Propaganda Imperialis

Propaganda Imperialis

Cadet Commissar Vaughn Bracht sighed to himself as he walked down the narrow, well-lit corridor, following in the wake of a taller man in a dark greatcoat. Recently graduated from the Schola Progenium, he had expected to be placed directly into the battle field, ready to prove his worth and test his mettle. Years of hard study: wearying education in tactical awareness; the stinging lessons in fencing and swordsmanship; classes in instilling morale in troops drilled into him. Had he been placed under the command of a more orthodox commissar, he could already be dead, killed in some campaign on some thrice-damned world, shot or burned while exhorting a platoon to greater deeds for the glory of the Emperor and Holy Terra. Bracht wanted to prove his worth, his readiness. Had he been placed under a more orthodox commissar.

Bracht stared hard at the back of Commissar Harkenn’s head as he followed the route through the corridors. Harkenn, the champion of the Andarras Campaign three decades prior. Harkenn, the commissar who had pushed a single platoon of Imperial Guard to hold the northern gate of Gaskatt Hive against the insane forces of Chaos for three hours. Harkenn, the poser of pictures, the purveyor of propaganda. Bracht snorted. His first task granted by Commissar Harkenn was to assist in editing pictcaster footage to be broadcast and used in newsreels.

“You can stop glaring at me like that, lad,” Harkenn said over his shoulder. Bracht blinked in mild surprise. A smile crept onto Harkenn’s worn features. “What you are learning today is a vital part of maintaining control and providing hope to the subjects of the Imperium.”

Vaughn snorted in derision. Now he was going to be dumped into a room with video editors.

Harkenn sighed, slowing his pace. “I know what you are feeling, Vaughn,” he said. “I, too, was a cadet once. I was eager to see combat, to prove myself on the field, to advance to full commissar status and exhort my men to victory in the Emperor’s name. But you must realise that this is an important part of defending humanity. We shield the civilians from the horror of the galaxy. As our armies protect them from the enemy on the battlefield, so they must also be protected from witnessing the horror of what we face.”

Bracht nodded. “We take the reality and horror and war and present it in such a way that reassures the masses to the unbreakable might of the Imperium.”

Harkenn chuckled. “Exactly. Granted, this is only a small part of our task as members of the Comissariat, and you will most frequently be called upon to act on the battlefield. But you must know that there may well come a time that your actions on the battlefield will be broadcast across systems, to promote our victories and battles. And, very rarely, you may be asked to review the footage yourself and provide better… details on what to include.”

Vaughn nodded again. He had heard of commissars, usually those granted positions as Commissariat representatives to planetary governments, who aided in the creation and editing of the newsreels that were so often broadcast to system worlds.

Harkenn stopped at a door at the end of the corridor. He wrenched down on the handle and swung it open, motioning for Bracht to follow him. The room was stiflingly warm. The cycler-unit had once again shut down, and the sharp tangy smell of hot plastic and metal clung to the stagnant air. Databanks hummed and whirred, their flat screens flickering and buzzing with static. Two men sat hunched over a collection of screens, muttering to each other. Upon noticing the new entries to the room, they stood in greeting.

Harkenn snapped his heels together. “Commissar Harkenn and Cadet-Commissar Bracht, Uclan Fifth,” he said in greeting.

One of the men inclined his head. “Graeme Granz, chief editor of archival and newsreel footage. This is my colleague, Jai Critch.” The other man nodded silently. “You wanted us to show the cadet how to edit pictcaster images, Commissar?”

Harkenn nodded. “I believe it would be a valuable piece of Bracht’s education.” Harkenn turned to Vaughn. “I’ll leave you to study and learn from these two. I shall return in two hours.” Bracht nodded and saluted as Harkenn left the room.

The man who had introduced himself as Graeme smiled amiably, and pulled a chair across for Bracht to sit on. As Vaughn sat, Graeme began to show him various pictvids on the databank screen. Image after image flashed across the screen, depicting the scenes of a vast battlefield. In this one a Guardsman lay dead or dying, in that one he was firing a lasgun at an unseen foe. Vaughn watched dozens of these images flash past as Graeme talked about the process of editing the pictures and footage into a presentable format.

“Take this one, for example,” Graeme said, indicating the image on screen. “You see how this soldier is firing wildly at something off camera, and the one below him is, well…” He paused uncomfortably.

“There’s a great bloody hole in his chest,” Jai snapped. “Just say he’s dead. Honestly, you do this every time,” he mumbled acidly to himself, flicking through his own set of images.

“Right, yes, well, let’s see what we can do about that. We’ll start by cleaning up the image a bit, and removing that wound.” Graeme tapped a few keys, and passed his palm across a flat black panel. The blood vanished, replaced instead by simple camo-colours that blended seamlessly into his uniform. “Right, now we can open his eyes so that he is looking up at his friend here…” another set of key presses, a few more passes over the sensor pad, and the dead Guardsman was looking up at his comrade, alive and well.

“Impressive,” Bracht murmured.

“Isn’t it, though? Now, this other one with the lasgun looks too scared to me, and that just won’t do for anyone to see, now would it? So let’s darken this part of his face, and now he looks more presentable.”

Bracht had to admit that the change, though minor, was striking. The lone Guardsman, once so terrified and firing wildly, was now roaring in anger and defiance, apparently firing with measured control at the unseen foe. It was quite impressive.

“Now, we have this video clip here,” Graeme began, displaying the footage on his screen. The sounds of battle crept into the room, tinny and hollow through the databank’s speakers: screams of the wounded and dying, the whip-crack of lasguns, the roar of tank guns. “We need to dub over the sound, make it less distressing, more heroic. Any ideas, Cadet-Commisar?”

Bracht pursed his lips briefly, his brow furrowing. “Remove the screams and replace them with litanies and prayers to the Emperor. Something pious, but inspirational. And remove the sound of the tanks, make the infantry more prominent in the clip. I think we want to show the fighting men of the Imperium, not machinery.”

Graeme smiled and nodded. “You have a good grasp of how this works, Cadet-Commissar,” he said jovially. Jai grunted and rolled his eyes. “And now, the next clip…” Graeme continued, rolling the pictvid on.

The image on screen shuddered and shook as clumps of mud and small hillocks flashed past. The camera was evidently travelling at speed, the dull roar of a Chimera engine in the background. There was a shrieking bang, and the image tipped sideways, bouncing and rolling, coming to a rest in the mud. Something appeared on the screen. It was a terrible visage of horror, all muscle and sinew and bone. Curved horns protruded from a skull covered in tight, red tissue that pulsed and crawled. Blood seemed to flow across the bare muscle, weeping from joints. Sharp, cruel teeth were fixed in a terrible grin, wide and terrifying. Jai turned and heaved, vomiting on the floor as he soiled himself. Bracht gagged, but held himself in check, gritting his teeth.

“Shut that footage off, stop the tape,” he growled.

Graeme, averting his eyes from the terrible image on the screen, swivelled across on his chair, and pressed the corresponding stop keys. He risked a glance at the screen, but the image continued playing. The terrible creature strode toward the fallen camera. The editor turned away quickly, retching at the mind-twisting sight of the daemon.

“Switch the damn thing off,” Bracht ordered again. “Cut the power!”

“But the data we would lose…” Graeme replied.

“Forget the crekking data, turn it off now!”

The editor pressed the shutdown combination, but still the screen remained on. Frantically, he scrambled behind the data terminal and, muttering an apology under his breath to the inevitable gaggle of angry tech priests he would encounter after this, wrenched the power cable from the terminal. There was a crackle as power was suddenly shut off. The editor crawled back to the front of the terminal, and was relieved to see the screen had gone black.

“It’s alright, Cadet-Commissar,” he said cheerfully, turning to face Bracht. Bracht was about to respond, but the words caught in his throat as his face paled. Graeme thought he was looking at something behind him. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as a chill settled into his body. He turned slowly.

The daemon was looking directly at him from the screen.

Graeme screamed as his mind was torn apart, shredded inside his skull as the daemon’s warp-taint fed directly into him. Those dark, soulless eyes bored into his own, ripping into his being. His soul was flayed from his body. Graeme’s scream rose in volume and pitch as he was consumed from the inside out. The primal cry of fear and suffering gurgled and became choked as blood welled past his lips. His body erupted in blood and fragments of bone as the daemon, no longer inhabiting the confines of the screen, crawled out of Graeme’s tattered skin.

Cadet-Commissar Vaughn Bracht trembled at the sight of the thing before him. It was impossible to comprehend, a mind-bending vision of insanity and terror. The blood that flowed down the daemon’s body pooled and congealed on the metal floor. Jai screamed, driven mad with fear. The daemon turned to him, grinning, and reached for the unfortunate editor. Jai’s scream became strained and he writhed as a massive, clawed hand closed around his neck and lifted him from the ground.

Bracht shook himself from his fear-induced stupor. He cursed himself for a fool as he cast aside his great coat, pulling his laspistol from the holster at his hip and unlimbering his chainsword. Pitiful weapons against a daemon, he knew, but he had faith. Faith was the most powerful weapon a true servant of the Emperor could wield. He would not allow this warp-filth to live.

Bracht placed two well-placed shots into the daemon’s back, the whipcrack of the laspistol fire echoing in the room, the familiar tang of ionised air accompanying the shots. Blood congealed and flaked on the daemon’s flank where the shots had landed, but the daemon was unfazed. It turned to face Bracht and, if it were possible to read expression on a daemon, Bracht would later swear it contemptuously tore the skin from the screaming editor in one deft motion. The unfortunate Jai died in writhing agony, his blood splashed across the floor and walls of the editing suite, staining screens and databanks.

Bracht fired again, whipping quick, successive shots at the daemon. Each shot struck its intended target, but the daemon ignored them as though they were fly bites. The warp-thing advanced on the cadet-commissar, flexing its wicked claws in anticipation of more blood. Bracht stepped back, sinking shot after shot into the daemon with little effect. The chainsword revved in his hands, the teeth of the blade becoming a whirring blur of motion. Bracht, knowing there was no escape as the daemon blocked the one exit from the room, began a prayer to the Emperor. He pushed down his fear, and felt only anger. Anger that such an abomination could exist, anger that he had not acted to protect two citizens of the Imperium, anger at the foul forces of Chaos.

“O Holy Emperor, grant me the strength to smite this abomination,” Bracht muttered.

The daemon suddenly leapt forwards, closing the distance between them with blinding speed. Years of training in the fencing fields and duel arenas had honed Bracht’s reflexes, but he barely avoided the daemon’s lunge. The cadet-commissar swung his chainsword in low, the biting teeth of the blade chewing into the daemon’s flank. Black ichor and foul fluid splashed from the wound, and the dameon howled as the weapon whined in Bracht’s hand. He withdrew quickly as the daemon turned with a snarl. Bracht was horrified to see that his blade had tarnished a dirty black, already corroding in the daemon’s foul blood.

The daemon lunged again, and Bracht twisted inside its reaching arms. Claws scraped along his shoulder, a cold numbness seeping into his arm. Thrusting with all his might with the cumbersome weapon, Bracht plunged the screaming chainsword into the daemon’s belly. The blade hissed and steamed as the daemon roared in pain. Black blood spurted from the wound, corroding the weapon beyond use. Bracht screamed as the death throws of his blade’s mechanism splashed the corrosive blood against the left side of his body, hissing through fabric, burning his skin. The daemon, in fury, gripped the cadet-commissar in its massive claws. Bracht struggled in its numbing grip as claws pierced his uniform and skin. A terrible coldness seeped into his chest and arms. The daemon, wounded, howled in triumph, opening its jaws wide to bite Bracht’s head off.

Bracht raised his arm, and thrust his laspistol into the daemon’s mouth. “Emperor damn you!” he muttered defiantly.

The laspistol bucked in his hand, the crack of the shot muffled inside the daemon’s mouth. The daemon, stunned, dropped Bracht as it stumbled back, keening and crying in pain and rage. Bracht struggled to rise, peeling off his hissing, steaming gloves before the daemon blood could cripple his hand entirely. He threw aside his laspistol in disgust, the weapon now a melted, useless lump of metal. The cadet-commissar turned to face the daemon as it screamed at him.

The door slammed open with a resonating clang, echoed by the loud crack of bolter rounds fired in quick succession. The daemon’s head exploded, smashed apart by the volatile rounds. Bracht sank back against the wall, exhausted, cold numbness making his arms heavy as lead. He raised his head as a black-clad figure strode toward him.

Commissar Harkenn hoisted Vaughn to his feet, the bolt pistol still smoking in his hand. The commissar holstered his weapon, breathing deeply, looking long and hard at Bracht. He glanced around the room, taking in the scene of horror: the splintered skin and congealing blood of Graeme, the almost perfect skin of Jai Critch, the streaks of dark blood across the wall and ceiling, the black ichor that still hissed and sizzled on the cold, metal floor.

“I think the Inquisition will want a word,” he said finally.