Toschenko's Journal

This is the journal of Culpan Toschenko, the commanding officer of the 616th Vostroyan Mechanized Infantry regiment, which was assigned to the Vlaktes Reclamation Crusade Force, Army Group A, during the Tectonian War.

999.M41, re-chronicled 0.90 previo VCM.M41, Hotel Kratzpa, Kovoskahive, Vostroya
I never thought I would be back here. When a firstborn leaves the motherworld, he does not expect to return. If he is extremely lucky, his rifle will make its way home on his behalf, to be refurbished and used again by some blessed descendent. Out of the few that do make it home, the majority do so in caskets, to be interred in the mortuary spires of our birth hive. The rest return as officers, privileged to be near enough to the motherworld to help raise up the next generation of Firstborn. Old hands, they are called.

When I shipped out, I was seventeen years old and just a lasman. Now I return, the rank of major upon my shoulders, a man of fifty-four years. Somehow, I have become an old hand.

As best I can tell, four centuries have passed on the motherworld. My aged memory of the hive does not line up with the reality of it. From where I’m sitting now, I can see the triplex mortuary spires of Kovoskahive in the distance. The third spire has grown.

The muster is continuing apace, but until the regiment is fully reorganized, I have been on leave. I spend days wandering the streets and backways, searching for familiar landmarks and finding none. It feels as though more of the hive than ever has been given over to industry. Where once there stood bars and marketplaces, now there are factories. Old tenements have been hollowed out, their bones serving as shelter for a dozen machine shops. Smoke streaks skyward at all hours of the day and night, mixing with the cryo-slurry overhead.

I cannot tell if the conditions of the hive have worsened in my absence or if my perception is tainted by the nostalgic remembrances of a youth stuck in a foxhole thousands of lightyears from home. All I know for certain is that the reality of the motherworld has shaken me. To spend my entire life across four centuries fighting for this world, only to see it in a worse state than when I left it…

Today, I found Katyala’s grave. Her ashes were interred in a civilian mausoleum-hall--a rare honor, likely brought on by cousin Graf’s notability. I’m sure this was a relocation by the funerary guild. She certainly could not have earned this before his fame had grown.

We were married the week before I shipped out. A number of my comrades did the same to their sweethearts. We tried to conceive a child, though I never learned if we were successful.

In those long months on Innver’s World, when the greenskins’ artillery churned the earth, I would huddle in my foxhole, imagining that my death would at least provide her some survivor’s benefit. And then, once I survived, I wrote letters to her. I never had a chance to send them, but I kept writing, as much for myself as for her. As I survived warzone after warzone, and grew older, I continued my letters. On some level, I knew that she had become an old woman, if she yet lived. I wondered if she had remarried. I wondered if she ever gave birth to my child. He or she would have been my firstborn, and would have served, survival to adulthood willing.

Her marker gave no answer to my questions. Katyala Toschenko, 578 to 643.M41. Sixty-five years. Older than I am now, yet dead more than three hundred years past. I removed my glove to touch the haemoslate marker. I attempted to recall her smile, but the image would not come. The stone was frigid to the touch.

I left after some time. The cold was getting to my knee.

As I sit writing this, the cryostorm overhead is intensifying. Its snowblind winds touch the weather-ghiest field that encompases the hive, sending discharges arcing across the sky. Turtolsky has disappeared behind the clouds. My rented room has a fireplace, and I have stoked it repeatedly, keeping the motherworld’s cold at bay as I write.

I hear the carolon of the Saint Graf Cathedral sounding shift change, and I realize that it is time I referenced the ornately-armored grox in the room: my honored relative, Graf Toschenko.

I visited the cathedral and found some information in a devotional pamphlet. I shall copy it here for ease of reference:

''Graf Toschenko was a Lord Marshal of His glorious Imperial Guard. Leading the IX Vostroyan Firstborn forces in the Nimbosa Crusade, Toschenko's command squad was cut down by T’au fire, leaving the commander exposed. Nonetheless, Toschenko grabbed the Regimental Banner and urged his reeling men to fight on, but was struck down in a devastating volley by the hated xenos known as Commander Brightsword.''

''The Vostroyans' death inspired the populace of Nimbosa to revolt against the T’au's insidious idea of "the Greater Good." Forever since, the name Toschenko is synonymous with heroism, and his ornate armor lies in state here in the cathedral which bears his name. It can be seen at the northernmost preceptory.''

A Lord Marshal. Incredible.

For anyone pilfering my journal, no, I never knew Graf Toschenko. According to his cathedral, he was born in 665 and died in 700. For all I know, he could have been my grandson. I have no idea what a T’au is, where the Nimbosa Crusade was, or why it was fought, and until today, I had never heard the name Toschenko be synonymous with anything beyond dirty jobs and missed promotions. There’s a reason you’ll never find a Saint Culpan Cathedral on this or any other world.

If he was a member of my family, then there’s no chance he was nobleborn. No Toschenko I ever knew was anything but a lowborn manufactorum worker, or worse. Maybe the family did better after I left.

I went to the northernmost preceptory. The armor is indeed there. Its steelwork is impressive, and several pistons and servos across its arms and legs seem as much to imply that it’s powered in one fashion or another. It is a big old suit, and thick around the gut.

At least Graf and I had that in common.

Went down to the hotel bar and got fixed up. Lots of secondborns down there, drinking and carrying on. It’s unnerving hearing the mother dialect spoken so frequently around me. Out there, the tongue is spoken only amongst us Firstborns, and the majority of the time, we find ourselves using whatever mix of common gothic is in vogue in a given warzone. You can’t expect a chevek to understand your particular language, and so we get used to swapping dialects from camp to camp, ship to ship, and world to world.

But when the night is late and the rahzvod is flowing, we switch back to our mother tongue and speak of old days and dead friends. Hearing it around me now, spoken so freely, is strange. Even stranger are the changes the language has undergone. It is not foreign to me, but the occasional curse or idiom which eludes me serves only to give me pause and remind me again of the weight of passed years.

I bought a bottle and brought it upstairs. Better to drink alone than do so in the company of strangers.

The motherworld is strange to me, and so I wonder if it is even mother to me at all. I write this journal on an ancient-seeming desk that, from one perspective, is younger than me. My oldest comrades are all dead, their bones turned to dust in graves on worlds whose names I barely remember. My family name is lauded, but my family itself is gone. My wife is dead, the letters I wrote to her for so long are turned to ash in the fireplace of this small room--ash to match her remains in that mausoleum.

So who do I write to, now? No one will read it. I have no children to give this to. Perhaps, when I die, my successor officer would find it useful? But it is hard to imagine a subordinate who would wish to read the drunken ramblings of an old hand. Perhaps I write to the God-Emperor, that by putting my sins and triumphs down in word, I pay tribute to Him on distant Terra.

But he will, as always, reward me with nothing but his damning silence.

Perhaps my true motherworld is war. Perhaps I have no home except the revolving door of troopships, trenches, and Chimera holds. Perhaps my place is in my coat, hat, and with the fingers of my power fist wrapped around some poor bastard’s throat.

So these words, then, are for me and me alone: Colonel Culpan Toschenko, the old drunk, the Old Skunk, commanding officer of the 616th Vostroyan Mechanized Infantry Regiment. Every word I write here is the truth as I know it, for I have no one left to lie to but myself.

999.M41, re-chronicled 0.83 previo VCM.M41, Hotel Kratzpa, Kovoskahive, Vostroya
A young trooper came to visit me today. His name was Molovan. Had the look of a shiny about him. He delivered a letter from headquarters, which said, after a lot of “in the names of the Techtriarchy” and “for the glories of Him on Terra”, that the 616th is due to ship out soon. We are to be fully reinforced by shiny-new firstborns.

Our destination, foe, and the total size of the muster were all missing. The letter was essentially useless.

Trooper Molovan did not understand this. He was, he explained to me, assigned as my adjutant. It was, he added, an honor to serve me, a relative of the honored and great Saint Graf Toschenko.

I closed the door in his face.

Roughly 999.M41, re-chronicled 0.40 previo VCM.M41, true date unknown, Whaleship Macharian Haul, en route to warzone
We’re being transported aboard a Mechanicus whaleship. I’m told it typically carries god-machines to crusade, but for this trip, those venerable engines are being supplemented by us, the newly-reinforced regiments of Vostroya. There are at least a dozen regiments aboard. So far, I’ve seen representatives from the 68th, 82nd, 421st, and 711th Armored, the 33rd Superheavy, the 578th Artillery Support, the 17th Mounted, and the 300th, 356th, 405th, and 887th Shock Infantry. Out of all of them, I’ve only served before with the 300th Shock, at the Siege of Vortesh, where they forced the breach on the eastern ramparts and allowed us through.

I’ve talked to their CO, and he remembers that day, though only as a story passed down through the generations. A glorious victory, he told me. I guess the stories skipped the part where our Chimera treads ground the bodies of the Shock into the rubble as we forced our way in.

I would speak to more of the other regiments if not for our Mechanicus hosts. Each billet is separated from the rest by blast doors with strenuous checkpoints, each covered by servo-skulls and security measures. Moving from one compartment to the next is difficult and requires multiple verifications. It seems the tech-priests are not accustomed to cargo which wishes to move about freely.

Molovan is at my side constantly, like a gnat. I’ve had adjutants before. They are a necessity. If I personally bothered with every Munitorum request, I’d never have enough time to ensure the men know how to use the precious supplies we are requisitioning. But Molovan is new, and he is unsure of himself. I’m certain he only asks me a tenth of the questions he wants to, but even that fraction is too many.

My cabin is small, and my knee aches every night. When I disconnect my leg and go to sleep, I can feel the wraith-sensation of my foot as it once was. More than anything, this is what tells me we are due to translate soon. Nothing aches my knee more than the coming empyrean.

I’m drinking more these nights.

We train during the day-cycle. We are fully-reinforced, bringing the regiment to its entire complement of a thousand men. Our Chimeras are clean, refurbished or entirely new, and our support tanks--the Sickle Squadrons--are still wrapped in plastek sheets straight from the forges. The men’s hats are pristine, well-coiffed. Their armor gleams. Their uniforms are regulation-trim. Their rifles, their precious heirloom weapons, are still glistening with the reconsecration oils from the towers of the generational priests.

But for all that, we are a shell of our former strength. So much of the 616th was lost on Avareen that I hardly have the core needed to resurrect the regiment. Shinies need old hands to bring them into line, to prepare them for the wars ahead. Most of the men have seen combat, yes, but there is a world of difference between fighting polar insurrectionists in the PDF and facing down a tyrannic swarm.

The God-Emperor’s stars fill a galaxy of horrors. On Avareen, I ordered most of my men to their deaths. We were understrength at the beginning of that campaign, our ranks depleted by the other wars and planetfalls needed to get in-system. Six planets in six months, the Lord-General Mezzana had declared.

Well, we did it. We paid in Imperial blood, but we drove in, pushing the separatists back. Their troops were underequipped, under-trained, and under-led, but enough chaff will dull any sickle. By the time we landed on Avareen, I had half my regiment left to me. It wasn’t until we breached the innermost districts of Avareen City that the true face of the separatists became clear--a tyrannic cult. A genestealer infestation.

We were caught in a crossfire. Three-armed hybrids poured from the administratum cathedra and munitions depots. Heavy weapons fire rained down on us, cutting through the Chimeras. One of our Sickles, a Hellhound, burst under the incoming and engulfed most of Black Company, Red Platoon.

I requested fall back rights, but they were denied. Not garbled, not miscommunicated, not misheard. Denied, but Mezzana himself. We were told to fight in-place and wait to be relieved.

So we fought. Interlocking fields of fire. We moved the wounded to the center and circled the Chimeras like ash-waste caravaneers fighting off a mutant raid. Heavy weapons tore chunks from the cathedra, and I called in air strikes and bombardments at distances that verged on suicidal.

Xenos died. Firstborn died. Eventually, the hybrids gave way to pure forms, and then the swollen patriarch itself. The beast killed at ease, its talons ripping men in half, its witch-fire rending armor and detonating munitions.

Only when the patriarch-beast appeared did we receive our reinforcements. Valkyries in the black and red of the Inquisition appeared overhead, dumping storm troopers into our midst, their hellguns ripping into the horde even as they rappelled down. The patriarch and its brood died by their hand.

In the aftermath, I supervised the medical evacuation of what was left of my boys. In the rubble, I saw the inquisitor which had led the strike, stalking through the blasted corpses of the xenoforms. He was dressed in black. What I could see of his body was shot through with augmetics. Beneath his hood, the light of an augmetic lens. Mezzana was there, too, talking with the inquisitor and a magos biologis over the dead patriarch.

They used my men like bait to draw that monster out, and then didn’t have the balls to look me in the eye and tell me so. Perhaps they didn’t believe I was even worth the consideration. Just a peon in their game of regicide. The inquisitor, I understood. A chevek could not care for us like our own. But Mezzana… Mezzana was firstborn. One of us. And yet still he valued this bastard’s whims over the lives of his own.

Just sixty-seven of my men survived that day. By week’s end, only forty were left to me, the rest gone to the Emperor’s side by consequence of their wounds. Forty out of a thousand.

If I ever see Lord-General Mezzana or that inquisitor again, I’ll kill them both.

So I train the men. They are young, which makes them spry, physically able, and strong. But youth begets inexperience. They bumble over one another when we practice disembarkation, and the practice-fire lobbed overhead still spooks them. Their marksmanship is average, and poor on the dismount. Heavy weapons teams struggle to overmatch median reload times. Vox-caster discipline is lacking.

We drill and drill and drill. My veterans--the Old Forty, as the shinies call them--work as supervisors. I’ve promoted a good half of them to the officer cadre. Respectability and techtriarch writ be damned, I’ll not see them die under the command of an inexperienced noble-born if I can help it. I know this doesn’t sit well with the noble shinies who see themselves being passed up for command by low-born veterans, but they keep it to themselves. Can’t be seen to second-guess the honored kin of honored Graf Toschenko.

Those who weren’t fit for officer rank, I’ve reorganized into an ad-hoc vetrancy, operating unmarked and independent from the rank and file. Only thirty-strong, these veteran squads drill against the shinies, often taking on twice or three times their number in mock skirmishes.

The men will get better, but until then, their hats are unmarked. They don’t yet bear the stripe. Perhaps soon.

Roughly 999.M41, re-chronicled 0.20 previo VCM.M41, true date unknown, Whaleship Macharian Haul, en route to warzone
Earlier today, headquarters staff for the battle group called a meeting of all regimental commanders. This was held in an observation dome on the ship’s dorsal structure. Instrumentation ringed the walls and stretched across the glass dome on ironwork struts, complete with chain-link slide racks which allowed magnification lenses to move and stretch across the overhead view.

Molovan wondered if it was used for stellar cartography.

I asked if he knew anything about stellar cartography.

He told me that, no, he didn’t, and so I told him to shut his mouth.

The command staff from each regiment totalled over a hundred men, but we hardly filled the space. The entire assembly felt like a small huddle. We talked among ourselves for a few minutes, then went silent as our commanding officer showed himself. Of course, my luck is such that my “new” commander is Lord General Mezzana.

Mezzana’s 78th Armored wasn’t on the manifest, so I assumed he wasn’t attached to this battle group, but now I know that he was given command of the 33rd Superheavy Regiment. A reward for his work on Avareen, or compensation for his old regiment, which was also sacrificed to the grind?

Either way, my oath is getting easier to fulfill.

Mezzana’s presentation was short. We are headed to reinforce Mechanicus holdings in the Ultima Segmentum, far to the galactic east. The nature of the threat is unknown, the duration of the deployment is unknown, and the location itself is classified. The deployment, he said, is a matter of oaths. The techtriarchy is oathsworn to supply soldiery to the Departmento Munitorum for use in the Guard; the Departmento Munitorum is oathsworn to supply a certain amount of soldiery to support Mechanicus holdings, but is not sworn to provide transportation to those selfsame holdings; the Mechanicus therefore has to pick up the transportation, but then they can determine the destination of such troops.

In summary, the munitorum has seconded us to the whims of the Mechanicus, who aren’t keen on giving us our destination. We’re to be treated like their damn skitarii.

Mezzana seemed to realize our distaste. He promised to keep an ear out for any more intel he can pass along, then made one of those jokes that men only laugh at because it comes from a superior. Molovan laughed with the crowd until I shot him a look.

Mezzana informed us we would be jumping in a day, and then we were dismissed.

0.00 VCM.M41, true date unknown, Whaleship Macharian Haul, en route to warzone
The hull groans. Lights go in and out without sense. Some break completely, showering the deck in shards, before suddenly returning to full functionality just moments later, intact. Sometimes the walls sweat with perspiration from the backwash of the overworked engines, and sometimes I touch the walls while they sweat and pull my fingers away and smell the wet coppery tinge of blood on them. Men scream through the nights, clutching their rifles. I sympathize. My knee aches constantly, and my food tastes like ash.

Two suicides recently. How long is recently? A week? A month? Three days? A year?

Some time ago, Trooper Stoyl lost his mind. He opened fire on his squad during a disembarkation drill. The lasguns were set to low power, and he wasn’t able to secure a kill during his ambush. He managed to crank it to full power and vaporize Trooper Kando’s head just before Lieutenant Olveg killed him in his tracks.

Something is very wrong.

Whispers about the Gellar field. Flickers, the men say.

I’ve given standing orders to quash the rumors and restrict access to weaponry. No one goes anywhere alone. Travel outside our billet is done with, rare as it was before. Mechanicus security has tightened. I will not give them any excuse to jettison their troublesome cargo.

0.00 VCM.M41, true date unknown, Whaleship Macharian Haul, en route to warzone
A pox is upon this ship. The Gellar field has not failed, but it has mutated. The lower decks teem with shambling horrors and flickering glitchlings, ruining power conduits and slaughtering the faithful. The largest of them are the mutated remnants of the Mechanicus’s murder servitor security measures, corrupted and turned to dark purposes.

We are deployed into the lower decks. The infantry regiments flooded the companionways and through-ducts, moving hold-to-hold, clearing the infected. Respirators are mandatory.

Our progress today was substantial. The Chimeras let us move along the dorsal thoroughfares. The Mechanicus won’t let the armored regiments loose--and for good reason--but a ship of this size is conducive to Chimera and Hellhound work.

Molovan introduced me to our operational liaison from the Mechanicus, an Enginseer named Cognitio. I stayed with the Enginseer throughout the operation today, and it was his word which saw a passage either cleared by squads to preserve its holy inner workings or else flushed by the chemical spew of a Bane Wolf.

I had worried that the Enginseer would not allow use of the chemical tanks, and that he would prioritize the salvation of the ship over my men’s lives. Thankfully, this was not the case.

“The Gellerpox must be rooted out. All other conditions are secondary.”

“Well,” I told him, “we’re of the same mind.”

“Our minds are separate,” he told me, and walked away, power axe in hand.

We’ve pulled back for the night cycle, letting the men of the 887th Shock take over. Despite the jitters of first time combat, morale is higher than it has been. Firstborn aren’t made to fret in a hold. We are fighters.