‘All pulsar batteries lock on to the Worthy Tides! Destroy it the moment you have a firing solution!’ yelled Alara as she sprinted through the wraithbone corridors of the voidcraft. ‘I…yes my captain,’ replied Machmas. He was her felarch, a loyal lieutenant who never questioned her orders and had never once failed her in battle. Alara knew that he would…
‘Capture an enemy. Hurt him. Make him suffer; make him bleed. Expose the target with his comrade’s anguish and in that distraction, strike. This is the lesson.’ — Codex Umbra Militiae The anaemic dawn broke on the horizon, its weak sunlight barely penetrated the oily mist that smothered the ground. The motionless silence unbroken by the local fauna. Corporal Arkan…
In the Antila star system, more than twenty millennia ago, the Interex built a great hub of commerce on the system’s fifth planet; but war with the Imperium destroyed their civilisation. Ever since, Antila V and its port of Omicron Velorum have changed hands many times. At present, the Antila system lies well outside the Imperium’s zone of control. As…
It was a long walk into the fens. The pull of the cart didn’t make the journey any easier; the weight shifted whenever the wheels hit shell craters or caught in fresh cracks along the road. Each time I heaved, cursed, and sweated the cart back into motion before carrying on. One foot in front of the other, mile after…
Prologue – Skyfall The sky rained fire upon Valrypso. Such sights were not as rare as they used to be, for this was the Imperium Nihilus. Yet this was neither natural, nor unnatural. The streaking balls of flame were drop pods, unleashed from low orbit and aimed at the heart of the planet, Qropolis. As the firmament lit up, defence…
He was upright, for the first time in years it felt like. The limbs he was adorned with were not his own; the scars that sketched a tale of agony across his entire body testaments to his rebirth. Memories, some his own, some belonging to another–no, others–echoed through his pain-wracked mind. He was confused. What was my name? No, what…
Renate Glaserman I shuffle my feet, trying to keep my balance as the Valkyrie lifts off the ground and hurls itself towards the light cruiser in low orbit. Those first few moments leaving Castobel, leaving Sergeant Albani on the surface against the swarm… I can never forget that feeling. It was a guilt-ridden relief. The first days aboard the In…
Pyrrho woke on the cobbles, the cool mud a balm for his blistered face. Cracking weary eyes, he watched the second-shift workers pass like shadows on a sundial, unmoved by his condition. His eyes closed of their volition, as if to blunt the raw ache of his back. Bells chimed in the distance, heralding night and other things. ‘Today marks…
The cell door opened with a squeal of rusty hinges, and the prisoner looked up, squinting into the light after endless days of darkness. A voice barked from the blinding glare beyond. ‘Merrick Dahler?’ Stood outside the cell was a bored-looking commissar. He was flanked by half-a-dozen thuggish prison guards wearing opaque visors and hefting brutal shock mauls. ‘What’s going…
Adeptus Ministorum The first sign of the Inquisition was a smoke-signal, across the sky: the vapour trail of an armoured landing craft. The wheat forest rippled as the craft passed, stirring up a plume of dust that would take days to settle. I watched the craft from the vegetable-patch of my garden. Arepo’s town had originally congealed around the harvest…
