Editing Hua Yuan Exterminator Writefaggotry (section)

==With the Colonel==
One week after my brush with Xenon, I ordered to the Regimental Command office. My head ached like it had never before, making a mockery of my attempts to remain composed, moreso as I knocked on the Colonel's office door.

"Come in."

I stepped into the dim room, the lone occupant eyeing me from across his spartan desk. “Greetings Commissar Phisk.” Standing, Colonel Hong met me with a well mannered bow. “I trust your... unscheduled visit to the underhive was at the very least enlightening?” 

Smug bastard, right though he may be.

"I understand you came here suspicious of our eccentricities," he said, gesturing to a chair before his desk. As I eased myself into the chair, he continued talking. "You may be wondering why I requested a commissar from outside the local Schola as opposed to one who would be better familiarized with our dance on the razor's edge of corruption." I found the Colonel's self-assuredness stunning - he would risk a report of heresy to Munitorum and the Commissariat? I could but trust the Colonel had a good reason.

He looked back at me with a wry grin as he lit a cigar with a vaguely familiar odor. As his face settled back to a more somber expression, he continued. "It's no secret among the brass here that a major bug invasion is imminent in the next ten years, and the 1st will be in the thick of it. When the time comes, they could be possibly the most important regiment involved. The problem with our local Commissars is they are only experienced with dealing with our inferior penal regiments. Conscripted losers of gang wars, dosed to the hilt with 'Nid dust, given trash local lasguns, and poured screaming on the Tyranid fire in hopes of quenching it. The leader of our Schola Commissar-General Fengxian is rumored to want to install one of his commissars in the first to expand his influence. His commissars don't care that the Exterminators are specialists, real soldiers, but explaining to a Commissar who leads little better penal units that charging directly through a tunnel after your enemy in a hive is never a good idea, and you're likely to end up with bolter holes in your head." 

"I believe a commissar who has survived as long as yourself will realize the need for tactical discretion. Your presence here keeps one of Mao's lackeys from compromising the First. If Mao has the backing of The First he could demand theater command from the Praetorians, the ambitious bastard."
"But you want to someone who will allow your men to operate with their 'cultural' differences permitted." I paused, wondering if he knew of my contacts in the Inquisition. "You would have killed me in an instant if you thought I would inform superiors of your Tyranid Dust."

"Hua Yuan is a dangerous place for off-worlders," he said, eyeing me through the smoky air. Not breaking eye contact, he slowly handed me one of his cigars. 

"Welcome to First of Hua Yong. The Hive fleet will fall here, or nowhere."