Outside, in the snowbound darkness, Third Chaplain Amalgama and his kill team of Word Bearers peered at Ultramarine HQ through magnoculars.
"She missed!" said Brother-Initiate Tossin.
"How can you tell?" Amalgama said.
"The Ultramarines remain the cheesiest Chapter, Excellency. Can't you feel it?"
"Feel it?" Amalgama shuddered. "I've been swimming through brie from the moment I set foot in this wretched dump."
"I thought Tanith snipers were supposed to be the best," Brother Syster snarled.
"Perhaps our indoctrination failed?" Tossin said.
"Our indoctrination methods are blessed by the Fell Powers," Amalgama said. "They can't be overcome by some hive-wench in a cape. Calgar has nine lives, it seems. Still, there are plenty of... traps... to snare him. Ahaha. Ahahahaha. AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!"
It dawned on his brethren that they should join in, though no-one knew why they were laughing at their own failure. Only the kill-team'sfourth member, the ever-silent Nameless One, remained quiet. Hecrossed his arms and stared at Smurf HQ.
"We chose our assassin well," the Third Chaplain said. "You will see..."
Greetings everyone! Christmas draws near, the nights are getting longer and life is getting more stressful. Why not kick back and relax with the ridiculous adventures of Marneus Calgar's Barmy Army?
What if Lord Calgar were an oaf obsessed with Home Alone 2? What if Brin Milo, described as "the Wesley Crusher of 40K", and ace sniper Nessa Bourah of the Tanith 1st and Only had been assigned to Ultramar for reasons we don't go into? What if an insane fanfic writer, who thinks fart jokes are hilarious, decided to push the acceptable limit of decency? These questions, asked by precisely no-one, are answered in crude and hilarious fashion each Christmas. A Winter's Fail v2.0 is a brand new story which replaces last year's effort. There is also a 2019 special, Fool Runnings, coming on 1st December 2019.
Welcome to another Christmas in the trenches.
=|U|=
=|U|=
MARNEUS CALGAR'S 2018 XMAS SPECIAL: A WINTER'S FAIL
It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has been trying to warn people that their iPhones, of which they are so proud, are powered only by the tears of the slave-children who build them. Yet even so, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance, although since he misses so much of what's going on in the 41st Millennium, his vigilance must be focused on the bedchambers of the Battle Sisters. Boing!
To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. Forget the promise of a present on Christmas morning, for in the grim darkness of the far future, Father Christmas isn't guaranteed to get around everyone in one night. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter and the laughter of thirsting gods, drowned out on one special night by Marneus Calgar playing "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day" at 110 decibels.
Picture this: a tranquil, snowbound landscape, watched over by a moon shaped like a flying silver Christmas pudding. Beneath the moon rears an indomitable fortress decorated with multi-coloured Christmas lights. In the uppermost corner of that fortress is a lighted window, and behind that window is the private chamber of a flatulating oaf known to legend as "The Roaring Bane" and to his men as "That Moaning Slap-Head".
Within this chamber, Lord Calgar himself and his second-in-command, Dick Bannerman, lounge upon the galaxy's most comfortable settee before an 800-inch, 20K resolution screen which has built-in etheric communications capability (and a little blue light that glows for several frustrating seconds before the screen finally comes on). Lo, does 20K resolution play havoc even with the genhanced eyeballs of the Ultramarines, but greatly did they pay for it and so they must now get their money's worth.
Upon the screen are the adventures of a young child from the 2nd Millennium who flees the pursuit of two burglars. One of the burglars fails a dangerous terrain test and stands on a nail. How our esteemed Ultramarine heroes roar with laughter. Calgar, of course, laughs louder, for he will not be outdone by an underling.
"Can I have your nuts?" said Calgar.
"What?" Bannerman cried. He remembered the bowl of roast chestnuts resting on his knees. "Oh, right. I didn't think you liked them, sir."
"Here we fething go, the return of Fanny Cradock." Calgar pushed a fistful of chestnuts into his mouth. Dick tried to ignore the nauseating sounds of chewing. Lord Calgar wasn't called Liquid Mouth for nothing.
"Where's Milo?" Calgar said with his mouth full. Bits of chestnut flew everywhere.
"He is decorating the halls with bells and holly, my Lord."
"Just like the song, then?"
"I still think it's boughs of holly, sir." Bannerman wilted beneath Calgar's imperious gaze. "But I just wave the flag, what do I know."
On the screen, Kevin McCallister was being pursued through his own neighbour hood by the two burglars.
"See, what I don't get," Calgar said with a spray of his nuts, "is why the Arbites don't just cut the burglers' hands off? And that scene in the forthress-cathedral, where the old paedo tries it on with Kevin, how come they aren't whipped for talking during a service?"
"I think you misunderstand the film, sir," Bannerman said. "The people of the late second and early third millennia were Lefties who treated criminals better than victims. The human race was on the verge of self-annihilation until the Emperor revealed himself."
"Imagine if the Emperor had never turned up," Calgar said. The Ultramarines spent a heretical moment realising they would have been normal people who earned money and got laid.
"A better question," Calgar said, changing the subject, "is what did the Emperor do before he started... empering?"
"Probably watched these fething films, like I'm trying to do, sir." Something outside the window distracted Bannerman for a moment. A glint. The curtains were open and a glorious night sky could be seen outside. The temperature was -27C at sea level, and Ultramarines HQ was at the top of a mountain. Who could be out there?
"Well, that's the first film out of the way," Calgar said as Home Alone drew to its conclusion. "Second one's on tomorrow. How many times have we missed it now?"
"At least fifteen years in a row, my Lord." Bannerman continued to stare at the window.
"What's up with you? It isn't Christmas Eve yet, you won't see any reindeer."
As he spoke, a red dot appeared on his stomach. Bannerman watched with growing horror as the dot moved slowly up Calgar's body and rested between his eyes. The Chapter Master noticed his expression.
"Dick, have you been sniffing the snow-spray again?"
"LOOK OUT, SIR!" Bannerman yelled. Defying the laws of physics, he threw himself against Calgar. The Master of Ultramar and his bannerman went over the side of the settee in a tangle of arms and legs, upending the furniture and sending chestnuts everywhere. Frigid air howled in as the window glass vapourised. A chunk of wall was annihilated where Calgar's head had just been; part of the settee exploded and caught fire.
"What are you playing at Dick, you've squashed my nuts!"
"We can buy you some more later!" Bannerman said, craning around to look for threats.
"I'm not talking about the food you fething prawn." Calgar pushed his second-in-command off and grabbed his own crotch, trying to pop his "little boiled eggs" back into place. "What's wrong with you? You know I only allow hugs on Christmas Day."
Bannerman raced to the window. He saw what appeared to be a curious winged creature flapping away until the night hid it from even his carrot-boosted eyesight.
Calgar was patting out the fire on the settee. He found something between the seat cushions.
"Hooray, I've found 50p!"
"My Lord," Bannerman said, "do you realise I just saved your fething life?"
"You certainly did you great plank of wood. Chaplain Derrick said he would commit my soul to the flames if I didn't pay his fifty pence back. I don't know what the miserable sod's problem is, I only borrowed it two years ago."
"SIR!" Bannerman yelled. He was a patient man but even the hardiest Imperial saint would lose his rag with an oaf like Calgar. "The wall! Look at the wall!"
Calgar turned to regard the fist-sized hole in the rockrete.
"Wow, didn't think I sat back that hard."
"Oh my fething Emperor," Bannerman said. "My Lord, someone just fired a hot-shot lasgun at your head. You were nearly assassinated by a traitor!"
"Ding dong merrily on fething high!" Calgar said. "Arrest Brin Milo at once!"
"Sir, he wouldn't have done this."
"Who cares, we could do with a good laugh."
=|U|=
Outside, in the snowbound darkness, Third Chaplain Amalgama and his kill team of Word Bearers peered at Ultramarine HQ through magnoculars.
"She missed!" said Brother-Initiate Tossin.
"How can you tell?" Amalgama said.
"The Ultramarines remain the cheesiest Chapter, Excellency. Can't you feel it?"
"Feel it?" Amalgama shuddered. "I've been swimming through brie from the moment I set foot in this wretched dump."
"I thought Tanith snipers were supposed to be the best," Brother Syster snarled.
"Perhaps our indoctrination failed?" Tossin said.
"Our indoctrination methods are blessed by the Fell Powers," Amalgama said. "They can't be overcome by some hive-wench in a cape. Calgar has nine lives, it seems. Still, there are plenty of... traps... to snare him. Ahaha. Ahahahaha. AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!"
It dawned on his brethren that they should join in, though no-one knew why they were laughing at their own failure. Only the kill-team'sfourth member, the ever-silent Nameless One, remained quiet. Hecrossed his arms and stared at Smurf HQ.
"We chose our assassin well," the Third Chaplain said. "You will see..."
=|U|=
It had been easy for Bourah. The Tanith sniper had simply allowed herself to be snatched up by a flying creature evolved from a Tyranid Gargoyle; it had been an easy matter of hanging upside-down from its claws while she lined up a shot, a shot spoiled only by a man who lived up to his name. It seemed that Bourah must eliminate the greater threat before she put a round between Calgar's eyes.
"I must get Dick," she said to herself in a zombie voice as the Tyranid creature carried her away. "I must get Dick."
=|U|=
"It was only a winter's tale, just another epic fail!" Brin Milo sang as he sprayed snow along the tops of pictures, cabinets, doorways and eventually across the breastplates and faces of 1st Company warriors. He hadn't been instructed to do this, in fact all he'd been asked to do was apply it to the various fake Christmas trees around the base, but the spray fumes had gone to his head. A door banged open in the distance.
"MILO!" Calgar roared at 150 decibels. The Chapter Master, Dick Bannerman and several warriors of 1st Company marched up to where the young Tanith lad was spraying something across a wall. Milo hid the spray can behind his back.
"This is it you little snollygoster," Calgar said.
"What?" said Milo, a cry echoed by many of Calgar's men.
"Don't give me the 'butter wouldn't melt up my bottom' routine. It's the nerve-glove for you my lad, pain level 'Listening to What About Us by Pink on constant loop until you think it's well-written'."
"But I haven't done anything!"
"Don't worry," Dick said to Milo, shielding his mouth with one hand so Calgar couldn't hear him. "Flat-Head's having one of his tantrums, he'll be out of steam soon."
"I gave you four instructions," Calgar said. "One: put all the trimmings up. Two: stop pulling yourself off about Saint Sabbat, your tissues are clogging the water reclaimers. Three... what was the third one again?"
"I think it was something about a beef sandwich, sir," Bannerman said.
"Oh, yeah, where's my fething lunch? Well that's just another of your failures. Four: don't be a heretic. These were simple instructions even an Ed Sheeran fan could follow."
"Sir, that's not fair!" said Milo. "I made your beef sandwiches."
"Then where are they?"
"I ate them," Milo said after a pause. "But I decorated! Look!" He gestured to the wall next to him, forgetting that he'd been spraying "MARINUS CALGER IS A TW".
"Milo, do you understand how serious this is? Describing a superior Ultramarine as a TW? What's it mean, anyway?"
"Er..." Milo thought quickly. He looked at Calgar. The Ultramarine Lord had a figure like play-dough squeezed into an old woman's stockings.
"It was supposed to say 'a twin of Schwarzenegger in his prime'," Milo lied. "But I didn't know how to spell it." (Neither does your author, fact fans!)
"Well, I do spend a few hours every day in the gym," Calgar said, curling an arm.
Replace 'hours' with 'minutes' and 'day' with 'year' and you've got it, Milo thought.
"In that case," Calgar said, "I forgive you on all charges. Number Two, it's time to play the Michael Ball Christmas album."
"We can't, sir," said Bannerman. "You lost it, remember?"
"WHAT!" said Calgar.
"You lost it on Boxing Day when you got drunk and invited Sister Superior Ultricia to do you the honour of sitting on your face. Not only did the Battle Sisters confiscate the album, we all got the nerve-glove."
"Primarch on a fething pogo-stick," said Calgar. "So we're nowhere near solving the Christmas Assassin Mystery, Milo's had my lunch and the Michael Ball Christmas Album has been confiscated by Sister Ulterior and her merry band of bags. What would Hercule Poirot say?"
"You big fat buffeune, why don you put a cork up your derriere and be a monsieur for once, hahohaho?" suggested Milo.
"Exactly," said Calgar, who hadn't understood a word. "Make a note of that, Number Two."
"Sir," Bannerman said, "we must find the assassin quickly. You're supposed to be addressing the 500 Worlds in half an hour. It's time for your annual Christmas Speech."
"But I do that on Christmas Day. Have I accidentally slept for two days again?"
"You agreed to do this year's broadcast early, because last year's put everyone off their Christmas dinner. Don't you remember, sir? Two hundred million citizens flushed their food down the toilet. The waste extraction servitors said they'd never seen so much turkey, at least not in that condition."
"Right then, Warriors of Ultramar, we've got an assassin to slap and we're on a clock." Calgar paused. "Oh, and Milo, seen as how you're the reason we always miss Home Alone 2, if we don't get to watch it this year I'll drive my Land Raider up your ho-ho-hole. But because you're a mate, I'll let the servitors slather your buttocks with butter first."
"Why do all his threats involve my backside?" Milo wondered as they formed into fire teams.
=|U|=
Nessa Bourah had killed the Tyranid creature with her combat knife. She survived the plummet to earth by inflating a Guard-issue condom and floating gently to the ground. After making touchdown, she looked towards the glittering fairy lights of Smurf HQ, checked her compass, made some mental calculations and pulled her regulation 9-70 from her belt. Bourah began to dig. The spade was small and not intended for undermining, but she had her instructions and the night was young. Calgar would no doubt find the little present she'd left him, and he'd be incapacitated by the time she arrived. His men would be too busy dying to the traps Bourah had laid throughout the base. Easy prey.
The Tanith sniper paused and removed another item from her belt. She'd already hollowed the Tyranid creature's head out. Nessa put it on, wearing it like a mask. She continued to dig.
=|U|=
"What's she doing now?" Third Chaplain Amalgama of the Word Bearers hissed. Amalgama was getting on a bit with ten thousand years on the clock, and had the creeping feeling that the situation was getting away from him.
"Digging, Excellency," said Brother-Initiate Tossin.
"I can see that, fool! I mean why is she doing it? Is it a grave for Calgar?"
"It's difficult to tell from fifteen thousand yards away, Excellency," said Tossin. "If we had given her a missile launcher instead of a sniper rifle, as I suggested, this would already be done."
The Third Chaplain growled at the initiate, who had the brains to look chastened.
"She's gone full-on Michael Myers," Brother Syster said. "She's digging her way back to Smurf HQ."
"All that way," Amalgama hissed. "That's a level of determination I've never seen before."
"Then you've never upset a woman before," Syster said.
Bourah had already disappeared into the tunnel she was digging – a tunnel which led straight to Smurf HQ.
"Merry Christmas ya filthy Ultramarine," Amalgama chuckled. "Ready the popcorn, brothers, the Fell Powers bless us with dinner and a show."
=|U|=
While the rest of 1st Company laboriously searched Ultramarine HQ, Calgar decided to investigate the kitchen. His search of the fridge – after picking the lock someone had installed to keep him out – yielded many clues, including a box of Viscount mints, a pack of cheese slices and several grox stakes. Calgar practically threw it all down his throat, put the kettle on then sat on a round stool. He spun around and around until he vomited.
"Why's it brown?" the Chapter Master wondered, studying his regurgitation.
Now that his stomach was empty, he was hungry again. His genhanced super-senses brought him to another delicious-looking clue. Any intelligent man would have known straight away not to eat it. Most people hid food from Calgar, they didn't leave their figgy pudding lying around with a note saying "LORD CALGAR PLEASE EAT".
Calgar's guts gurgled. He looked down at his stomach. It protruded so far he couldn't see his own feet, and feth only knew what his knob looked like these days. What the hell, it's Christmas.
"Now bring us some figgy pudding, and bring it right here," Calgar sang as he tiptoed over to the dessert. He slammed his face into it and troughed it like a pig.
Afterwards, he thought that the sauce tasted a bit funny.
=|U|=
The Ultramarines regrouped in the kitchen.
"I have conducted a thorough search of the area," said Calgar, whose face and hair were smeared with pudding. "No sign of the traitor."
"We didn't see anything either," Bannerman said. "But we've lost contact with several squads."
"And we can't find Nessa," Milo added.
"They'll be wrapping all my presents no doubt," said Calgar. He checked his wrist chron. "Well since my aura of manliness has scared the assassin off, I'd better make my speech, the plebs need me."
Bannerman escorted Calgar to the broadcasting room. It had been sound-proofed so nothing from outside could interrupt it.
"Right, my Lord," the banner man said, "remember this vox broadcast will be received by everyone within fifty thousand light-years. For the Emperor's sake, don't say anything weird."
"Dick, I'm the man every Chapter Master wants to be, I could tell them the Eye of Terror is your mother's bumhole and they'd lap it up. This will be two minutes of vintage Calgar... oh no."
"What?"
"Oh nooooo!"
"What?!"
GUUUNNNNNNNGGGGGLLLLLL! said the Master of Ultramar's guts. Calgar's eyes met Dick's. Sweat broke out across the Chapter Master's forehead.
"Oh no," Bannerman said. "Please, not now, my Lord. Half the fething Imperium is about to tune into your suit vox."
The force with which Calgar ripped arse nearly tore the Chapter Master in two.
"Sod the Imperium, the end times are coming!"
"But you're the Spiritual Liege – "
Calgar grabbed him and dragged him so they were nose to nose.
"Dick, the Spiritual Liege is gonna make Krakatoa look like a roman candle! Fething gangway!" Calgar threw his banner man aside in his race for an ablution room – any ablution room.
"Sir, you go live in five seconds!"
"THEN PLAY SOME FETHING MUSIC OR SOMETHING!" Calgar screamed. Gasping and whimpering, he smashed through the wall of an ablutions chamber, yanked his pants down, and when he sat, his feet didn't touch the floor for two horrifying minutes.
=|U|=
Thousands of Ultramar PDF troopers and millions of citizens assembled on Macragge's Elysium Fields. Massive devotional screens surrounded them, each displaying a glorious portrait of Marneus Calgar's stern and unsmiling face.
"Attention citizens!" a recorded message roared through massive speakers. "Blessings be upon us all. The Lord Calgar speaks!"
Cheers and applause started, but died away quickly.
"Dick!" Calgar bellowed, voice echoing for hundreds of miles. "Dick! I want Dick! I'm pissing out of my arse, I need something to plug it. Oh feth, IT'S GLOWING! Why is it glowing? I didn't eat anything bright yellow!" A vile wet sound underscored his voice. "God-Emperor, it smells like Mortarion's vest, I can't breathe! Aargh, my armour's melting!"
Bannerman's voice could be distantly heard: "Sir, show some decorum!"
"Show some decorum? I'm clenched with the force of collapsing stars and my soul's still flying out of my arse, you show some fething decorum! Get in here and help your Chapter Master!"
"Shut up my Lord, the people can hear every pigging word... Guilliman's gonads, you dirty bastard! How did you get it all the way up there?"
"Never mind that, I'm dying here! Get an apothecary! Get a priest! Get fething Fabius Bile, I don't care – no, don't go, please hold my hand!"
"I'm sorry sir, I need to go outside for a minute, my lungs are bleeding."
"Feth! Here comes round two! Now I know why the Death Guard turned to Nurgle!"
A loud series of thuds came across the vox as Bannerman and the entire Ultramarine Honour Guard bashed their heads against walls. If the audience thought the Christmas broadcast of 998.M41 couldn't get any more horrifying, they were wrong. There was a commotion on the line and tech-marine Nerdingham's voice rang out:
"Due to... some circumstances, here's a bit of music."
Milo began to play Do You Hear What I Hear by Bing Crosby on his Tanith bag-pipes.
End of Part 1
"She missed!" said Brother-Initiate Tossin.
"How can you tell?" Amalgama said.
"The Ultramarines remain the cheesiest Chapter, Excellency. Can't you feel it?"
"Feel it?" Amalgama shuddered. "I've been swimming through brie from the moment I set foot in this wretched dump."
"I thought Tanith snipers were supposed to be the best," Brother Syster snarled.
"Perhaps our indoctrination failed?" Tossin said.
"Our indoctrination methods are blessed by the Fell Powers," Amalgama said. "They can't be overcome by some hive-wench in a cape. Calgar has nine lives, it seems. Still, there are plenty of... traps... to snare him. Ahaha. Ahahahaha. AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!"
It dawned on his brethren that they should join in, though no-one knew why they were laughing at their own failure. Only the kill-team'sfourth member, the ever-silent Nameless One, remained quiet. Hecrossed his arms and stared at Smurf HQ.
"We chose our assassin well," the Third Chaplain said. "You will see..."
Greetings everyone! Christmas draws near, the nights are getting longer and life is getting more stressful. Why not kick back and relax with the ridiculous adventures of Marneus Calgar's Barmy Army?
What if Lord Calgar were an oaf obsessed with Home Alone 2? What if Brin Milo, described as "the Wesley Crusher of 40K", and ace sniper Nessa Bourah of the Tanith 1st and Only had been assigned to Ultramar for reasons we don't go into? What if an insane fanfic writer, who thinks fart jokes are hilarious, decided to push the acceptable limit of decency? These questions, asked by precisely no-one, are answered in crude and hilarious fashion each Christmas. A Winter's Fail v2.0 is a brand new story which replaces last year's effort. There is also a 2019 special, Fool Runnings, coming on 1st December 2019.
Welcome to another Christmas in the trenches.
=|U|=
=|U|=
MARNEUS CALGAR'S 2018 XMAS SPECIAL: A WINTER'S FAIL
It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has been trying to warn people that their iPhones, of which they are so proud, are powered only by the tears of the slave-children who build them. Yet even so, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance, although since he misses so much of what's going on in the 41st Millennium, his vigilance must be focused on the bedchambers of the Battle Sisters. Boing!
To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. Forget the promise of a present on Christmas morning, for in the grim darkness of the far future, Father Christmas isn't guaranteed to get around everyone in one night. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter and the laughter of thirsting gods, drowned out on one special night by Marneus Calgar playing "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day" at 110 decibels.
Picture this: a tranquil, snowbound landscape, watched over by a moon shaped like a flying silver Christmas pudding. Beneath the moon rears an indomitable fortress decorated with multi-coloured Christmas lights. In the uppermost corner of that fortress is a lighted window, and behind that window is the private chamber of a flatulating oaf known to legend as "The Roaring Bane" and to his men as "That Moaning Slap-Head".
Within this chamber, Lord Calgar himself and his second-in-command, Dick Bannerman, lounge upon the galaxy's most comfortable settee before an 800-inch, 20K resolution screen which has built-in etheric communications capability (and a little blue light that glows for several frustrating seconds before the screen finally comes on). Lo, does 20K resolution play havoc even with the genhanced eyeballs of the Ultramarines, but greatly did they pay for it and so they must now get their money's worth.
Upon the screen are the adventures of a young child from the 2nd Millennium who flees the pursuit of two burglars. One of the burglars fails a dangerous terrain test and stands on a nail. How our esteemed Ultramarine heroes roar with laughter. Calgar, of course, laughs louder, for he will not be outdone by an underling.
"Can I have your nuts?" said Calgar.
"What?" Bannerman cried. He remembered the bowl of roast chestnuts resting on his knees. "Oh, right. I didn't think you liked them, sir."
"Here we fething go, the return of Fanny Cradock." Calgar pushed a fistful of chestnuts into his mouth. Dick tried to ignore the nauseating sounds of chewing. Lord Calgar wasn't called Liquid Mouth for nothing.
"Where's Milo?" Calgar said with his mouth full. Bits of chestnut flew everywhere.
"He is decorating the halls with bells and holly, my Lord."
"Just like the song, then?"
"I still think it's boughs of holly, sir." Bannerman wilted beneath Calgar's imperious gaze. "But I just wave the flag, what do I know."
On the screen, Kevin McCallister was being pursued through his own neighbour hood by the two burglars.
"See, what I don't get," Calgar said with a spray of his nuts, "is why the Arbites don't just cut the burglers' hands off? And that scene in the forthress-cathedral, where the old paedo tries it on with Kevin, how come they aren't whipped for talking during a service?"
"I think you misunderstand the film, sir," Bannerman said. "The people of the late second and early third millennia were Lefties who treated criminals better than victims. The human race was on the verge of self-annihilation until the Emperor revealed himself."
"Imagine if the Emperor had never turned up," Calgar said. The Ultramarines spent a heretical moment realising they would have been normal people who earned money and got laid.
"A better question," Calgar said, changing the subject, "is what did the Emperor do before he started... empering?"
"Probably watched these fething films, like I'm trying to do, sir." Something outside the window distracted Bannerman for a moment. A glint. The curtains were open and a glorious night sky could be seen outside. The temperature was -27C at sea level, and Ultramarines HQ was at the top of a mountain. Who could be out there?
"Well, that's the first film out of the way," Calgar said as Home Alone drew to its conclusion. "Second one's on tomorrow. How many times have we missed it now?"
"At least fifteen years in a row, my Lord." Bannerman continued to stare at the window.
"What's up with you? It isn't Christmas Eve yet, you won't see any reindeer."
As he spoke, a red dot appeared on his stomach. Bannerman watched with growing horror as the dot moved slowly up Calgar's body and rested between his eyes. The Chapter Master noticed his expression.
"Dick, have you been sniffing the snow-spray again?"
"LOOK OUT, SIR!" Bannerman yelled. Defying the laws of physics, he threw himself against Calgar. The Master of Ultramar and his bannerman went over the side of the settee in a tangle of arms and legs, upending the furniture and sending chestnuts everywhere. Frigid air howled in as the window glass vapourised. A chunk of wall was annihilated where Calgar's head had just been; part of the settee exploded and caught fire.
"What are you playing at Dick, you've squashed my nuts!"
"We can buy you some more later!" Bannerman said, craning around to look for threats.
"I'm not talking about the food you fething prawn." Calgar pushed his second-in-command off and grabbed his own crotch, trying to pop his "little boiled eggs" back into place. "What's wrong with you? You know I only allow hugs on Christmas Day."
Bannerman raced to the window. He saw what appeared to be a curious winged creature flapping away until the night hid it from even his carrot-boosted eyesight.
Calgar was patting out the fire on the settee. He found something between the seat cushions.
"Hooray, I've found 50p!"
"My Lord," Bannerman said, "do you realise I just saved your fething life?"
"You certainly did you great plank of wood. Chaplain Derrick said he would commit my soul to the flames if I didn't pay his fifty pence back. I don't know what the miserable sod's problem is, I only borrowed it two years ago."
"SIR!" Bannerman yelled. He was a patient man but even the hardiest Imperial saint would lose his rag with an oaf like Calgar. "The wall! Look at the wall!"
Calgar turned to regard the fist-sized hole in the rockrete.
"Wow, didn't think I sat back that hard."
"Oh my fething Emperor," Bannerman said. "My Lord, someone just fired a hot-shot lasgun at your head. You were nearly assassinated by a traitor!"
"Ding dong merrily on fething high!" Calgar said. "Arrest Brin Milo at once!"
"Sir, he wouldn't have done this."
"Who cares, we could do with a good laugh."
=|U|=
Outside, in the snowbound darkness, Third Chaplain Amalgama and his kill team of Word Bearers peered at Ultramarine HQ through magnoculars.
"She missed!" said Brother-Initiate Tossin.
"How can you tell?" Amalgama said.
"The Ultramarines remain the cheesiest Chapter, Excellency. Can't you feel it?"
"Feel it?" Amalgama shuddered. "I've been swimming through brie from the moment I set foot in this wretched dump."
"I thought Tanith snipers were supposed to be the best," Brother Syster snarled.
"Perhaps our indoctrination failed?" Tossin said.
"Our indoctrination methods are blessed by the Fell Powers," Amalgama said. "They can't be overcome by some hive-wench in a cape. Calgar has nine lives, it seems. Still, there are plenty of... traps... to snare him. Ahaha. Ahahahaha. AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!"
It dawned on his brethren that they should join in, though no-one knew why they were laughing at their own failure. Only the kill-team'sfourth member, the ever-silent Nameless One, remained quiet. Hecrossed his arms and stared at Smurf HQ.
"We chose our assassin well," the Third Chaplain said. "You will see..."
=|U|=
It had been easy for Bourah. The Tanith sniper had simply allowed herself to be snatched up by a flying creature evolved from a Tyranid Gargoyle; it had been an easy matter of hanging upside-down from its claws while she lined up a shot, a shot spoiled only by a man who lived up to his name. It seemed that Bourah must eliminate the greater threat before she put a round between Calgar's eyes.
"I must get Dick," she said to herself in a zombie voice as the Tyranid creature carried her away. "I must get Dick."
=|U|=
"It was only a winter's tale, just another epic fail!" Brin Milo sang as he sprayed snow along the tops of pictures, cabinets, doorways and eventually across the breastplates and faces of 1st Company warriors. He hadn't been instructed to do this, in fact all he'd been asked to do was apply it to the various fake Christmas trees around the base, but the spray fumes had gone to his head. A door banged open in the distance.
"MILO!" Calgar roared at 150 decibels. The Chapter Master, Dick Bannerman and several warriors of 1st Company marched up to where the young Tanith lad was spraying something across a wall. Milo hid the spray can behind his back.
"This is it you little snollygoster," Calgar said.
"What?" said Milo, a cry echoed by many of Calgar's men.
"Don't give me the 'butter wouldn't melt up my bottom' routine. It's the nerve-glove for you my lad, pain level 'Listening to What About Us by Pink on constant loop until you think it's well-written'."
"But I haven't done anything!"
"Don't worry," Dick said to Milo, shielding his mouth with one hand so Calgar couldn't hear him. "Flat-Head's having one of his tantrums, he'll be out of steam soon."
"I gave you four instructions," Calgar said. "One: put all the trimmings up. Two: stop pulling yourself off about Saint Sabbat, your tissues are clogging the water reclaimers. Three... what was the third one again?"
"I think it was something about a beef sandwich, sir," Bannerman said.
"Oh, yeah, where's my fething lunch? Well that's just another of your failures. Four: don't be a heretic. These were simple instructions even an Ed Sheeran fan could follow."
"Sir, that's not fair!" said Milo. "I made your beef sandwiches."
"Then where are they?"
"I ate them," Milo said after a pause. "But I decorated! Look!" He gestured to the wall next to him, forgetting that he'd been spraying "MARINUS CALGER IS A TW".
"Milo, do you understand how serious this is? Describing a superior Ultramarine as a TW? What's it mean, anyway?"
"Er..." Milo thought quickly. He looked at Calgar. The Ultramarine Lord had a figure like play-dough squeezed into an old woman's stockings.
"It was supposed to say 'a twin of Schwarzenegger in his prime'," Milo lied. "But I didn't know how to spell it." (Neither does your author, fact fans!)
"Well, I do spend a few hours every day in the gym," Calgar said, curling an arm.
Replace 'hours' with 'minutes' and 'day' with 'year' and you've got it, Milo thought.
"In that case," Calgar said, "I forgive you on all charges. Number Two, it's time to play the Michael Ball Christmas album."
"We can't, sir," said Bannerman. "You lost it, remember?"
"WHAT!" said Calgar.
"You lost it on Boxing Day when you got drunk and invited Sister Superior Ultricia to do you the honour of sitting on your face. Not only did the Battle Sisters confiscate the album, we all got the nerve-glove."
"Primarch on a fething pogo-stick," said Calgar. "So we're nowhere near solving the Christmas Assassin Mystery, Milo's had my lunch and the Michael Ball Christmas Album has been confiscated by Sister Ulterior and her merry band of bags. What would Hercule Poirot say?"
"You big fat buffeune, why don you put a cork up your derriere and be a monsieur for once, hahohaho?" suggested Milo.
"Exactly," said Calgar, who hadn't understood a word. "Make a note of that, Number Two."
"Sir," Bannerman said, "we must find the assassin quickly. You're supposed to be addressing the 500 Worlds in half an hour. It's time for your annual Christmas Speech."
"But I do that on Christmas Day. Have I accidentally slept for two days again?"
"You agreed to do this year's broadcast early, because last year's put everyone off their Christmas dinner. Don't you remember, sir? Two hundred million citizens flushed their food down the toilet. The waste extraction servitors said they'd never seen so much turkey, at least not in that condition."
"Right then, Warriors of Ultramar, we've got an assassin to slap and we're on a clock." Calgar paused. "Oh, and Milo, seen as how you're the reason we always miss Home Alone 2, if we don't get to watch it this year I'll drive my Land Raider up your ho-ho-hole. But because you're a mate, I'll let the servitors slather your buttocks with butter first."
"Why do all his threats involve my backside?" Milo wondered as they formed into fire teams.
=|U|=
Nessa Bourah had killed the Tyranid creature with her combat knife. She survived the plummet to earth by inflating a Guard-issue condom and floating gently to the ground. After making touchdown, she looked towards the glittering fairy lights of Smurf HQ, checked her compass, made some mental calculations and pulled her regulation 9-70 from her belt. Bourah began to dig. The spade was small and not intended for undermining, but she had her instructions and the night was young. Calgar would no doubt find the little present she'd left him, and he'd be incapacitated by the time she arrived. His men would be too busy dying to the traps Bourah had laid throughout the base. Easy prey.
The Tanith sniper paused and removed another item from her belt. She'd already hollowed the Tyranid creature's head out. Nessa put it on, wearing it like a mask. She continued to dig.
=|U|=
"What's she doing now?" Third Chaplain Amalgama of the Word Bearers hissed. Amalgama was getting on a bit with ten thousand years on the clock, and had the creeping feeling that the situation was getting away from him.
"Digging, Excellency," said Brother-Initiate Tossin.
"I can see that, fool! I mean why is she doing it? Is it a grave for Calgar?"
"It's difficult to tell from fifteen thousand yards away, Excellency," said Tossin. "If we had given her a missile launcher instead of a sniper rifle, as I suggested, this would already be done."
The Third Chaplain growled at the initiate, who had the brains to look chastened.
"She's gone full-on Michael Myers," Brother Syster said. "She's digging her way back to Smurf HQ."
"All that way," Amalgama hissed. "That's a level of determination I've never seen before."
"Then you've never upset a woman before," Syster said.
Bourah had already disappeared into the tunnel she was digging – a tunnel which led straight to Smurf HQ.
"Merry Christmas ya filthy Ultramarine," Amalgama chuckled. "Ready the popcorn, brothers, the Fell Powers bless us with dinner and a show."
=|U|=
While the rest of 1st Company laboriously searched Ultramarine HQ, Calgar decided to investigate the kitchen. His search of the fridge – after picking the lock someone had installed to keep him out – yielded many clues, including a box of Viscount mints, a pack of cheese slices and several grox stakes. Calgar practically threw it all down his throat, put the kettle on then sat on a round stool. He spun around and around until he vomited.
"Why's it brown?" the Chapter Master wondered, studying his regurgitation.
Now that his stomach was empty, he was hungry again. His genhanced super-senses brought him to another delicious-looking clue. Any intelligent man would have known straight away not to eat it. Most people hid food from Calgar, they didn't leave their figgy pudding lying around with a note saying "LORD CALGAR PLEASE EAT".
Calgar's guts gurgled. He looked down at his stomach. It protruded so far he couldn't see his own feet, and feth only knew what his knob looked like these days. What the hell, it's Christmas.
"Now bring us some figgy pudding, and bring it right here," Calgar sang as he tiptoed over to the dessert. He slammed his face into it and troughed it like a pig.
Afterwards, he thought that the sauce tasted a bit funny.
=|U|=
The Ultramarines regrouped in the kitchen.
"I have conducted a thorough search of the area," said Calgar, whose face and hair were smeared with pudding. "No sign of the traitor."
"We didn't see anything either," Bannerman said. "But we've lost contact with several squads."
"And we can't find Nessa," Milo added.
"They'll be wrapping all my presents no doubt," said Calgar. He checked his wrist chron. "Well since my aura of manliness has scared the assassin off, I'd better make my speech, the plebs need me."
Bannerman escorted Calgar to the broadcasting room. It had been sound-proofed so nothing from outside could interrupt it.
"Right, my Lord," the banner man said, "remember this vox broadcast will be received by everyone within fifty thousand light-years. For the Emperor's sake, don't say anything weird."
"Dick, I'm the man every Chapter Master wants to be, I could tell them the Eye of Terror is your mother's bumhole and they'd lap it up. This will be two minutes of vintage Calgar... oh no."
"What?"
"Oh nooooo!"
"What?!"
GUUUNNNNNNNGGGGGLLLLLL! said the Master of Ultramar's guts. Calgar's eyes met Dick's. Sweat broke out across the Chapter Master's forehead.
"Oh no," Bannerman said. "Please, not now, my Lord. Half the fething Imperium is about to tune into your suit vox."
The force with which Calgar ripped arse nearly tore the Chapter Master in two.
"Sod the Imperium, the end times are coming!"
"But you're the Spiritual Liege – "
Calgar grabbed him and dragged him so they were nose to nose.
"Dick, the Spiritual Liege is gonna make Krakatoa look like a roman candle! Fething gangway!" Calgar threw his banner man aside in his race for an ablution room – any ablution room.
"Sir, you go live in five seconds!"
"THEN PLAY SOME FETHING MUSIC OR SOMETHING!" Calgar screamed. Gasping and whimpering, he smashed through the wall of an ablutions chamber, yanked his pants down, and when he sat, his feet didn't touch the floor for two horrifying minutes.
=|U|=
Thousands of Ultramar PDF troopers and millions of citizens assembled on Macragge's Elysium Fields. Massive devotional screens surrounded them, each displaying a glorious portrait of Marneus Calgar's stern and unsmiling face.
"Attention citizens!" a recorded message roared through massive speakers. "Blessings be upon us all. The Lord Calgar speaks!"
Cheers and applause started, but died away quickly.
"Dick!" Calgar bellowed, voice echoing for hundreds of miles. "Dick! I want Dick! I'm pissing out of my arse, I need something to plug it. Oh feth, IT'S GLOWING! Why is it glowing? I didn't eat anything bright yellow!" A vile wet sound underscored his voice. "God-Emperor, it smells like Mortarion's vest, I can't breathe! Aargh, my armour's melting!"
Bannerman's voice could be distantly heard: "Sir, show some decorum!"
"Show some decorum? I'm clenched with the force of collapsing stars and my soul's still flying out of my arse, you show some fething decorum! Get in here and help your Chapter Master!"
"Shut up my Lord, the people can hear every pigging word... Guilliman's gonads, you dirty bastard! How did you get it all the way up there?"
"Never mind that, I'm dying here! Get an apothecary! Get a priest! Get fething Fabius Bile, I don't care – no, don't go, please hold my hand!"
"I'm sorry sir, I need to go outside for a minute, my lungs are bleeding."
"Feth! Here comes round two! Now I know why the Death Guard turned to Nurgle!"
A loud series of thuds came across the vox as Bannerman and the entire Ultramarine Honour Guard bashed their heads against walls. If the audience thought the Christmas broadcast of 998.M41 couldn't get any more horrifying, they were wrong. There was a commotion on the line and tech-marine Nerdingham's voice rang out:
"Due to... some circumstances, here's a bit of music."
Milo began to play Do You Hear What I Hear by Bing Crosby on his Tanith bag-pipes.
End of Part 1