’re my kind of…” But before he could finish, the unfamiliar sensation of an enormous metal thumb had covered his mouth.


The Cadet beaded cool sweat as Raege’s powerfist crept along his skull before settling into place like a malevolent industrial tarantula. “Do. NOT. Interrupt. Me.” she hissed through her teeth, punctuating each word with a miniscule tightening of her gauntlet, eventually dislodging one of the boy’s molars. Mercifully, Raege relinquished.

The youth staggered back, pulling calculatedly out of the lanky commissars reach range. “To hell with this!” He spat. “I don’t know who signed me up for this and I don’t care! I don’t want to be a commissar! I don’t want to be like you!” Raege closed her eyes and let the boy leave, determined not to lose her temper. She wasn’t allowed to kill him. She had promised the general.


Fuming, the cadet stormed out of the commissariat chapel back across the street to his barracks, where his friends would be waiting. He didn’t see the value of the commissariat. He didn’t see what made them so important next to soldiers like he and his friends would be and he didn’t see why he should ever become a commissar unless he wanted to. He also didn’t see the staff car coming toward him.


Not quite 10 seconds had passed as his vision returned. “It seems” Commissar Raege began, placing a hand on the roof of her abruptly halted staff car. “That you were crossing the road, in ignorance of the proper signals and procedures. That’s called jaywalking, and THAT my glass-filled friend..” she leered with relish, her mouth forming the closest thing it ever would to a smile “ Is heresy.” The boy raised to his knees but faltered, his ribs were busted, he couldn’t talk.


Conrad looked down at him, messiah like. “It matters not that you don’t want to be a commissar, stripling. Someone powerful wants you to be. So you will.” The boy swallowed blood and nodded. “When I’m through with you, you will be a heresy crushing white hot bastion of furious military perfection. Your training starts tomorrow, so clean yourself up.” Commissar Raege turned to leave but rounded once more as an afterthought. “What’s your name, son?” though he felt his windpipe may collapse the boy croaked his barely audible response. “Fuklaw?” The commissar parroted. “That’s a good name. You’d best live up to it. I’ll see you 5am sharp” she said matter-of-factly sniffing the cool night air a she strode away from the crumpled teenager. “Heresy” The boy uttered with a groggy sense of epiphany before slumping into unconsciousness as medics finally collected him.