Major Tiutchev sniffed the air apprehensively. The sooty smell of burning excrement hung heavily in the air, only marginally overpowered by the stench from the long, open sewers which now served the division as temporary latrines.
In some ways, Tiutchev reflected, the 34th's sprawling camp now resembled an Ork village with the communal drops off to one side instead on in the center. All one really needed was the sound of unmuffled engines racing back and forth to complete the illusion.
Across the sprawling complex of tents, tanks and supply depots, pillars of smoke rose from the still-smoldering remains of the division's original latrines. Through the soot-choked air, Tiutchev could hear the high-pitched cawing of a Confessor extolling a crowd of loitering artillerymen on the virtues of venting oneself in public.
The smell and indignity of the situation had the troops' nerves on edge. The Valhallans were used to rugged conditions while out on patrol, but the camp was awash in Imperial Agents - from the ever-present Ministorium priests to the Administorium bean-counters that were constantly inventorying the munitions, it seemed at times that the warfighters were outnumbered by the civilians. Added to that was the gross misapplication of the 34th in this, a temperate locale. At night, the temperature fell to levels where the Valhallans felt they needed to close their tent flaps, but as the sun rose, the atmosphere heated to above freezing, melting the frozen sludge in the sewer-trenches and filling the troops' nostrils with the unfamiliar scent of standing water and refuse.
Tiutchev had noted seven fights on the morning's activities log, and he had ordered increased patrols of the camp effective immediately. Unfortunately, that left him with fewer MPs to search for the presumed saboteur.
A search, Tiutchev reflected, that was becoming increasingly difficult.
Tiutchev had appealed to the Tech Adepts to coax information out of the Wisdom Machine. Predictably, this led to hard questions from the upper echelon. After a terse interview with the senior Commissar, his request for information was granted and he was rewarded with a ream of auto-vellum covered with data on the Eldar. He was able to scan the papers during the course of a sleepless ten-hour night before a sallow captain from Corps Intelligence (accompanied by three bulky stormtroopers) arrived to confiscate the package the next morning. It was three hours less than Tiutchev had hoped for.
It was enough, however, to satisfy Tiutchev that little was known about Eldar espionage.
Protracted combat against the aliens was typically confined to the so-called Maiden Worlds, where Human and Eldar settlers vied for control of lush garden planets. In such situations, the stoic Eldar settlers rarely utilized much of the vaunted technology that characterized the Eldar race. In laudable displays of almost human-like brutality, the "Exodites", as they called themselves, typically settled such differences with straightforward war.
The craftworld Eldar, on the other hand, were more enigmatic. The report had alluded to occasions where the Imperium and the Eldar would make war against a common foe, although the references to that foe were often obscured in the text. Other times, the Eldar would raid a site for no apparent rhyme or reason - striking quickly and then melting back into the dark of interstellar night. No mention was made of a campaign were the sophisticated craftworld Eldar would commit enough forces to hold an entire continent of a planet ... as they were doing here. Nor any record of the aliens constructing mock-cities for the purpose of elaborate ruses... such as the one perpetrated two days earlier. More to the point, the Wisdom Machine apparently could not recall a time when sustained efforts had been used by the craftworld Eldar to stage intricate behind-the-lines actions such as this one. The Machine certainly could not divine a correlation between the Eldar, this meaningless, unnamed world, and the division's latrines.
There was obviously something missing, and Tiutchev had the uneasy feeling that he was simply not in a position to determine what that something might be.
[This piece of fluff was written as a part of an ongoing battle of e-mail between myself and Chris Lerche.
Major Tiutchev (named after the mid-19th century poet), commandant of the Valhallan 35th Mechanized Infantry Military Police, faced the dreaded Farseer Daisy-Eater and his hallucinogen-wielding scouts in battle using the Necromunda rules. Tiutchev led a squad of IG troopers against a 5-"man" squad of Eldar scouts. The results were less than spectacular for the IG.]