[104] For a Death Korps trooper, dying in action is a given; although the majority do try to put it off as long as possible, to be of the greatest service to the Emperor in the interim.
[105] Considerably more, if the defensive armament of the armada of merchant ships continually arriving and departing from the forge world is taken into account; although this would be so feeble against the might of a hive fleet Cain can be forgiven for apparently discounting it altogether.
[106] In the apothecarion, recovering from his ordeal on Interitus Prime.
[107] An informal Adeptus Astartes designation for a squad of about five Space Marines, typically a full-strength tactical squad split into two teams for mutual fire support. Nowhere in Cain’s account does he give the actual number of Reclaimers on Fecundia, if he even knew, but, given his familiarity with Space Marine nomenclature, it would be safe to assume about half a dozen, plus Sholer and the neophyte Techmarines referred to in passing.
[108] No doubt the press gangs had been busily making up for any combat losses.
[109] The first time Cain mentions the class of ship Zyvan had set up his command centre aboard. If he’s being literal, rather than using ‘battleship’ as a colloquial term for an Imperial Navy vessel, it was probably the Retribution-class Throne Eternal, the only ship of its size involved in the defence of Fecundia.
[110] Probably intended as a piece of self-deprecating humour, since, as previously noted, the relationship between the two men was far warmer than would normally be the case between a senior officer and the member of the Commissariat attached to his command; a happy knack Cain seems to have had throughout his career (cf his accounts of his service with the Valhallan 597th.)
[111] Spaceborne interceptors and anti-ship attack boats respectively; both unlikely to be found aboard a Retribution-class battleship, so Zyvan’s flagship may have been one of the many cruiser class vessels among the fleet rather than the Throne Eternal after all. A ship so equipped may also have carried a complement of Shark-class assault boats, but, since attempting to board a tyranid vessel would be the action of a madman, no attempt appears to have been made to deploy them if present.
[112] Which implies that the vessel, whatever it was, had no dedicated fighter hangars, and that the docking bay being used to arm those Cain saw inside may well have been used only for utility craft in the normal course of events: which in turn means that the flagship may have been the Throne Eternal after all. I give up.
[113] A clear figure of speech, as sound doesn’t travel in a vacuum; something the producers of pict shows seem curiously unwilling to admit.
[114] Probably the subspecies of vanguard drone classified by the Navy as ‘stalkers,’ although his description is sketchy enough to have applied to innumerable other variants; tyranids not being all that big on uniformity.
[115] An odd choice of weapon for a spacecraft, where the recoil would have to be compensated for by bursts from the manoeuvering thrusters with every shot: for which reason lascannon are more common on Navy craft. Presumably this particular one was generally employed on ship to surface runs, making defence within an atmosphere a higher priority, or had been dispatched by the Adeptus Mechanicus as a courtesy to Cain.
[116] A common configuration with Aquilae, although, given their numbers and ubiquity, nothing so straightforward as a standard design could truly be said to exist.
[117] Possibly not as long as Cain appears to believe, his perception of time almost certainly having been distorted by the unpleasant and claustrophobic nature of his surroundings.
[118] Probably quite literally, given the amount of mineral waste released into the environment over several millennia of energetic exploitation of the system’s natural resources.
[119] A reasonable assumption, since tyranid tactics tend to depend on overwhelming numbers. Typically, vanguard swarms are deployed in only a few locations, in an attempt to establish beachheads from which they can expand their depredations, while solitary scout organisms, most often lictors, are scattered more widely, in search of more potential targets for the following wave.
[120] Each spore pod typically contains around twenty of the smaller organisms, although the number can be less, particularly in the case of larger creatures: lictors are generally deployed singly, for instance, as befits their role of solitary pathfinder, and carnifexes invariably so, given their bulk.
[121] Probably not, in fact, as the gaunts Cain describes seem to be acting from instinct rather than direction; but with tyranids it’s never safe to assume anything.
[122] In so far as it was capable of thinking at all.
[123] Cain’s duelling instructor at the schola progenium.
[124] Either Cain’s standard of swordsmanship had improved considerably since his days as a progenii, or, as seems more likely, this was a rare case of a schola tutor unbending enough to share a joke with a particularly favoured pupil. As I’ve had occasion to remark elsewhere in my editing of his memoirs, Cain’s academic record is undistinguished in most respects, apart from a precocious talent for combat skills, in which he appears to have shown considerable aptitude.
[125] Or not. The mycetic spore which delivered it to the surface could have been dispatched by any of the tyranid ships in orbit.
[126] As so often with tyranid organisms, it’s almost impossible to draw any general conclusions about such matters, as the characteristics of individual members of a subspecies can vary greatly from brood to brood. But since gaunts are primarily hunting predators, he was probably right to be cautious.
[127] Chainswords vary as much as any other device common throughout the Imperium: the model Cain favoured was a military design, built for ruggedness rather than aesthetics, with a powercell capable of being recharged in the field in the same manner as those of a lasgun. In an emergency it could be replaced by a fresh unit, but doing so would be both time consuming and require specialised tools; hardly an option under the circumstances.
[128] Cain may be misremembering here, as most cavalry in the Imperial Guard carry laspistols as sidearms, but it’s also quite possible, given the harshness of conditions on the surface of Fecundia, and the difficulties of operating vehicles there which he’s already alluded to, that this squadron were acting as dragoons rather than cavalry per se, and were accordingly equipped like an infantry squad.
[129] A common piece of equipment among these mounted units, so, even if acting as mounted infantry on this occasion, this was almost certainly their usual role.
[130] Prior to his secondment to Cain, Jurgen had served in an artillery regiment.
[131] Usually the case; so as safe an assumption as possible where creatures as notoriously unpredictable as the tyranids are concerned.
[132] Probably exaggeration for effect, although, having had my own slumbers disturbed by him through several intervening walls, I wouldn’t swear to it.
[133] Typically, Cain is vague both about the number of men in the unit to begin with, and how many were left; since they’d lost at least one casualty before their arrival (the vox-man Tyrie mentioned), but appear from the rest of his account to still be close to full strength, we can infer no more than two losses, perhaps three at a stretch.
[134] It’s unclear here whether Tyrie had already told him this, or he’s writing with hindsight.
[135] A typical example of the Imperial Guard mania for three letter abbreviations (or TLAs, as Cain insisted on calling them), in this instance referring to Armoured Fighting Vehicles such as the ubiquitous Chimera and its bewildering array of variants, whose primary purpose is to transport troops in relative security on the battlefield while carrying sufficient heavy weaponry to provide effective fire support for them when they disembark.
[136] A little less than a full Fecundian day, which lasted for twenty-six hours standard.
[137] Possibly a reference to the Mantican Heresy, or the eldar invasion of Mythago, both campaigns in which Cain found himself on predominantly arboreal worlds.
[139] By this time the job was more or less completed, and a few were turning their attention from the Navy to the Imperial Guard, but the auspex arrays of command posts and air defence units were being accorded the highest priority.
[140] Probably ejected by the crashing bioship too late to correct its attitude before entering the atmosphere, or even inside it.
[141] Or Cain was more exhausted than he realised, which wouldn’t be surprising under the circumstances.
[142] Which implies that none of the Death Korps had personal vox-beads. Though widely used, they’re far from ubiquitous among the Imperial Guard; the constant logistical challenge of keeping supplies flowing to the many areas of conflict around the Imperium often mean that there simply aren’t enough available to equip every line trooper, or even the commanders of every unit, while some regiments deliberately restrict their use to officers as part of their doctrine. In either event, riders would be a low priority for such items, as most of the time their long-range scouting role would keep them out of range of the other units in their regiment in any case.
[143] And horse.
[144] Probably both.
[145] Extremely unlikely, as no specimen has ever been recovered which showed the slightest sign of even the most rudimentary cognitive ability. More likely, Cain and Jurgen had simply incapacitated every appendage on or near the surface by this time.
[146] Presumably a fragmentation warhead, spreading in flight, as normally a Land Speeder would only fire one missile at a time.
[147] Possibly a subjective impression of its temperature, given his earlier remarks about the effects of spending so long in the saddle.
[148] Drawn, like those of many others, from aspirants to initiation who failed the rigorous selection criteria, but were nevertheless judged worthy to serve in a support capacity.
[149] Hardly surprising, as these are generally held in reserve until the later stages of a tyranid invasion, when the hive mind has pinpointed fixed defences which need to be circumvented.
[150] Mobile reclamation platforms, which sift the sand for trace minerals left by earlier generations of environmental pollution, or too scarce to have been worth the effort of mining conventionally in previous millennia.
[151] Hardly surprising, given the ordeal he’d just been through.
[152] Between two and three hundred, depending on the type of harvester, area of operation, and the expected yield of usable minerals.
[153] Which indicates that, by this time, he’d discarded the breather, although the point at which he did so isn’t clear.
[154] And hardly surprising, given their visible weapons.
[155] Presumably because its pilot had some difficulty travelling as slowly as the lumbering harvester.
[156] Quite literally.
[157] It’s not entirely clear whether, as before, Yail had discarded his Terminator suit in favour of the lighter tactical armour by this point, but it seems likely.
[158] The first direct mention of the Naval officer in overall charge of the fleet, Admiral Boume, a much decorated and highly regarded commander. He would have been copied in on the intelligence reports Cain was preparing for Lord General Zyvan, but he and Cain don’t appear ever to have met face to face; quite naturally, as Cain was attached to the Imperial Guard throughout his service, and the Navy has its own commissars assigned to oversee it.
[159] Almost certainly a bit of dramatic licence on Cain’s part, as a tech-priest of her age and seniority would be a little better practised at concealing her emotions than this.
[160] Possible, though implausible; more likely, his imagination was filling in the gap, in response to Kildhar’s implication that more sophisticated monitoring equipment had been surgically implanted in the older group.
[161] A view with many adherents among the Ordo Xenos, although far from universally accepted. Some even argue that if the tyranids were ever to succeed in devouring all other life in the galaxy, the hive fleets would fall just as readily on one another, until the ultimate survivor succeeded in absorbing all the available biomass into itself.
[162] Precisely how has still to be determined, despite the best efforts of hundreds of the magos biologis currently working for the Ordo Xenos; but then we still have only the most rudimentary understanding of how the hive mind perceives anything around it.
[163] Not to mention billions of other tech-priests scattered around the galaxy.
[164] Except, perhaps, over their helmet voxes.
[165] Presumably the same thought had occurred to the Space Marines. Using weapons as destructive as bolters surrounded by so much vital and delicate equipment would have been an act of desperation.
[166] Cain appears with this weapon, or one very like it, in many of the propaganda prints bearing his likeness, although to the best of my knowledge he never used it in the field, preferring the laspistol he was used to. He eventually presented it to me, and it continues to serve the Emperor well as part of the armoury available to my entourage.
[167] An Imperial Guard euphemism for mercy killing.
[168] It’s unclear here whether he means the actual local representative of the Adeptus Arbites, or the Fecundian law enforcers they would be overseeing. Probably both.
[169] The enhanced immune systems of Space Marines are indeed remarkable, but not that good.
[170] Which on Fecundia were hardly to be taken lightly.
[171] From the fact that he doesn’t mention the skitarii, we can infer that none were within earshot.
[172] Probably to hide an emotional reaction, although, typically, this appears not to have occurred to Cain.
[173] Quite possibly, if their augmetics were powered by internal capacitors; a common arrangement among heavily modified tech-priests, particularly if they do a lot of work in the vicinity of poorly insulated wiring.
[174] Either for subsequent analysis or to contain a potential biohazard, if not both.
[175] Jurgen’s ability to nullify psychic phenomena appeared to have disrupted genestealer brood telepathy, and the ability of individual tyranids to sense the greater hive mind, on several occasions prior to this, although, for obvious reasons, experimental verification was never possible.
[176] Got that right. Jurgen was one of my most carefully-guarded assets, which is why I’d left him in the relative obscurity of his position with Cain, to be used as required, instead of inducting him directly into my entourage. Apart from the inconvenience of my own psyker collapsing every time he walked into the room, I had no wish to be constantly fending off colleagues from the Ordo Malleus who felt a blank would be better employed tagging along on their latest daemon-hunting expedition.
[177] A reference to his origins in an underhive, although on which world remains obscure, ‘scavvies’ being a common term in such communities for those at both the literal and metaphorical lowest stratum of society, who subsist by scavenging whatever they can from the detritus falling (or being dumped) from above.
[178] Despite the horrific nature of the wounds they inflict, fleshborer beetles die within seconds, so those injured by them often recover if enough remains of any vital organs attacked, and tech-priests would have had most of those replaced by more robust augmetics in any case.
[179] Presumably a particularly heavily augmented individual.
[180] Clearly an exaggeration, as he’d already been exposed to it for some time on more than one occasion.
[181] If the bioship fragment was really, as Cain described, the size of a Baneblade, the door would have had to have been considerably larger than that to admit it.
[182] Apart from the Techmarines that Sholer mentioned at their first meeting, who appear to have been elsewhere throughout the incident.
[183] Or simply not caring; under the circumstances, he was almost bound to hit
something.
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