Synopsis: In the grimdarkness of the far future, one lucky Guardsman lands himself the promotion of a lifetime... only to find out that shit isn’t nearly as easy as he’d like to think. Who knew modernizing a medieval world would be so hard? Humor ensues.
OP
ClocktowerEchos Come Fly With Me!
Member
Seen
2 yrs ago
There’s a saying in the Imperial military that service only ends in death. This is the absolute law which all those who serve the Emperor’s divine must follow, there is little knowledge of retirement due to old age. The Emperor gives every man, woman and child their right to live and it it those in the Imperial Guard who are to repay the God-Emperor in full with their own lives in return.
Or so it was thought.
On the (especially) rare occasion when the stars align and Chaos decides to chill the fuck out for a few seconds, one bizarrely lucky guardsman might find themselves free of vows he made. Most the time it’s because he’s just gone off and fucked a daemon and decided to join Chaos and amazingly enough escaped a bolter round to the skull.
For Sergeant Ralmier Tiber on the other hand, he didn’t fuck off and committed obscene amounts of heresy. On the contrary, he did the Imperium a great favor by recovering a rare ancient Standard Construct Template for the almighty (and mildly heretical) Omnissiah and his tech priest servants. And for his most glorious service to the Imperium, he was awarded a planet.
Yup.
Some idiot was just given a planet over a blueprint from god-emperor knows when.
Sergeant Tiber would complain about the stupidity of it all, but he was in no position too. At the very least his chances of getting shot, killed and eaten (hopefully in that order) in battle would be greatly reduced. That and the fact that it was very likely the Adeptus Mechanicus would turn him into a toaster servator if he declined.
The veteran sat alone in his quarters aboard the Dauntless-class light cruiser, Herald of Dawn, and was flipping through several papers and photos. There was the formal letter of celebration and thanks that came with a nice shiny medal, a basic guide on how to rule a planet (which Tiber suspected of it being as useful as the Infantryman’s Primer) as well as several pictures of the planet.
The world he was gifted was a civilized world officially listed as Cuav III but if the guide he was given said anything close to the truth, it was more locally known as Sarab. Right about the technology of that of post-industrial age with a planet full of people who were relatively unified and civilized, more so than any feral stone age world at the very least. It would be a pretty easy task in Tiber’s mind, he’d just appoint some secondary nobles to do most of the work for him while he signed the odd paper and convinced the occasional meeting and would then have a nice and easy life until he would meet the god-emperor in old age.
But at the same time, such an idea didn’t sit well with the training he had. Tiber was a soldier, one confined to a lifetime of service to the savior of mankind. There was nothing but service and duty to him; anything less would have gotten him shot by a Commissar in the frontlines. Tiber had seen it happen a few too many times as well.
Deep in his personal debate, the sergeant's hands fell upon an old picture that was crumpled and worn despite being neatly folded. Picking it up, there was a mixture of smiles and sadness; it was a picture of his squad from the 603rd Cadian, the “Emperor’s Chosen” as they had often called themselves. The 603rd was as diverse as the Imperium itself, being one of those combined units who hosted the remnants of a myriad of other fallen regiments.
Tiber let the memories flow as he ran a hand across the faded image. He always had a sharp memory, the sergeant remembered much of the regiment’s escapades and adventures. And thanks to his squad, he had plenty of tales to boast of like highjacking a Ork Trukk, learning how to ride beasts from an ex-Rough Rider (with limited success), and kicking an Eldar right in the crotch. Fun times, fun times.
“Sir?”, a voice knocked on the door of his cabin, “We’re arriving at your destination.”
Without saying a word, the man got up and stashed everything away. His bags had already been packed and awaiting on the transport. He was mostly dressed for the occasion, as well as he could be at least, it's hard to get years of battle damage and war scars out of flak armor but it looked nice enough. All that was left was some finishing touches: a cape, a icon of faith and his halberd. As a sergeant he was technically supposed to have a power sword as a designation of rank but due to the wonderful ability of the Munitorum to fuck things up harder than a drunken Dark Eldar, Tiber never got one. Instead, he just looted a halberd off the body of some other regiment that seemed to be more concerned with pomp and circumstance. Still though, it did its job well with its reach over more close-range melee weapons something that the guardsman was thankful many times over for.
Slinging his recently polished halberd over his shoulder, Tiber made his way down the corridors of the Herald of Dawn, careful not to decapitate anyone by mistake (the man had already did it once before, didn’t need to see that again). With silent nods he greeted the voidsmen and officers aboard the ship as he made his way down to the hanger and found his way to his surface transport.
The seats were hard but it was not uncomfortable for Tiber, he experienced much worse forms of transports than this, compared to some of the things that he was aboard, this could actually be considered luxurious. The soon-to-be planetary governor sat down and buckled in, ever so giddy on the inside as he threw his command halberd on to the pile of bags and crates that would accompany him.
“Aren’t ye just the lucky bastard of the century?” the pilot joked from the cockpit, “Sure as hell wished I had a planet to control.”
“You fly boys got it easy compared to gents like me!” Tiber smirked back, “You ain’t ever the ones who have to get your boots dirty and always get the best views.”
“Fair point but when ye get shot there’s no chance of ye being thrown into space.”
Tiber chuckled to himself and got cozy, atmospheric entry tend to be bit a bit bumpy no matter what. He was happily content to thinking of being able to sleep alone in something larger than a bathroom stall or a tent and the massive numbers of servants and officials who’d do his job for him while he’d have it easy.
“Alright Mr. Tiber, we’re arriving on Urbino now, get ready for landing.” the pilot began the landing sequence as alarms were being set off in his passenger's head.
“Urbino?” Tiber questioned, “Aren’t I supposed to be on Sarab?”
“Not according to ye papers ye aren’t,” the pilot waved a handful of papers he grabbed from a container, “Says right here ye the new head of Urbino, nice little isolated feudal world in the middle of nowhere.”
Tiber could hear something in his brain shatter like glass. Surely there was a mistake, in fact it was almost certain there was given the Administrum’s paper work and stuff. In a panicked rush, the man dug out his official transcript and sure enough, his fears was confirmed. Instead of just “govern Cuav III” being written as his purpose, it was “govern and uplift the people of Urbino”.
The transport landed on a open field as people surrounded the metal machine from the sky. There was a mix of peasants and nobles and warriors, all eager to see what this thing would bring; word had it that their would be a new leader arriving who would bring peace and prosperity to their lands.
A highborn man dressed in red parted the crowd with his bodyguards and prepared to be the first to greet their new global leader. There was an air of refinement around him but he was just as excited and curious as everyone else; the people of Urbino knew that they were part of some larger empire who sometimes came to demand tributes of grain or metals or whatever but that was it. Many nobles hoped to use the new leader to gain more power in their lands or even beyond while the peasantry hoped just hoped for a good and fair king.
The man in red cleared his throat and marched up to the transport, knightly retinue behind him, “Greetings oh gloriou--”
“WHYYYY? WHHHHYY??? EMPEROR DAMMIT WHY????” Tiber ragingly cried as he rocked in his seat, spouting gibberish and curse words to the flabbergasted locals’ surprise.
The pilot soon popped out of the cockpit to confront the welcoming party, “As ye can see, I’m afraid your glorious overlord ain’t in the mood to really have conversation.” Everyone looked at Tiber who was still in disbelief as some of the crowd tried to get a look inside the ship, “Can I get you gents some coffee though? Also, can ye help unload all the stuff from out back?”
Without saying a word, everyone in the local area collectively had the same thought, “What the fuck is going on?”
Or so it was thought.
On the (especially) rare occasion when the stars align and Chaos decides to chill the fuck out for a few seconds, one bizarrely lucky guardsman might find themselves free of vows he made. Most the time it’s because he’s just gone off and fucked a daemon and decided to join Chaos and amazingly enough escaped a bolter round to the skull.
For Sergeant Ralmier Tiber on the other hand, he didn’t fuck off and committed obscene amounts of heresy. On the contrary, he did the Imperium a great favor by recovering a rare ancient Standard Construct Template for the almighty (and mildly heretical) Omnissiah and his tech priest servants. And for his most glorious service to the Imperium, he was awarded a planet.
Yup.
Some idiot was just given a planet over a blueprint from god-emperor knows when.
Sergeant Tiber would complain about the stupidity of it all, but he was in no position too. At the very least his chances of getting shot, killed and eaten (hopefully in that order) in battle would be greatly reduced. That and the fact that it was very likely the Adeptus Mechanicus would turn him into a toaster servator if he declined.
The veteran sat alone in his quarters aboard the Dauntless-class light cruiser, Herald of Dawn, and was flipping through several papers and photos. There was the formal letter of celebration and thanks that came with a nice shiny medal, a basic guide on how to rule a planet (which Tiber suspected of it being as useful as the Infantryman’s Primer) as well as several pictures of the planet.
The world he was gifted was a civilized world officially listed as Cuav III but if the guide he was given said anything close to the truth, it was more locally known as Sarab. Right about the technology of that of post-industrial age with a planet full of people who were relatively unified and civilized, more so than any feral stone age world at the very least. It would be a pretty easy task in Tiber’s mind, he’d just appoint some secondary nobles to do most of the work for him while he signed the odd paper and convinced the occasional meeting and would then have a nice and easy life until he would meet the god-emperor in old age.
But at the same time, such an idea didn’t sit well with the training he had. Tiber was a soldier, one confined to a lifetime of service to the savior of mankind. There was nothing but service and duty to him; anything less would have gotten him shot by a Commissar in the frontlines. Tiber had seen it happen a few too many times as well.
Deep in his personal debate, the sergeant's hands fell upon an old picture that was crumpled and worn despite being neatly folded. Picking it up, there was a mixture of smiles and sadness; it was a picture of his squad from the 603rd Cadian, the “Emperor’s Chosen” as they had often called themselves. The 603rd was as diverse as the Imperium itself, being one of those combined units who hosted the remnants of a myriad of other fallen regiments.
Tiber let the memories flow as he ran a hand across the faded image. He always had a sharp memory, the sergeant remembered much of the regiment’s escapades and adventures. And thanks to his squad, he had plenty of tales to boast of like highjacking a Ork Trukk, learning how to ride beasts from an ex-Rough Rider (with limited success), and kicking an Eldar right in the crotch. Fun times, fun times.
“Sir?”, a voice knocked on the door of his cabin, “We’re arriving at your destination.”
Without saying a word, the man got up and stashed everything away. His bags had already been packed and awaiting on the transport. He was mostly dressed for the occasion, as well as he could be at least, it's hard to get years of battle damage and war scars out of flak armor but it looked nice enough. All that was left was some finishing touches: a cape, a icon of faith and his halberd. As a sergeant he was technically supposed to have a power sword as a designation of rank but due to the wonderful ability of the Munitorum to fuck things up harder than a drunken Dark Eldar, Tiber never got one. Instead, he just looted a halberd off the body of some other regiment that seemed to be more concerned with pomp and circumstance. Still though, it did its job well with its reach over more close-range melee weapons something that the guardsman was thankful many times over for.
Slinging his recently polished halberd over his shoulder, Tiber made his way down the corridors of the Herald of Dawn, careful not to decapitate anyone by mistake (the man had already did it once before, didn’t need to see that again). With silent nods he greeted the voidsmen and officers aboard the ship as he made his way down to the hanger and found his way to his surface transport.
The seats were hard but it was not uncomfortable for Tiber, he experienced much worse forms of transports than this, compared to some of the things that he was aboard, this could actually be considered luxurious. The soon-to-be planetary governor sat down and buckled in, ever so giddy on the inside as he threw his command halberd on to the pile of bags and crates that would accompany him.
“Aren’t ye just the lucky bastard of the century?” the pilot joked from the cockpit, “Sure as hell wished I had a planet to control.”
“You fly boys got it easy compared to gents like me!” Tiber smirked back, “You ain’t ever the ones who have to get your boots dirty and always get the best views.”
“Fair point but when ye get shot there’s no chance of ye being thrown into space.”
Tiber chuckled to himself and got cozy, atmospheric entry tend to be bit a bit bumpy no matter what. He was happily content to thinking of being able to sleep alone in something larger than a bathroom stall or a tent and the massive numbers of servants and officials who’d do his job for him while he’d have it easy.
“Alright Mr. Tiber, we’re arriving on Urbino now, get ready for landing.” the pilot began the landing sequence as alarms were being set off in his passenger's head.
“Urbino?” Tiber questioned, “Aren’t I supposed to be on Sarab?”
“Not according to ye papers ye aren’t,” the pilot waved a handful of papers he grabbed from a container, “Says right here ye the new head of Urbino, nice little isolated feudal world in the middle of nowhere.”
Tiber could hear something in his brain shatter like glass. Surely there was a mistake, in fact it was almost certain there was given the Administrum’s paper work and stuff. In a panicked rush, the man dug out his official transcript and sure enough, his fears was confirmed. Instead of just “govern Cuav III” being written as his purpose, it was “govern and uplift the people of Urbino”.
The transport landed on a open field as people surrounded the metal machine from the sky. There was a mix of peasants and nobles and warriors, all eager to see what this thing would bring; word had it that their would be a new leader arriving who would bring peace and prosperity to their lands.
A highborn man dressed in red parted the crowd with his bodyguards and prepared to be the first to greet their new global leader. There was an air of refinement around him but he was just as excited and curious as everyone else; the people of Urbino knew that they were part of some larger empire who sometimes came to demand tributes of grain or metals or whatever but that was it. Many nobles hoped to use the new leader to gain more power in their lands or even beyond while the peasantry hoped just hoped for a good and fair king.
The man in red cleared his throat and marched up to the transport, knightly retinue behind him, “Greetings oh gloriou--”
“WHYYYY? WHHHHYY??? EMPEROR DAMMIT WHY????” Tiber ragingly cried as he rocked in his seat, spouting gibberish and curse words to the flabbergasted locals’ surprise.
The pilot soon popped out of the cockpit to confront the welcoming party, “As ye can see, I’m afraid your glorious overlord ain’t in the mood to really have conversation.” Everyone looked at Tiber who was still in disbelief as some of the crowd tried to get a look inside the ship, “Can I get you gents some coffee though? Also, can ye help unload all the stuff from out back?”
Without saying a word, everyone in the local area collectively had the same thought, “What the fuck is going on?”
OP
ClocktowerEchos Come Fly With Me!
Member
Seen
2 yrs ago
It would take poor now-Planetary Governor Tiber a solid few days to recover his mind and accept reality that something had gone wrong. Nevertheless, the man decided to hatch a plan on what to do: do the original plan. Surely that if he just waited a while, new messages from Holy Terra would say that there was botched orders and he’d be transferred. In that time he’d just find some upstart nobles or whatever and just have them do all the work while he sorted this mess out.
Of course as soon as Tiber came up with this plan, he realized its fatal flaw: this was the Administorum he was relying on. The sole organization in the Imperium that could cause a civil war on a planet due to a lack of filing space and had paperwork several thousand years late. He remembered fondly of the time one of his commanders received a message that dated to the time of his grandfather. Ironically enough it was the man’s grandfather who sent it to his son. And people say that time is convoluted in the warp; Tiber figured that the depths of the Administorum had a similar time-bending effect some how.
But for now, Urbino still expected its new overlord to do something than scream all day in the confines of his room. It didn’t take an expert to say that Tiber’s meltdown wasn’t exactly the most positive way to leave a good first impression, and now the aftermath was something the new planetary governor would have to figure out himself as well as all the other things.
The man in red who originally was to greet Tiber was known as Enelo Karine VVI, head of the aptly named House Karine who owned a good chunk of land on the planet including the field where Tiber had came down from the Herald of Dawn. Enelo had been instrumental thus far to Tiber’s efforts, letting him stay in one of his summer estates as his temporary residence and providing some of his personal retinue to guard the newcomer. But more importantly, he was the one who was giving Tiber all of the information about the planet.
From what Enelo told him and whatever tomes and books he could find, Tiber pieced together that Urbino was a very modest place to put it politely, internal power struggles between the nobles and lords left a very fractured populace with nomadic, heretical tribes only making matters worse. At one point Urbino had held an important place in the local systems, but various planets from nearby planets had managed to wrangle away all of the support and wealth the system had, making the Urbino System poorer and poorer with each passing generation for a solid five thousand years.
Going off of Imperial records and geological scans, it seemed that Urbino itself had a vast amount of mineral wealth yet to be exploited, its current state of poverty and fractured unity and power struggles prevented the planet from mining it. The state of technology was one that was somewhere between the high and late middle ages minus the gunpowder. Seemed that no one managed to blow themselves up with an elixir of life just yet.
Tiber would have to first unify the planet in some way in order for his plan to work. Hard to image a state running smoothly when everyone in it wants everyone else dead. Besides, appearing as the “Unifier of Urbino” surely had some very good press value. Of course, that would also mean more work for him and him actually having to do work, most of which he didn’t know how to do.
The Planetary Governor’s Guide to Planetary Governance suggested the appointment of local experts or close friends to assist in running an administration. Problem was that outside of Enelo (who Tiber didn’t actually know all too well really), Tiber didn’t know anyone. He only had the flimsiest of grasps on the culture and people as well. For all he knew, some “expert” in fertilizer farming could just be some homeless bum who slept in manure!
He could have Enelo get some people to help him, but Tiber wasn’t stupid. The lord, for as nice as he was, would most likely put his own friends into power and probably lead some coup against Tiber or just have such a massive influence and power over him. Was it paranoia? Yes, but a life time in the Imperial Guard and being constantly on the prowl for hidden heretics and genestealers tends to do that to people. Besides, working with some of the more arrogant and nasty regiments kept Tiber on his toes, especially if said regiment was full of some “noble” bluebloods or something.
His only remaining option was to contact his squadmates given they were the only people Tiber trusted. Translated into blunt terms: Tiber prayed that the mish-mashed jackasses he worked with before were still alive and knew more about certain select topics than he did because emperor-forbids he would have to teach farmers how to use cotton gin or an Easy-Bake Flamer.
“This is going to be a fucking mess.” The planetary governor sighed as he looked at the paperwork in front of him, mostly requisition orders for machinery, supplies and basically everything in the Imperium had and Urbion had a mysterious lack of. The lack of a plumbing system was the most jarring of the mysterious lackings of the planet, Tiber was glad that he wasn’t the one clearing out the chamber pots or witnessing the process.
“Well,” Enelo tried to think of something positive to cheer up his new liege as he poured over the books along the walls of the study’s library, “At least thou hath a planet in thy personal possession. Many a men would kill and hath killed for such high an honor such as that.”
“Yeah, and all of the inner workings and other bullshit of it too.”
“Perhaps thou would entertain the notion of passing your duties to anothe--”
*Click*
“Hell no.” Tiber pulled out his laspistol and turned off the safety, “Don’t play those kinds of games with me Enelo, I’m not one of the idiots in pompous flums who call themselves ‘lords’ on this planet.”
The native lord sighed and put back the large encyclopedia he quickly held up as a shield. As two-faced as he was, Tiber couldn’t help but find it funny how honest Enelo was about wanting his position. It was equally surprising that he hadn’t been killed in his sleep yet by him. Either that Enelo was the stupidest mustached potato in red on Urbino or that he had some plan that Tzeentch would wonder what the hell was going on.
“Doth thou formulated a plan in which to follow, sir?” Enelo sat in a chair and gracefully sipped a warm cup of xerigium (an herb native to Urbino) tea that a servant just wheeled in on a fine silver cart, “Also, I beseech thou to indulge thyself in some of this delightful native tea.”
“Thanks but no thanks, I drink coffee.” Tiber continued to shuffle around papers before looking up at Enelo’s confused face, clearly unaware of the Emperor’s holy grounded go-go juice, “Its a black drink you make from grinding up beans and--”
“So thou drinketh bean stew on a regular basis?”
“No, it’s much thinner than a stew--”
“So thou drinketh a cup of bean broth?”
“No, it’s not soup, it’s more like tea with--”
“So thou drinketh a paste of liquid bean?”
“No, you also add milk and sometimes something sweet.”
“So thou drinketh a paste of liquid bean with cow excretion and put the mixture into a beehive to sweeten? Pardon me for inquiring, but who’d drinketh such a dangerous and tasteless concoction? What if thou discovered a bee in thou’s drink!”
“No... please... for the love of the Emperor... please just shut up. You’re making coffee sound like some unholy daemonic brew.” Tiber’s hand met his face as he couldn’t believe how hard it was to explain the concept of coffee to this man. The sergeant could feel his blood pressure rising as well as his rage. He wondered if anyone ever turned to Khorne because they had to explain something to a living, pompous brick wall.
“Sounds like a such an unrefined broth to me.” Enelo muttered as he enjoyed another long sip of xerigium tea.
Ignoring the sass, Tiber cleared his throat and spoke with a voice that made him sound competent at his new job:
“My current plan is to requisition offworld supplies and people to assist in the reunification of Urbino. I hope that my title now carries enough weight that I can get my old regiment station here it not some of my old squad or company here, I’m sure they’d appreciate it greatly. If one of the Enginseers could come along, that would be great as well.
I supposed I should also find places of residences for them, although some of them would be more than happy to sleep in a tree or in a barn I guess. Which reminds me I still have to commission a personal fortress estate once this who unification thing is done... ahh, fuck it, I’ll just do it sometime earlier. But first thing is first, I need to go an build an army and eventually turn it into a proper Guard unit... Enelo, would you happen to know anyone with such a qualification as to train an army capable of defending a planet? Or attacking one for that matter.”
“I fear that I dare say I know not of any normal man with such talent who would accept such a task.” Enelo shrugged, “All those who art capable hath been snatch’d by lords and nobles for their own personal retinues.”
Tiber sunk into his chair and sighed, he had a feeling things would only continuously fuck up from here on out and it was barely a week into his leadership. He could lead a squad of ten to battle no problem, but leading a planet of tens of thousands of millions was a whole other squig rodeo. At least his own military experience would be of use and once some people from the 603rd Cadian got here, that’s be even more help.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Oi! Afroxz!” Zorgg the excited gretchen ran down the beaten paths of the Ork camp towards his boss, “Didya ‘ear et? Big boss “Eadhakka sad his mioghty WAAGHHHH be a startin’ soon! Mhm, etz gonna star-- GHEK!”
Afroxz clearly wasn’t amused by the grot’s reference of “‘Eadhakka” being the leader of the WAGHHH and made the green midget pay for it with his head. He chewed on it slowly, savoring the crunch and the warm blood that spilled from it as it dribbled down his chin, “Da only WAGHHH boss ‘round ‘ere is me. Zogging ‘Eadhakka dun know howda getta inna gud ‘n propa scrapping if he tried.”
Flanked by his own green followers, Afrox menacingly made his way towards the tent of ‘Eadhakka, he’ll show him how a real Ork fights and then he’ll lead their WAGHHH. And it’d be the best zogging WAGHHH any of the boyz will ever get themselves into, ever.
Of course as soon as Tiber came up with this plan, he realized its fatal flaw: this was the Administorum he was relying on. The sole organization in the Imperium that could cause a civil war on a planet due to a lack of filing space and had paperwork several thousand years late. He remembered fondly of the time one of his commanders received a message that dated to the time of his grandfather. Ironically enough it was the man’s grandfather who sent it to his son. And people say that time is convoluted in the warp; Tiber figured that the depths of the Administorum had a similar time-bending effect some how.
But for now, Urbino still expected its new overlord to do something than scream all day in the confines of his room. It didn’t take an expert to say that Tiber’s meltdown wasn’t exactly the most positive way to leave a good first impression, and now the aftermath was something the new planetary governor would have to figure out himself as well as all the other things.
The man in red who originally was to greet Tiber was known as Enelo Karine VVI, head of the aptly named House Karine who owned a good chunk of land on the planet including the field where Tiber had came down from the Herald of Dawn. Enelo had been instrumental thus far to Tiber’s efforts, letting him stay in one of his summer estates as his temporary residence and providing some of his personal retinue to guard the newcomer. But more importantly, he was the one who was giving Tiber all of the information about the planet.
From what Enelo told him and whatever tomes and books he could find, Tiber pieced together that Urbino was a very modest place to put it politely, internal power struggles between the nobles and lords left a very fractured populace with nomadic, heretical tribes only making matters worse. At one point Urbino had held an important place in the local systems, but various planets from nearby planets had managed to wrangle away all of the support and wealth the system had, making the Urbino System poorer and poorer with each passing generation for a solid five thousand years.
Going off of Imperial records and geological scans, it seemed that Urbino itself had a vast amount of mineral wealth yet to be exploited, its current state of poverty and fractured unity and power struggles prevented the planet from mining it. The state of technology was one that was somewhere between the high and late middle ages minus the gunpowder. Seemed that no one managed to blow themselves up with an elixir of life just yet.
Tiber would have to first unify the planet in some way in order for his plan to work. Hard to image a state running smoothly when everyone in it wants everyone else dead. Besides, appearing as the “Unifier of Urbino” surely had some very good press value. Of course, that would also mean more work for him and him actually having to do work, most of which he didn’t know how to do.
The Planetary Governor’s Guide to Planetary Governance suggested the appointment of local experts or close friends to assist in running an administration. Problem was that outside of Enelo (who Tiber didn’t actually know all too well really), Tiber didn’t know anyone. He only had the flimsiest of grasps on the culture and people as well. For all he knew, some “expert” in fertilizer farming could just be some homeless bum who slept in manure!
He could have Enelo get some people to help him, but Tiber wasn’t stupid. The lord, for as nice as he was, would most likely put his own friends into power and probably lead some coup against Tiber or just have such a massive influence and power over him. Was it paranoia? Yes, but a life time in the Imperial Guard and being constantly on the prowl for hidden heretics and genestealers tends to do that to people. Besides, working with some of the more arrogant and nasty regiments kept Tiber on his toes, especially if said regiment was full of some “noble” bluebloods or something.
His only remaining option was to contact his squadmates given they were the only people Tiber trusted. Translated into blunt terms: Tiber prayed that the mish-mashed jackasses he worked with before were still alive and knew more about certain select topics than he did because emperor-forbids he would have to teach farmers how to use cotton gin or an Easy-Bake Flamer.
“This is going to be a fucking mess.” The planetary governor sighed as he looked at the paperwork in front of him, mostly requisition orders for machinery, supplies and basically everything in the Imperium had and Urbion had a mysterious lack of. The lack of a plumbing system was the most jarring of the mysterious lackings of the planet, Tiber was glad that he wasn’t the one clearing out the chamber pots or witnessing the process.
“Well,” Enelo tried to think of something positive to cheer up his new liege as he poured over the books along the walls of the study’s library, “At least thou hath a planet in thy personal possession. Many a men would kill and hath killed for such high an honor such as that.”
“Yeah, and all of the inner workings and other bullshit of it too.”
“Perhaps thou would entertain the notion of passing your duties to anothe--”
*Click*
“Hell no.” Tiber pulled out his laspistol and turned off the safety, “Don’t play those kinds of games with me Enelo, I’m not one of the idiots in pompous flums who call themselves ‘lords’ on this planet.”
The native lord sighed and put back the large encyclopedia he quickly held up as a shield. As two-faced as he was, Tiber couldn’t help but find it funny how honest Enelo was about wanting his position. It was equally surprising that he hadn’t been killed in his sleep yet by him. Either that Enelo was the stupidest mustached potato in red on Urbino or that he had some plan that Tzeentch would wonder what the hell was going on.
“Doth thou formulated a plan in which to follow, sir?” Enelo sat in a chair and gracefully sipped a warm cup of xerigium (an herb native to Urbino) tea that a servant just wheeled in on a fine silver cart, “Also, I beseech thou to indulge thyself in some of this delightful native tea.”
“Thanks but no thanks, I drink coffee.” Tiber continued to shuffle around papers before looking up at Enelo’s confused face, clearly unaware of the Emperor’s holy grounded go-go juice, “Its a black drink you make from grinding up beans and--”
“So thou drinketh bean stew on a regular basis?”
“No, it’s much thinner than a stew--”
“So thou drinketh a cup of bean broth?”
“No, it’s not soup, it’s more like tea with--”
“So thou drinketh a paste of liquid bean?”
“No, you also add milk and sometimes something sweet.”
“So thou drinketh a paste of liquid bean with cow excretion and put the mixture into a beehive to sweeten? Pardon me for inquiring, but who’d drinketh such a dangerous and tasteless concoction? What if thou discovered a bee in thou’s drink!”
“No... please... for the love of the Emperor... please just shut up. You’re making coffee sound like some unholy daemonic brew.” Tiber’s hand met his face as he couldn’t believe how hard it was to explain the concept of coffee to this man. The sergeant could feel his blood pressure rising as well as his rage. He wondered if anyone ever turned to Khorne because they had to explain something to a living, pompous brick wall.
“Sounds like a such an unrefined broth to me.” Enelo muttered as he enjoyed another long sip of xerigium tea.
Ignoring the sass, Tiber cleared his throat and spoke with a voice that made him sound competent at his new job:
“My current plan is to requisition offworld supplies and people to assist in the reunification of Urbino. I hope that my title now carries enough weight that I can get my old regiment station here it not some of my old squad or company here, I’m sure they’d appreciate it greatly. If one of the Enginseers could come along, that would be great as well.
I supposed I should also find places of residences for them, although some of them would be more than happy to sleep in a tree or in a barn I guess. Which reminds me I still have to commission a personal fortress estate once this who unification thing is done... ahh, fuck it, I’ll just do it sometime earlier. But first thing is first, I need to go an build an army and eventually turn it into a proper Guard unit... Enelo, would you happen to know anyone with such a qualification as to train an army capable of defending a planet? Or attacking one for that matter.”
“I fear that I dare say I know not of any normal man with such talent who would accept such a task.” Enelo shrugged, “All those who art capable hath been snatch’d by lords and nobles for their own personal retinues.”
Tiber sunk into his chair and sighed, he had a feeling things would only continuously fuck up from here on out and it was barely a week into his leadership. He could lead a squad of ten to battle no problem, but leading a planet of tens of thousands of millions was a whole other squig rodeo. At least his own military experience would be of use and once some people from the 603rd Cadian got here, that’s be even more help.
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“Oi! Afroxz!” Zorgg the excited gretchen ran down the beaten paths of the Ork camp towards his boss, “Didya ‘ear et? Big boss “Eadhakka sad his mioghty WAAGHHHH be a startin’ soon! Mhm, etz gonna star-- GHEK!”
Afroxz clearly wasn’t amused by the grot’s reference of “‘Eadhakka” being the leader of the WAGHHH and made the green midget pay for it with his head. He chewed on it slowly, savoring the crunch and the warm blood that spilled from it as it dribbled down his chin, “Da only WAGHHH boss ‘round ‘ere is me. Zogging ‘Eadhakka dun know howda getta inna gud ‘n propa scrapping if he tried.”
Flanked by his own green followers, Afrox menacingly made his way towards the tent of ‘Eadhakka, he’ll show him how a real Ork fights and then he’ll lead their WAGHHH. And it’d be the best zogging WAGHHH any of the boyz will ever get themselves into, ever.
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