Appearing as a lonely, glittering gem enveloped by the ebony blanket of space, the planet of Gaoth trí-na Crainn drifted among so many millions of bright, burning stars. Adorned by a ring system of elegant, glowing golden dust, it was embraced by the equally incandescent luminosity of the distant, shimmering dual suns. The surface was an agglomeration of deep, verdant, emerald complemented by expanses of amber-green. Like veins of sapphire, rivers laced and crossed the surface, punctuating and connecting massive lakes rimmed with pearly sands.

  Even with the grisly gray mountain ranges which rose from the fault lines of convergent tectonic plates, the world remained picturesque, idyllic, tranquil. The only threat posed to that serenity was a great wave of earthy beige rolling from the dark side of the planet. Crossing the miasma of abutted lakes, the great windstorm undeviatingly threatened the great green plains. It was not a cyclone, just an unrelenting wall of rage overtaking the edge of the land.

  So ferocious, it seemed as though the quiescent continental forests would uproot themselves and flee before this indomitable force. Yet, they remained motionless, apparently indifferent to this disturbance. How many great tempests had swept across the planet throughout millennia? Hundreds, thousands—impossible to know. But after so, so many, the verdurous flourish endured, even blossomed.

  Standing alone on the deck, Maerys pressed her bare palm to the observation glass. Looking past her own reflection, she gazed between the gathering storm and the paradise it approached. However it appeared, Gaoth trí-na Crainn was still a wilderness—a wide, untamed, unknowable land. Secrets undiscovered, knowledge yet untapped, so many of its forests unexplored. Millennia may have passed, but there were still woods where a track had not yet been made.

  To breathe in the ruddy bark and moist leaves, to gaze upwards and watch the rays of sunlight attempt to penetrate the quadruple canopy, to listen to the singing of birds and orchestras of chirping insects, to find a quiet hollow in an ancient tree or let the dew fall upon her face like raindrops; every prospect thrilled Maerys. The allure could have been irresistible.

  The glass was cold to the touch. She withdrew her hand and examined her palm. Splotches of disturbed, burned skin, discolored and brown from the warm, tan hue of her skin. Flexing her fingers, she felt no pain, just a tightness where the skin still felt rough. Clutching the old injury with her other hand, Maerys pressed her forehead to the glass. Her long, voluminous, waist-length hair engulfed her face.

  Cold barren wastes of snowy hills, duty crags, windswept ridges, domineering mountains, and invasive trench networks which sprawled across entire plateaus. It felt as though she had just left Cadia; if she went to the observation window on the opposite side of the deck, she would see the planet receding from view, and the many thousands of Imperial monitors and ships winking away in the darkness of space.

  Exhaling, she left a cloud on the glass. Maerys withdrew, brushed some of her locks aside, and pressed her palm to it. Her handprint stayed for some time, though the fog and the mark eventually faded. When she looked up, for a moment, she thought she saw two pairs of violet eyes staring back at her. Her slender lips twitched into a smile. One tall and abrasive, the other bookish and quiet, yet, before her eyes, the distance between them closed. Two friends in common cause, trusting one another wholeheartedly. If such a bond were forged so quickly and so firmly, then surely, individuals of any sort could come together in times of strife.

  But her eyes fell once more. Mankind was an altogether different creature. Who were they but two errant humans, unaware of the universe and unknown to it themselves; the acts beyond their tiny spheres of knowledge, of the great forces that moved far from the shores of Cadia. What did two common soldiers know of betrayal? How could their comradeship prevail over alliance and treachery? Those costs could never be imagined by the likes of them, could it?

  “You may attempt to make yourself a ghost upon my vessel. But, never must I search for too long or range so far to find you.” Upon hearing the silky, aristocratic tone, Maerys smiled, turned around, and bowed courteously.

  “You honor me, oh High Count of Stars and Sands, Dryane.” She stood once more. The Corsair leader drew closer, his long, azure coat trailing across the ivory deck. Emeralds and rubies studded the lapels, sleeves, and shoulders of Dryane’s dress. Brown robes trimmed with golden threads flowed from underneath the coattails. Many silver and golden chains hung from his neck, bearing ornate carvings that took the shapes of countless different suns from the various clusters and systems he had visited over the centuries. From the lowest chain, a golden hourglass hung above his waist. Though sustained in a band of silver, the timepiece continually spiraled and turned, the sands within in constant flux.

  Dryane bowed, his long, dark hair cascading over his shoulders. A few, thick, braided locks slid forth as well. He stood and smiled handsomely, though it possessed the piratical playfulness and mischief that Corsairs maintained. His rust-colored eyes were different; their familiarity created an inviting, knowing friendliness.

  He grasped her hands with his long, spindly fingers. “Greetings, old friend,” said Maerys.

  “Most certainly this meeting feels anew! I’ve hardly seen you this voyage. Always, were you quiet, but your silence has become a din to shake the Sandstorm’s hull. The wraithbone quivers as it waits to hear what recourse rests upon your tongue.”

  “You would not believe me if I claimed to seek the quietude of your resplendent study and nothing more?” she asked, sweeping her arm towards the chamber’s interior.

  Dryane’s Void Stalker-class battleship, the Sandstorm, was as much a piece of personal property as it was a ship to reave and battle. Furnished with his trophies and spoils, one could decipher all the Corsair leader’s accomplishments and proclivities. Great fur carpets derived from the hides of beasts he had slain; assortments of mystical paintings he collected from various Craftworld artisans, the golden religious totems stolen from the Shrine Worlds of the Imperium.

  One could see the hunter, the collector, and the thief, but all such admonitions faded to the librarian’s monument. Dryane kept a great horde of tomes and manuscripts upon his ship, all meticulously arranged by subject matter. Towering, flowing wraithbone cases lined the oblong study. The shelves rose and fell, taking the shape of wavy sands in the midst of a desert sandstorm. No angle was to be found, only elegantly smooth curves and rounded edges adorned by various, ornate runes. Between them were floating, round tables with domes of glass protecting vaunted and ancient literary relics.

  Overhead, hovering just below the upper deck, were great glass orbs which took the shape of teardrops. Each was filled with clouds of roiling, shimmering, incandescent sparks, all congealing and rolling over each other. They cast their light onto the flowing deck below. Scattered between the cases and displays were bastions of cushions and blankets where many a Corsair sat in solitude, some surrounded by books, others in possession of a single page. Occasionally, one of them would raise their gaze to an individual light source and wave their hand, causing the white lights to transition to amber, providing a warmer hue to their nook of the library.

  Many of the readers traveled throughout the chamber on balconies connected by raised walkways. Some of these paths ascended or descended slowly by the command of a seer, allowing others to reach shelves too towering to reach. Those who were seers themselves merely slid tomes from shelves however low, high, close, or distant. Many manuscripts and books floated through the air, returning to shelves, exchanging hands, joining stacks.

  Dryane smiled. Although he appeared to be more aloof, Maerys knew that expression after so many years. For all his prizes, none delighted him more than this repository. But he cast a dubious look towards the Ranger and nodded at her feet.

  “I need not glimpse your mind to know it was not the quiet you sought.” Maerys glanced at the pile of various tomes beside the pillow on the deck.

  Pulling her hair back and sliding her ruby-encrusted band over it, creating a long ponytail, Maerys knelt and collected the books. Dryane leaned against the glass, his gaze resting on her. “I see the musings of both Aeldari and mankind.”

  “Recall the battle against the mortals the Imperium calls the Word Bearers, many years ago.”

  “A most intriguing narrative. Craftworld Varantha destroyed their bastions upon Sahch V.”

  “Then drove them to the Eye and Ulthwé came, but so did the battlefleets of Cadia, the human fortress which guards against the Eye. The stories say their bugles blared as the officers of their fleet arrived upon the Varantha flagship’s deck, the way our people bowed, and we parted in respectful air.” She pressed the stack of books to her gray tunic with one arm. Her orange sash, waistband, and double loincloth swayed as she walked among the shelves, returning the tomes. “I have searched for similar occurrences and there are some, but fewer than the likes of which I saw upon Lorn V.”

  Maerys slid the last book back on its shelf and turned around. Dryane had followed, one hand by his side, the other hovering above the hourglass which spun more swiftly. He had not taken his eyes off her. “Farseer Taldeer made allies of the humans, betrayed them, called on them for aid once more, and then she crossed them again. Many Imperials perished.”

  “Yet the Necron threat was eradicated from the planet.”

  “Yet it sired the wrath of the Imperium who pursued her to Kronus, where her host was destroyed and scattered and her spirit stone remains lost.” Maerys went back to the window, pushing some of the unbound locks from her long, angular face. She found her reflection taciturn yet anxious, and shut her eyes. “If we cannot ally ourselves with another race, how are we to form alliances among ourselves? What precedents do we set?”

  “We are the children of Isha. No matter how far and wide the solar sands carry us, we are all bound by our mother.”

  “Will blood be enough to bind us all?” asked Maerys. She shook her head sadly. “I sought answers, knowledge with which to arm myself for this summit between Craftworlds. All I read did nothing more than corroborate my own misgivings which have plagued me since I left Taldeer at Lorn V. Who can say that this summit will result in aid for the Exodites of Gaoth trí-na Crainn?”

  Maerys folded her arms across her chest and shivered. As she gazed at the windstorm, still working its way across the planet’s surface, she felt its blistering cold. Eventually, she turned away and rubbed her arms to return the warmth. “Aeldari are a people divorced from one another. Those who attend this summit are no different. Saim-Hann proud, familial, but their customs are primitive by the other Craftworlds, Biel-Tan strong but warlike, ready to exterminate any enemy and so quick to judge a friend as a foe, Ulthwé, clever and powerful, but secretive and deceitful.”

  “And that divide widens evermore; myself and my Corsairs, who have chosen to live away from the Path. Though our blood runs thick, it is our differences that may prevail.”

  “Those divides, those cracks, have prevailed for millennia. Just to have representatives of three Craftworlds agree to meet on a Corsair ship is beyond imagination. But I fear all I hope to transpire shall become fantasy.”

  “I imagine it must be all the harder knowing you will be among so many of the Asuryani once again. It is well you have studied diplomacy as we approach this affair. But you must take greater care and defense, for they will surely know of your adventures.”

  Maerys gazed at Dryane shyly. His affable smile persisted and his eyes lacked judgment. “You have spent time close to the humans. Your knowledge of them exceeds even that of my own. Be ready, Pathfinder, for the Autarchs will be quick to note your journey on Cadia.”

  She remembered all too well the pitiful child, Galo, defiant of the heretics but alone, hungry, thirsty, and terrified. The boy, desperate for any protection, seemingly forewent any pious hatred for Maerys and accepted her aid. Perhaps, in his youth, he simply had not fostered that apathy yet. Still, he had taken well to her rudimentary traps to catch vermin. He learned to craft campfires, melt snow for water, and make the land a camouflage as they fled those cultists. All under her tutelage—what would the Asuryani have to say about that?”

  Her imprisonment would be all the more contentious. Taken by some rabble, locked in a cell, and her torture circumvented only by the intervention of two Guardsmen. It was not through guile or deceit or promise that she gained their help. No, it was of their own volition, a resolve of some moral line they alone seemed to thread. Only by their acts was she spared of harm. It was their kindness which inadvertently created the opportunity to escape from the Inquisitor, due in no small part to the intervention of her small band of Rangers.

  “My voice will mean little at this council. That is better, for I believe I have little to offer.”

  “You are a counselor to me and your voice will be respected. Do not think so little of yourself. With your dedication keen enough to drive you to wander across these pages, then surely, your voice will undoubtedly be heard at this meeting.”

  His hand dropped from the hourglass, and its lackadaisy spin returned. “Although, perhaps I should replace you. A Ranger so shamefully caught by two, bearded, rank mon-keigh…”

  “Jest as you please, friend, it makes no difference to me,” huffed Maerys. She folded her arms across her chest and averted his gaze. Eventually, she scoffed. “It is a wonder that my band still follows me. What sensible Ranger would follow a disgraced Pathfinder?”

  “Now you venture forth from jest to deprecation, which is unearned and unnecessary.”

  Suddenly, Dryane grew alert. He and Maerys turned around. Elsarsys the Way Seeker, chief of navigation, and Caellatela, Illustrious Countess of Dunes and Tides, stood by the entrance. The former was simple but elegant, clothing herself in blue and black robes covered with runes. Sharp-nosed, her blood red hair scarcely above her short ears, her blue gaze curious, she appeared thoughtful and patient. Beside her, taller, broader, her curly brown hair spilling over her shoulders, Caellatela radiated impatience. Her darker gaze glowed like the silver and golden trim and highlights of her snowy white robes, and her narrow face was hidden by a silken, black veil.

  “We have been waiting for you, Dryane,” complained Caellatela. “Although I await on my lord, that sifter of sands, I do grow weary of the wait.” Elsarsys curtsied politely.

  “Forgive her. Like many others, she too is tense for the upcoming summit. Please, my dear, we desire your presence.” As if she had just noticed Maerys, she bowed curtly and motioned towards her. Her sleeve was so long her hand did not slip out. “Will Lady Maerys be joining us?”

  Maerys bristled and could not help but look down her nose at the Way Seeker. Dryane, amused, turned away slightly and covered his mouth with his long, drooping sleeve. All the Pathfinder could do was stare antagonistically at the Corsair. When he finished chortling, he held out his arms and approached the two women.

  “I dare say there is not enough room in my chambers for a fourth. I shall come forthwith and delay you no longer.” He strode towards them, then turned halfway. Dryane bowed once more and Maerys reciprocated the gesture. Then, the lord of the Sandstorm raised his hand in a salutatory and official manner. “Fret no further of the coming summit. Though we may doubt, let us hold some belief that there may be an effort. Whether we stand united or divided, we will obtain some form of aid for the Exodites, even if it is just us alone to fight these Orks. I thank you for bringing your band on this new adventure, and I will vouch for you as my counselor and advisor. Not even entrapment by two misbegotten human soldiers will be enough to keep you from my tables.”

  The ladies turned and Dryane walked between them. His arms laced around their abdomens, but as they crossed through the passage into the adjacent corridor, his hands slipped down their skirts. Maerys’s brow flattened and she turned back to the glass. Her eyes fell on Gaoth trí-na Crainn, but this time, they did not linger for long. Eventually, she closed her eyes.

  “You will vex me to this day, foe. But if you still draw breath, wherever your travels have taken you, whatever adventures you partake in, I wish you well on your journey, Seathan Hyram of Cadia.” Then, she permitted a small smile. “And to your companion as well. Perhaps, he has finally found himself.”

  The moist walls of the rockcrete tunnel glistened. Pale lights filtered through the large grates overheads, creating intervals of white blocks throughout the passageway. In between were spaces of darkness so thick to be impenetrable. A pattern of dark, light, dark, light permeated the narrows. Sewage runoff, almost as high as a man’s groin, remained still. Somewhere down the long tunnels and its adjacent corridors, there was some movement or current, causing an echo of gurgles and trickles. Wind moaned as it passed through the grates.

  Above ground, there was a thunderous cacophony that shook the tunnel. Grit and moisture clinging to the struts of the grates descended. The water rippled and bounced from the impact. Dust swirled in the light. One impact after another shook the tunnel. Water sloshed, more silt slid from the walls and ceiling.

  Looking down the tunnel were two Kasrkin, one crouched with his Mk. 2 Hellgun raised, and the other standing above him. The latter tapped his comrade and withdrew into the previous passage. As he did, he patted other squad members on their heavy, olive-drab carapace armor. Forming a line, the first man led them back. The rearguard turned repeatedly, sweeping his weapon back and forth.

  Soon, the team encountered other Kasrkin with red stripes on their armguards. Armed, armored, some wearing fully-encasing masks, others bandanas and armor supplements over their faces. Tactical lights, laser mounts, and various optics, scopes, and reflex sights modified their weapons. Heavy plasma guns hummed, meltaguns sizzled; men carried hot-shot volley guns and marksman rifles, grenade launchers. Some had shortened combat shotguns laced to their chestplates, others carried heavy flamers, twin-linked heavy assault stubbers, recoilless rifles, and man-portable lascannons. They made way for the squad as it wound its way around corners and through auxiliary tunnels. Sloshing boots in the water resounded throughout the underground network.

  Eventually, they came to a set of steps along the wall. Hurrying up the staircase, the squad leader journeyed into the engine room. There, he found the platoon command squad and pushed his way through. He passed a Commissar who wore his ebony and crimson coat over his own suit of carapace armor. Underneath the black bill of his high-peaked cap was a bionic eyepiece with a blue lens which glared menacingly at the passing Kasrkin.

  Beside him was a Sanctioned Psyker in a khaki long coat and carapace chestplate. He was thin, sallow, his eyes as gray as his skin, and his white hair fell limply around his head. A small fireball roiled in his right palm; he flexed his fingers and the flame sprang to his opposite grasp. Such an exchange was repeated several times, slowly at first, then faster, and then so fast the flame appeared to be constant between his palms. Eventually, the psyker clasped his hands together and the sparks fizzled from between his fingers.

  A severe tap on his shoulder plate made the squad leader turn. The platoon sergeant, a big man with a centered ridge of hair and a bushy beard that hung from his jaw, nodded towards the interior of the room. He clasped his hot-shot volley gun in his right hand and drummed his fingers against the weapon’s furniture with the other. An unlit lho-stick hung from his lips.

  The squad leader passed the color sergeant, a tall, older man with a well groomed goatee and thick mustache. He braced the standard against his shoulder. It was so damp that he kept the banner furled around the staff. At the very top was a golden Aquila; even in the dim lights flickering overhead, the double-headed eagle shone. Kneeling beside him, wrapping his ankle with tape, was the senior medic. Older than almost any other operative in the room, his face gaunt and weathered by war, his hair receding. Although scowling and grumply, his gaze remained keenly focused.

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  Across from him stood another of the Kasrkin, his black hair and dark skin permeated with the tunnel’s grit. He maintained a loose grip on a leash. Beside him, a hound with her own helmet, goggles, and body armor sat patiently beside him. Her ears perked up upon seeing the squad leader, and she sat back on her hind legs, lifted her mechanical front legs, and the right paw swiveled to come even with her brow. Smirking, the young squad leader saluted back.

  A sprinkle of water on the squad leader’s cheek made him turn. Beside him was a preacher clad in simple red and brown shield robes. An older man with black dreadlocks mingled with gray, he wore a scrappy beard but possessed an eager glint in his eyes. Mounted on his back was a promethium tank which fed a Vindictor; a flamethrower with a long chainsword bayonet. But in his hand he clutched an ornate, silver flask filled with sanctified water. The preacher bowed his head and mouthed a prayer of cleansing as the tunnels shook with surface detonations again.

  At the end of the room, a vox-operator crouched. She took the primary handset from her Clarion Vox Array and slid it underneath her helmet. The young Kasrkin kept her other hand pressed to the comm-link headset built into her helmet. Upon seeing her, the squad leader lingered for a moment. They locked eyes before exchanging a familiar nod, then their attention was diverted to the man standing beside the operator.

  He was tall, broad, and strong; even underneath his scratched, dented, and dusty carapace armor his breadth was noticeable. Unlike many Kasrkin officers, he did not carry a hellpistol, but instead the standard Mk. 2 hellgun which was braced against the battery unit underneath his rucksack. Hanging from its barrel was a miniature of their banner; a green cross over a white field, an orb of blood red in the center surrounded rimmed with gold. Within the circle was a pale skull. Arrayed on his hips, a power sword and a leather holster bearing a suppressed Ripper Pistol, its magazine extended, a reflex sight upon the small rail.

  His head was bare, revealing a crop of swept back blonde locks. The sides and back were shorn down. On the right side of his neck was a large, splotchy burn scar where an inferno bolt had seared him. Before him, painted on the wall of the engine room, was an Aquila. Perhaps an effort by some ordinate to rally the menials’ spirits when they performed their long treks to inspect the sewage engines or a poor worker who grew tired of the barren wall. Whatever the story, it mattered little to the man who bowed his head and folded in his hands upon his breast, making the Sign of the Aquila. Drawn between his fingers was his own dog tags chain. From the same necklace hung a small, silver totem: an Aquila atop a stylized column.

  “Knight-Captain, sir,” the squad leader ventured. “Surveyor confirmation: the path is clear.”

  The officer lifted his head from his silent prayer. He kissed the icon and then tucked it beneath his chestplate once more. Unclipping his helmet from his belt, he turned it in his hands.

  “Confound it, Drummer Boy. How many times must I tell ye?” said the officer.

  He placed the helmet upon his head, connected the chinstrap, and turned around. He was a man of wounds; a scar ran across his forehead, another notched his left brow, two parallel marks curved away under his right eye, and a weathered bandage covered the bridge of his nose. Although scruff adorned his jaw and his face was covered with soot, his violet eyes pierced through the weak light. “It’s Marsh Silas.”

  The platoon leader slung his Mk. 2 into his hands, flicked the safety off, and the hellgun hummed. “Now, let’s remove this cult from Cadia’s sacred soil. Rowley, I take it by those rockets Prince Osgood has begun his stage of the attack?”

  “Yes, sir. Gold Platoon is opening fire from the eastern facility into the compound. Avalanche Five, Green Platoon, and elements of Mudflow Company are proceeding on time directly over us.” She punctuated her report by pointing at the ceiling. “No resistance as of yet. Blue, White, and Black are maintaining their blocking positions, Avalanche Six is standing by with Steel Lance.”

  “Call it in: Bloody Platoon is moving to Phase Line Secundus.”

  “Yes, sir. Avalanche Five, this is Red Six Rho…”

  Marsh Silas made a circle in the air with his hand. The Kasrkin quickly donned their helmets, checked their weapons, and fell in line. As they progressed back into the flooded tunnels, the rest of the platoon rose from their positions and joined their comrades. Swift yet cautious, they flowed through the tunnels, creating wakes in the polluted sewage.

  Marsh led the way down the passage Drummer Boy reconnoitered. He passed through the intervals of light and darkness, appearing and disappearing by turns. When he came to the opposite end, which forked in two directions, he paused and checked his wrist-mounted Slate-monitron. When he activated the Wayfinder function, the static crossed the screen. It flickered, died, returned briefly, then winked away again.

  “Blasted thing,” muttered Marsh Silas. “Walmsley, your Wayfinder.” The platoon sergeant pointed to the right with the flat of his hand. Marsh nodded, checked his corners, and flowed around the side with his weapon raised. Walmsley Major walked beside him, keeping his volley gun poised at his waist. “My monitron is in-op. Keep me apprised of the time and any development on your own.”

  “Aye, sir. We are set on the mission clock, making good time.” They continued down the passage and their Wayfinder let them, thankfully, to a new tunnel in which the water level was lower. Creeping through the access routes, the Kasrkin paused at corners, checked menial stations, engine rooms, and monitor chambers. All the engines were disabled, the cause for the buildup of outflow. Displays indicated a local lockdown was in effect and could only be unlocked at the master station on the surface.

  As they drew further into the system, they began to find bodies. Menials from the Labor Corps were riddled with bullets or blasted by lasbolts, their rotted corpses strewn over cogitator dashboards, staked to walls, dismembered, disemboweled, heaped in corners. Fat, bloated flies buzzed around them while rats burrowed into eye sockets or scurried out of open mouths. As the Kasrkin cleared the rooms, the rats squeaked and pattered away in their dozens.

  “It appears there was a struggle, sir,” said Commissar Fremantle after examining the blood tracks and boot prints on the floor. “The menials attempted to fight back.”

  “Hardly soldiers and still they resisted the onslaught all the same.” Marsh Silas knelt over the nearest corpse, who clutched a knife in his hand. His face was frozen in a fury. “They knew the score and went down fighting to protect their stations. We should all be so brave.” He stood and walked back into the main tunnel.

  “M-m-maybe some a-are hiding, s-somewhere,” stuttered the psyker, Jacinto.

  “Or they were taken prisoner,” said Cornelius, the preacher. “By the God-Emperor’s heart, we cannot give up on them.”

  “If anybody knows, it’s Romilly,” added Honeycutt, the senior medic.

  “He’s been out of contact for three days,” countered Rowley.

  “Knowing him, that fool has got himself captured. How many times we’ve pulled his scrawny hide out of the fire, I know no longer,” Walmsley Major muttered. “

  The officer in question was a Naval Intelligence attaché to the 10th Kasrkin Regiment’s command company. More a field operative than a liaison, Bloody Platoon made acquaintance with him well over a solar year ago and had since then worked very hard to keep the dutiful yet reckless spy out of harm’s way.

  Marsh Silas went to the head of the column and turned around just before the next turn in the tunnel. “Let’s not dismiss Romilly yet and continue on our path. It should not be far—” Pounding footfalls down the next tunnel caught his attention. The platoon immediately pressed themselves against the walls while Marsh Silas and Walmsley Major went to the corner. Peeking around the corner, he watched a platoon sized element of cultists and renegades storm by. Most were clad in piecemeal armor, mostly flak derivatives and a few common plates. Others had full sets and carried lasguns instead of second rate autoguns.

  The rear was brought up by a renegade enforcer. A fallen Commissar, he was a brutal looking fellow, his face chiseled by war and his eyes beady with fury. He paused to usher the stragglers forward, but stopped an enemy commsman. The enforcer gazed down the tunnel where Marsh and his men were waiting. Slowly, he started to walk down with his attendant.

  Mouths of auxiliary pipes permeated the walls. One on the right side, where the two traitors walked, caught Marsh’s eyes. He leaned back and noticed another pipe entrance in the wall just behind Walmsley Major.

  He raised two fingers, the platoon sergeant nodded, and held up his volley gun. But Marsh Silas waved his hand from side to side, indicating ‘no-go.’ He then pointed at the dog handler and ushered him over. “Cobb, you think Freya can fit in this pipe and ambush those two?” he whispered quietly over the platoon’s micro-bead comm-link.

  Cobb inspected the pipeway for a moment and then held up his thumb. He took Freya off the leash, picked her up, and slid her into the pipe.

  “Find’em!” he hissed. Like a missile, she shot into the darkness, her nails scratching on the rusty metal. The noise carried to the pipe’s exit in the perpendicular tunnel. The enforcer and his radioman, hearing this noise, approached it curiously. Marsh shouldered his weapon and dug his feet into the sediment beneath the water.

  Snarling, Freya shot out of the pipe and grabbed the enforcer by his arm. The Traitor Commissar shrieked and stumbled back. Equally surprised, the commsman nearly fell and attempted to aim his lasgun.

  Marsh burst forward. The muscles and tendons in his legs tightened and bulged. He sprinted so fast he left a trail of water spraying behind him. Spotting him, the unengaged traitor swiveled to shoot him, but the platoon leader barreled into him. Stunning him with a blow to the throat, he rolled the heretic over and pinned him.

  As he did, Cobb approached Freya and the screaming Traitor Commissar. “Dog on bite, dog on bite.” Bloody Platoon followed behind him, their weapons up.

  “Don’t move, fucker! Shut up, shut your fucking gob!” Walmsley Major hissed, shoving the barrel of his volley gun in the enforcer’s screaming face. Cobb grabbed Freya by her harness, whispered into her ear, and the dog’s jaws opened. Walmsley, turned the traitor over and bound his hand with cuffs. Marsh did the same with his captive.

  “Take them to the back of the line, one man per prisoner,” Marsh Silas ordered. “Make haste, let’s not fall behind.”

  As the hostages were hauled back down the line, Marsh led the others forward. Coming to a four-way intersection, they found the perpendicular tunnel to their left to possess a higher ceiling. Walmsley Major checked his Wayfinder and confirmed this was the path. Together, they looked around the corner. Dark figures, halfway down the tunnel, silhouetted against the pale light emanating at the end, fired at them. Yellow muzzle flashes flickered on the moist walls.

  Rounds skipped on the rockcrete and kicked up water. Walmsley Major knelt, Marsh Silas stood over him, and they returned fire. Several of the heretics fell back, sliced by the powerful, high-velocity lasbolts of their hellguns.

  Stepping back, Marsh tapped Fremantle’s shoulder who assumed his position and took aim with his plasma pistol. The platoon leader took Rowley’s handset. “Green Six, Red Six.”

  “Go ahead, Red Six,” came Lieutenant Gabler’s voice. Ever the professional, the leader of 3rd Platoon sounded confident and her tone was smooth.

  “I have hostiles to my twelve, marking their location and uploading them to the net.” He pointed at Rowley as he spoke who quickly input the data into her own Slate-monitron.

  “Roger, coordinates received. Hold tight, Red Six, I’m bringing the Mole Mortar up, wait one.” Marsh met Rowley’s confused gaze and he smiled as she gave the handset back.

  “Ancient tech, who knows where it comes from, but by the Throne, it works.” He tapped Fremantle on the back, withdrawing him, then fired over Walmsley’s head. After a burst of lasbolts kept the defenders pinned in the center of the tunnel, there was a crack in the ceiling. A tunneling shell burst through and then landed in the center of the enemy troopers. Marsh and Walmsley ducked back and felt the explosions reverberate through the tunnel walls.

  Marsh glanced around the corner. Amid the dust and haze of spray, only a few of the bodies moved. “Rowley, tell Gabler good effect on target. Bloody Platoon, let’s move; Jacinto, on point!”

  The psyker bounded around the corner. As the wounded heretics rose, he holstered his hellpistol and snapped his fingers. Tendrils of flame emanated from each fingertip and he raised his hands. The thin, lances of fire pierced one heretic through the chest, then seared through his torso. Curving the flames so they appeared as whips, he attacked the adjacent heretic, simultaneously setting him alight and throwing him against the wall. When the final traitor brought his lasgun to bear, Jacinto coiled the flaming tendrils around the enemy’s ankles and whipped them upwards. He was flattened against the ceiling but before he fell, Jacinto extinguished his fire whips, pressed his hands together, and created a molten beam which melted the traitor’s chest as he fell. It slopped onto the floor with an unceremonious splat.

  Marsh, Jacinto, and the rest of the Bloody Platoon hurried towards the light. As they drew nearer, their vision cleared and they found a stairwell leading upwards. Explosions and gunfire grew louder as they approached. More dust fell from the ceiling.

  The platoon leader ran up the steps, held up his fist to issue a stop order, then approached the large, open, bulkhead doors. Checking his corners, he emerged into the daylight.

  The waste runoff plant was a little known but vital station in the manufactorum district of Kasr Proelium. Industrial sewage derived from the heavy water facilities was transferred through the tunnels into underground pipelines that ran southward all the way to the Torium Sea. The facility itself was a high-wall compound containing a simple Administratum foreman’s station that served as the master facility, a water treatment tower, and the massive water tanks and pump stations which loomed higher than the walls ostensibly protecting them. Sprawling like the branches of a great forest, tubes ran down from the tanks and pumps into pipe-works adjacent to the service tunnel.

  Prince Osgood and the weapons platoon had assumed a position in an Administratum office built into the eastern wall. Rockets arced from the windows and slammed into the sandbag redoubts forming a bastion among the adamantium struts holding up the water towers. Heavy bolter rounds and shells from automatic grenade launchers flared from other ports. In return, cultists and their Traitor Guard comrades fired back, blowing out windows with heavy stubbers.

  Marsh looked to his left. The western gate was still sealed. “Walmsley, time!”

  “Spot on, sir.”

  “Rowley, handset. Avalanche Five, Red Six, we are at Phase Line Secundus. Over.”

  “Roger Red Six, well done.” Marsh Silas smiled upon hearing his old friend’s eager voice. To some, Staff Captain Hyram’s voice may have been a bothersome nuance of aristocratic scholarship. But he easily detected the confidence in his tone, rabid for a chance to hit the enemy. “I’ve divided my element; you are in the center, my detachment will be to your left, Gabler will lead hers on the right. Three columns to pierce their position: on my command, drive all you see before you.”

  “Copy, Red Six standing by,” Marsh grinned. He looked over his shoulder. Bloody Platoon assembled on the long staircase, their barrels pointed upwards. “We’re waiting for his word. Stay together, fight together, win together. Remember, we are the Bloody Platoon.” He held up his forefinger, and everyone below him raised their own in return.

  “First to spill blood, first to shed blood!” they said together.

  Just then, there was an explosion. Marsh looked back as the massive, adamantium gates swung open. Rapier mobile weapons platforms stormed into the compound. Stocky, light armored on their tracked sides, their main guns subsuming the bow, the platforms were too small to be considered a tankette. But their laser destroyer cannons and quad-mounted heavy bolters unleashed torrents of terrible fire that obliterated enemy positions.

  Behind them came a convoy of Taurox Primes, boxy APCs with turrets on the top of their strong hulls. Light battle cannons, autocannons, gatling guns, and pintle-mounted storm bolters swept the field as they formed a line behind the Rapiers.

  “All call signs, attack!” Hyram barked over the network. Marsh Silas roared and charged out of the tunnel. Bloody Platoon surged after him. On either flank, Kasrkin rushed from the facilities behind them. Forming a wall of blazing lasbolts and flaring plasma, they overran the first redoubts of the enemy. They threw themselves over the wire, dropped grenades into makeshift pillboxes, and slaughtered the defenders.

  The distance closed, the men and women of Bloody Platoon shouldered their firearms. From their rucksacks, they drew power picks, activated the cells, and hacked, spiked, and bashed the enemy defenders to death. Commissar Fremantle crushed a heretic’s skull with a one-handed power hammer. One cackling Kasrkin by the name of Crazy Stück, armed with an oversized eviscerator chainsword, threw himself over a barricade made of crates and minced the squad of heretics. Cornelius and Lance Sergeant Tatum smothered retreating traitors with flames as the former laughed and bellowed hymns. Chainswords belonging to the squad leaders revved and growled. Messer and Ironsides leveled their assault stubbers and hosed fleeing enemies.

  Marsh walked by one of the struts, firing his Mk. 2 from his shoulder, then noticed a cavalcade of cultists brandishing shortswords approaching on his left. Drawing his Ripper Pistol, he held it out to his side and without looking, held the trigger down. Ten millimeter armor-piercing rounds tore through the assaulters while those before him were mowed down by his hellgun.

  But the flankers were finished by Staff Captain Hyram. Wielding the Fist of Lilias, a great power fist, he leaped off a sandbag wall and brought the fist down on one of the attacks. The overcharge from the gauntlet exploded, scattering the survivors. When he stood, he executed several with a famed bolt pistol Carstensen’s Justice.

  Just then, the right flank drew forward with a mighty cry. Lieutenant-Precept Gabler swept into view with her power sword. They smashed into the heretical defenders. Gracefully she cleaved heads from shoulders, chopped off legs, and severed arms. A trail of tumbling limbs was left in her wake.

  The Imperial firepower swept towards the north as the enemy gave further ground. But then, Marsh felt the torrent abate. Looking left, he saw one of the Kasrkin operating a Rapier drop back from a heavy laser wound to his shoulder. A wave of cultists stormed towards the mobile weapons platform. Hyram saw him too and waved at Marsh Silas. “We mustn’t let them take that bloody gun!”

  “With you, sir! Walmsley, let’s go! Fremantle, keep the platoon moving forward!”

  Marsh, Hyram, and Walmsley Major charged to the western side of the compound. Shooting as they ran, they drove the hijackers back. Jumping onto the gun deck, Marsh took hold of the controls, realigned the vehicle’s sight, and squeezed the triggers. The recoil of four heavy bolters shook the entire Rapier. But the stream of shells obliterated a force of cultists emerging from the master station. Those who attempted to attack their line were cut down by Hyram’s bolt pistol and Walmsley’s volley gun. When a deranged, howling cultist activated a vest of bombs and barreled towards them, the report of a heavy caliber rifle went off. The round tunneled through the bomber’s head and his explosives detonated among his fellows.

  Marsh Silas activated his micro-bead. “Excellent shot, Isenhour!”

  “Snipers do not belong in tunnels, sir. Are you glad you did not drag me down there?”

  Marsh Silas laughed. Someone tapped the back of his helmet, and the platoon leader jumped down while a replacement hopped onto the platform. Hyram grabbed his collar and screamed in his ear to be heard over the din.

  “Their defense is collapsing! Let’s take the station house!” he yelled and pointed. The foreman’s office was a tower with a wraparound catwalk fed by stairwells on the western and eastern side. A door at the bottom was barricaded, but the stairwells were open.

  Shouldering his Mk. 2, Marsh reloaded his sidearm and then drew his power sword, all on the run. Body to body, they stormed over corpses and gunned down defenders. Pounding up the adamantium catwalk steps, they shot, stabbed, and bashed their way through the enemies. One slammed the door to the observation platform shut, but Hyram took a running start, leaped, and hit the entrance with the power fist. It flew off its hinges and crushed the man behind it.

  Flooding in and forming a line, they gunned down the shocked Traitor Guardsmen. But their fingers slid from the trigger guards when they sighted the chieftain. The traitor, his face concealed by a mask and his red eyes glaring out from under his black helmet, clutched a fellow in a gray uniform with a blue chestplate.

  “Hello, Marsh Silas,” said Ensign Romilly, his dark, dirty face lighting up with a smile.

  “Told ye he was caught,” whispered Walmsley Major.

  “This fellow’s got my own shotgun pressed to my back,” Romilly warned. He shrugged coyly. “I do think he’s serious.”

  “Mighty serious,” said Hyram. He leaned towards Marsh Silas. “Keep an eye on his feet.”

  “Silence!” the chieftain bellowed. “If you do not let me leave, I shall kill this man before you. You may try to save him, but I have other prisoners below. Try to stop me, and I will trigger the explosives in this station.”

  “I dare not believe you until you give me proof of a detonator,” sneered Marsh. Scoffing, the chieftain reached into his pocket and held a detonator high over Romilly’s head. Hyram immediately fired and the bolt shell tore the man’s arm off. At the same moment, Marsh fired between the naval operative’s legs and struck the heretic in his foot. Romilly elbowed the pained chieftain in his gut and dove away while the traitor accidentally discharged his weapon into the ceiling. Walmsley Majore tore forward, grabbed the chieftain by his harness, and threw him face first onto the floor.

  Marsh hurried over to Romilly but the officer held up his hands and nodded. Marsh came over to Walmsley Major and handed him his sword. “Cut off his leg below the knee.”

  “You seek to maim me!? You Imperial bastards are sadists!”

  “Chap, the rounds of this here pistol are laced with poison. I mean to give you over to the Internal Guard alive so they may do what they please with you. Though I doubt they’ll get much intelligence from you, dolt,” Marsh taunted before joining Hyram at the control board.

  “...require engineers and medics at my location…Avalanche Five out,” he said into his own micro-bead. He smiled and shook Marsh’s hand as they gazed out the window. Below, Kasrkin cheered, waved their standards, and corralled enemy prisoners. Hyram typed in the code to the cogitator and, with a teasing bow, motioned towards the master key. Marsh humbly pressed it. Overhead, the engines roared and the pipes rattled back to life.

  “May the waters of the Imperium flow unabated once more,” said Marsh Silas.