and tech-crews ready for the go. Companies one to ten awaiting permission to load.”
Colonel Kochatkis Vinnemann stood at the centre of the group of officers, hunched as ever,
leaning heavily on his cane, but resplendent nonetheless in a smart uniform of deep green with
glittering golden epaulets. Today was the last day that he would be able to wear the regimental
colours for a while. The duration of the campaign would see everyone clothed in camouflaging
fatigues of rust-red.
Vinnemann nodded at the sergeant in front of him and was about to issue the boarding command
when Captain Immrich — tall, dark and broad-shouldered — leaned close and whispered a few
words in his ear. Vinnemann frowned a little at first but finally nodded his agreement. He stepped
forward, accepted a vox-amp receiver from the adjutant on his left, held the mouthpiece in front of
his lips, and cleared his throat. The sound echoed back at him from the vast bulkheads.
“Those of you with me long enough know that I dislike long speeches,” said Vinnemann.
“Something best left to your commissars and confessors, I think, to men who have a particular talent
for it.”
Commissar Slayte, the regiment’s widely despised political officer, dressed as ever in the black
and gold of his office, bowed slightly at the compliment. Confessor Friedrich, on the other hand, a
flush-faced priest in his late thirties, merely swayed a little as if standing in a strong breeze that only
he could feel.
“However,” continued Colonel Vinnemann, “as Captain Immrich has rightly reminded me, our
regiment faces something unprecedented in its history. If a situation ever warranted a departure from
my typical reticence, it is this one, for we are about to set foot on a world firmly and completely in
the hands of the hated ork.”
It was Vinnemann’s particular habit to refer to the old foe in the singular. Some of the men did a
pretty good impersonation of him, though never with any malice. There was tremendous love and
respect for the old colonel among those who had served under him for any length of time. It was
well earned. Those men whose jibes contained an edge of genuine insult, especially those that
mocked his physical disability, quickly found themselves isolated, cast out by their fellows. Among
Imperial Guardsmen, such exclusion was as good as a death sentence.
Vinnemann’s distinctive posture was caused by his augmetic spine. Twenty-four years earlier,
while just a captain, he had undergone a life-saving augmentation procedure following the
destruction of his Vanquisher battle tank. His body had never fully accepted the implant. Regular
injections of immunosuppressants and painkillers eased things a little, but not much. The injury
should have killed him, and so, too, the subsequent operation, but his indomitable spirit had kept
him alive, that and the care of the Medicae nurse he later married. During his slow, painful recovery,
his superiors had offered him the option of an honourable discharge. It seemed to them the only
logical choice.
Vinnemann had rejected it without hesitation. “A rear echelon position, then,” they had
suggested, but the old tanker had rejected that, too. “My duty,” he had insisted, “is to lead my men
from the front, no matter what, and, so long as I am able, that is exactly what I intend to do.”
Twelve years later, he had risen to the rank of colonel, taking command of the entire 81st
Armoured Regiment.
10
He studied them now, his brave troopers, during a short pause in his speech. A slim lieutenant at
the rear coughed quietly behind his hand. The sound was magnified in the relative silence.
Vinnemann drew a deep breath.
“Some of us have fought the ork before,” he continued, “and with notable success. Our victories
on Phaegos II, Galamos and Indara stand us in good stead, though many of you, I suppose, had yet
to be born at the time of the latter. Still, the point is this: we know the ork. We know that together,
man and machine, tanker and tank, we are stronger than the ork. We know that we can beat the ork.
We’ve proved it time after time.”
He found himself stunned by how young some of the most recent reinforcements looked when
standing next to their more experienced peers. By the blasted Eye, he thought, some of them are
practically children! Was I ever so fresh-faced?
Thoughts of his two sons bubbled up in his mind. Both were serving in the 92nd Infantry
Division on Armageddon. They had grown into fine soldiers. Was it too much to hope for their
safety? Was it foolish to pray for them? Millions would die to stop the foe on Armageddon, tens of
millions, perhaps. Yarrick’s war demanded it. The very heart of the Imperium was at stake. Why
should his sons be spared the fate of their comrades? He knew that glory, victory and a good death
were the best he could ask for them. It was all that most good Cadians asked for themselves.
Besides, were the men before him not also his sons? That was how he saw them sometimes. They
certainly made him feel just as proud.
“Could General deViers be any more fortunate than to have our proud regiment roll out under
his command? I hardly think so. Yes, I’ve heard the mutterings among you. I’ve sensed your dark
mood. Why send us to Golgotha, you still wonder, when our kin are so pressed on Armageddon?
What difference, you ask, can we make out here on a planet untouched by the Emperor’s light?
Well, let me tell you something. Listen closely, now, because I want you to understand it. I believe
in this operation! Do you hear me? I believe in it. Our success will make a difference to our
beleaguered brothers that you can scarcely imagine. Our triumphant return will re-energise them as
nothing else can. Those of you who doubt it will understand once you lay eyes on the prize. Until
that moment, I know you’ll do whatever it takes, give your every bead of sweat, your last drop of
blood if necessary, for the honour and tradition of our proud regiment, for the glory of Cadia, and
for the everlasting dominion of the God-Emperor of mankind.”
He scanned their faces for signs of open dissent and found none. Instead, their response to his
words was both immediate and deafening.
“For Cadia and the Emperor!” they roared and, like his own amplified words, the sound echoed
back at him from the hangar walls.
He grinned at them, eager not to dwell on the doubts he secretly carried. “Sergeant Keppler,” he
said, “get these brave soldiers loaded up!”
“Aye, sir,” said the old sergeant with the mutilated ear, and he threw up a salute that was so
sharp it could have cut glass. He turned, took a deep breath, and roared at the men, “Right you
maggots, you heard the colonel. About face! Squad leaders, take ’em in nice and clean!”
Vinnemann watched them proudly as they marched up the ramps and into the bellies of the
waiting drop-ships, each company to a ship of its own. Be strong, sons of Cadia, he thought, now
more than ever.
He turned and dismissed his officers so that each could go to join his men. Finally, with his
personal staff in tow, the colonel moved off to board his own shuttle.
The hangar air began vibrating with the whine of powerful engines as the naval flight-crews
began warming up their craft. With a great metallic groan, the massive bay doors slowly opened
onto space. Orange light flooded in, reflected from the planet below.
After seven long and troubled months aboard the Hand of Radiance, it was time, at last, to return
to war.
11
CHAPTER TWO
Good solid ground, thought Sergeant Oskar Andreas Wulfe. Greenskins or not, he was looking
forward to standing on good solid ground. It would be a fine thing to feel dirt and rock under his
boot-heels again, the first time in far too long. He was sick of living day-to-day on this damned ship
with its maze of gloomy corridors and its endlessly recycled air. With thoughts of dunes and
mountains and broad open plains, he marched his crew up the boarding ramp and into the drop-ship
that would ferry them down to the surface.
The trip from Palmeros to the Golgothan subsector had been the longest unbroken warp journey
of his career, and plenty of tempers had frayed under the strain, not least his own. It wasn’t just the
journey, however. Warp travel was no picnic, but it didn’t help that his mind was still wrestling with
the memories of his last days on Palmeros, memories that often woke him in a cold sweat, gripping
his bunched sheets and calling out the name of a dead friend.
He suspected that his crew was more bothered by this than they let on. They had to bunk with
him, after all, and often got as little restful sleep as he did. He thought he detected it in their eyes
sometimes, a loss of confidence in him where once it had been unshakeable. How much worse
would matters be, he wondered, if he ever told them the truth about what he had seen in the canyon
that day? Much worse. It didn’t do for a tank commander to see ghosts. Those who reported such
things tended to go missing shortly afterwards, marched off by whatever Imperial body had
jurisdiction. So far, the only man Wulfe had confided in was Confessor Friedrich, and that was how
he intended to keep it. Even drunk off his arse, as he often was, the confessor was a man to be
trusted.
Wulfe forced his mind back to more positive territory. It would be good to see a sky overhead
again, instead of pitted metal bulkheads veined with dripping pipes and tangled cables. It hardly
mattered what that sky looked like, just so long as it was wide and open and any colour but the
lustreless grey of starship bulkheads.
Following the squad in front, Wulfe led his men through one of the drop-ship’s cargo holds,
turning his head to look at the tanks and halftracks that rested there. Beyond them, further back in
the shadows, sat the company’s fuel and supply trucks. All of the vehicles were covered in heavy
brown tarpaulins, lashed down with thick steel cables and bolted to solid fixtures in the floor. But,
even with her bulk hidden under a tarp, it was all too easy for Wulfe to mark out his own tank. The
Leman Russ Last Rites II boasted a Mars Alpha pattern hull, so she was fractionally longer in the
body than the other Leman Russ. She was an old girl, and badly scarred — in Wulfe’s opinion, one
of the shabbiest tanks he had ever set eyes on. Her armour plating was riveted together, rather than
mould-cast, and her turret was all vertical surfaces just begging to be hit with armour-piercing shells
or rocket-propelled grenades. He was quite certain that she would get him and his entire crew killed
during their first engagement. She was nothing like her predecessor, and he cursed her for that. He
remembered seeing her for the first time and wondering if, in assigning him this old junker, the
lieutenant had meant to punish him for something. Wulfe had thought his relationship with
Lieutenant van Droi perfectly solid up to then, but now he felt he had cause to question it. To make
things worse, some of the other sergeants had leapt on the chance to rip him up about it.
“Don’t get too far ahead of us all, will you?” they said. “Let us know if you need help pushing
her up a dune.”
“What does she run on, Wulfe? Pedal power?”
12
“How many aurochs does it take to pull her?”
The list went on. Wulfe scowled over at the covered tank, glad she was cloaked by the tarp so he
didn’t have to look at her ugly hide. He quickly turned away.
The squad in front of him, Sergeant Richter’s crew, stomped up a narrow metal staircase and
disappeared from view. Wulfe put his hand on the guardrail and hoisted himself up after them, steel
steps ringing under his polished marching boots. His men clambered up behind him, right at his
back, silent except for the gunner, Holtz, who was grumbling unintelligibly. Wulfe didn’t wonder
that Holtz was uneasy, though the man was apt to grumble at the best of times. Emerging safely
from the warp was one thing, and Wulfe’s relief was genuine enough, but every man in the regiment
knew what awaited them on Golgotha. Only the crazies and the liars — meaning most of the
commissioned officers — professed to like the army group’s odds of success here. To Wulfe’s
mind, Operation Thunderstorm seemed like the most incredible gamble. Colonel Vinnemann had
done his level best to instil a sense of purpose and honour in them, of course, but that was all part of
the job.
An entire world overrun with orks. By the blasted Eye! Who knew how many of the filthy
buggers there would be?
Without realising he was doing it, Wulfe reached up to brush a fingertip over the long horizontal
scar at his throat. Orks. His hatred of the greenskins was as strong today as it had ever been.
Probably stronger, in fact.
A doorway led into one of the passenger holds at the top of the metal staircase. It was a long
dark space barely three metres across, extending to the left and right like a tunnel. Twin rows of tiny
orange guide-lights lined the floor, and numbers in faded white paint marked the walls. Wulfe and
his men soon found their seats, buckled themselves in, and reached up to pull metal impact frames
down over their heads and shoulders. The frames locked into place with a loud click. It was a sound
filled with significance, with a distinct finality. Once you were locked in, there was no getting off
this ride.
Only minutes remained until the drop. Wulfe felt a familiar tightness in his stomach. He glanced
up and down the compartment, and nodded in friendly acknowledgement to Sergeant Viess.
Viess, only recently promoted, had been Wulfe’s gunner for some years and remained a friend,
though an undeniable distance had grown between them since he had been given his stripes. He had
his own men to lead, and Holtz, formerly a sponson gunner, had taken his place on the main gun.
Wulfe was glad for Viess. Most men in the regiment aspired to commanding their own tank. He
missed having him on his crew, though. Together, they had notched up a good number of armourkills.
Once the last squad had filed in to the compartment, the door hissed shut. Almost two hundred
men sat in the compartment. They were Gossefried’s Gunheads, the 81st Armoured Regiment’s 10th
Company. Only the lieutenant and his adjutant were absent, seated in the cockpit with the dropship’s
flight crew. The rest sat facing their fellows, trading jokes and nervous banter across the
