Warden Warrior Flunky Farce.

Zurgē Frowny made a final review of his packet. The woman he was about to meet, Tharixa Targanes, was a high-ranking Adeptus Administratrum official on Sippar, capital of the Enlil system. She’d flipped — come over to their side after a religious experience in an underground fight club Pact missionary-operatives run. Now Frowny was to be her handler. Their small utilitarian table, the rusted walls, the flickering light made worse by the smoke from his lo-stick; all belied this moment’s significance. In Control's assessment — with which Frowny agreed — this could turn the war around.

A knock at the hatch; Frowny stood to greet his new operative. Targanes entered and immediately punched Frowny square in the jaw, booming theatrically, “Mighty Tharixa utterly hates you!”

Just bloody great, Frowny thought, rubbing his jaw; these converts are always more-Khornite-than-Khârn.

“Ms. Targanes, let’s dispense with formalities and get down to business, shall we?”

She took her seat with undiminished enthusiasm.

“Of course, fellow Mighty one! Straight to the business of War!”

“Your mission is to undermine the coward Imperium, so fi—”

“GLORY TO THE BLOOD GOD!”

“Right. Yes. Indeed. As I was saying—first, Control wants you to surreptitiously redirect your workspace’s empyric energies. To that end, we’d like you to create a skull altar at your desk.”

Tharixa gave a bemused look. “Do you mean in addition to all the other skulls I keep at my desk?”

“You’ve already enskulled your desk?”

“Yes! Well — no. It was like that when I got there. Even setting aside servo-skulls, devotional skulls are normal. They remind us of the perfect human form created by Him on Terra... so lying ecclesiarchy canids say!”

There was a touch of desperation as she hastened to prove her newfound loyalty. As if Frowny’s throbbing jaw would let him forget.

“Ah. Well, maybe draw a small Khornite sigil on one of them, then, to start?”

“MIGHTY SHALL BE THAT SKULL IN PARTICULAR!”

That just sounded embarrassing. Cringing internally, Frowny moved on.

“Our second action point concerns logistics. We’d like you to start losing materiel in the churn — undermine the navy’s attempts to resupply the so-called ‘Free Geshtu’ void-station. To start, could you ensure an average of 20% of allocated arms are misdirected?”

Tharixa’s enthusiasm shifted to puzzlement. “Clarify, fellow Mighty warrior of Khorne: do you mean in addition, or would you like me to actually reduce lossage?”

“Elaborate.”

“Look — Frowny, was it? Frowny, if only 20% of our stock were unaccounted for in a given month, we’d be canonised saints of the Adeptus. It's a success if audit reconciles 50% of our inventory!”

Sensing where this was going, Frowny hesitated. “Per my next item, Ms. Targanes, Control wants you to increase vexatious complaints clogging up the system to at least fifty per da—”

Tharixa's laughter cut him off.

Frowny took a few drags on his lho-stick and stared into space. Finally, he asked no-one in particular, “…how are we losing this war?”

They sat in awkward silence.