The world always looks better from the bottom of a glass. Thats what the Veteran used to think. Sargeant Armand Talbotson, "Tall boy" to his old friends, sat examining the world around him through the murky, sud-clotted bottom of his. It reminded him of his Las-scope, the way the battlefield had always appeared fish-eyed.

"Are you ok sir?" a voice broke his reverie. He stirred, suprised. He wasn't back on Malachor VI. He was here, on Namaqua, some light years from the Ophidian Crusade of his youth. He lowered his glass, and was suprised again at how aged his hands were. It had been a long time since Malachor VI. A very long time. He coughed, his throat feeling dry again. Always dry. Like the moment your breath caught in your throat, just before you pulled the trigger.

"What do you want?" He croaked, turning his head to the speaker, and saw that it had come from some young woman. Short, dark hair close cropped around her green-tinted face, dark freckles sprinkled around her face. She had a warm open smile, and two small fangs jutting from her lower lip. Her green eyes twinkled with a youth and humanity he had almost forgotten about.

"What do you want, mutie-girl?" He amended, snarling for affect. He was too old and tired to really hate, but old habits died hard. The mutie-girl did not seem daunted by this, as she leaned down beside him. Despite being "Tall Boy" he was hunched over now, and had to lean heavily on a cane. He looked at her through old, tired eyes.

"You looked out of it sir. Have you had too much to drink?" She asked politely, taking the empty, dreg-rimed mug from his hands.

He scowled at her. "And who are you to tell an old man when he's had enough?"

"I'm the owner of this establishment, sir." 

Talbotson blinked at that. The Old Crown, owned by a mutie girl? "Thats groxshit. Why would a mutie girl be running a bar like...this..." He frowned, looking around, as if becoming aware of his surroundings, really aware. Gone were the faded ceramic walls, the stench of stale beer and unwashed guardsmen. Gone was the dart-board, the regimental drapes, even the Aquila. Instead the walls were a hazy pattern of white and green, and decorated with holo-photos of various types of mutie-girl, blowing kisses and dancing. 

"Sir, this is the Meanagerie. Don't you remember buying a drink from our bartender over there?" She pointed, and, sure enough, the bartender waved back. He was bald and pudgy, and his skin came down in folds around him. Another twist, just like this girl, only far uglier. Funny, he thought. He had been sure he had seemed normal. Through the glass.

"This...isn't the Old Crown anymore?" He said, sighing.

The mutant woman responded politely, a cheerful smile on her fanged face. "No, sir. It hasn't been that since...before I was born." She said. A few of the other staff came into view, staring at the sargeant.

The former guardsman flushed. The mutie-girls were all looking at him like he was...a curiosity. A freak. He looked around at them angrily, but there was no malice. They'd just never seen anyone quite like...him before.

He looked down at himself, and realised he was in his dress uniform. The 15th Namaquan. White and green, Cadian-pattern. Regiment-specific frogging around the epaulettes and the sleeves. He touched his heart, feeling for the reassuring weight of the Bronze Eagle. He had earned that Eagle on Malachor VI.

"I'm sorry, it's just..." he shook his head. Why was he apologising to these damn muties? But he remembered then, that since the end of the Crusade, many of the people he had known had come back to Namaqua..changed, tainted. Namaqua had its fair share of twists. He'd ignored them, avoided them. Now...now he'd somewhow placed himself smack in the middle of them.

"I understand sir." She smiled again, leaning in, her hand resting gently on his shoulder. He flinched a little, which seemed to sadden her a little. "Would you like another drink? We're not at full capacity yet, so you can have a moment." She looked around at the other girls.

"Why do you care eh? Is it the Uniform? I'm not guard anymore girlie. Haven't fired a las-rifle in fifty years. Haven't been in combat in over sixty. You're not currying favour with the PDF or the Imperium by being nice to me. Hell, I'd be damned if the Imperium even knows my name." He scoffed, suddenly resentful. Where was Baker? or Sadler? Or Micky Wide-eyes? Surely Young Finn could have made it. All he could see around him were mutie girls and a few mutie guys, all wearing various states of scanty-clothing. A younger man might have had other thoughts.

All he saw was absent faces.

"I'll have another drink, miss." He said, sighing. A glass of the same foaming old beer came his way, he sipped it, and was suprised. "This isn't Wheat-80..." 
"No sir. It's Wheat-41. We had a case of it stewing away somewhere in the back. We thought you might appreciate it." The bartender explained.  Talbotson sipped the beer again, feeling the rich, familiar taste. Wheat-41. A rare strain of wheat-derived yeast used in brewing, originating in the Ophidian sub-sector. The death of most of its brewers in the Crusade had seen it become a collector's item, vanishingly rare. Its substitute, Wheat-80, tasted like grox piss to a man like Talbotson, though it was good enough for everyone else.

"It's...good." He grudgingly allowed. He took another long sip, before grinning suddenly, his weathered skin creasing with laughter-lines. "Raise em sink em lets have another!" he roared, before chugging the extremely expensive beer, long rivulets of the foamy liquid spilling down his chin ahd cheeks, flecks landing on his uniform and the bar.

The Bartender looked at him, pale. Talbotson had just drunk more than a year's worth of wages for the man in a few seconds. "I'll have another, mate. Whats your name?" He asked, wiping his lip with his fine-sleeve, uncaring if it was stained and began to smell of wheat.

"My name is...Rawls, sir."

"Rawls? I knew a Rawlins in the day. Any relation?"

"I...don't think so, sir."

The veteran sighed, and took the still foamy glass, holding it up to the light again. He peered through it, and saw his better world. Seventy years ago. The shipping out day. Ten years in Ophidia. Two on Malachor VI. He remembered. Just another one of a thousand battles across a galaxy of mankind, another bright flareup in ten thousand years of such sparks. But he remembered. The glass shook in his hands. The mutie girls came into focus, and he saw snarling orks, hordes of them, he felt the breath in his throat catch-

The woman took the glass out of his hand again.

"Do you remember it, sir?" She whispered. He looked at her in fear, but saw only kindness and understanding. He looked into her eyes, and saw past the fangs, the mottled green skin. "We'd all be dead if it wasn't for people like you."

He remembered. The refugee ships. No time to clear for taint. No time to check IDs. Just hordes of people filing onto ships. He had stood tall on the hill overlooking the ships, his las-rifle dangling from its chords around him. He had looked out, proud, the Aquila and the Snake behind him, and, on the other side of the crest, the orcs coming down. As one, the elite snipers of the 15th. The noise, like the rippling of sheets, the rack of slides. Two hundred long-las rifles hitting shoulders, two hundred bolts sycthing perfectly into the orcs. The ejection of heat-mags, the re-adjustment of scopes. Two-hundred more. Two-hundred more after that. Two hundred every three seconds till they were completely dry. 

The Refugees got out. Most of them.

He looked at the woman again.

"Whats your name, girl?"

"Annika sir. Annika Reis."

"Thats..."

"A Malachorite name. I recognise the 15th." She said, with real warmth in her face, and her hands, as she clasped his. "We...might have been tainted, but we're alive. Thanks to you."

He smiled, and clasped her hand tenderly. "Feth me. Never thought I'd get any thanks from anyone, not least a..." suddenly the word he wanted to use seemed wrong. "A survivor." He said, instead.

She gave him back the glass. "Does the world look better to you?"

He rolled it around in his hands, remembering the charging orcs. Remembering the men and women who had stood beside him.

He looked back, at all the young, smiling people. The Old Crown was gone. They were gone. But in its place...

"Are you all..."

"Yes. Most of the Mutie community are Malachorite, though we try to hide it. Another reason...most people avoid us." She looked downcast. Those soulful green eyes. He shook his head, and tenderly pulled her chin back up.

"A survivor is a survivor. You want to drink with me, miss Reis?"

She smiled, looking into his aged eyes.

"Of course. Rawls! Bring us the rest of that damn case. Forget tonight, let's remember yesterday, and tomorrow."

Talbotson grinned, soon finding himself surrounded by most of the mutie girls. If you looked past the fangs, the feathers, the extra breast or limb or two, most weren't half bad. The beer flowed, and things turned rosy. 

The empty glasses piled up, but he kept his eyes on the world around him. Before the night was over, he'd seen a few things he hadn't seen in years, and a few more things he had never seen before either. For the Emperor? For the Guard. For the Survivors. For Tomorrow.