The Last Ditch

by Sandy Mitchell

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  FOOTNOTES

  1. The site of his less than peaceful retirement.[back]

  2. Varan the Undefeatable, Warmaster of the Chaos invasion of 999 M41, whose no doubt self-ascribed nickname fortunately proved to be a little on the optimistic side.[back]

  3. A world, and its surrounding system, given over entirely to the resupply and redeployment of the Imperial Guard regiments active in the Damocles Gulf; if you think of it as the Munitorum equivalent of an Adeptus Mechanicus forge-world, you won’t go far wrong, although on the whole it was rather less grubby.[back]

  4. As so often in his memoirs, Cain appears genuinely unaware of the magnitude of his contribution to the defeat of the Emperor’s enemies. Had he not been there, the forces of the Imperium would undoubtedly have been victorious in the long run, but at considerably greater cost in both time and lives.[back]

  5. Valhallans retain a visceral loathing of greenskins from the time of the failed invasion of their home world, and particularly relish the chance to bring the Emperor’s retribution to their ancestral enemies.[back]

  6. Probably.[back]

  7. Possibly.[back]

  8. The difficulty of completely eradicating an orkish infestation once they’ve gained a foothold is proverbial; on world after world fresh warbands continue to appear years, or even decades, after the most comprehensive of greenskin defeats. The Magos Biologis have their own theories about why this should be the case; if they’re correct, the only remarkable thing is the length of time which sometimes elapses before a fresh generation becomes numerous enough to cause trouble.[back]

  9. Apart from Cain’s, presumably.[back]

  10. A select group of veterans which didn’t include Sulla, who joined the 296th a few years after the Nusquan campaign. Kasteen and Broklaw had both been present, however, as recently-inducted recruits to their respective regiments.[back]

  11. A lesson apparently lost on at least one member of his audience.[back]

  12. Though Sulla clearly couldn’t be bothered to look up the appropriate statistics, approximately thirty-five per cent of the Nusquan population live in the Leeward Barrens and surrounding provinces, which included the planetary capital and its satellite cavern cities.[back]

  13. The planetary capital.[back]

  14. Given that Cain is writing with hindsight, this is almost certainly a piece of hyperbole for dramatic effect.[back]

  15. Sulla had served as the 296th’s quartermaster sergeant, until the tyranids opened the way for her elevation to a commission by eating most of their existing officers.[back]

  16. Which included the 597th’s logistical support units.[back]

  17. As opposed to those of fleet auxiliaries, which, despite being cargo vessels, were Imperial Navy ships aboard which the appropriate military dress codes were to be expected.[back]

  18. The Commissariat being quick to see the advantages of one of their number appearing popular with the troops he led for once.[back]

  19. So I would hope.[back]

  20. Clearly successfully enough to avoid irritating Cain, since he fails to mention any of the dozens of crew members he would have encountered every day simply by walking down a corridor on a vessel that size.[back]

  21. A Landing Zone already under enemy fire.[back]

  22. The colonel and second-in-command would never travel in the same shuttle, as if it were downed by accident or a lucky enemy shot, the regiment they led would be effectively decapitated.[back]

  23. It seems to date back to the Horus Heresy, when the loyalty of the crew couldn’t be taken entirely for granted, and the presence on the bridge at every crucial juncture of someone with a gun was an essential guarantor of good faith.[back]

  24. The natives of iceworlds seem relatively immune to degrees of cold most other Imperial citizens would consider unbearable, and only bother bundling up when conditions become harsh enough to remind them of home.[back]

  25. Probably because his ship just happened to be in the Coronus system at the time, and was the first with sufficient cargo space for the 597th and their equipment to come up on someone’s list of available vessels.[back]

  26. A gesture common throughout the region, in which the thumb is folded into the palm of the hand, so that the fingers resemble an Imperial aquila wing. Cain mentions doing so himself, at least figuratively, at several points in his memoirs.[back]

  27. And a reliable one, having encountered rogue psykers on several occasions prior to this.[back]

  28. Most people outside the Ordo Malleus only do so once, and most of those not for very long, which makes Cain’s survival of these multiple encounters remarkable to say the least.[back]

  29. Jurgen was a blank, one of the incredibly rare individuals with a degree of natural immunity to all forms of warpcraft; which in no small measure accounts for Cain having, as previously noted, faced daemons on multiple occasions while surviving to tell the tale.[back]

  30. In all probability it was a little of both.[back]

  31. Though many members of the Ecclesiarchy attached to Imperial Guard regiments retain their priestly vestments, a substantial number, which apparently included Tope, prefer to adopt the uniform of their hosts, with appropriate modification.[back]

  32. Presumably at this scale the curvature of the planet’s orbit wasn’t obvious, or, if it was, Cain doesn’t bother to mention it.[back]

  33. The Adeptus Mechanicus enginseers attached to the regiment, generally responsible for maintaining the 597th’s vehicles and equipment.[back]

 
34. Most unlikely; they may have been a little stronger than his natural ones, but hardly to that extent.[back]

  35. Or been unable to disengage in time, the procedure for doing so being both long and complex.[back]

  36. With power cut to the engines in one part of the array, the asymmetric thrust would nudge the ship a little to one side.[back]

  37. Mires would have to have waited until he was sure of his angle of approach to the void station before issuing the order; otherwise it could simply have made matters worse.[back]

  38. A common precaution, particularly on merchant vessels and the lighter classes of warship, as the intervening layers of hull provide extra protection from incoming fire.[back]

  39. Sulla’s description of these events dwell on his ‘noble bearing’ and ‘manifest fortitude’ at inordinate length, so he must have fooled at least one of those present; but as her account adds nothing of note to Cain’s, I’ve been spared the necessity of inflicting any more of it on my readers at this juncture.[back]

  40. Swimming being a skill which very few Valhallans acquire, given that water exists naturally on their home world only as a solid.[back]

  41. An agile, fast-moving sauropod used as mounts by the rough riders of the Imperial Guard regiments from that singularly unpleasant world. The undomesticated ones are vicious, quarrelsome, and inclined to savage any living creature in their immediate vicinity, which remains more or less true for the ones broken to the saddle. And their riders too, come to think of it.[back]

  42. Something of an exaggeration, but less so than it may seem; the heavy cargo shuttles the bay was designed to serve would take up a considerable amount of room even at rest, and would also require space to manoeuvre, particularly when several were arriving and departing at once.[back]

  43. Though Cain encountered both craftworld eldar and their Chaos-touched kin on several occasions during his eventful career, whenever he refers to them in passing he seems unaware of, or, more likely, indifferent to, the distinction.[back]

  44. A general instruction over the vox-net, presumably, though he doesn’t bother to mention that specifically.[back]

  45. An Imperial Guard term for a rear guard, or similarly exposed detachment, detailed to cover a retreat or otherwise protect the main body of troops; the low chance of survival contingent on such a task being reflected in the name.[back]

  46. Cain seems oblivious to the unintended pun here.[back]

  47. Generally favoured by Valhallan regiments fighting in urban environments, or on garrison duty; out in the snowfields, they tend to adopt winter camouflage patterns, for obvious reasons.[back]

  48. Almost certainly the latter, as orks are seldom disciplined enough to stay out of a fight if there’s one in the vicinity, however prudent it would be to guard their flanks.[back]

  49. Evidently brighter than most of his kind, who, under most circumstances, will drive flat out whatever the probable consequences.[back]

  50. Or disdained as insufficiently orky.[back]

  51. Knowing orks, probably both.[back]

  52. Any readers wanting further details of this stage of the campaign are referred to Sulla’s memoirs, where it’s dealt with at inordinate length, if they feel the relatively minor clarification such reading would offer is really worth the effort.[back]

  53. Although Cain appears to have been on first name terms with the governor, which implies some degree of social contact, he gives little indication of how often, and under what circumstances, they met one another during his sojourn in Primadelving.[back]

  54. The Adeptus Arbites had a theoretical presence on Nusquam Fundumentibus, overseeing the local law enforcement agencies, but, like many backwater worlds, this amounted to a single Arbitrator and a small administrative staff, who would be more than happy to palm off the responsibility for any civil emergencies they conceivably could to the PDF and any Imperial Guard units which happened to be in the vicinity.[back]

  55. Or somewhere in the same building, anyway.[back]

  56. Being an Imperial institution, the Adeptus Mechanicus remained free of the cultural gender bias which made men in positions of authority on Nusquam Fundumentibus a comparative rarity.[back]

  57. The area around Primadelving.[back]

  58. A Valhallan expression for someone naive and inexperienced, too foolish even to take elementary precautions against frostbite.[back]

  59. Though much of what passes for commerce among the orks falls somewhere between barter and theft, they do have a rudimentary monetary system, based around the use of their own teeth (or preferably someone else’s) as a form of currency.[back]

  60. The power generated was transmitted to centres of habitation and industry by focused beams of energy, since conditions on the surface would make distribution by wire too vulnerable to climactic disruption. Given the relatively low volume of air traffic on Nusquam Fundumentibus this was less of a hazard to navigation than one might expect, although one or two cases of concussion from being struck by barbecued avians were recorded annually by the Nusquan medicae.[back]

  61. Cain presumably having drawn his laspistol at some point, although he doesn’t bother to mention the fact.[back]

  62. The creatures apparently having arrived on Simia Orichalcae through the necron warp portal, from some other world infested by both.[back]

  63. In spite of which, Cain’s powers of recall seem remarkably acute in his memoirs; either stimulated by the recollection of events in relative tranquillity, or being judiciously supplemented by a fair amount of artistic licence.[back]

  64. Or possibly both.[back]

  65. Or possibly the reverse. Termagants, which by Cain’s account made up a high proportion of the swarm, will instinctively retreat to cover in the absence of any overriding directive from the hive mind.[back]

  66. Other than to prime it, presumably.[back]

  67. An Imperial Guard euphemism for the mercy killing of critically injured comrades.[back]

  68. Evidently dropping at least one of the weapons, then...[back]

  69. A notable Imperial victory, won under Sulla’s generalship some fifty years later.[back]

  70. Fortunately without having the faintest idea of the actual answer.[back]

  71. Presumably Cain means the system as a whole rather than the planet which shares its name; a common source of confusion in Imperial nomenclature.[back]

  72. Tracked vehicles with wide treads, particularly suited to the kind of conditions prevailing on an iceworld. In the absence of a road network, which would have been impossible to keep clear in any case, they were the primary means of transport on Nusquam Fundimentibus.[back]

  73. Which implies four full squads, plus the command element, Forres, any aides she had with her, and the Chimera crews. Rather a small platoon: clearly Cain wasn’t exaggerating about their combat losses earlier.[back]

  74. The second crewman would be in charge of monitoring the on-board equipment, leaving the pilot free to fly the aircraft without distraction.[back]

  75. Another natural consequence of growing up in an underhive, where confined spaces and abyssal shafts are simply part of the environment.[back]

  76. Water being a great deal easier to obtain on a world covered in ice than soil would have been.[back]

  77. Or the aircraft’s patrol pattern had moved it temporarily out of range.[back]

  78. Kasteen presumably having passed on the details Cain requested to the squad leader too, unless he did this himself.[back]

  79. Generally while accompanied by Jurgen, whose ability to neutralise psychic phenomena apparently disrupted the synaptic link between the various organisms of a swarm equally effectively.[back]

  80. Situation report, as soon as possible, a particularly egregious example of the military mania for abbreviation.[back]

  81. Which is why so many orks find this kind of weapon appealing, of course, although I suspect few members of the Commissariat would thank you for the comparison.[back]

  82. It’s not always tr
ue that the largest creatures in a tyranid swarm are the ones through which the hive mind focuses its control of those around it, but it’s a good enough rule of thumb to be trusted by troopers who’ve fought tyranids before and managed to survive the encounter.[back]

  83. Surface transportation on an iceworld rarely maintains a reliable schedule, and there isn’t always someone available to admit a crawler when it arrives at its destination.[back]

  84. Technically, the Valkyries were armed transports rather than dedicated weapon platforms, like the Vendetta variant, but more than capable of carrying out a seek and destroy mission against unarmoured infantry nevertheless.[back]

  85. A frequently observed phenomenon, apparently the result of some form of psychic feedback.[back]

  86. Despite the size of the target, the range would still be extreme for a pistol shot, so it’s hardly surprising she didn’t hit the mark consistently.[back]

  87. Something of an exaggeration, as recruiting among the PDF was continuing at more or less the same rate as before, although most of the newly-inducted troopers were going to replace combat losses in the existing companies rather than swell the ranks of those which still existed only on paper.[back]

  88. Although he doesn’t bother to specify which they were, the minutes of the meeting record the presence of a delegate from the Arbitrator’s office, several members of the Administratum, a cardinal from the cathedral, presumably there to provide purely spiritual support as the Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas had no members currently active on Nusquam Fundumentibus, and a senior astropath from the Choir in Primadelving.[back]

  89. Which makes her considerably more far-sighted than Inquisitor Kryptmann, whose attempt to pull off the same trick on a galactic scale left an unholy mess for the Ordo Xenos to sort out.[back]