by Andy Hoare
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Warhammer 40,000
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Epilogue
About the Author
Legal
eBook license
Warhammer 40,000
It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.
Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse.
To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.
‘The martyr never truly dies. Every blow he suffers is the touch of immortality, every prison he is incarcerated within is a heavenly mansion.’
– Chapter DCCCLXXIII, Verse XXIX, the Dictum Commissaria
(underscored several times in Commissar Flint’s personal copy)
Commissar Flint,
You are hereby requested and required to proceed with all haste from your current post to that of regimental commissar of the 77th Vostroyan Firstborn Dragoons, currently en route to Munitorum penal facility at Furia Penitens [Astrocartographica ref attached]. Find attached record of the 77th, a regiment with 9000 years of glorious service to Him on Terra until its destruction at the Battle of Golan Hole 833926.M41. The 77th is now fully reconstituted, but its officer cadre is untested and rank has been apportioned according to the traditions of the ruling Techtriarch clans of Vostroya. Your task is to ensure the regiment maintains the traditions of its forebears, adheres to the Offering of the Firstborn, and the stain of the defeat of its previous iteration is erased.
Additional.
Sealed archive: +++BATTLE OF GOLAN HOLE SUPPRESSED AFTER ACTION DECLARATION+++
Attached for your eyes only.
ONE
The Drop
‘Group seven-nine!’ the naval loadmaster bellowed over the roar of cycling turbines. ‘Forward and embark!’
Commissar Flint’s newly appointed staff section dashed forward from the muster line, a dozen heavily laden men pounding up the drop-ship’s loading ramp. As they reached the top the crew took hold of their kit bags and unceremoniously flung them deeper into the vessel before waving the passengers to their positions. Only when the entire group was embarked did Flint start forward, waving Dragoon Kohlz, his hurriedly deputised aide, ahead of him. Kohlz was the only one whose name he had yet learned, the younger and distinctly less burly Vostroyan standing out amidst the older warriors with their drooping, waxed moustaches and gruff manners.
The flight deck was a riot of tightly coordinated activity. The space was enormous, the walls and ceiling constructed of the heaviest grade adamantium made pockmarked and oil-streaked by centuries of service in the Imperial Navy prosecuting the Emperor’s wars. The decking underfoot was gouged and scarred by the passage of countless boots, tracks, wheels and landing claws. Every inch of the vessel spoke volumes to Commissar Flint, stirring his heart with conflicting notions – he was at once essential to the carrier’s mission of bringing the Emperor’s judgement to the furthest star systems of the Imperium, and merely the latest in an impossibly long line of men to have done so.
Two-dozen drop-ships of various sizes squatted on the pitted hardpan, loading ramps swarming with troops. The vessels belonged to the Imperial Navy, but it was the personnel of the Imperial Guard they would be transporting to the world below. Those warriors belonged to a supposedly elite ‘Firstborn’ regiment, but in truth they were untested. In fact, these men, and the handful of women serving in the regiment, had yet to even breathe the air of a world other than Vostroya.
Though he’d been with them for but a few hours, Flint could already tell these troops were unprepared. As the warriors swarmed up the boarding ramps, Flint took a moment to cast an appraising eye over the scene. The Vostroyan Firstborn were almost exclusively male, and slightly shorter than average height. They were stocky and muscular, raised in the foundries and manufactoria of a world entirely given over to industry, in particular the production of arms and ordnance. Every one of them bore a weapon crafted to the very highest standards, forged as an act of penance on the part of the arms-smith for a sin his forebears had committed at some point in the Imperium’s earliest history. Though he was well prepared for his appointment, Commissar Flint had been unable to discover the exact nature of that wrongdoing, but it appeared the Vostroyans took it, or its legacy, very seriously. They appeared almost literally weighed down by something. They might be equipped with the finest gilded armour, fur-lined coats and master-crafted weapons, but many of the warriors Flint was looking at seemed somehow burdened, despite their outwardly grim-faced stoicism.
As Flint mounted the boarding ramp the loadmaster waved him forward with brisk hand signals clearly understandable even with the ship’s engines at full power. From his vantage point, Flint was afforded a spectacular view of the five main drop-vessels, each large enough to ferry an entire line company including its transports and support vehicles. The remainder of the drop-ships were smaller, designed to transport around fifty men and their equipment. These would ferry the various elements of the regiment’s command staff so that no single incident or accident could take out the entire chain of command in one go. Flint was glad to be performing planetfall in the smaller vessel as dozens of combat drops in the larger ships had taught him how vulnerable they truly were. He was still haunted by his first campaign, on Gethsemane. There, Flint had seen such a vessel struck by the insurgents’ hideous self-guided ordnance. Several hundred men had burned in a second and the stricken drop-ship had plummeted into the heart of the breakout zone, slaying uncounted more. At the loadmaster’s respectful, yet unmistakably impatient gesture, Flint ducked inside and located his position. Another crewman grabbed Flint’s kit bag from Dragoon Kohlz and slung it into a cargo cage, slamming the cover shut to secure the contents against the violence of the coming drop.
Flint’s drop-station was located near the fore of the vessel behind the enclosed passenger bay. A small, armoured porthole allowed a view of the scene outside, the boarding ramps of the heavier ships slowly rising and red warning lights flashing.
‘Strap yourselves in and get secure!’ the loadma
ster ordered. ‘This is gonna be a rough one!’
Flint could hardly miss the relish in the Navy man’s voice, but he knew what to expect. As sirens howled from outside on the deck, the vessel’s boarding ramp rose on whining pneumatics and slammed shut, the engines cycling to full power. Flint’s ears popped as the air pressure equalised and he strapped himself into the grav-couch, glancing around to ensure that his section had done so too.
Kohlz was attaching the last of his restraints, his bulky vox-set stowed in a cargo bin behind him. Chief provost Bukin sat across from Flint, his grox-ugly face with its long, Vostroyan-style moustaches an unreadable mask as he awaited the drop. The remainder of Bukin’s provost section were just as silent as their leader and Flint could tell they were each trying to maintain an air of brusque confidence despite the dread that must be rising inside. None had undertaken a combat drop before, but they would soon learn.
Then came the long moment of tension and expectation as the flight crew completed their pre-drop ritual checks. Flint remained impassive and stony faced, but he caught the numerous furtive glances cast his way by his newly appointed staff. Each man was clad in the heavy, red, fur-trimmed uniform of the Vostroyan Firstborn. Each wore segments of armour handed down through the generations and no two sets were exactly the same. Many of the men wore the tall, shaggy headgear so distinctive of the Firstborn, despite the building heat inside the drop-bay. At least, it might have been the heat that made the provosts sweat; it might just as well have been their proximity to the first commissar their regiment had been assigned since it was reconstituted.
Commissar Flint kept his snort of amusement to himself as he prepared for the drop. Outwardly, Flint appeared to be in his early forties, though like most of his calling he had ten times the scar tissue anyone of his age had any right bearing. In truth, he felt ten times older, so much death and destruction had he witnessed in his service to the God-Emperor of Mankind. Quite apart from that, he’d undertaken numerous superluminary voyages throughout his career, travelling via the warp from one appointment to the next. As such, he’d technically been alive for many more years than he had actually experienced subjectively.
Finally, the lighting in the passenger bay changed to deep red and the loadmaster worked his way along the rows of grav-couches performing last minute checks. Satisfied that none of his charges would strangle themselves during the violence of the drop, the loadmaster found his own station on Flint’s left and strapped himself in. With an inaudible word of command spoken into his headset vox, the loadmaster informed the pilot that all was secure and the vessel drop-ready.
A subsonic rumble rattled through the drop-ship’s frame as the mighty hangar bay doors ground aside, the barren surface of the world of Furia Penitens filling the view beyond. With a metallic clang, the drop-ship’s grav generator kicked in, causing Flint to experience a brief moment of vertigo as the vessel’s field synced with that of the assault carrier, Toil of Kossia. Then the ship’s engines cycled to full power and its thrusters fired up, the view through the port lurching as the vessel lifted several metres into the air.
‘Looks like we’re in the first wave,’ said Kohlz from Flint’s right, addressing no one in particular.
Bukin threw a sullen glance across at Flint’s aide, but held his tongue. The man next to the corporal grinned cruelly and growled, ‘Yes, we are the flak magnets.’
Flint met Corporal Bukin’s eye and the provost got the message. ‘Shut the hell up,’ Bukin ordered belligerently. ‘Where the hell else do you think the commissar’s going to be?’
The man appeared ready to argue but any further discussion was stalled as the drop-ship lurched forward on its launch rail, the open hangar bay hatch looming in the viewport.
‘Everyone stand by,’ shouted Commissar Flint over the whine of the drop-ship’s engines. ‘This won’t take long and I need you operational dirtside. You all know your duty, so do it.’
As the drop-ship neared the launch, it lined up with several others of the same size and class. Some would be carrying members of the regiment’s command cadre, others units of its support echelons. One would be carrying the 77th’s scout platoon, which would move outwards from the landing zone and establish the tactical situation at the drop zone just outside of the target. As the last of the light drop-ships took its place in the line a dozen sets of engines screamed in unison and the launch cradles carried them through the hatch to suspend them in open space.
‘Any last words?’ drawled the man next to Corporal Bukin. Kohlz swallowed hard. Flint said a silent prayer to the God-Emperor of Mankind. Then, the bottom dropped out of the world.
For the first thirty seconds of the drop Flint felt like he was being spun in every direction at once in the heart of an industrial-grade centrifuge, the entire passenger bay shaking as the ship was subjected to stresses that would tear a lesser vessel apart in seconds. Flint continued his prayer, using it as a mantra to focus his thoughts inwards and distract them from the fury of the orbital insertion.
It was all Flint could do to force his eyes open, so great were the forces being exacted on his body. The drop-ship’s inertial fields were clearly struggling to counteract the effect of plummeting at supersonic speeds through the outer reaches of Furia Penitens’ orbital range, blackness encroaching at the periphery of his vision. The superhuman Space Marines of the Adeptus Astartes might be able to withstand such punishment, but the drop-ship’s passengers were mortal men and even Flint, a veteran of dozens of combat drops, wouldn’t be able to take much more…
‘Interface!’ The loadmaster bellowed at Flint’s side, strain audible in his voice.
If the first phase had been rough, the next was hellish. As the drop-ship plummeted through the thermosphere its outer hull grew white hot so that traces of flame whipped across the outer skin of the viewing port. As the ship crossed the Kármán line at one hundred and fifty kilometres above ground level the temperature soared further. Several times Flint blacked out, only to come to what must have been a few seconds later. Several of the provosts had passed out too, and a number had developed fearsome nosebleeds, red liquid splattering about the cabin as the force threatened to shake them all to atoms.
The vessel’s regulators cycled to full power in an effort to counter the heat but still the passenger bay felt as hot as a furnace. Flint longed to cast off his heavy leather storm coat but he knew the drop would be over in minutes. Then he saw that the loadmaster had his hand pressed firmly to his earpiece and was shouting loudly into his vox-pickup.
‘What?’ Flint bellowed at the loadmaster, unable to reach across so powerful were the forces pressing him into his grav-couch. The officer tapped his earpiece and held up three fingers to indicate that Flint should set his vox-bead to channel three.
Clipped and fragmentary conversation burst from Flint’s earpiece. ‘… locked. Repeat, target lock confirmed, over.’
Damn, Flint cursed inwardly as the pitch of the drop-ship’s systems changed and he felt the vessel roll. ‘Ground defences?’ he yelled into the vox.
‘Yes, sir,’ replied the loadmaster, his voice distorted over the link. ‘The rebels have control of one of the ground-to-orbit defence silos.’
Memories of Flint’s first drop, the disastrous Gethsemane Landings, came unbidden to his mind, but with an effort of will he quickly dispelled them. There was nothing he could do except trust to the skills of the flight crew, the inexperience of the rebels controlling the defences and, most importantly, the beneficence of the God-Emperor of Mankind.
The drop-ship bucked wildly and the passengers were jolted hard in their restraints. Flint quickly scanned the faces of his staff to gauge their reaction to the situation. They had no idea what was happening and there was no point in telling them. Bukin maintained his steely expression, which Flint knew he felt compelled to do to keep up his position as top dog even though the rank brassard he wore at his shoulder was sure sign of it. The other provosts had their eyes screwed tight shut and th
eir jaws set in a rictus grimace. Flint glanced sideways at his aide and saw that Kohlz was mouthing a silent prayer. Smart lad, thought the commissar.
The drop-ship bucked a second time and Flint felt it slew violently as it plummeted. He cast a look out of the port and saw that the barren wastes of Furia Penitens now completely filled the view. Jagged mountain ranges were visible through churning swirls of dark clouds illuminated from within by pulsating electrical storms. Millions of square kilometres of hard ground rushed upwards as if to swat the drop-ship from existence or smash it to oblivion in an instant.
‘Receiving confirmation from intelligence, sir,’ the loadmaster said through the vox-link. ‘The rebels have control of a single battery. It’s too late to abort; we’re going in as planned.’
‘There’s no other option,’ Flint agreed as the drop-ship’s descent speed increased still further. To divert the first wave because of a single threat would be unforgivable, even if he himself was in that wave and therefore at risk.
‘Incoming!’ the loadmaster called over the vox-link. Flint glanced outside, though he knew he had no chance of catching sight of a missile homing in on the drop-ship before it struck and killed them all. A bright explosion blossomed several kilometres fore of the ship. The rebels had fired a cluster warhead.
Lacking the ability to fire a missile with pinpoint accuracy, the rebels must have coerced one of the weapon’s crew into launching a weapon that would scatter a wide area with deadly munitions. As the explosion faded dozens of smaller points arced away on thick, black contrails. The fire of the detonation faded to be replaced by a dirty smear of turbulent smoke and the drop-ship was plummeting straight towards it. Flint fought against a sudden sense of overpowering vertigo as the entire vessel powered nose first into the debris cloud. One of the cluster munitions zipped past at hypervelocity and an instant later the drop-ship was out of the remnants of the explosion and the world below resolved once more, the mountains and valleys of the surface now visible in stunning detail.
