Soldiers of the Imperium

Book : Warhammer 40,000

by Steve Lyons

Genres: Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Military Sci-Fi; Space Opera

Synopsis

This collection of novels and short stories from across the front lines of the Astra Militarum includes several gripping tales of human grit and bravery in the face of the nightmarish alien horrors of the 41st Millennium.

In the novel Death World, by Steve Lyons, the iconic Catachan Jungle Fighters must battle a xenos threat on Rogar III. A crucially important general must be rescued from the T’au Empire in Kasrkin by Edoardo Albert, and Witchbringer, by Steven B Fischer, sees a sanctioned psyker forced to fight both prophecy and betrayal. Four related short stories by the same authors are also included for you to explore the characters and settings even further.

CONTENTS: – Death World (Novel) by Steve Lyons – Kasrkin (Novel) by Edoardo Albert – Witchbringer (Novel) by Steven B Fischer – The Weight of Silver (Short story) by Steven B Fischer – The Taste of Fire (Short story) by Steven B Fischer – Green and Grey (Short story) by Edoardo Albert – Waiting Death (Short story) by Steve Lyons

Release date: January 28, 2025

Publisher: Games Workshop

Print pages: 640

Sample

CHAPTER 1

As soon as he woke, Trooper Lorenzo knew there was something wrong.

He rolled to his feet, simultaneously drawing his fang. He crouched in silence, in the dark, ready to drive half a metre of Catachan steel into the heart of any man or beast that thought it could sneak up on him.

But Lorenzo was alone.

He turned on the light, suppressing a prickling, creeping feeling as he realised again just how close the walls of his basic cabin were. And beyond those walls…

Lorenzo’s bed was undisturbed; he preferred the floor, though even this was too flat for his liking. He could feel the beginnings of a stiff neck. All the same, he had slept for almost five hours. Longer than usual. Warp space did that to him. Out there, beyond the adamantium shell of the ship that carried him, there was nothing. But the warp itself distorted space and time, and that played hell with Lorenzo’s instincts – and his body clock.

His brain itched. He was tired, but he knew he wouldn’t sleep again now. He cursed his weakness. His tiredness would make him less alert. In the jungle, it could mean the difference between life and death.

Lorenzo was safe here, in theory. No enemies of the Imperium lurked in the shadows. No predators to sneak up on him as he slept, unguarded. Only the warp itself to worry about, and the possibility that it might capriciously tear the ship and its occupants apart – and there was nothing he could do about that if it happened. Nothing anyone could do.

They said no one but the Navigators could look into the warp. They said it would drive a normal man insane. Still, Lorenzo wished he could take that chance. He wished the ship had windows, so he could face his enemy and, perhaps, begin to understand it as the Navigators did.

Lorenzo had been in the thick of a space battle once. He had sat inside a cabin like this one, gripping the side of an acceleration couch as he rode out the shockwaves of near misses and glancing blows, his knuckles white; his life, his destiny, in the hands of a ship’s captain and his gunners – and of the Emperor, of course. He had hated that feeling of helplessness. He had prayed for the attackers to board the ship, so he could have met them face to face. When Lorenzo died, he wanted the comfort of knowing he had fought his best against a superior foe – and if he had his way, that foe would be no mere space pirate or ork, but something more worthy of his origins and training.

When Lorenzo died, he wanted to be able to salute his killer, and be buried in its soil.

He splashed a handful of water on his face, and ran a hand through his tangled black hair. He threw on his camouflage jacket, though it would be useless against the greys and whites of the ship’s interior. He re-sheathed his knife, and was comforted by its weight against his leg; his Catachan fang was a part of him, as much as his limbs were. As unlikely as it was that an attack would come, he had learned always to be prepared. It was when you allowed yourself to get comfortable that death could strike unexpectedly.

Somewhere on this ship, he was sure that other members of the company would be awake. He could probably find a card game.

Lorenzo’s booted feet rang against the metal floor as he left his cabin, tinny echoes returning to his ears. The air was recycled, stale, and it didn’t carry sounds in the way that fresh air did. The artificial gravity wasn’t quite the same as that of any planet he’d visited. And it was quiet – so deathly quiet. There were none of the sounds of nature to which Lorenzo was attuned, the subtle clues that mapped out his surroundings for him and warned when danger approached. Instead, there was only the faint throb of engines, the vibrations reverberating through the hull so their origin was untraceable.

There was something wrong…

Everything was wrong. Man wasn’t meant to exist in this unnatural environment. None of its signs could be trusted, and this made Lorenzo uneasy. If he couldn’t rely on his own instincts, what could he rely on? ‘Fear not the creatures of the jungle but those that lurk within your head.’ The old Catachan proverb came to him unbidden and he thanked the Emperor that his company had its next assignment. They were already on their way to a new world, a fresh challenge.

He didn’t know the details yet. Still, he had no doubt of one thing. Soon – within days, he hoped – his squad would be fighting their way across hostile terrain and through hostile creatures, beset by threats from all directions. It was likely some of them would die. He would be in his element again, his destiny returned to his own hands.

He ached for that moment.

It was early afternoon, ship time, when Colonel ‘Stone Face’ Graves summoned his Third Company of the

Catachan XIV Regiment to the briefing room.

The men of four platoons, their bandoliers slung across their backs, crowded into the small area. Four platoons, comprising twenty-two squads – including two squads of Catachan Devils, who stood near the front and around whom even the most hardened veterans left a respectful space. Then there were the hulking, low-browed ogryns, included in the briefing as a courtesy though they would most likely understand only half of what was said. So long as they were pointed towards the enemy and permitted to rend and maim, they would be happy.

Lorenzo felt comforted by the presence of so many compatriots – by the press of their bodies and the natural, earthy odours of dirt and sweat.

‘Listen up, you soft-skinned losers,’ barked the colonel. A howl of good-natured protest rose from the assembled company, but Graves’s chiselled features remained harsh and rigid. ‘Naval Command think you lot have had it easy too long, and I agree with them. I begged them: “No more milk runs. I want no less than the dirtiest, most dangerous job you’ve got. I won’t have my Jungle Fighters turning into fat, lazy sons of acid grubs who wouldn’t lift a hand to scratch their own arses!” So, ladies, last chance to pamper yourselves in your luxury quarters – because as of this evening, you’ll be working for your keep.’

This pronouncement was met by a rousing cheer.

‘Planetfall at 19.00 hours,’ the colonel continued, his voice loud and clear across the tumult though he’d made no effort to raise it. ‘Anyone not in full kit and waiting at the airlocks by 18.30 finds himself on punishment detail for a month!’

‘Yes, sir!’ came the answering swell from the crowd.

‘Colonel,’ someone yelled from the back. Lorenzo recognised the voice of ‘Hotshot’ Woods, from his own squad. ‘You serious? Is this going to be a real challenge for us this time?’

‘You idlers ever hear of Rogar III?’ growled Graves. ‘It’s a jungle world, out in the back of beyond. Explorators found it a couple of years ago, decided it was right for colonising and strip-mining. Just one problem: They’d been beaten to it. That’s why they called on us. We have Guardsmen down there fighting orks for the past year and a half, but they’re starting to find it tough going.’

Lorenzo joined in the collective jeers of mock sympathy.

‘They’re crying out for someone to hold their hands,’ added Graves, to a roar of laughter. ‘You see, seems Rogar wasn’t the walk in the park they thought it’d be. Three weeks ago, in response to reports from the front, the planet was re-categorised as no longer suitable for colonisation…’ He left a long pause there, but every man present knew what was coming, and anticipation hung heavy in the recycled air.

‘…on account of it being classified as a deathworld!’ concluded the colonel – and this time, the cheer went on much longer and louder.

‘It’s a crock, that’s what it is.’

Lorenzo was sharing a mess hall table with four other members of his squad. He looked down at his bowl gloomily, and let a dollop of over-processed grey mulch slide from his spoon. Another thing he hated: Imperial Guard rations. If he’d been planetside, he’d have found something – some herb or spice – to make them more palatable. Or someone would have hunted down some indigenous beast, and his squad would have feasted on meat.

Lorenzo considered not eating at all until he had made planet­fall. But on top of his disturbed sleep patterns, the last thing he needed was to let his energy levels dip. He gathered another spoonful, thrust it into his mouth and tried to swallow without tasting it.

‘Stone Face got it right,’ continued Sergeant ‘Old Hardhead’ Greiss in his gravelly voice. ‘This is just another wet-nursing mission for a bunch of city boys who got in over their heads. You tell me, how can a planet go from being colony material one day to deathworld the next? It can’t happen!’

‘I don’t know, sergeant,’ said Brains Donovits, his thick black eyebrows beetling as his brow furrowed. ‘I’ve been keeping an eye on the comms traffic, and the latest report from the commissars on the ground makes for pretty interesting reading. They’ve had some real

problems out there.’

‘Yeah,’ put in Hotshot Woods, his blue eyes sparkling as he suppressed a grin, ‘and you know Command wouldn’t send us in without good reason, sergeant. They know what they’re doing.’

Greiss shot the young trooper a stern glare through narrowed eyes. It only lasted a second, though, before he dropped the pretence and let out a bark of laughter, slapping Woods amiably on the back.

‘It’ll be the same old story,’ grumbled the grizzled sergeant as his good humour subsided. ‘Things not going too well at the front, orks getting too close to Command HQ for the top brass’s liking. The next thing you know, some officer’s been stung by a bloodwasp or got himself a nettle rash, or… or…’

‘Got his foot tangled in a poison creeper,’ suggested Steel Toe Dougan in his usual laid-back tone.

‘Suddenly, he’s screaming “Deathworld”!’

‘There has also been some mention,’ Donovits continued undeterred, ‘of abnormalities in Rogar III’s planetary readings. The Adeptus Mechanicus went in to investigate, but found nothing. Nothing but orks, anyhow.’

‘Ah, listen to Brains,’ scoffed Greiss. ‘Never happy ’less he’s got his nose in some report or other.’

Donovits shrugged. ‘It pays to be forewarned, sergeant.’

‘And since when did Navy reports tell you anything worth reading? The only place you get to know your enemy, trooper, is down there on its surface, in the thick of the jungle. Man against nature.’

Lorenzo felt something stirring in his chest at Greiss’s words. He’d been feeling less edgy since they’d dropped out of the warp into real space, for the final approach to their destination, but still he longed to escape this prison. It was almost worse, knowing that release was so close. Time seemed to have slowed down for him. Lorenzo knew the others were restless, too, chafing for action. He didn’t know if they shared his sense of unease, if the warp had affected them as it had him, and he wouldn’t ask. There were some things you didn’t talk about.

‘I don’t know, sergeant,’ said Woods. ‘There were times on that last world I wished I had stayed curled up on a bedroll with a good book. Might have made for more thrills, if you know what I mean.’

‘Got a point there, Hotshot,’ laughed Greiss. ‘I could almost have felt sorry for them… what were they called?’

‘Rhinoceraptors,’ prompted Donovits.

‘Yeah, right. Few frag grenades under their hide plates, and boom! Didn’t know what’d hit them. A couple o’ squads could’ve taken out the lot of ’em. Hell, Marbo could probably have done it on his own.’

‘He wouldn’t have thanked us for wasting his time, though.’

‘You’re right there, Hotshot.’

‘Of course,’ said Dougan, quietly, ‘they did get Bryznowski.’

Greiss sighed. ‘Yes. They did get Bryznowski. Heard we lost a few of the ogryns, too.’

‘And that rookie from Bulldog’s squad,’ said Dougan, easing himself back in his chair so he could stretch out his bionic leg. It had taken a hit a couple of worlds ago, and now it had a tendency to seize up if he didn’t keep it exercised.

There was a short silence as the five soldiers remembered fallen comrades, then Greiss’s craggy features folded into a scowl.

‘Way things are going,’ he grumbled, ‘I’m going to end up dying in my damn bed!’ He waved aside Woods and Donovits’s well-intentioned protests. ‘Come off it, you lot. I’m thirty-six years old next birthday. Leaving it a bit late for that blaze of glory. But that’s okay. I made my mark. I just want to go out the right way, that’s all. Been too long since I had a scrap I couldn’t sleepwalk through. Long time since I faced a deathworld worthy of the name.’

‘Maybe you should put in for a posting back home,’ said Dougan, sympathetically. ‘Back to Catachan. Stone Face will understand. He’s coming up to the big three-oh himself.’

Lorenzo was aware that,

by Imperial standards, Colonel Graves was a young man, and Greiss and Dougan only middle-aged. But then, most Imperial citizens didn’t grow up on Catachan. Life there was shorter.

‘Ah, I couldn’t leave you jokers. But it’s the youngsters I feel sorry for. Like Lorenzo here. How’s he going to make a name for himself if he never sets foot on a world worth taming?’

Lorenzo looked up from his meal, to grunt an acknowledgement of the name check. He didn’t reveal how much it smarted. Greiss would never have called Hotshot Woods a ‘youngster’, and Lorenzo was two years older than he was.

‘I got a name for Lorenzo,’ quipped Woods. ‘Why don’t we call him “Chatterbox” Lorenzo? Or “Never Shuts His Yap” Lorenzo?’

Lorenzo glared at him.

Greiss pushed his bowl aside, and hauled himself to his feet. ‘All right, men,’ he said, his voice suddenly full of confidence and authority. ‘You heard what Colonel Graves said. Drop positions by 17.30 hours.’

‘The colonel said 18.30, sergeant.’

‘That’s for the rest of those slackers, Donovits. My squad forms up at 17.30 sharp. Fifty deck reps, a few circuits of the deck – that should loosen up the muscles, get the adrenaline pumping. Then, when we get down to this “deathworld”, we’re going to tear through it like it was nothing, show those Guardsmen down there a thing or two. This time tomorrow, we’ll be back in warp space, headed for somewhere worth the sweat!’

Lorenzo greeted the prospect with mixed feelings.

The whole of Third Company could have fitted into one drop-ship with room to spare. Instead, Colonel Graves had ordered them to split up, one platoon to a ship. That meant only one thing. He was expecting trouble on the way down. Better to lose a few squads and have the rest arrive intact than to risk losing all twenty-two to a lucky shot.

The five squads in Lorenzo’s ship had separated to the edges of the troop deck, sitting in their own small clusters in the rows of narrow seats. It wasn’t that they didn’t get on, just that Deathworlders found it best to make no more attachments than they had to. They were too easily broken. Lorenzo had no friends, but he had something better. He had nine comrades, who would die for him in a heartbeat and he for them.

The shadowy spaces around the cramped seating area were empty, apart from a dusty Sentinel scout walker tucked into one. The Catachans carried little more equipment than would fit into their kit bags – and those bags stayed with them, nestled in their laps or deposited on an adjacent seat. Lorenzo pictured the four ships streaking towards the surface of Rogar III, blazing with the heat of re-entry, like meteors from the heavens. He wondered how many Guardsmen on the ground would turn their heads upwards and thank the Emperor for sending them such an omen. The thought made him feel good. It almost made him forget that he hadn’t touched ground himself yet.

There had been a reallocation of troops a few days earlier. The commander of C Platoon, Lieutenant Vines, had disbanded one squad and reassigned its members to bring the rest up to strength. Greiss’s squad had two new arrivals to complete its complement of ten – and old hands Myers and Storm were currently passing the time by quizzing one of them, a nervy youngster by the name of Landon.

Landon was eager to please, bragging about a time back on Catachan when he’d wrestled a blackback viper single-handed. Myers and Storm were pretending to be impressed, but Lorenzo knew they were poking fun at the rookie.

The other newcomer, Patch Armstrong, had an easier ride. It had taken an ambush by four ice apes on the frozen world of Tundrar to deprive Armstrong of his left eye – and even then he had snapped the spine of one beast, gutted two more and gunned down the fourth as it had fled. The patch he wore, and the crooked ends of the scar that protruded above and below it, were his badges of honour. Like Dougan’s leg, and the plate in Sergeant Greiss’s head.

The drop-ship was being shaken

It had only been a little at first, but now it was growing stronger. Sharkbait Muldoon had rolled up the left sleeve of his jacket to paint his own, better, camouflage pattern directly onto his skin, layering on natural dyes with his knife; he let out a curse as the blade slipped and nicked his arm. Lorenzo said nothing, but his fingers tightened around the armrests of his seat.

‘Must be one hell of a storm,’ commented Woods. But Lorenzo observed that Greiss’s jaw was set, his teeth clenched, his nostrils flaring, and he knew this was no mere storm.

Then, just like that, they were falling.

The drop-ship plummeted like a brick, like it had when it had first been launched from its mother. Lorenzo’s stomach was in his mouth again; had he not been strapped in, he would have been slammed into the ceiling. Woods, cocky as ever, had loosened his own restraints, and now he was fighting to hold himself down as g-forces rippled the skin of his cheeks.

For eight long seconds, Lorenzo was facing his worst nightmare. Then the engines caught them and they were flying level again, but still buffeted, the deck lurching unpredictably beneath their feet. Behind the din of the protesting hull, the soft, artificial voice of the navigation servitor sounded over the vox-caster: ‘Warning: extreme atmospheric turbulence encountered. Destination coordinates no longer attainable. Prepare for emergency landing. Repeat, prepare for emergency landing.’

The first impact came almost as soon as the warning was issued.

Lorenzo had barely had time to get into the brace position, his chin on his chest, his hands clasped over his head. It felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to every bone in his body at once. And then it happened again, with only marginally less force this second time.

The drop-ship was skipping along the ground, its engines shrieking. Lorenzo was rattled in his seat, his straps biting into his chest. He concentrated on keeping his muscles relaxed, despite the situation, knowing that to resist the repeated shocks would do him more harm than good.

Then they hit the ground for the final time, but they were still barrelling forwards, and the scrape of earth and branches against the outer hull was almost deafening. Rogar III, as Donovits had taken pleasure in informing everyone, was blanketed in jungle. There were no open spaces in which to land, but for those cleared with axe and flame. Lorenzo pictured the scene outside the drop-ship’s hull now, as it ploughed through tangled vege­tation, the servitors straining to rein in its speed before it hit something

that wouldn’t yield to its considerable mass. Before it crumpled in on itself like a ball of paper.

And then, at last, they were still, the engines letting out a last dying whine as the drop-ship’s superstructure creaked and settled. The lighting flickered and cut out, and Lorenzo could see nothing in the sudden total darkness. But he knew his way to the hatchway, and his squad was the closest to it.

The drop-ship had come to rest at an angle. The deck was tilted some forty-five degrees to the horizontal, so Lorenzo had to climb to reach his goal. He swung himself from one empty seat to the next, using their backs to keep his balance and his bearings. From all around, he could hear the sounds of buckles popping and men leaping to their feet.

He was almost there when he realised he had been beaten to it. The hatch had buckled a little and was sticking in its frame, but Woods managed to shoulder it open even as Lorenzo was about to lend him a hand. First a crack, then a rectangle of brilliant light blazed in Lorenzo’s eyes, and he blinked to clear the patterns it burnt into his retinas.

In the meantime, Woods had clambered out onto the angled side of the ship. ‘Hey,’ he called down to the others enthusiastically. ‘You’ve got to see this. It’s a beautiful evening!’

Lorenzo frowned. The upturned hatchway offered him the familiar sight of a jungle canopy – but behind the greens and browns, the leaves and the branches, the sky appeared to be a perfect, deep blue, free from cloud. Woods was right. If there had been a storm, it had passed, impossibly, without trace. But then, what else could have tossed the drop-ship about like that?

It was there again: that sense of wrongness he had felt in the warp. He needed to get out into the open. The rest of the platoon were crowding up behind him anyway, so Lorenzo followed the sweet scent of fresh air, mingled though it was with the stench of burning. He gripped the sides of the hatchway and pulled himself up and out through it.

He had barely raised his head above the parapet and started to take in his new surroundings, when Trooper Woods pushed him down again, with a warning yell: ‘Incoming!’

Three plants were shuffling towards the drop-ship. They looked like the mantraps of Catachan, but taller. Three bulbous pink heads, surely too heavy for their stalks to support, split open like mouths. No teeth within, though. These plants were spitters.

Three jets of clear liquid plumed through the air. Lorenzo and Woods tumbled back into the drop-ship together. Woods had been hit, a thick gobbet of acid sizzling on his arm. He whipped out his knife – a devil claw, typically ostentatious – and half-cut, half-tore his sleeve away before it was eaten through. Still, the attack had left a livid red burn on his skin.

Somewhere, not far away, a carrion bird was screeching in delight.

‘So, how’s it looking out there?’ asked Greiss – and Lorenzo realised that the sergeant was addressing him.

A smile tugged at his lips as he gave the traditional answer: ‘Reckon I’m going to like this place, sergeant. It reminds me of home!’

 

CHAPTER 2

The air outside the hatch filled with acid spray again, and a few drops made it inside the ship. The Catachans withdrew from the danger area, those at the front yelling at the others to get back. Lorenzo’s bandolier was splashed – only a little, but enough to leave a steaming hole in the fabric.

Sergeant Greiss had shouldered his way up to Lorenzo and Woods through the crush. The platoon commander was only a few steps behind him. Lieutenant Vines was a quiet-voiced, unassuming man – but, because he had earned his rank, been elected to it by his fellow Catachans, they listened when he spoke. He asked the two troopers to describe what they’d seen, and Woods told him about the spitting plants. ‘Three of them, sir,’ Lorenzo confirmed, ‘at two o’clock.’

‘Who’s your best marksman, sergeant?’

Without hesitation, Greiss answered, ‘Bullseye, sir. Trooper Myers.’ As he spoke, he seized the shoulder of a wiry, dark-skinned man, and pulled him forward.

‘You know what to do, Myers,’ said Vines.

With a nod of understanding, Myers drew his lasgun. He waited a few seconds to be sure it was safe, then darted up to the ­sloping hatchway.

As soon as he popped his head up into the open, there came another deluge. Myers let off two shots, then dived and rolled back under cover, landing at Lorenzo’s feet. Lorenzo heard acid spattering the drop-ship’s hull above his head. He looked down, and saw that the deck plates were bubbling beneath the droplets left from the previous attack.

Donovits was a second ahead of him, his eyes already turned upward. ‘Do you think it can melt through adamantium?’ asked Lorenzo.

‘It’s possible,’ said Donovits, ‘with the damage we must have taken on the way down. I’d keep an eye out up there. You see that ceiling starting to discolour, you find yourself a steel umbrella quick.’

‘And that’d help?’

‘For a few seconds, yes.’

‘I’ve never seen plant acid so strong,’ breathed Sharkbait Muldoon, ‘not even back home.’

‘Makes you wonder,’ said Donovits, ‘what kind of insects live on this world if that’s what it takes to digest them.’

In the meantime, Myers had made his report to Lieutenant Vines: ‘Three of them, sir, like Hotshot and Lorenzo said. I picked off the first, but I swear the second ducked under my shot. Got the measure of it now, though.’ Vines signalled his approval with a terse nod, and Myers approached the hatchway again.

He was halfway there when the plants fired a fourth time.

This time, their two sprays were perfectly aimed. They collided above the hatchway, so that a sheet of liquid dropped into the ship with a slap. Myers let out a curse and leapt back. Several troopers were splashed, but those who had alkali powders in their kits – ground from the vegetation of their last deathworld – had readied them, and they quickly pressed them into service.

An acid river trickled down the angled deck, petering out as it sizzled into the metal. Still, Lorenzo wasn’t the only trooper forced to climb onto a seat to escape its path.

‘Cunning critters,’ breathed Myers, almost admiringly. And then he was off, without awaiting instructions. He vaulted through the hatchway, the ship’s hull ringing as his booted feet connected with it. Then he was out of sight, but Lorenzo could still hear, and feel, his footsteps overhead, and the crack of a lasgun, firing once, twice, three times, four times, then another spattering of acid, uncomfortably close to the point from which the last footstep had sounded.

Then there was silence.

Lorenzo held his breath, alert for any sounds from outside the drop-ship. Then he caught Sergeant Greiss’s eye, and realised that Old Hardhead was smiling. A moment later, Myers appeared in the hatchway again, and he too was grinning from ear to ear. He blew imaginary smoke from the barrel of his lasgun. ‘All clear,’ he announced.

Four sergeants bellowed at 

once, ordering their respective troopers out of the ship double-quick. Lorenzo knew that whichever squad was last to form up outside would pay with extra duties for embarrassing their commander.

Fifty men rushed for the hatchway, but Woods reached it first. As Lorenzo climbed out onto the surface of a new world and looked for his squad, he felt a thrill of excitement. He was back in the jungle – back in his element. He knew that, whatever perils may lie in store for him on Rogar III, they couldn’t be as discomforting as that stifling room with its single bed, up there in space.

The trees of Rogar III were generally tall, thin and gnarled, but they grew close together – too close, in places, for a man to squeeze between them. Their leaves were jagged, some razor-edged – and creepers dangled from their topmost branches, bulging with poisonous pustules. The undergrowth was thick, green-brown and halfway to knee height, the occasional splash of colour thrown out in the shape of a flower or a brightly patterned thistle or patch of strangle-weed. From a distance, it looked like any jungle Lorenzo had seen. He wanted to get closer, to inspect the peculiar shapes and patterns of this jungle, to begin to learn which shapes he could trust and which spelled danger – but, for now, it was not to be.

The drop-ship had gouged a great gash out of the planet. Undergrowth had been flattened, trees felled, branches shorn. Small fires were still burning, and creepers twitched like severed limbs in their heat.

Vines checked his compass, and received a navigational fix from the troop carrier in orbit. They were ten kilometres away from the Imperial encampment, he reported, and the quickest route to it was to retrace the trail of devastation to its source. It was also the safest route – for, although Lorenzo saw several more acid spitters among the ashes, most had been burnt or decapitated. When one plant did dare stir, and cracked open its pink head, it immediately became the focus of eight lasguns, and was promptly blasted out of existence.

The Catachans proceeded cautiously to begin with, and there was little talk. Each of them knew this was the most dangerous time: their first footsteps on a new world, not knowing the threats it posed, knowing that an attack could come at any second from any quarter. In time, they would become familiar with Rogar III – those of them who survived these early days. They would learn to anticipate and counter anything it could throw at them. Then this world would be no challenge any more and, Emperor willing, they would move on to another.

Lorenzo loved this time. He loved the feeling of adrenaline pumping around his body, loved the edge it gave him.

For the moment, though, the planet was nursing its wounds, keeping its distance. He heard more birds screeching to each other, but apart from a brief flutter of wings on the edge of his vision he never saw a single one. A jungle lizard skittered away as the Catachans approached. Lorenzo estimated it to be about twenty centimetres long, but without a closer inspection he couldn’t tell if it was an adult or a baby.

It was almost as if Rogar III was watching the new arrivals, sizing them up just as they were sizing up it.

Bulldog Rock was the first to order his squad to double time, and Greiss and the other sergeants followed. Not to be outdone, another squad struck up a cadence call.

A scream of engines drew his attention to the sky, and he caught a glint of red as the rays of the sinking sun struck metal. Two drop-ships, ascending, from a point no more than a couple of kilometres ahead. He wondered what had happened to the third, and suppressed a shudder at the thought that one platoon may not have been as fortunate as his own.

Not long after that, they came to the end of their own ship’s trail – the point at which it had hit ground. Lorenzo had looked forward to entering the jungle proper, but instead he found himself at the edge of an expansive clearing. It was man-made, about two kilometres in diameter, doubtless the product of many hours of toil by Imperium troops with flamers – and yet the vegetation at the clearing’s edge was already showing signs of re-growth.

Without breaking step, the Jungle Fighters made for a huddle of prefabricated buildings in the clearing’s centre, now little more than shadows in the twilight. As they reached it, the sergeants shouted more orders, and the Catachans formed up in their squads again and fell silent. Lorenzo was aware that their noisy arrival had turned the heads of several Guardsmen who’d been standing sentry. It had also given fair warning of their approach to the commissar who now came to meet them.

He was a young, fair-haired man with pale skin and ears that protruded very noticeably. The Imperial eagle spread its wings proudly on his peaked cap, and his slight form was almost swallowed by a long, black overcoat. Fresh out of training, Lorenzo thought. Even Lieutenant Vines, not a tall man, seemed to tower over the senior officer through presence alone. Lorenzo thought he could see a sneer pulling at Vines’s lips as he folded his arm into a lazy salute and announced, ‘C Platoon, Third Company, Catachan XIV reporting for duty, sir.’

‘Not before time, lieutenant,’ said the commissar tersely. ‘I assume it was your drop-ship that screamed over our heads an hour ago, and almost demolished the very camp we’ve been fighting to defend?’ He made it sound like an accusation, as if Vines had been piloting the ship himself. Before Vines could speak, however, the commissar raised his voice to address the assembled platoon. ‘My name is Mackenzie. I am in command here – and as long as you are on Rogar III, my word is the Emperor’s word, is that clear?’

A few of the Catachans mumbled a derisory, ‘Yes, sir.’ Most of them said nothing.

Mackenzie scowled. ‘Let me make this clear from the outset,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t like deathworlders. In my experience, they are sloppy and undisciplined, with an arrogance that far outstrips their ability. The Emperor has seen fit to send you here, and I concede you may have certain expertise that will hasten a conclusion to this war. But had the decision been mine, let me tell you, I would rather have fought on with one squad from the blessed birth world than ten from Canak or Luther McIntyre or whatever hellhole it was you lot crawled out from.’

‘Catachan, sir!’ hollered Vines, and a proud roar swelled from the ranks of his men. If Mackenzie had expected to get a rise out of the Jungle Fighters, he was disappointed. Most of them ignored him, not quite looking at him, undermining him with a wave of indifference. Woods said something under his breath, a few men laughed, and the commissar’s eyes narrowed – but he hadn’t quite caught the words and couldn’t pinpoint their source.

‘As you are here,’ he continued, ‘I intend to make the best of it. I’m making it my mission to whip you rabble into shape. By the time I’m finished with you, you’ll be the smartest Guardsmen in the Imperium.’

Mackenzie turned on his heel, then, and snarled in Vines’s direction, ‘Your platoon is late for my briefing, lieutenant. Ten laps round the camp perimeter, double time. Last squad back does another ten.’

‘With respect, sir…’ began Vines, the look of contempt in his eyes suggesting that respect was the last thing he wanted to show.

‘That includes you, lieutenant,’ Mackenzie barked – and he marched away stiffly, into the largest of the buildings.

Vines took a deep breath. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘you heard the man.’

The Catachans took their circuits at a leisurely pace, and with a cadence call that contained a few choice lyrics about senior officers.

By the time they got to the lower ranks’ mess hall, there was only enough slop left for half rations, and it was cold.

About fifty Catachans and a handful of ogryns from A and D Platoons had taken over a generous area, perching on tables with their feet up on chairs, swigging from flasks and punching each other boisterously. They had broken out the hooch to celebrate their arrival; it had been brewed on the troop ship, and put aside for a special occasion. They filled the large space with their raucous laughter.

There were other Guardsmen here – they outnumbered the Catachans two to one – but they were finishing their meals in silence, along one side of the hall, looking very much like they’d been edged out by the newcomers. They wore red and gold, and were identified by their flashes as members of the 32nd Royal Validian Regiment. To Lorenzo’s eyes, most of them looked tall and gaunt – but then, he was aware that Catachan had a higher than average gravity, which made its people more squat and muscular than most.

It didn’t surprise him that the two groups had self-segregated. The Catachans were Jungle Fighters – elite deathworld veterans. The best the Imperium had to offer, they believed. The rank-and-file Guardsmen regarded them with a mixture of curiosity, admiration and, here more than in many places, outright resentment.

Lorenzo’s squad picked up their meals and took over a table. Greiss joined them presently; he’d had the rookie, Landon, fetch his food for him while he’d pumped the other platoons for what

they’d learned so far.

He threw a folded sheet of paper onto the table. Lorenzo saw the crudely printed header Eagle & Bolter, and needed to look no closer. Another propa­ganda broadsheet, doubtless full of consoling ‘news’ about how the war here was being won. ‘Looks like we hit the jackpot this time,’ said the sergeant happily. ‘We got killer plants, man-eating slugs, poison insects, acid swamps, all the usual. On top of that, there’s talk of invisible monsters – and ghosts, would you believe!’ He saw that a couple of Validians were eavesdropping from the next table but one, and he added slyly, ‘Course we only got the word of a few rookie Guardsmen for that. Probably jumping at their own shadows.’

‘Ghosts?’ echoed Donovits, interested.

‘Yes: ghosts, lights, whatever. Supposed to appear at night, lure men into the jungle – and those crazy enough to follow them don’t come back.’

‘Speaking of which, sergeant,’ said Armstrong, ‘any news on B Platoon?’ The one-eyed trooper made the question sound nonchalant, but Lorenzo knew Armstrong had belonged to the missing platoon before his recent transfer.

‘Not yet,’ said Greiss. ‘They had the same trouble we did on the way in, but it looks like they set down further away. They’re out there somewhere.’

‘Lucky for them,’ said Woods. ‘They don’t have to put up with Commissar Jug-Handles throwing his not considerable weight around.’

‘It must’ve been some storm,’ remarked Donovits.

‘Blew up out of nowhere,’ said Greiss, ‘by all accounts. One second, the sky was clear; the next, our drop-ships were drawing strikes like lightning rods. Then clear blue again.’

‘Still think Naval Command were exaggerating, sergeant,’ asked Woods with his characteristic cheeky grin, ‘about this place turning into a deathworld?’

‘Can’t see this place ever having been anything but,’ commented Bullseye Myers. ‘I don’t know why it took ’em so long to admit it.’

‘Maybe it was Mackenzie,’ considered Dougan. ‘You heard what the man said. He doesn’t want us here.’

‘Yeah,’ said Woods – and in a passable impression of the commissar’s nasal whine, he continued, ‘“I don’t like deathworlders. I’m making it my mission to whip you lot into shape. You hear me, Greiss? On your knees and lick my shiny black boots. And when you’re done with that, you can kiss my–”’

‘If I were you,’ snarled a voice from behind him, ‘I’d be careful what you say about an officer of the Imperium.’

Woods didn’t even glance back to see who was talking, though Lorenzo could see that it was a broad-shouldered, square-headed Validian sergeant. ‘Don’t care what his rank is,’ said Woods offhandedly, ‘he’s still a damn idiot.’

‘You want to repeat that to my face?’

Greiss’s eyes narrowed. ‘Stand down, sergeant,’ he growled. ‘I’m in command of these men. You have a problem with them, you bring it to me.’

‘Mackenzie was right about you deathworlders,’ the Validian sneered. ‘You’ve no discipline, no respect.’

‘Where we come from,’ murmured Muldoon, idly sharpening his night reaper blade on a piece of flint, ‘respect is earned, not given.’

‘You come charging in here, all gung-ho, badmouthing our people, thinking you can just take over.’

‘And here I thought you begged us to come,’ said Woods, ‘because your lot couldn’t do your jobs properly. What’s the problem – sun too hot for you?’

‘We’ve been here eighteen months,’ snapped the Validian, ‘and we’re winning this war. We’ve driven the orks right back; there hasn’t been an attack on this encampment or any other in three weeks. If you wanted to help, you should have been here when we were cleansing areas, holding the line, facing ambushes day and night. But no, true to form, you glory hounds show up in time for the mopping up and claim all the credit.’

Greiss was on his feet, his lip curling into a dangerous snarl. ‘Have you quite finished, sergeant?’

Woods stood now, too, on the pretext of clearing away his half-empty bowl. ‘It’s okay, sergeant,’ he said, ‘just

a bitter old man letting off some steam – and can you blame him? Can’t be many Imperial Guard regiments have had to go crying for reinforcements against a few trees and flowers.’

The Validian’s eyes bulged and his face reddened. He pulled back his fist, but Woods had anticipated the move. He sidestepped the sergeant’s blow, and simultaneously took hold of his attacker, using his own weight to flip him onto his back on the table.

The move had the effect of bringing the rest of Lorenzo’s squad to their feet, as they leapt to avoid flying cups and bowls. Two tables away, the Validian’s fellows were also pushing back their chairs and standing. Their downed sergeant tried to right himself, but Woods was keeping him off-balance. The sergeant kicked out, and Woods danced out of the way of his boot. As the sergeant swung his legs over the side of the table and made to stand at last, Woods head-butted him – the fabled ‘Catachan Kiss’ – and his nose splintered in a fountain of blood.

The first two Validians came at Woods, but Armstrong and Dougan intercepted them. It looked like Steel Toe was just trying to calm things down, even at this stage, but his efforts were futile: as a Validian took a swing at him, he responded with a punch to the jaw that laid him right out. Another six Guardsmen surged forward as one, and Myers and Storm leapt onto the table and stood back to back, lashing out with fists and feet.

In just seconds, an all-out brawl had broken out. No guns or knives were drawn, but nor were any punches pulled. Even Landon joined in with gusto, pummelling away at the stomach of a man two heads taller than himself until he staggered and passed out through sheer inability to draw breath.

A pug-nosed, unshaven sergeant came at Lorenzo with a chair raised over his head. Lorenzo ducked under the makeshift weapon, and threw himself at its wielder. His head impacted with the soft tissue of the sergeant’s stomach, and they went rolling end over end on the dirt-streaked floor.

The violence was spreading like unchecked fire. Other squads were pulled into the fray, taking sides according to regimental loyalty. Validian reinforced Validian, Catachan reinforced Catachan, until the entire hall had erupted into a cacophonic mass of screams and yells and crashes and the dull smacks of fists and feet against flesh. Out of the corner of his eye, Lorenzo saw two ogryns ploughing into the melee, picking up men by the throat two at a time and knocking their heads together.

He had managed to get on top of his opponent, surprising the sergeant with his litheness. He pinned him with a knee to his chest, and drove his knuckles repeatedly into the sergeant’s face – until two Guardsmen seized him from behind, and tore him away. Lorenzo had seen them coming, but in the midst of such chaos it was impossible to avoid all the possible threats. Still, he was prepared for this one. He thrust his elbows back, catching his would-be captors off-guard, and threw himself into a forward roll, wrenching their hands from his shoulders. He dropped into an alert stance, expecting the Validians to come at him again, but they had other problems. Greiss had just waded into them.

The sergeant planted his hand in one man’s face, and pushed him back with enough force to send him sprawling. Then he concentrated his efforts on the other, his expression feral, a zealous gleam in his eyes as he laid into his victim with a barrage of punches so fast and furious that their sheer force kept him upright for a second after he was knocked cold.

Dougan was in trouble. He was surrounded, and it looked like his artificial leg was playing up again, slowing him down. Lorenzo flew to the older man’s assistance, but two more Validians rose up in his path. He transferred his momentum to his fist, and drove it into the first man’s skull. The second made a grab for Lorenzo’s throat, and simultaneously knocked his legs out from under him. For an instant, he was suspended in midair, choking. He managed to plant his hands on his attacker’s shoulders, and bring up his feet, kicking at the Validian’s chest. They both fell, but Lorenzo spun and hit the ground on his feet, and was ready for the first Validian as he came at him again.

In the meantime, Muldoon had come to Dougan’s aid, letting out a war cry as he bowled into the men surrounding his comrade and scattered them. Dougan got his second wind, hoisted one foe

by the scruff of his flak jacket and hurled him, arms and legs thrashing furiously, into another. The ogryns were still cracking skulls, the Validians now realising what they had taken on, almost trampling each other to get away from the misshapen creatures.

One particularly hapless specimen backed into Lorenzo, eyes wide with fear, just as the Catachan finished putting down his own two opponents. In the heat of a terrified moment, the Validian broke the unspoken rule, by drawing his lasgun.

Lorenzo was on him before he could aim it. The gun dropped from the Guardsman’s grasp as Lorenzo seized his arm and twisted it until the bone snapped. The Validian let out a yelp and fell to his knees, but he had foregone any right to sympathy or mercy, and Lorenzo knocked him cold with a spinning kick to the head.

His keen ears caught the sound of a whining voice, straining to be heard across the tumult. Commissar Mackenzie had just strode into the hall, and he was demanding calm, to no avail. At his heels, however, was Graves – and when the colonel spoke, Catachans and Validians alike fell still.

‘Just what the hell is going on here?’ Graves roared, his voice resonating in the sudden guilty hush. ...