13th Legion

A WARHAMMER 40,000 NOVEL

The Last Chancers

13^th LEGION

Gav Thorpe

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2000 by Games Workshop Publishing

Willow Road, Lemon, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

10 98765432

Cover illustration by Kenson Low

Copyright © 2000 Games Workshop Ltd. All rights reserved.

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13^th LEGION

The chamber hummed and vibrated with energy that coursed along the thick cables snaking across the low ceiling. Somewhere in the distance could be heard the steady thump-thump-thump of heavy machinery in operation. Glowglobes set at metre intervals around the metal walls of the square room illuminated the scene with a fitful, jaundiced light. With a creak the lock wheel on the door span slowly; thick metal bars to either side of the portal ground through their rusted brackets. The door swung open and a figure stepped inside, swathed in a long black greatcoat, the tall collar obscuring his face. As he paced into the light, his thin face caught the yellow glow giving him a sickly pallor. His dark eyes glanced back over his shoulder before he took another step forward, easing the door closed behind him.

Suddenly the man stopped. His eyes snapped to the artefact stored in the middle of the room. It resembled a coffin, stood on end with a rat's nest of wires springing from it to fasten to hastily rigged connectors that pierced the cabling on the ceiling. The glass front of the coffin lay in shards and splinters across the floor. Of what was contained within, there was no sign. Recovering from his initial shock, the man began to

examine the sarcophagus, prodding with an inexpert finger at various dials set into its sides. He stepped back and stroked the fingers of a hand gloved in black velvet through his short goatee beard, brow furrowed in concentration, lips twisted in agitation.

'Emperor-damned stasis chamber/ he muttered to himself, looking around once more. 'I should have got it consecrated by a tech-priest/

As he walked around to the back of the coffin his gaze was caught by a darker shadow in the top corner of the far wall. He peered closer and saw a ventilation duct. Its corroded grille had been twisted and torn, ripped to one side. Standing on tiptoe he pulled himself up to look into the opening: the faint light from the room illuminated a metre or so of a narrow shaft that swiftly sloped upwards and out of sight. Dropping back to the floor, he banged his fist against his thigh with a short frustrated gesture. He pulled the glove from his right hand and reached into a deep pocket inside his coat, pulling out a device the size of a clenched fist. As he stabbed a button on its surface, the light from the glowglobes caught on a golden ring on his index finger, inscribed with the device of an T inset with a grinning skull.

Raising the device to his lips, the man spoke.

Third day of Euphisdes. I have returned to the stasis genera­tor, which appears to have malfunctioned. The specimen has escaped. I will start immediate investigations to recover or eliminate it. I pray to the Emperor that I can recapture the monster. This mistake could cost us dearly'

ONE

LEAVING DELIVERANCE

+++ What is the status of Operation Harvest? +++

+++ Operation Harvest is beginning second stage as scheduled. +++

The guardsman's nose explodes with blood as my fist crashes between his eyes. Next, I hit him with a left to the chin, knock­ing him backwards a step. He ducks out of the next punch, spitting blood from cracked lips. My nose is filled with the smell of old sweat and fresh blood, and perspiration from the blazing sun trickles down my face and throat. All around I can hear chanting and cheering.

'Fraggin' kink his fraggin' neck!' I recognise Jorett's voice.

'Break the son of an ork apart!' Franx yells.

The guardsmen from Chorek are cheering their man on too, their flushed faces looking dark in contrast to their white and grey camouflage jackets and leggings.

He makes a lunge at me, his face swathed in blood, his dusty uniform covered in red stains. I easily side-step his bullish charge, bringing my knee up hard into his abdomen and feeling some ribs crack under the blow. He's doubled up now, his face a mask of pain, but I'm not going to stop there. I grab the back of his head with both hands and ram my knee up into his face, hearing the snap of his cheek or jaw fracturing. He collapses sideways, and as he falls, the toecap of my standard-issue boot connects with his chin, hurling his head backward into the hard soil. I'm about to lay into him again when I realise everything's gone dead quiet. I look up to see what the hell's happening, panting hard.

Pushing through the Chorek ranks is a massively muscled man, and I spot the insignia of a master sergeant on the blue sleeve of his tunic. He's got the black pelt of some shaggy crea­ture tied as a cloak over his left shoulder and his eyes are fixed on me with murderous intent. In his hand is a sixty-centimetre metal parade baton, red jewels clustered around one end, and as he steps up to me he smashes the point of it into my guts, knocking the wind out of me and forcing me to my knees.

'Penal legion scum!' the Chorek master sergeant barks. 'I'll show you what they should have done to you!'

He pulls his arm back for a good swing at me but then stops in mid-strike. Just try it, I think to myself, I've killed harder men and creatures than you. I'm still fired up from the fight and ready to pounce on this jumped-up bully of an officer. I'll give him the same treatment I've just dealt out to his man. He glances over my head and a shadow falls over me. A prickly sen­sation starts at the back of my neck and turns into a slight shiver down my spine. I turn to look over my shoulder, still clutching my aching guts, and see that he's there. The Colonel. Colonel Schaeffer, commanding officer of the 13th Penal Legion, known by those unlucky enough to be counted amongst its number as the Last Chancers. The swollen dusk sun's behind him - the sun always seems to be behind him, he's always in shadow or sil­houette when you first see him, like it's a talent he's got. All I can see is the icy glitter of his sharp blue eyes, looking at the master sergeant, not me. I'm glad of that because his face is set like stone, a sure sign that he is in a bad mood.

That will be all, master sergeant/ the Colonel says calmly, just standing there with his left hand resting lightly on the hilt of his power sword.

This man needs disciplining,' replies the Chorek, arm still raised for the blow. I think this guy is stupid enough to try it as well, and secretly hope he will, just to see what Schaeffer does to him.

'Disperse your troopers from the landing field/ the Colonel tells the master sergeant, 'and mine will then be soon out of your way.'

The Chorek officer looks like he's going to argue some more, but then I see he makes the mistake of meeting the Colonel's gaze and I smirk as I see him flinch under that cold stare. Everyone sees something different in those blue eyes, but it's always something painful and unpleasant that they're reminded of. The Colonel doesn't move or say anything while the master sergeant herds his men away, pushing them with the baton when they turn to look back. He details two of them to drag away the trooper I knocked out and he casts one murder­ous glance back at me. I know his kind, an unmistakable bully, and the Choreks are going to suffer for his humiliation when they reach their camp.

'On your feet, Kage!' snaps the Colonel, still not moving a muscle. I struggle up, wincing as soreness flashes across my stomach from the master sergeant's blow. I don't meet the Colonel's gaze, but already I'm tensing, expecting the sharp edge of his tongue.

'Explain yourself, lieutenant/ he says quietly, folding his arms like a cross tutor.

That Chorek scum said we should've all died in Deliverance, sir/ I tell him. 'Said we didn't deserve to live. Well, sir, I've just been on burial detail for nearly a hundred and fifty Last Chancers, and I lost my temper/

You think that gutter scum like you deserve to live?' the Colonel asks quietly.

'I know that we fought as hard as any bloody Chorek guards­man, harder even/ I tell him, looking straight at him for the first time. The Colonel seems to think for a moment, before nodding sharply.

'Good/ he says, and I can't stop my jaw from dropping in sur­prise. 'Get these men onto the shutde - without any more fighting, Lieutenant Kage/ the Colonel orders, turning on his heel and marching off back towards the settlement of Deliverance.

I cast an astonished look at the other Last Chancers around me, the glance met with knotted brows and shrugs. I compose myself for a moment, trying not to work out what the hell that was all about. I've learnt it's best not to try to fathom out the Colonel sometimes, it'll just tie your head in knots.

'Well, you useless bunch of fraggin' lowlifes/ I snap at the remnants of my platoon, 'you heard the Colonel. Get your sorry hides onto that shuttle at the double!'

As I jog towards the blocky shape of our shuttle, Franx falls in on my left. I try to ignore the big sergeant, still annoyed with him from a couple of days ago, when he could have got me into deep trouble with the Colonel.

'Kage/ he begins, glancing down across his broad shoulder at me. 'Haven't had a chance to talk to you since... Well, since before the tyranids attacked/

You mean since before you tried to lead the platoon into the jungles on some stupid escape attempt?' I snap back, my voice purposefully harsh. He wasn't going to get off easily, even if I

did consider him something of a friend. A friendship he'd

pushed to the limits by trying to incite a rebellion around me.

'Can't blame me, Kage/ he says, with a slight whine to his

deep voice that irritates me. 'Should've all died back then, you

know it/

'I'm still alive, and I know that if I'd let you take off I wouldn't be/ I reply, not even bothering to look at him. The Colonel would've killed me for letting you go, even before the 'nids had a chance/ "Yeah, I know, I know/ Franx tells me apologetically. 'Look' I say, finally meeting his eye, 'I can't blame you for wanting out. Emperor knows, it's what we all want. But you've got to be smarter about it. Pick your time better, and not one that's gonna leave me implicated/

'I understand, Kage/ Franx nods before falling silent. One of the shuttle crewmen, looking hot and bothered in his crisp blue and white Navy uniform, is counting us off as we head up the loading ramp, giving us sullen looks as if he wishes they could just leave us here. It's hot inside the shuttle, which has slowly baked in the harsh sun until the air inside feels like a kiln. I see the others settling into places along the three benches, securing themselves with thick restraint belts that hang from beams that stretch at head height along the shuttle chamber's ten-metre length. As I find a place and strap myself into the restraining harnesses, Franx takes the place next to me. 'How's Kronin?' he asks, fumbling with a metal buckle as he pulls the leather straps tighter across his barrel chest.

'Haven't seen him. He went up on the first shuttle run/ I tell him, checking around to see that everybody else is secured. Seeing that the survivors of my platoon are sitting as tight as a Battle Sister's affections, I give the signal to the naval rating waiting at the end of the seating bay. He disappears through the bulkhead and the red take-off lights flash three times in

warning.

'I haven't got the full story about Kronin yet/ I say to Franx, pushing my back against the hard metal of the bench to settle myself. Franx is about to reply when the rumble of thrasters reverberates through the fuselage of the shuttle. The rumbling increases in volume to a roar and I feel myself being pushed fur­ther into the bench by the shuttle's take-off. The whole craft starts to shake violemly as it gathers momentum, soaring

upwards into the sky above Deliverance. My booted feet judder against the mesh decking of the shuttle and my backside slides slightly across the metal bench. My stomach is still painful, and I feel slightly sick as the shuttle banks over sharply to take its new course. The twelve centimetre slash in my thigh begins to throb painfully as more blood is forced into my legs by the acceleration. I grit my teeth and ignore the pain. Through a viewport opposite I can see the ground dropping away, the seemingly haphazard scattering of shuttles and dropships sit­ting a kilometre beyond the walls of Deliverance. The settlement itself is receding quickly, until I can only dimly make out the line of the curtain wall and the block of the central keep. Then we're into the clouds and everything turns white.

As we break out of the atmosphere the engines turn to a dull whine and a scattering of stars replaces the blue of the sky out­side the viewport. Franx leans over.

They say Kronin is touched/ he says, tapping the side of his head to emphasise his point.

'It's bloody strange, I'll give you that/ I reply. 'Something happened to him when he was in the chapel/

'Chapel?' Franx asks, scratching his head vigorously through a thick bush of brown curls.

AVhat did you hear?' I say, curious to find out what rumours had started flying around, only a day after the battle against the tyranids. Gossip is a good way of gauging morale, as well as the reactions to a recent battle. Of course, we're never happy, being stuck in a penal legion until we die, but sometimes some of the men are more depressed than usual. The fight against the alien tyranids at the missionary station was horrific, combating monsters like them always is. I wanted to know what the men were focusing their thoughts on.

'Nothing really/ Franx says, trying unsuccessfully to shrug in the tight confines of the safety harness. 'People are saying that he went over the edge/

The way I heard it, he and the rest of 2nd platoon had fallen back to the chapel/ I tell him. There were 'nids rushing about everywhere, coming over the east wall. Most of them were the big warriors, smashing at the doors of the shrine with their claws, battering their way in. They crashed through the win­dows and got inside. There was nowhere to run; those alien bastards just started hacking and chopping at everything inside.

They lost the whole platoon except for Kronin. They must have left him for dead, since the Colonel found him under a pile of

bodies/ That's a sure way to crack/ Franx says sagely, a half-smile on

his bulbous lips.

'Anyway/ I continue, 'Kronin is cracked, like you say. Keeps talking all this gibber, constantly jabbering away about some­thing that no one could work out/

'I've seen that sort of thing before/ says Poal, who's been lis­tening from the other side of Franx. His narrow, chiselled face has a knowing air about it, like he was a sage dispensing the wisdom of the ancients or something. 'I had a sergeant once whose leg was blown off by a mine on Gaulis II. He just kept repeating his brother's name, minute after minute, day after day. He slit his own throat with a med's scalpel in the end/

There's a moment of silence as everybody considers this, and I carry on with the story to distract them from thoughts of self-murder.

'Yeah, that's pretty grim/ I tell them, 'but Kronin's case just gets weirder. Turns out, he's not mumbling just any old thing, oh no. He's quoting scripture, right? Nathaniel, the preacher back in Deliverance, overhears him saying out lines from the Litanies of Faith. Stuff like: "And the Beast from the Abyss rose up with its multitudes and laid low the servants of the Emperor with its clawed hands". Things like that/

'Fragged if I've ever seen Kronin with a damned prayer book, not in two fragging years of fighting under the son of an ork/ Jorett announces from the bench down the middle of the shut­tle, looking around. Everybody's listening in now that we can be heard over the dimmed noise of the engines. Forty pairs of eyes look towards me in anticipation of the next twist of the

tale.

'Exactly!' I declare with an emphatic nod, beginning to play to the audience a little bit. I'm enjoying having a new tale to tell for a change, and it keeps them from falling out with each other, which usually happens when we wind down from a mission.

'Nathaniel sits down with him for a couple of hours while we bury the dead/ I continue, passing my gaze over those that can see me. 'I heard him explaining his view on things to the Colonel. Seems Kronin had a visitation from the Emperor himself while he lay half-dead in the chapel. Says he has been

given divine knowledge. Of course, he doesn't actually say this, he's just quoting appropriate lines from the Litanies, like: "And the Emperor appeared with a shimmering halo and spake unto His people on Gathalamor." And like you say, how in the seven hells does he know any of this stuff?'

There is nothing mystical about that/ answers Gappo, sitting on his own towards the rear of the shutde. Nearly everybody seems to give an inward groan, except a couple of the guys who are looking forward to this new development in the entertain­ment. Myself, I've kind of come to like Gappo - he's not such a meathead as most of the others.

'Oh wise preacher/ Poal says with a sarcastic sneer, 'please enlighten us with your bountiful wisdom/

'Don't call me "preacher"!' Gappo snarls, a scowl creasing his flat, middle-aged features. "You know I have left that falsehood behind/

'Whatever you say, Gappo/ Poal tells him with a disdainful look.

'It's quite simple really/ Gappo begins to explain, patentiy ignoring Poal now. You've all been to Ecclesiarchal services, hundreds even thousands of them. Whether you remember them or not, you've probably heard all of the Litanies of Faith and every line from the Book of Saints twice over. Kronin's trauma has affected his mind, so that he can remember those writings and nothing else. It's the only way he's got left to com­municate/

There are a few nods, and I can see the sense of it. People's heads are half-fragged up anyway, in my experience. It doesn't take much to jog it loose, from what I've seen. Emperor alone knows how many times I've felt myself teetering on the edge of the insanity chasm. Luckily I'm as tough as grox hide and it hasn't affected me yet. Not so as anyone's told me, in any case.

'Well I guess that makes more sense than the Emperor filling him with His divine spirit/ says Mallory, a balding, scrawny malingerer sitting next to Poal. 'After all, I don't think the Emperor's best pleased with our Lieutenant Kronin, 'specially considering the fact that Kronin's in the Last Chancers for loot­ing and burning down a shrine/

'Of course it makes sense/ Gappo says, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. There might not be an Emperor at all!'

You shut your fragging mouth, Gappo Elfinzo!' Poal spits, making the sign of the protective eagle over his chest with his right hand. 'I may have murdered women and children and I know I'm a lowlife piece of ork crap, but I still think I shouldn't have to share the same room with a fragging heretic!'

Poal starts to fumble at his straps, having trouble because his left arm ends in a hook instead of a hand. I can see things might be getting out of control.

That's enough!' I bark. 'You all know the score. Doesn't mat­ter what you did to wind up as one of the Colonel's doomed men, we're all Last Chancers now. Now shut the frag up until we're back on the transport/

There are a few grumbles, but nobody says anything out loud. More than one of them here has had a cracked skull or a broken nose for answering me back. I'm not a bully, you under­stand, I just have a short temper and don't like it when my men start getting too disrespectful. Seeing that everybody is calming down, I close my eyes and try to get some sleep; it'll be another two hours before we dock.

The tramp of booted feet echoes around us as the Navy armsmen march us back to our cells. Left and right, along the seemingly endless corridor are the vaulted archways leading to the cargo bays, modified to carry human cargo in supposedly total security. There are twenty of the massive cells in all. Originally each held two hundred men, but after the past thirty months of near-constant war, nearly all of them stand empty now. It'll be even emptier for the rest of the trip; there's only about two hundred and fifty of us left after the defence of Deliverance. The armsmen swagger around, shotcannons grasped easily in heavily gloved hands or slung over their shoulders. Their faces are covered by the helms of their heavy-duty work suits, and their flash-protec­tive visors conceal their features. Only the name badges stitched onto their left shoulder straps show that the same ten men have been escorting my platoon for the past two and a half years.

I see the Colonel waiting up ahead, with someone standing next to him. As we get closer, I see that it's Kronin, his small, thin body half-hunched as if weighed down by some great invisible burden. The lieutenant's narrow eyes flit and dart

from side to side, constantly scanning the shadows, and he flinches as I step up to Schaeffer and salute.

'Lieutenant Kronin is the only survivor of 3rd platoon/ the Colonel tells me as he waves the armsmen to move the others inside, 'so I am putting him in with you. In fart, with so few of you left, you are going to be gathered into a single formation now. You will be in charge; Green was killed in Deliverance.'

'How, sir?' I ask, curious as to what happened to the other lieutenant, one of the hundred and fifty Last Chancers who was alive two days ago and now is food for the flesh-ants of the nameless planet below us.

'He was diced by a strangleweb/ the Colonel says coldly, no sign of any emotion on his face at all. I wince inside - being slowly cut up as you try to struggle out of a constricting mesh of barbed muscle is a nasty way to go. Come to think of it, I've never thought of a nice way to go.

'I am leaving it to you to organise the rest of the men into squads and to detail special duties/ the Colonel says before stepping past me and striding down the corridor. A Departmento flunky swathed in an oversized brown robe hur­ries down to the Colonel carrying a massive bundle of parchments, and then they are both lost in the distant gloom.

'Inside/ orders an armsman from behind me, his nametag showing him to be Warrant Officer Hopkinsson.

The massive cell doors clang shut behind me, leaving me locked in this room with ten score murderers, thieves, rapists, heretics, looters, shirkers, desecrators, grave-robbers, necrophiles, maniacs, insubordinates, blasphemers and other assorted vermin for company. Still, it makes for interesting con­versation sometimes.

'Right!' I call out, my voice rebounding off the high metal ceiling and distant bulkheads. All sergeants get your sorry hides over here!'

As the order is passed around the massive holding pen, I gaze over my small force. There's a couple of hundred of us left now, sitting or lying around in scattered groups on the metal deck­ing, stretching away into the gloom of the chamber. Their voices babble quietly, making the metal walls ring slightly and I can smell their combined sweat from several days on the fur­nace-hot planet below. In a couple of minutes eight men are stood around me. I catch sight of an unwelcome face.

"Who made you a sergeant, Rollis?' I demand, stepping up to stand right in front of his blubbery face, staring straight into his beady black eyes.

'Lieutenant Green did/ he says defiantly, matching my stare.

'Yeah? Well you're just a trooper again now, you piece of dirt!' I snap at him, pushing him away. 'Get out of my sight, you fraggin' traitor.'

"You can't do this!' he shouts, taking a step towards me and half-raising a fist. My elbow snaps out sharply and connects with his throat, sending him gasping to the floor.

'Can't I?' I snarl at him. 'I guess I can't do this either/ I say, kicking him in the ribs. Forget about the murderers, it's the out-and-out traitors like him that make me want to heave. With a venomous glance he gets to his hands and knees and crawls away.

'Right/ I say, turning to the others, putting the fat piece of filth from my mind. ЛУЬеге were we?'

Alarm sirens are sounding everywhere, a piercing shrill that sets your teeth on edge. I'm standing with a pneu-mattock grasped in both hands, its engine chugging comfortably, wisps of oily smoke leaking from its exhaust vents.

'Hurry up, wreck the place!' someone shouts from behind me. I can hear the sound of machinery being smashed, pipelines being cut and energy coils being shattered. There's a panel of dials in front of me and I place the head of the ham­mer against it, thumbing up the revs on the engine to full, the air filling with flying splinters of glass and shards of torn metal. Sparks of energy splash across my heavy coveralls, leaving tiny burn marks on the thick gloves covering my hands. I turn the pneu-mattock on a huge gear-and-chain mechanism behind the trashed panel, sending toothed wheels clanging to the ground and the heavy chain whipping past my head.

'They're coming!' the earlier voice calls out over the din of twisting metal and fracturing glass. I look over my shoulder to see a bunch of security men hurrying through an archway to my left, wearing heavy carapace breastplates coloured dark red with the twisted chain and eye mark of the Harpikon Union picked out in bold yellow. They've all got vicious-looking slug guns, black enamelled pieces of metal that catch the light men­acingly. People hurrying past josde me, but it's hard to see their

faces, like they're in a mist or something. I get a glimpse of a half-rotten skull resembling a man called Snowton, but I know that Snowton died a year ago fighting pirates in the Zandis Belt. Other faces, faces of men who are dead, flit past. There's a thun­derous roar and everybody starts rushing around. I realise that the Harpikon guards are firing. Bullets ricochet all over the place, zinging off pieces of machinery and thudding into the flesh of those around me. I try to run, but my feet feel welded to the floor. I look around desperately for somewhere to hide, but there isn't anywhere. Then I'm alone with the security men, the smoking muzzles of their guns pointing in my direction. There's a blinding flash and the thunder of shooting.

I wake up from the dream gasping for breath, sweat coating my skin despite the chill of the large cell. I fling aside the thin blan­ket that serves as my bed and sit up, placing my hands on the cold floor to steady myself as dizziness from the sudden move­ment swamps me. Gulping down what feels like a dead rat in my mouth, I look around. There's the usual night-cycle activity - mumbles and groans from the sleepless, the odd murmured prayer as some other poor soul is afflicted by the sleep-dae­mons. It's always the same once you've dropped into the Immaterium.

I've had the same nightmare every night in warpspace for the past three years, ever since I joined the Imperial Guard. I'm always back in the hive on Olympas, carrying out a wreck-raid on a rival factory. Sometimes it's the Harpikon Union, like tonight; other times it's against the Jorean Consuls; and some­times even the nobles of the Enlightened, though we never dared do that for real. There's always the walking dead as well. Folks from my past come back to haunt me: people I've killed, comrades who have died, my family, all of them appear in the nightmares. Lately I've realised that there's more and more of them after every battle, like the fallen are being added to my dreams. I always end up dying as well, which is perhaps the most disturbing thing. Sometimes I'm blown apart by gunfire, other times I'm sawn in half by a poweraxe or a chainsword, sometimes I'm burnt alive by firethrowers. Several people have told me that the warp is not bound in time like the real uni­verse. Instead, you might see images from your past or your future, all mixed together in strange ways. Interpreting warp

dreams is a speciality of Lammax, one of the ex-Departmento men. I think they threw him into the penal legions for blas­phemy after he offered to read the dreams of a quartermaster-major. He says it's my fear of death being mani­fested.

Suddenly there's a demented screaming from the far end of the cargo hold where we're held, down where the lighting has gone fritzy and its arrhythmic pulsing gives you a headache. Nobody's slept down there for months, not since there was enough room for everyone to fit in at this end. With everyone gathered in one cell now, someone must have had to try to get to sleep down there. I push myself to my feet and pull on my boots over my bare feet. As I walk towards the commotion, I rub a hand across my bared chest to wipe off the sweat. My body tingles all over with a bizarre feeling of energy, the map of scars traced out across my torso feels strangely hot under my fingertips. I look down, half-expecting the old wounds to be glowing. They're not.

I tramp into the gloom, watched by most of the others. The screaming's loud enough to wake up the Navy ratings on the next deck up. I understand their suspicion and morbid curios­ity, because sometimes when a man starts screaming in warpspace, it's not with his own voice. Luckily it's never hap­pened to anyone I know, but there are guys here who tell tales of men being possessed by creatures from the warp. They either go completely mad and kill a load of people before collapsing and dying, or they get taken over totally becoming a body for some strange creature's mind, in which case they'll stalk along the corridors calmly murdering anyone they come across. And that's even when the Immaterium shielding is still working. You don't want to know what happens on a ship whose warp-wards collapse under the continual assault from formless beings intent on the death of the ship's crew.

'Emperor of Terra, watch over me/ I whisper to myself as I'm halfway towards the source of the screeching. If it is a Touched One, this could be some really serious trouble. They don't allow us anything that can be used as a weapon, so we're virtu­ally defenceless. Still, that's just as well really, because there'd be a hell of a lot less of us left if we were armed. Fights break out a lot, but despite what some people think it takes a while to beat someone to death and somebody usually breaks it up

before there's a casualty. That said, if I wanted to kill someone I could, particularly if they're sleeping.

My whole body's shaking, and I'm not quite sure why. I try to tell myself it's the cold, but I'm man enough to admit when I'm scared. Men don't scare me, except perhaps the Colonel. Aliens give me shudders now and then, especially the tyranids, but there's something about the idea of warp creatures that just shivers me the core, even though I've never had to face one. There's nothing that I can think of in the galaxy that's more unholy.

I can see someone thrashing around in a blanket ahead, just where the lights go gloomy. It's hard to see in the intermittent haze of the broken glow-globe, but I think I see Kronin's face twisting and turning. I hear footsteps behind me and turn sud­denly, almost lashing out at Franx who's got up and followed me.

'Just warp-dreams/ he tries to reassure me with a crooked smile, his big hands held up in reflex.

'Like that makes me feel better/ I reply shortly, turning back to the writhing figure of Kronin. I can just about make out words in the shrieks bursting from his contorted mouth.

'And from the deeps... there arose a mighty beast, of many eyes... and many limbs. And the beast from the... darkness did set upon the light of mankind... with hateful thirst and unnat­ural hunger!'

'Don't wake him!' Franx hisses as I reach out a hand towards the straggling figure.

'Why not?' I demand, kneeling down beside Kronin and glar­ing back at the sergeant.

'Preacher Durant once said that waking a man with warp-dreams empties his mind, allows Chaos to seep in/ he says with an earnest look in his face.

'Well, I'll just have to risk a bit of corruption, won't I?' I tell him, annoyed at what seems like a childish superstition to me. 'If he carries on like that for the rest of the cycle, I'm not going to get any sleep at all/

I rest a hand on Kronin's shoulder, gently at first but squeez­ing more firmly when he continues to toss and turn. It still doesn't do any good and I lean over him and slap him hard on the cheek with the back of my hand. His eyes snap open and there's a dangerous light in them for a second, but that's

quickly replaced by a vague recognition. He sits up and looks straight at me, eyes squinting in the faltering light.

'Saint Lucius spake unto the masses of Belushidar, and great was their uproar of delight/ he says with a warm smile on his thin lips, but his eyes quickly fill with a haunted look.

'Guess that means thanks/ I say to Franx, standing up as Kronin lowers himself back down onto the blanket, glancing around once more before closing his eyes. I stay there for a cou­ple more minutes until Kronin's breathing is shallow and regular again, meaning he's either really asleep or faking it well enough for me not to care any more.

Why the hell did Green have to get himself killed, I ask myself miserably as I trudge back to my sleeping area? I could do without the responsibility of wet-nursing this bunch of frag-for-brains criminals. It's hard enough just to survive in the Last Chancers without having to worry about everyone else. I guess I'll just have to not worry, let them take care of themselves. Hell, if they can't do that, they deserve to die.

It's a few days after the incident with Kronin, and we're sitting down for mess in the middle of the cell, sprawled on the floor with dishes of protein globs in front of us. We have to spoon it out by hand; they won't let us have any kind of cudery in case it can be sharpened into a blade of some sort. It's this kind of attitude that can really break a man - them not trusting you to even be able to sit down for a meal without being at each other's throats. The food is also picked to grind you down. I know for a fact that they brought hundreds of horn-heads on board from the plains around Deliverance, but do we see any sign of freshly slaughtered meat? Do we ever. No, it's just the same brown, half-liquid slush that you have to shovel into your mouth with your fingers, feeling it slide horribly down your throat with the consistency of cold vomit. You get used to it after a while, you have to. You just shove it in, swallow and hope you don't gag too much. It doesn't even taste of anything except the brackish water it's mixed with. It's cold and slimy, and more than once I've felt like hurling the stuff back into the armsmen's faces, but that'd just get me a kicking and the chance to go hungry. For all of its lack of delights, it certainly fills your stomach and keeps you going, which is all it's sup­posed to do.

As usual I'm sitting with Franx and Gappo, who are the clos­est thing to friends that I've got in this miserable outfit. We spend a few minutes cramming our faces with the sludge, before washing it down with reconstituted fruit juice. For some people, fruit juice might seem like an extravagance, but on board ship, where the air's constandy refiltered over and over, and there's only artificial light and close confines, it's the best _way of stopping any diseases. There are tales of whole ships' crews being wiped out by Thalois fever or muritan cholettia, and that's too much of a risk to take when you only need to give a man half a pint of juice a day to stave off the worst.

'Ever thought of trying to get out while on board?' Franx asks, using one of his little fingers to wipe the last bits of protein from the rim of his dish.

'I've heard it isn't impossible/ Gappo says, pushing his dish away before digging into his mouth with a fingernail to extract a fragment of protein chunk lodged somewhere.

'Some of the crew reckon there's places a man can hide for­ever/ I add before pouring the rest of the fruit juice in my mouth and swilling it around to remove the horrid texture left in there from the goop. This ship isn't that big, but there's still hundreds of places where no one goes any more, places between the decks, in the dueling and down by the engines. You can creep out and steal what you need to eat, it wouldn't be difficult/

Yeah/ Franx says with a curled lip, 'but it ain't exacdy bloody freedom, is it?'

'And what would you call freedom?' Gappo asks, lying back onto his elbows, stretching his long legs out in front of him.

'Not sure/ the sergeant says with a shrug. 'Guess I like to choose what I eat, where I go, who I know/

'I've never been able to do that/ I tell them. 'In the hive fac­tories it's just as much a matter of survival as it is here. Kill or be killed, win the trade wars or starve, it's that simple/

'None of us knows what freedom is/ Gappo says, rocking his head from side to side to work out a stiff muscle. ^Vhen I was a preacher, all I knew were the holy scriptures and the dogma of the Ecclesiarchy They told me exactly how I was supposed to act and feel in any kind of situation. They told me who was right and who was wrong. I realise now that I didn't really have any freedom/

You know, I'm from an agri-world/ Franx says. 'Just a farmer, wasn't much hardship. Had lots of machines, single man could tend fifteen hundred hectares. Was always plenty to eat, women were young and healthy, nothing more a man could want/

'So why the bloody hell did you join the Guard?' Gappo blurts out, sitting bolt upright.

'Didn't get any fragging choice, did I?' Franx says bitterly, a sour look on his face. 'Got listed for the Departmento Munitoram tithe when orks invaded Alris Colvin. I was mus­tered. That was it, no choice/

"Yeah/ I butt in, Ъш you must've settled in all right, you made major after all/

'Being in the Guard turned out fine/ the sergeant says, leaning forward to stack his dish on top of Gappo's. Tell the truth, I liked the discipline. As a trooper, I didn't have to worry about anything except orders. Got foddered and watered, had the comfort that whatever I was told to do would be the right thing/ 'But as you got promoted, that must have changed/ Gappo interjects, leaning back again.

'Did, that was the problem/ Franx continues, raffling his curly hair with a hand. 'Higher up the chain of command I got, less I liked it. Soon making decisions that get men killed and maimed. All of a sudden it seemed like it was all my responsi­bility. Colonel was a born officer, one of the gentry, didn't give a second thought to troopers, was just making sure he could sneak his way up the greasy pole of the upper ranks, hoping to make commander-general or warmaster/

That's why you went over the edge?' I ask, knowing that Franx was in the Last Chancers for inciting subordination and disobeying orders.

'Right/ he says, face grim with the memory, voice deep and embittered. 'Stuck in the middle of an ice plain on Fortuna II, been on half rations for a month because the rebels kept shoot­ing down our supply shuttles. Got the order to attack a keep called Lanskar's Citadel, two dozen leagues across bare ice. Officers were dining on stewed horndeer and braised black ox, drinking Chanalain brandy; my men were eating dried food substitutes and making water from snow. Led my two compa­nies into the officers' camp and demanded supplies for the march. Departmento bastards turned us down flat and the men went on the rampage, looting everything. Didn't try to stop

mem, th^eY ^{were c}°ld ^and starving. What was I supposed to do? Order diem back into the ice wastes to attack an enemy-held fort with empty stomachs?'

That's kinda what happened to you, Gappo/ I say to the ex-preacher, making a pillow out of my thin blanket and lying down with my hands behind my head.

The haves and have-nots?' he asks, not expecting an answer. 'I can see why Franx here did what he did, but to this day I have not the faintest clue what made me denounce a cardinal in front of half a dozen Imperial Guard officers/

Think you were right/ Franx says. 'Cardinal shouldn't have executed men who were laying down their lives for the defence of his palaces/

'But you had to go and accuse the whole Ecclesiarchy of being corrupt/ I add with a grin. 'Questioning whether there really was an Emperor. How stupid are you?'

'I cannot believe that such suffering could happen if there were such a divine influence looking over humanity/ Gappo replies emphatically. 'If there is an Emperor, which I doubt, the cardinal and odiers like him representing such a figure is patently ridiculous/

'Can't imagine being able to carry on if there wasn't an Emperor/ Franx says, shaking his head, trying to comprehend the idea. "Would've killed myself as soon as I was hauled in by the Colonel if that was the case/

"You really believe that you have a soul to save?' Gappo asks with obvious contempt. You believe this magnificent Emperor cares one bit whether you die serving the Imperium or as a dis­obedient looter?'

'Hey!' I snap at both of them. 'Let's drop this topic, shall we?'

It's at mat point that Poal walks over, face scrunched up into a vicious snarl.

'He's done it again/ he says through gritted teeth.

'Rollis?' I ask, already knowing the answer, pushing myself to my feet. Poal nods and I follow him towards the far end of the prison chamber, where he and what's left of Kronin's old pla­toon usually eat now. Kronin is sitting there looking dejected.

'I shall steal from the plate of decadence to feed the mouths of the powerless/ the mad lieutenant says.

That's the sermons of Sebastian Thor. I know that one/ puts in Poal, standing just behind my right shoulder.

"Where's Rollis?' I demand.

One of the men lounging on the ground nods his head to the right and I see the traitor sat with his back to the cell wall about ten metres away. Trust them to leave it up to me. Most of them hate Rollis, just like I do. They're just scared the treacherous bastard is going to do something to them if they stand up to him, and the Colonel's wrath is another factor. Well, I won't stand for it, having to breathe the same air as him makes me want to rip his lungs out. I march up to stand in front of the scumbag. He's got a half-full bowl in his lap.

I stand there with my hands on my hips. I'm shaking with anger, I detest this man so much.

'Slow eater, aren't you?' I hiss at Rollis. He looks slowly up at me with his tiny black eyes.

'lust because I'm more civilised than you animals, I don't have to put up with these insults/ he says languidly, putting the dish to one side.

*You took Kronin's food again.' A statement, not a question.

'I asked him if he would share his ration with me/ he says with a sly smile. 'He didn't say no/

'He said: "And the bounties of the Emperor shall go to those who have worked hard in his service"/ Poal interjects from behind me. 'Sounds like a big "frag off" if you ask me/

'I warned you last time, Rollis/ I say heavily, sickened at the sight of his blubbery face. 'One warning is all you get/

His eyes fill with fear and he opens his mouth to speak, but my boot fills it before he can say anything, knocking bloodied teeth across his lap. He clamps his hands to his jaw, whimper­ing with pain. As I turn away I hear him move behind me and I look back over my shoulder.

'Bashtard!' he spits at me, halfway to his feet, blood and spit­tle dribbling down his chin. Til fragging get you back for thish, you shanctimonioush shon-of-an-ork!'

'Keep going and you'll need to ask for soup in future/1 laugh back at him. I'd pity the piece of grox crap if he wasn't such a scumbag piece of sumpfloat. He slumps back down again, probing at a tooth with a finger, eyes filled with pure venom. If looks really could kill, they'd be tagging my toes already.

'If he tries it again/ I tell Poal, 'break the fingers of his left hand. He'll find it even harder to eat then, but he'll still be able to pull a trigger. I'll back you up/

Poal glances back at the traitor, obviously relishing the though.

'I just hope he tries it again,' he says darkly, glaring at Rollis.

'I just hope he does...'

In the dim ruddy glow of an old star, the tyranid hive fleet drifted remorselessly onwards. The smaller drone ships huddled under the massive, crater-pocked carapaces of the hive ships, the larger vessels slowly coiling in upon themselves to enter a dor­mant state that allowed them to traverse the vast distances between stars. The clouds of spores were dispersing, scattering slowly on the stellar winds. One hive ship was still awake, feeder tentacles wrapped around the shattered hull of an Imperial war­ship, digesting the mineral content, the flesh of the dead crew, leeching off the air contained within to sustain itself.

Across the heavens the flotilla of bio-ships stretched out, impelled by instinct to hibernate again until they found new prey and new resources to plunder. In their wake, a bare rock orbited the star, scoured of every organic particle, stripped of all but the most basic elements. Nothing was left of the fanning world of Langosta III. There were no testaments to the humans who had once lived there. Now all that was left was an airless asteroid, the unmarked dying place of three million people. All that remained of them was raw genetic material, stored within the great hive ships, ready to be turned into more hunters, more killing machines.

TWO

FALSE HOPE

+++ Operation New Sun in place, ready for your arrival. +++

+++ Operation Harvest preparing to progress to next stage. +++

+++ Only the Insane can truly Prosper. +++

You could say that dropping out of warpspace feels like having your body turned inside out by some giant invisible hand. You could say it's like you've been scattered into fragments and then reassembled in the real universe. You could say that your mind buzzes with images of birth and death, each flashing into your brain and then disappearing in an instant. I've heard it described like this, and many other fanciful ways, by other sol­diers and travellers. You could say it was like these things, but you'd be lying, because it isn't like any of them. In fact, you hardly notice that you've dropped out of warpspace at all. There's a slight pressure at the back of your mind, and then a kind of release of tension, like you've just had a stimm-shot or something. You relax a little, breathe just a little more easily. Well, that's how it's always been for me, and nobody else seems to have come up with a more accurate description that I know of. Then again, maybe you don't even actually get that; perhaps it's all in your mind. I know that I'm damned well relieved every time we drop back into realspace, because it's a whole lot less dangerous than on the Otherside. Considering the outfit I'm in these days, that's saying a hell of a lot, because each drop is just a prelude to the next blood-soaked batde.

I'm standing in the upper starboard gallery, along with another two dozen Last Chancers. The row of windows to our right continues for several hundred metres. The wood-panelled wall of the inner bulkhead stretches unbroken on the other side, leaving a massive corridor thirty metres wide where we can run back and forth along its length, but without any nooks or crannies in the featureless room to hide behind. There's only one door at each end of the gallery, each protected by a squad of armsmen with loaded shotcannons. Sealed, sterile, con­tained. Just like the Colonel wanted it. We're fortunate that

we're on exercise when the drop happens. The shutters on the massive viewing ports grind out of sight, revealing a distant blue star. We're too far away to see any worlds yet, we've still got to go in-system under ordinary plasma drives.

Poal strides up to me, sweat dripping off him from his phys­ical exertions.

'Where are we?' he asks, wiping his forehead with the back of his good hand.

'Haven't got a fraggin' due/ I tell him with a deep shrug. I catch the eye of the naval officer watching over us from the near end of the gallery. He walks over with a half-confident, half-nervous look. Don't ask me how he manages it but he seems to convey a sense of superiority, but the look in his eyes doesn't match it. He glances quickly to check that the armsmen are still close at hand as he stops in front of me.

What do you want?' he demands, his lip curled as if he was talking to a pool of sick.

'Just wondering where we are/ I say to him with a pleasant smile. I'm in a good mood for some reason, most likely because we're out of warpspace, as I said before, and so I'm not up for any Navy-baiting today.

'System XV/10 8, that's where we are/ he replies with a smirk.

'Oh right/ says Poal, lounging an arm across my shoulder and leaning towards the naval officer. 'XV/108? That's right next to XV/109.1 heard of it/

'Have you?' the lieutenant asks, jerking himself up straight, clearly startled.

'Oh yeah/ says Poal, his voice totally deadpan, his face radi­ating sincerity. 'I hear that this place is Grox-country. Nothing but Grox farms as far as the eye can see. They say that folks around here are so keen on Grox they live with 'em, sleep with 'em, even have kids by 'em/

'Really?' the lieutenant asks, his pudgy little face screwed up with genuine repulsion now.

That's right/ Poal continues, casting a mischievous glance at me that the Navy man doesn't notice. 'In fact, looking at you, are you sure your mother wasn't a Grox and your father a lonely farmer?'

'Certainly not, my father was a-' he starts back before he actually realises what Poal's been saying. 'Damn you, penal scum! Schaeffer will hear about this insult!'

That's Colonel Schaeffer to you, Grox-baby/ Poal says, sud­denly serious, staring intendy at the lieutenant. "You Navy men would do well to remember it/

'Is that right, trooper?' the lieutenant spits back, taking a step towards us. 'When the lash is taking strips off your back you would do well to remember that it's a naval rating doing it to you!'

With that, he spins on the spot and marches off, the thick heels of his naval boots thudding loudly on the wood-panelled floor. Poal and I just burst out laughing, and I can see his shoulders tense even more. It's a couple of minutes before we can control ourselves - each time I look at Poal I can see his innocent face and the lieutenant's enraged look.

'Hasn't even got a damned name/ Poal says when he's calmed down a little, standing looking out of the nearest viewport, looking pale against the blackness of the high-arched window that stretches up at least another ten metres above his head.

That's worrying/ I agree, stepping up beside him. 'Even the newest explored system usually gets a name, even if it's just the same as the ship or the man who found it/

'No name, no name...' Poal mutters to himself for a moment, before turning to look at me, his hand and hook clasped behind his back like an officer or something. 'I've just had a thought. No name probably means it's a dead system, no life-bearing worlds, right?'

'Could be/ I say, though I wouldn't really know. Unlike Poal who was brought up by the Schola Progenium, my education consisted more of how to work a las-lafhe and parry an axe-blow with a crowbar.

'And a dead system is just the place you'd put a penal colony...' he suggests, looking back out of die window, more interested this rime.

'You think they're going to offload us?' I ask him with an incredulous look.

'Course not/ he says, still staring out of the viewport. 'But we could be getting some more men in, mat'd make sense/

'I see your point/ I say, turning and leaning back against the thick armoured glass of the port. 'It's been two and half years, and we've not had a single new member/

'And maybe he's organising us into one big platoon to make room for the fresh faces/ Poal says, his face showing a thought­ful impression.

'Hang on, though/ I say, a sudden thought crossing my mind. "Wouldn't it be better to have the old-timers in charge of the squads and platoons?'

"What? Have us teaching them all the tricks we've learned?' he says with a laugh. 'The Colonel knows better than that.'

We lounge around and jaw a bit more, strolling back and forth along the gallery after one of the armsmen prompts us to carry on exercising instead of loafing. We're talking about what we'd do if we ever get out of the Last Chancers when there's an interruption.

'Lieutenant Kage!' a voice barks out from behind me and I automatically stand to attention, the parade drills banged into me so hard I still can't stop myself responding to a voice with that much authority.

'Emperor damn me it's the Colonel/ hisses Poal, standing-to on my left. That bloody naval bastard has fragged us/

The Colonel walks up behind us. I can hear his slow, certain steps thudding on the floor.

'Face front, guardsmen/ he says and we both spin on the spot in perfect unison, moving with instinct rather than thought.

'If it's about that naval lieutenant, sir-' I begin to excuse myself, but he cuts me off with a short, chopping motion with his hand, his gold epaulettes swaying with the motion.

'Between you and me/ he says quietly, leaning forward to look at us face-to-face, 'I do not care what the Imperial Navy thinks of you. It could not be any worse than what I think of you/

We stand there in silence for a moment as he glances sharply at both of us. Clearing his throat with a short cough he stands up straight again.

'Kage/ he tells me, looking past at the other Last Chancers in the gallery, 'you will be escorted to my chambers after exercise to receive briefing about our next mission/

"Yes, sir!' I snap back, keeping my face neutral, even though inside I feel like dropping to the deck and beating my head against the wooden planks. The relaxation I've felt in the past hour after dropping from the warp disappears totally and ten­sion seeps into my muscles and bones again. So we're here to fight again. No new recruits, no fresh blood. Just here to fight in some other bloody war. To die, perhaps. Well, that's the life of a Last Chancer. It's all there is left for us.

* * *

The armsman taps politely at the panelled and lacquered door, before opening it inwards and waving me inside with the muz­zle of his shotcannon. I step inside, as I've done a dozen times before, and stand to attention, my polished boots sinking into the thick carpet. Behind me I hear the door close and the ring of the armsman's boots standing to attention on the corridor decking.

The Colonel glances up from behind his massive desk and then looks back at the data-slate before him, immediately seeming to forget my presence. He presses his thumb to an identification slate on the side of the data-slate and it makes a whirring noise, which I recognise as the 'erase' function oper­ating. He places the device carefully on the desk in front of him, lying it parallel to the edge closest to me, before looking in my direction again.

'At ease/ he tells me as he stands up and begins to pace up and down behind his high-backed chair for a few moments, hands clasped behind his back. It's then that I realise this was the pose Poal was imitating earlier and I fight hard to hold back a smirk. He stops walking and looks at me sharply and I gulp, thinking for a second that he can read my mind.

Tyranids, Kage/ he says obtusely, pacing back and forth again, turning his gaze downwards once more.

"What... what about them, sir?' I ask after a moment, realis­ing he was waiting for me to say something.

'Some of them may be in this system/ he tells me, still not looking at me, but from his posture I can tell that somehow every sense he has is still directed towards me.

'So there's probably nothing left for us to do/ I say boldly, hoping that perhaps we'd arrived too late, that for once we'd missed the batde.

That may be the case, Kage/ he says slowly, stopping now to look directly at me. We are here to ascertain why communication with our outpost on the third world has been lost. We suspect that a small scouting fleet from Kraken was heading this way/

As he turns to his desk to pick up a transparent copy of a ter­minal readout, I wonder who 'we' was meant to include. As far as I know, we're a bit of a rogue element really, bouncing about across this part of the galaxy and dropping in on any wars we happen to come across. I've not heard anything about who the Colonel's superiors might be, if he has any at all.

'Do you remember the first battle of these Last Chancers?' he asks suddenly, sitting down again, more relaxed than he was a moment before.

'Of course, sir/ I reply immediately, wondering what he meant by 'these Last Chancers'. 'I could never forget Ichar IV. I wish I could, and I've tried, but I'll never forget it/

He replies with a non-committal grunt and proffers me the transparency. It's covered in lines and circles, and I recognise it as some kind of star chart. There are tiny runes inscribed against crosses drawn in a line that arcs from one end to the other, but it might as well be written in Harangarian for all that I can understand it. I give the Colonel a blank look and he realises I haven't got a clue what I'm holding.

'It seems that defending Ichar IV was not necessarily the best plan in the world/ he says heavily, tugging the readout from my fingers and placing it in a vellum-covered envelope in the centre of his desk.

'Saving a hundred and ninety billion people was a bad plan, sir?' I ask, amazed at what the Colonel is implying.

'If by doing so we cause five hundred billion people to die, then yes/ he says giving me a stern look, a warning not to con­tinue my train of thought.

'Five hundred billion, sir?' I ask, totally confused and unsure what the Colonel is talking about.

'When we broke the tyranid fleet attacking Ichar IV, much of it was not destroyed/ he tells me, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the polished marble of the desk, his black-gloved hands clasped in front of him. 'That part of Hive Fleet Kraken was simply shattered. Much of it we managed to locate and destroy while the tyranids were still reeling from their defeat. However, we believe a sizeable proportion of the survivors that attacked Ichar IV coalesced into a new fleet, heading in a different direction. It is impossible to say exactly where they are heading, but reports from monitoring stations and patrol vessels indicate that its course might lead straight into the heart of the sector we are now in - the Typhon sector. If we had let them have Ichar IV, we might have mustered more of a defence and destroyed the tyranids utterly rather than scattering them to hell and back where we cannot find them and it is impossible to track them down until too late/

'So instead of losing a planet, we could lose the whole of Typhon sector?' I ask, finally catching on to what the Colonel is implying. That's where five hundred billion people might die?'

'Now do you see why it is important that we know exactly where this hive fleet is heading?' he asks, an earnest look on his bony face.

'I certainly do, sir/ I reply, my head reeling with the thought of what could happen. It's so many people you can't picture it. It's far more than a hive, more than an entire hive world. Five hundred billion people, all of them devoured by hideous, unfeeling aliens if the tyranids couldn't be stopped.

The dream's slightly different this time: we're defending one of our own factories, against shapeless green men I've never seen before. They hiss and cackle at me as they charge, their vaguely humanoid bodies shifting and changing, covered with what look like scales.

A sound close by pulls me from my sleep and I glimpse a shadow over me. Before I can do anything something heavy falls on my face and pushes down over my mouth and nose, sti­fling me. I lash out, but my fist connects with thin air and something hard rams into my gut, expelling what little air is in my lungs. I flail around helplessly for another second; I can hear the other man panting hard, feel the warmth of his body on top of me. The cloth on my face smells rank with old sweat, making me want to gag even more.

Suddenly the weight lifts off me and I hear a shrill titter and gasp. I throw off the thing on my face, noting it's a shirt, and I glance up to see Rollis. Behind him is Kronin, a sock wrapped around the traitor's throat, a knot in it to press hard against his windpipe. The ex-lieutenant giggles again.

'And vengeance shall be the Emperor's, said Saint Taphistis/ Kronin laughs, wrenching harder on the improvised garrotte and pulling Rollis backwards onto the decking. Kronin leans over Rollis's shoulder, twisting the sock tighter, and bites his ear, blood dribbling onto his chin and down Rollis's neck as he looks up and grins at me. Rollis's face is going blue now, his eyes bulging under his heavy-set brow. I clamber to my feet, unsteady, my head still light from being choked.

'Let him go, Kronin/ I say, taking a shaky step towards them. Killing Rollis like this will just get Kronin executed, and me as

well probably. The Colonel's ordered it before; he won't hesi­tate to do it again.

'And the Emperor's thanks for those who had been bountiful in their gifts would be eternal/ he replies, a plaintive look on his narrow face, licking the blood from his lips.

'Do it/ I say quietly. With another pleading look, Kronin lets go and Rollis slumps to the deck, panting and clutching his throat. I put a foot against his chest and roll him over, pinning his unresisting body to the floor. I lean forward, crossing my arms and resting them on my knee, putting more weight onto his laboured chest.

You haven't suffered for your crimes enough yet, it's too soon for you to die/ I hiss at him. 'And when you do, I'm going to be the one that does it/

This is not a good idea/ Linskrug says, before he gives a deep sigh and takes a swig from his canteen. We're taking a quick rest break from the march, sitting in the jungle mud. All around birds are chattering, whisding and screeching in the trees. Flies the size of your thumb buzz past, and I bat one away that set-des on my arm. Who can tell what I might catch if it bit me. Other insects flit around on brighdy patterned wings, and a beetle bigger than my foot scuttles into the light on the far side of the track, three metres away. The air is sultry, soaking us in humidity and our own sweat, which pours from every part of my body even though I'm resting.

'What's not a good idea?' I ask with a sour look. 'Marching through this green hellhole, getting slowly eaten by flies, drowning in our own sweat and choking on sulphur fumes? I can't see why that's not a good idea/

'No, none of that/ he says, waving a dismissive hand. 'I'm talking about following this trail/

'Finding this trail is the only good thing that's happened since we made planetfall on this Emperor-forsaken jungle world/ I tell him bitterly, pulling my right boot off and mas­saging my blistered foot. 'It certainly beats hacking our way through the undergrowth. I mean, we've lost eight men already, in just fifteen hours! Drowned in swamps, fallen down hidden crevasses, poisoned by spinettiorns, infected by bleed-eye and the black vomit, bitten by snakes and birds. Droken's lost his leg to some damned swamprat-ming, and

we're all going to die horribly unless we can find the outpost in the next day or two/

'Do you know why there's a trail here?' asks Linskrug, glanc­ing sideways at me as he sits down gingerly on a fallen log, his lean, muscled frame showing through the clinging tightness of his sweat-sodden shirt.

'I don't know. Because the Emperor loves us?' I say, teasing die sodden sock from my foot and wringing out the sweat and marsh water.

'Because creatures move along here regularly/ he says, wrin­kling his nose at my ministrations on my feet. They travel along here frequendy, thus forming the trail/

Very interesting/ I tell him dryly, slipping on my damp footwear.

'I learnt that hunting back home, on the estate/ he says sagely, screwing the cap back on the water bottle.

I bet you did, I think to myself. Linskrug was once a baron on Korall, and says that his political opponents fragged him good and proper, stitching him up for unlicensed slaving. He's never even been in the Guard before the Last Chancers, so whoever his enemies were, they must have scratched quite a few backs in their time.

"Why's that so useful for hunting?' I ask, switching feet while I wriggle the toes on my right foot inside my clammy boot.

'Because that's where to look for the prey/ he says with exag­gerated patience, turning his hawkish features to look at me across his shoulder, his eyes giving me a patronising look.

'But if you know that/ I say slowly, little gears in my head beginning to whirr into slow life, 'men don't the animals know it?'

The other predators do...' he says quietiy.

'What?' I half scream at him. The other Last Chancers around hurriedly glance in my direction, hands reaching instinctively for lasguns. 'You mean that... things will be hunting along here?'

That's right/ Linskrug says with a slow, nonchalant nod.

'Did you think of letting the Colonel know that?' I ask, des­perately trying to keep my temper in check.

'Oh, I'm very sure he knows/ Linskrug says, taking his helmet off and rubbing the sweat out of his long hair. 'He has the look of die hunter about him, does our Colonel/

'So we must be safer here than in the jungle/ I say, calming down a little. 'I mean, I remember you saying before that the largest predators need a wide territory so there can't be that many around/

'I can't say mat I've noticed the Colonel being overly con­scious of our safety/ laughs the baron, slapping his helmet back on his head.

'I guess not/ I agree with a grimace.

'Rest break over!' I hear the Colonel's shout from further up the trail. We're at the back of the column, keeping an eye out for anyone trying to drop away and lose themselves. That said, the Colonel knows anyone dumb enough to think that they can go it alone on a deathworld like this is better off lost.

'Most animals only kill when they're hungry, isn't that right?' I ask Linskrug, seeking a bit more reassurance, as we trudge along the trail, ankle-deep in mud.

'No/ he says, shaking his head vehemently, 'most predators only eat when they're hungry. Some will kill out of sheer mali­ciousness, while most of them are highly aggressive and will attack anything they see as a threat to their territory/

'By threat/ I say slowly, pushing my pistol holster further round on my belt to stop it slapping my sore thigh, 'you wouldn't mean two hundred armed men marching along your favourite hunting ground, would you?'

'Well, I couldn't answer for the local beasts/ he says with a smile, 'but back on Korall there is this massive cat called a hookfang, and it'll attack anything man-sized or larger it sees. I can't see any hunting beast trying to survive on a deathworld being any less touchy/

We march on in silence, and the clouds open up with a fine drizzle of rain. It's been near-constant since we landed yester­day, except for the past few hours. I let my mind wander, forgetting the fatigue in my legs by thinking about our mis­sion. We've come to False Hope, the rather depressing name of this world, because all contact has been lost with the outpost here, nothing at all from two hundred inhabitants. The place is called False Hope because the men who originally landed here suffered a warp engine malfunction and were unceremo­niously dumped back into realspace. The ship was badly damaged by the catastrophe and they thought they were doomed until they happened across a habitable world. They

managed to land safely, and set up camp. A Navy patrol vessel came across their auto-distress call seventy-five years later, and the landing party found nothing left except the ship, almost swallowed up by the jungle. Apparently the captain had kept a diary, which told of how five hundred crew had died in about a year. He was the last to go. The final line in the diary went something like It appears that what we thought was our salvation has turned out to be nothing hut false hope. The name just kind of stuck, I guess.

I learnt this from one of the shuttle crew, a rating called Jamieson. Quite a nice guy really, despite him being Navy. We get on a whole lot better with the regular ratings than we do the armsmen, and a lot better than we do with the officers. I guess it's because most of them never wanted to be there either, just got caught up in the press-gangs. Still, they soon get it blud­geoned into their heads by their superiors that the Navy is better than the Guard. I don't know how long the enmity between the Navy and Guard has lasted, probably since they were split up right after the Great Heresy. That was one of the first things I learned when I joined the Imperial Guard - Navy and Guard don't mix. I mean, how can you respect the Navy when they think that they can deal with anything, just by stop­ping the threat before it reaches a planet. Half the fraggin' time they don't even know there's a threat until it's too late. And then their answer is just to frag everything to the warp and back from orbit with their big guns. I'm no strategist, but without the Guard to fight the ground wars, I reckon the Navy'd be next to useless. All they're good for is getting us from one warzone to the next relatively intact.

The rain patters irritatingly across my face. There don't seem to be any storms here, but there's an almost constant shower, so it's next to impossible to keep anything dry. Some of the men have complained about finding pungent-smelling mould growing in their packs, it's that bad.

Anyway, we've lost contact with False Hope Station, and the Colonel, and whoever the mysterious 'we' is, think the tyranids might have been here, just a little ship. It's blatantly obvious that nothing as big as a hive ship has got here, otherwise the whole planet would be stripped bare by now. They'd be having a total banquet with all those different animals to eat up and mutate. But the Colonel reckons that where you get a few 'nids,

more follow soon after. I know that from Ichar IV and Deliverance. They send out scouts: on planetside they use these slippery fraggers we call lictors to find out where the greatest concentration of prey is. These lictors, they're superb predators, they say. It's been reckoned they can track a single man across a desert, and if that wasn't bad enough, they're deadly, with huge scything claws that can rip a man in two, fast as lightning too. When they find somewhere worth visiting, then the rest of the swarm comes along to join in the party. Don't ask me how they keep in contact with all these scouting fleets and beasties, they just manage it somehow. If there are tyranids here, in the Typhon Sector, it's our job to hunt them down and kill them before they do their transmitting thing, or whatever it is they do. If we don't, the Colonel informs me, then there's going to be upwards of a hundred hive ships floating this way over the next couple of years, gearing up to devour everything for a hun­dred light years in every direction.

'Kage!' Linskrug hisses in my ear, breaking my reverie.

"What?' I snarl, irritated at him derailing my thoughts.

'Shut up and listen!' he snaps back as he stops, putting a fin­ger to his lips, his eyes narrowed.

I do as he says, slowly letting out my breath, trying to tune in to the sounds of the jungle around us. I can just hear the pat­tering of the rain on leaves and splashing onto the muddy trail, the slack wind sighing through die treetops around us.

'I don't hear anytiiing/ I tell him after a minute or so of standing around.

'Exactly/ he says with an insistent nod. The whole place has been veritably screaming with insects and birds since we landed, now we can't hear a tiling!'

'Sergeant Becksbauer!' I call to the nearest man in front of us, who's stopped and is looking at us, probably wondering if we've decided to make a break for it, despite the odds against surviving for long in this place. 'Go and get the Colonel from the head of the column. There might be trouble coming/

He gives a wave and then sets off double-stepping up the trail, tapping guys on the shoulder as he goes past, directing them back towards us with a thumb. I see Franx is among them and he breaks into a trot and starts heading towards us. He's jogging through the rain and puddles when suddenly his eyes go wide and he opens his mouth to scream but doesn't utter a

sound. He tries to stop suddenly and his feet slide out from underneath him, pitching the sergeant onto his back in the mud. I hear a strangled gulp from Linskrug and look over my shoulder. My heart stops beating for an eternity at what I see.

About fifty metres behind us, poking from between the jun­gle trees, is a massive reptilian head, almost as long as I am tall. Its plate-sized yellow eye is glaring straight at us, black pupil nothing but a vertical slit.

'Stay still/ Linskrug tells me out of the corner of his mouth. 'Some lizards can't see you if you don't move/

A trickle of sweat runs down my back, chilling my spine and making me want to shiver.

"What the frag do we do?' I asked in a strained voice, slowly edging my right hand towards the laspistol hanging in the hol­ster at my belt.

'Do you think that's going to hurt it?' Linskrug whispers.

The beast stamps forward two paces, massively muscled shoulders bending aside the trunks of two trees to force its way through. It's covered in scales the size of my face, green and glistening, perfectly matching the round, rain-drenched leaves of the surrounding trees. The camouflage is near-perfect, we could have walked straight past it for all I know. It takes another step and I can see its nostrils flaring as it sniffs the air.

'Any chance that it eats bushes and stuff?' I whisper to Linskrug, not particularly hopeful. As if in reply, the creature's huge jaw opens revealing row after row of serrated teeth, obvi­ously used for stripping flesh and crushing bones.

'I don't think so/ says Linskrug, taking a slow step backwards, shuffling his foot through the mud rather than picking it up. I follow suit, sliding my boots through the puddles as we slowly back away.

'What's the delay?' I hear someone calling, but I daren't look around to see who it is.

The enormous reptile's head swings left and right, trying to look with both eyes down the trail at us. It gives a snort and then breaks into a waddling run on its four tremendous legs, its thick hide scraping bark off the trees along both sides of the trail, its tail swinging in a wide arc from side to side and smash­ing through branches as thick as my arm.

'Can we run now?' I ask Linskrug, my jaw tight with fear, a trembling starting in my legs and working upwards.

'Not yet/ he says, and I can hear him breathing heavily but steadily, as if calming himself. 'Not yet/

This thing's pounding down the trail at us, gathering momentum and I can feel the ground shuddering under the impact of its huge weight. It's bigger than a battle tank, easily eleven metres long, not including its tail. I can hear its deep breathing, a constant growling, growing louder by the second. It's speeding up, now moving about as fast as a man can com­fortably run and still getting faster. It's only about ten metres away when I feel Linskrug moving.

'Now!' he bellows in my ear, shoving me sideways into the treeline, landing on top of me and knocking my breath out. The predator's head swings in our direction and it snaps its jaw at us as it charges past, but it's going too fast to stop. As it thun­ders along the trail, we pick ourselves up and jump back onto the track - I've already learnt that it's suicide to lie around in the undergrowth on False Hope.

Ahead of us the other Last Chancers are scattering like flies from a snapping greel, leaping in every direction, some of them turning to try to outpace the beast. I see Franx dodging to one side, but the creature's tail lashes out, crashing across his chest and flinging him bodily through the air for a dozen metres before he thumps awkwardly against a tree trunk.

The sound of lasguns crackles up ahead, and I pull my pistol from its holster and begin snapping off shots at the beast's hindquarters, the flashes of laser impacting on its thick hide with little visible effect. Linskrug is snapping off shots from the hip with his lasgun too, as we hurry side-by-side after the giant reptile. The lasgun fire increases in intensity, accompanied by screams of pain and shouts of terror. It's hard to see past the vast bulk of the monster, all I can see are half-glimpses of guardsmen dodging to and fro. Now and then one of them is caught up in the beast's immense jaws, crushed and tossed aside or cleaved in half by its huge fangs. It's still thundering along, and I see a clawed foot descend onto the chest of a trooper trying to crawl into the bushes, flattening him in a explosion of pulverised organs and splashing blood.

'Any smart ideas?' I shout to Linskrug, stopping and trying to level a shot at the beast's head as it snakes from side to side.

'Run away?' he suggests, stopping next to me and pulling the power pack from the bottom of his lasrifle. He glances around

as he slams another one home, perhaps looking for inspira­tion.

'Lasfire isn't having much effect, we need to hit and run/ he says, unhooking his bayonet from his belt and twisting it onto the mounting on the end of his lasgun.

'Hand-to-hand? I thought it was Kronin who'd gone mad!' I shout at him, my heart faltering at the thought of voluntar­ily going any nearer to that murderous mass of muscles and teeth.

"Work a blade in under the scales, in the direction of the head, and push deep/ Linskrug says with a grin, obviously rel­ishing the whole situation, before setting off again along the track. At least half a dozen mashed corpses litter the trail now, and a few more men lie battered, groaning in pain. The mon­ster has stopped its rampage now and is standing four square in the trail, head lunging forward at the guardsmen in front. Linskrug ducks neady under its swishing tail and rams his bay­onet into the yellowish scales of its underbelly. I see him spread his legs wider and brace himself, and with his teeth gritted with strain he levers the bayonet further into the creature's flesh. It gives a roar of pain and tries to turn round and attack us, but it's too bulky to turn quickly, its massive flanks jamming against trees, its neck not long enough to bend back to attack us. It takes a step back, pushing Linskrug to the ground as it shifts its feet to get into a better position.

'What the frag/ I hear myself saying before I leap forward, grabbing Linskrug's collar in one hand and dragging him free. I can hear the shouts of the other men from across its broad, flat back, bellowed commands from the Colonel cutting through their hysterical yelling. The reptile shuffles forward a little, now almost at right angles to the track, its back hunch­ing up to give it more room. I roll forwards between its legs and make a grab for the rifle still hanging from its midriff. I miss at the first attempt and as the creature shifts its weight the rifle butt cracks painfully against my knuckles. Spitting inco­herent curses I duck forward again, narrowly stepping aside as it backs up once again, and manage to get one hand on the las­gun. I put my shoulder to the stock and heave upwards, straining every muscle in my back and legs, my fleet slipping and sliding in the mud. My efforts are rewarded by a plaintive howl of pain and it thrashes around even more violently. Its

rear legs become entangled in the thorns of a bush next to the trail and it slips for a moment. The vast bulk of its underside crashes down onto the top of my helmet, knocking me flat to my chest, my face in a puddle. The lasgun slips from my grip once more.

Dark red blood spills freely from the wound now, splashing onto my head and shoulders. The lizard's heaving itself back­wards and forwards, left and right, trying to angle its head under, either to attack me or perhaps to pull the bayonet free, I'm not sure which. I roll sideways just as a back foot thuds into the mud where I was lying, spinning out from underneath the monstrous reptile.

I'm covered head to toe in mud and blood, spluttering and spitting dirty water from my mouth. Through grime-filled eyes I see the Colonel leaping through the rain, power sword clenched in his fist, the rain hissing off its searing blue blade. Without a sound he lunges forward, the power sword sheering through the creature's muzzle, a great hunk of burnt flesh flop­ping to the floor. It rears up, slashing its front claws through the space the Colonel occupied a moment before, but he's already side-stepped to the left. As the lizard lowers its head again, looking for its prey, the Colonel's arm stabs outward with a precise move, plunging the power sword through its right eye. I see the point of the blade protruding a few centimetres from the top of the giant beast's skull and it thrashes wildly for a moment, tearing the sword from the Colonel's grasp and forc­ing him to take a step backwards. Everyone jumps back hurriedly as its death throes continue, and I have to push myself to my feet and leap aside again as it stumbles towards where I lay. With a thud that reverberates along the ground the monstrosity finally collapses, the air of its last breath whistling out of its ruined face.

The Colonel marches up to the gigantic corpse and pulls his power sword free, as easily as if he were sliding it out of the scab­bard, and with no more ceremony either. He looks around at us, slipping the sword back into its sheath. He glances down and, with a casualness I would have thought forced if I didn't know the Colonel, wipes flecks of blood from its basket hilt with a handkerchief pulled from one of his deep greatcoat pockets.

'All right, men/ he says, adjusting how the scabbard hangs against his leg. 'Find out who is dead and who can carry on/

And with that, the whole incident is over, just a few more deaths in the bloody history of the Last Chancers.

We stumble into False Hope Station later the same day, just as the sun is setting. One minute we're in thick jungle, the next there's a rough pathway and buildings to either side. The whole outpost is covered with vines and trailing leaves, woven around the walls and roofs of the rockcrete shelters in a near-continu­ous mass. What passes for the roads are litde more than mud tracks, the odd slab of stone showing through the dense moss underfoot. There's no sign of life at all, just the normal sounds of the jungle. It looks like a ghost town, deserted for a while, succumbing to the eternal predations of the surrounding plants. It's eerie, and I shiver, despite the boiling heat. It's like the people here have disappeared, snatched up by the hand of an unknown god. Something unholy is at work here, I can feel it in my bones.

Deciding to see if there's anyone around, I force open the nearest door, leading into a square building just to my left. Inside it's dark, but from the fitful light coming from the doorway I can see that the building is deserted. There are a few scattered pieces of furniture, hewn from wood, proba­bly from the surrounding trees. I see a firepit in the middle of the one-roomed quarters, but the ashes inside are sodden with rain dripping from the imperfectly covered chimney vent above. As I skulk around in the darkness my foot sends something skittering along the floor. I flounder around for a moment to recover whatever it was that I disturbed, and my hand comes to rest on something vaguely oval and leathery.

I bring it outside to have a look, where Kronin and Gappo are waiting, supporting the half-dead form of Franx. The sergeant didn't seem too badly hurt from his encounter with the lizard, just a braised back and a few broken ribs, but a cou­ple of hours ago he began to get feverish. The lacerations on his chest have begun to mortify; you can smell the disease from several paces away. He's only half-conscious, his moments of lucidity separated by fever-induced delusions and mumbling. He keeps asking for food, but I don't think it's because he's hungry, more likely memories of his time on Fortuna II com­ing back to life in his head. He sounds stuck in the past at the

moment, replaying what was probably the most important event in his life over and over again.

The object in my hands is about thirty centimetres long, and looks very much like a bunch of dead leaves connected together at one end in a small bundle of fibres.

'What is that, a plant or something?' Gappo says, peering over my shoulder.

'Whatever it is, it can wait/ I tell the ex-preacher. We need to get the wounded to the infirmary as soon as possible/

Dropping the strange object into the mud, I grab Franx's legs and heave them onto my shoulder, the other two have an arm each around their necks and we carry him towards what looks like the centre of False Hope Station. The Colonel is there, directing squads to fan out and search the ghost settlement, which is what it looks like at the moment. The other two wounded, Oklar and Jereminus from Franx's squad, have been propped up against the wall of the largest building, Oklar nurs­ing the stump of his right leg, Jereminus holding a ragged bandage to what's left of the side of his face. We left the corpses of seven other men back where we fought the giant lizard.

'Where's Droken, sir?' I ask the Colonel as we step out of a side street into the central square.

'He died of blood loss just before we arrived/ he says calmly. He nods to the building where Oklar and Jereminus are. That should be the station's main facility, where you will find the infirmary, communications room and supplies store. Get the wounded sorted out and then see what you can find that might tell us what has happened here/

It's with a start that I realise that I'd completely forgotten we were hunting 'nids down here. And there was me just barging into a place without even checking what was inside. I almost deserved to have my head clawed off for being so stupid. I see now that the Colonel's ordered a firesweep of the settlement to make sure there isn't anything nasty still lurking around, and he expects me to sort out the control centre. I shout for the five survivors of Franx's squad to follow me, before touching the open rune on the door control panel. With a hiss the portal slides out of sight, letting the twilight spill into the corridor beyond. I pull my laspistol from its holster and peek around the corner, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, just a plain rockcrete-floored corridor stretching away into darkness, a

couple of doors in the wall about five metres down on either side.

Well, power's still working,' I hear Crunch say loudly from behind me. I curse inwardly when I realise he's one of the men still alive. We call him Crunch for his total inability to sneak around anywhere. He'll always find a twig to tread on, a piece of razorwire to get snagged in or a glass crucible to knock over, even in the middle of a desert. Just the man I need to slip unde­tected into a potentially hostile building!

'Crunch, you stay here and watch the entrance/ I tell him, motioning the others inside with a wave of my laspistol. He nods and stands to attention by the side of the door, lasgun in the shouldered-arms position.

'At ease, trooper/ I say to him as I step past, and hear him let out a sigh and relax. Shaking my head in irritation, I sneak down the corridor in a half-crouch. I can see artificial light under the door to the right, while a quick check of the left-hand door shows that the lock has been activated. I haven't got time to worry about that right now and signal the four men with me to go through the right-hand doorway. Inside is a small administration room, illuminated by a yellow lightstrip halfway up the far wall. A portable terminal is next to the door on a rickety-looking wooden table, its screen blank, the inter­face pad carefully stowed in the recharging pouch on the side of the storage banks. I make a mental note to come back and try to start the machine up once we've ensured the rest of the building is clear. There's a rack of record scrolls on the other side of the doorway, and I take out the one nearest the bottom, which should be the most recent. It's written in what looks to be Techna-lingua, the code used by the tech-priests, but I recog­nise the date in the top left comer. It's about forty days old, give or take a few days, so it's safe to assume that whatever hap­pened occurred roughly six weeks ago, unless there's another reason why they stopped making records before then.

Remembering the crew of the ship that discovered False Hope, I wonder if the people in the research station weren't just killed by the denizens of the horrible world they lived on, rather than there being any tyranids involved. But that didn't make a careful sweep of the building any less necessary.

The next five rooms we check turn out to be dormitories, each with four bunks, though there's no actual bedding to be

found. There's also no sign of any personal belongings at all, reinforcing the spookiness of the abandoned settlement, mak­ing the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as we look around, like in a graveyard or something. All we keep finding are the same fibrous pods that I picked up in the first building on the outskirts. By the time we've exhausted our search along the corridor, there's a pile of twenty or so by the main entrance. I don't know why they've been left behind when everything else has gone, but that's a puzzle to sort out another time, there's more urgent matters, like making sure I'm safe.

All the other routes explored, I turn my attention back to the locked door. I study the locking mechanism, which is a num-berpad next to the door, and it looks like there's no chance of trying to work out what the cipher is.

'Ah, frag it!' I declare to the galaxy in general and loose off a bolt from my laspistol at the panel, which explodes in a shower of green sparks. I hear the noise of something heavy dropping on the other side of the wall and make a push at the door, which swings inwards easily. I peer inside, laspistol held ready, crouched to duck back out of sight in an instant. Inside are more terminals, although these appear to be wired in, standing on rockcrete plinths along the walls of a room roughly twenty metres long and ten wide. There's another door at the far end, already open, and through it I can see more lights, and two rows of beds. Everything is totally still, no noises except those filtering in from outside, no signs of movement or any kind of life. Dead, a worried part of my mind tells me.

There's a closed door to the right, and I decide to check in there first, not wanting to leave a potential hiding place behind me. The large room we're standing in is obviously the main control chamber, probably where the communications array is. We slip through the door to the right, lasweapons at the ready, but there's nobody inside. The side door leads us into a wide space, filled with metal cages on wheels, each full of boxes marked with an Imperial eagle and notations of shipping dates and so on. This is the store room, obviously, and it appears that there's the usual combat rations, water purification tonics, spare uniforms and some technical equipment. The cages are all still closed with simple padlocks and so it doesn't look like anything was taken by force. That probably rules out pirates, which is one of the thoughts that had occurred to me when

looking into the sleeping chambers, which seemed as if they might have been looted.

'Okay, let's check out the ward/1 tell the men, pushing my way past them and back into the control room. Two of them hang back, covering us with their lasguns, while the other pair and me stand either side of the door. I take a quick peek inside and see that the beds are all empty, ten of them each side of the narrow room. I duck through the doorway and scuttle behind the near­est to the right, waving the other two with me, Donalson and Fredricks, to the left-hand side. Glancing behind me to check that the troopers behind have followed us to the door, I begin to creep along the space between the two rows of beds, keeping bent, laspistol pointed in front of me. We're about halfway along, seven or eight metres from the door, when a movement to my right catches my attention. At the far end of the room, there's an archway leading into some kind of ante-chamber and I think I can see something moving about inside.

I shuffle to my left to get a better view and can see a high desk inside the small room, in front of a tall bookshelf filled with tomes and rolled parchments. I can hear something scraping on the floor, perhaps something trying to keep out of sight behind the desk. I gesture with my thumb towards the archway and Fredricks gives a nod and begins to slink very slowly towards it, lasgun cradled across his chest. My breath is coming in shallow gasps at the moment, my whole body tensed and ready for action. I can hear my heart beating, the blood cours­ing through my ears like the rash of a waterfall. It seems like an eternity is passing as Fredricks makes his way crabwise towards the other room.

There's movement in there again and we all react at the same time, a sudden torrent of las-fire flashing through the archway into the room. The air is filled with the crackling of energy. My heart is hammering in my chest, glad for the sudden release, and I can hear myself growling between gritted teeth. There's a shrill screech from the room and we fire another volley, Donalson spitting incomprehensible curses between gritted teeth as he fires, an incoherent yell bursting from my own lips as I pull repeatedly on the trigger of my laspistol.

'Stop shooting, Emperor damn you!' I hear a high-pitched, strained voice cry out from the ante-chamber. The three of us exchange startled glances.

'Who are you?' I shout back, aiming my pistol into the far room in case a target should present itself.

'I'm Lieutenant Hopkins/ the voice calls back and he shuffles into view, hands held high above his head. He's a litde older than me, scrawny-looking with lank hair and a straggly beard on his cheeks and chin. He's wearing a crumpled uniform of some sort: dress jacket a deep red with white breeches and knee-high black boots. He has a slightly tarnished epaulette on one shoulder, the hogging hanging from it frayed and lacklus­tre. I relax only a little and stand up, still pointing the laspistol at him. He grins when he sees our uniforms, lowers his hands and takes a step forward.

'Stay where you fraggin' are!' I shout, taking a step towards him, laspistol now levelled at his head.

'Are you Imperial Guard? Which regiment are you from?' he asks, voice trembling. I can see his whole body shaking with nerves, obviously distressed mat the people he thought were his saviours might still turn out to be his killers.

'It's okay/ I tell him, lowering my laspistol, although I leave the safety catch off and don't holster it. We're from the 13th Penal Legion. Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers/

'Penal legion?' he says vaguely, lifting his peaked cap and scratching at his head. ^Vhat the hell are you doing here?'

'I think that's a question you should be answering/1 tell him.

Donalson brings Lieutenant Hopkins from where he's been guarding him in the administration room. I'm sat with the Colonel and Sergeants Broker and Roiseland in the command centre. He looks around curiously, seeing the terminals we've managed to reactivate. It's pitch dark outside; all I can see through the small slit windows are reflections of the interior of the command room. Even through the thick walls I can hear the constant chirruping of insects and the occasional screech of some nocturnal bird or whatever.

'You are Lieutenant Hopkins, of the False Hope garrison company/ the Colonel says. 'I am Colonel Schaeffer, com­manding the 13th Penal Legion. I would like an explanation of what has happened to False Hope Station/

Hopkins gives a quick salute, fingers of his right hand hover­ing by the peak of his cap for a moment, before his arm drops limply back by his side.

'I wish I could offer one, colonel/ he says apologetically, dart­ing a longing look at an empty chair next to Broker. He seems all but dead on his feet, there's darkness around his eyes and his skin hangs loosely from his cheeks. The Colonel nods towards the seat and Hopkins sits down gratefully, slouching against the high back of the chair with visible relief. I wave Donalson away, and turn my attention to the Colonel. His ice-blue eyes are still fixed on Hopkins, looking right inside him, trying to work out who the man is.

'Records show that at the last count there were seventy-five Guardsmen and one hundred and forty-eight civilians in False Hope Station/ the Colonel says, glancing at a datasheet in his hands. 'Now there is only you. I think you would agree that this situation demands investigation/

Hopkins looks helplessly back at the Colonel and gives a weak shrug.

'I don't know what happened to the others/ he says miser­ably. 'I've been stuck here on my own for thirty-five days now, trying to work out how to get the communications assembly working/

Tell me what you remember before then/ the Colonel says sternly, handing the datasheet to Roiseland.

'I was ill in the infirmary/ Hopkins tells us, looking through the doorway towards the ward, where Franx and the others are now safely tucked in. We broke into the medicine chest to get more bandages and stimm-needles. None of us is a medico, so it's down to the Emperor whether they live or die. 'I'd come down with blood poisoning, a local plague we call jungle flu. I'd been leading an expedition through to the sulphur marshes about twenty kays west of here and I caught a dose. The men brought me back, I remember Physician Murrays giving me one of his elixirs and then I must have fallen unconscious. When I woke up, the place was as you find it now/

'Before the expedition/ the Colonel asks him, gaze never wandering for a second, 'was there anything untoward hap­pening? Was there any sign of danger to the settlement?'

'Our commander, Captain Nepetine, had been acting a bit strangely/ Hopkins admits with a frown. 'He'd been doing some exploration towards the Heart of the Jungle with twenty of the men, and came back alone. He said he'd found a better location for a settlement, one that wasn't as hostile as the area we're in/

The Heart of the Jungle?' I ask before I can stop myself, earn­ing myself a scowl from the Colonel.

'Yes/ Hopkins says, not noticing the Colonel's annoyance. 'It's the thickest part of the jungle on the whole planet, about three days march further up the equatorial ridge. It was stupid, because there's nowhere near there at all that could be any more hospitable than where we are. I mean, the whole planet is virtually one big jungle, right up to the poles. Every acre is solid with trees and plants, horrible insects, giant predators and coundess hideous diseases. I said so, and the other officers, Lieutenants Korl and Paximan, agreed with me.'

'Do you think that Captain Nepetine may have persuaded the others to leave while you were comatose?' the Colonel asks, absent-mindedly tapping a finger on his knee.

'It's unlikely, sir/ Hopkins says with a doubtful look. They were both in vehement agreement with me the last time we spoke about it/

The Colonel gestures to Sergeant Broker, who pulls one of the empty pod things from a sack under his chair and passes it to Hopkins.

'What is this?' the Colonel asks, pointing towards the object in Hopkins's hands.

'I haven't seen anything like it before/ the lieutenant says. 'I'm no bio-magus, but it looks similar to the seed pods that some of the trees around here use for reproducing. I'm afraid that Lieutenant Paximan was liaison to our Adeptus Mechanicus comrades, I had little to do with the study itself. It's a lot bigger than anything I've seen though, I'm sure I would remember a specimen of this size. If it really is a seed pod, the tree or bush it came from must be enormous. Even the pods from trees over thirty metres tall are only the size of my hand, a quarter of the size of this one/

'Could it be offworld in origin?' the Colonel asks, his face as neutral as ever. I look at him sharply, realising that he thinks it might be some kind of tyranid organism. I feel the urge to glance over my shoulder, wondering what else is lurking in the jungles out there, as well as all the native killers of False Hope.

'I suppose it could be, but I can't say for sure one way or the other/ Hopkins tells us with a sorrowful look. 'I'm not a specialist in plants or anything, I just run, I mean ran, the camp/

'Can you take us to the Heart of the Jungle?' Schaeffer asks, finally standing up and beginning to pace back and forth. I won­dered how long it would take him before being confined to a chair made him too fidgety. He's obviously concocting some kind of plan, otherwise he'd be content just to sit and ask questions.

'I could lead the way/ Hopkins admits with a shallow nod of the head.

'But?' the Colonel adds.

'All the heavy-duty exploration equipment has gone/ he says with a grimace. 'I checked before, thinking the same thing you do, that I could go after them. But without that sort of gear, one man on his own won't last the first night out in the trees/

Well/ the Colonel says, looking at each of us in turn. My heart sinks, knowing what he's going to say next. We are more than one man, so I am sure we will survive/

'Sir?' I interject. What about the wounded? They won't be able to make another trip into the jungle/

'If they can march by tomorrow morning, they come with us/ he says meeting my anxious gaze without a hint of compassion in his eyes. 'If not, we leave them here/

I've been asleep only a short while when sounds of footsteps padding across the rockcrete floor wake me up. Someone's coughing violently from the furthest beds, near the chamber where we found Hopkins. I'm bedded down in the control room with Kronin and a couple of the sergeants, ready to act if any communication comes down from our transport in orbit. In the pale glimmer of the moonlight streaming through the narrow windows of the infirmary I can see a shadow gingerly stepping towards me. Thinking it may be Rollis out for some revenge, I put my hand under the pillow, my fingers closing around the grip of my knife. As the figure gets closer, I can see it's too tall to be Rollis and I relax. 'Kage!' I hear Gappo's terse whisper. 'Franx has woken up/ I sling my blanket to one side and get up. I see Gappo, bare­foot and wearing only his fatigues, leaning on the doorframe and peering into the gloom of the control centre. It's sultry inside the command centre, the rockcrete trapping the humid­ity and heat of the False Hope day, and I'm covered in a light sheen of sweat. I follow Gappo along the row of beds, towards the intense coughing.

'Kill 'im now/ I hear someone murmur from the darkness. That coughin's kept me awake for ages/

'Drop dead yourself!' I snap back, wishing I could identify the culprit, but it's too dark.

Franx looks a state, his face doused in perspiration, his curls plastered across the tight skin of his forehead, his cheeks hol­low. Even the gleam of the moonlight cannot hide the yellowish tinge to his features. His breathing comes in wheezes through his cracked lips. Every few seconds he erupts into a spasm of coughing, blood flecks appearing on his lips. But his eyes are brighter than before, with an intelligent look in them that I haven't seen during the past day.

'You look rougher than a flatulent ork's arse/ I tell him, sit­ting on the end of the bed. He grins at me, and I can see the reddish stains on his teeth from the blood he's been coughing up.

'Nobody's going to paint portraits of you either, scarface!' he manages to retort before his body convulses with more racking coughs.

'Do you think you'll be able to walk, come the morning?' Gappo asks, concern on his face.

'Fresh air will do me good. Hate infirmaries; always full of sick people/ the sergeant jokes.

Gappo looks at me, his expression one of worry. He's a car­ing soul at heart, I'm amazed he's managed to survive this long, but in battle he's just as steady as the next man.

'Course you can march in the morning/ I say to Franx. 'And if you need a little help, there are those who'll give you a hand/

He nods without saying anything and settles back into the bed, closing his eyes, his breathing still ragged.

'What about the other two?' I ask Gappo, who appointed himself chief medico as soon as he heard about the Colonel's decree to leave behind anyone who couldn't make the march.

'Oklar's got one leg left. How do you think he's doing?' the former preacher snaps bitterly. 'Jereminus will be fine, he's just badly concussed/

'Can we pump Oklar full of stimms before we leave, set him up on some kind of crutch?' I ask, trying to figure a way to deny the Colonel another corpse.

'It might work, providing we can take a bagful of stimm-nee-dles with us to keep him and Jereminus going/ Gappo agrees, looking slightly dubious.

ЛУе11, sort it out/ I tell him. 'I'm going back to bed/

Oklar saved Gappo the ttouble: stabbed himself through the eye with a stimm-needle left by his bed. The point drove into his brain and killed him instantly. We set out just after dawn yesterday, following Hopkins and the Colonel. Turning west­ward as soon as we left False Hope station, we climbed up onto a high ridge that Hopkins tells us runs the whole length of the planet's equator. We're marching at the front - me, Kronin, Gappo, Linskrug and Frame's squad, taking it in turns to give Franx a shoulder to lean on. He's stopped coughing blood, but is continuously short of breath. Broker's squad is looking after Jereminus, the sergeant taking custody of a dozen stimms smuggled out of the infirmary by Gappo.

The jungle hasn't been too thick, finding it harder to grow on the dense rock of the volcanic ridge. The air gets even hotter, more choked with sulphur and ashes, as we progress. We can't see them through the jungle canopy, but Hopkins tells us that there's two massive volcanoes a few kilometres away to the south, called Khorne's Twins by the False Hope settlers, named by the original ship's crew after some unholy and violent god. Heresy and blasphemy, but I guess they were getting pretty low on faith at the time. The lieutenant assures us they've been dor­mant recently, but knowing our luck they'll both blow any moment, just so things don't get too easy for us. My head filled with these gloomy thoughts, I sense somebody falling in beside me and glance right to see Hopkins walking alongside.

'He's Sergeant Franx, is that right?' he asks, glancing towards where the sergeant's stumbling along hanging on to Poal. I nod.

'He must have the constitution of a grox/ Hopkins adds, still looking at the half-crippled Franx.

'He used to/ I say, not being able to stop myself. 'But this sodding sump of a planet of yours might kill him yet/

'It may yet/ agrees Hopkins with a disconsolate look. 'He's got lungrot, and there's not many survive that/

'Any more encouraging news?' I ask sourly, wishing he'd frag off and leave me alone.

'He's still alive, and that's half a miracle/ he tells me with a smile. 'Most men don't last the first night. He's lasted two, both of them after days of marching. He won't get any better, but I don't think he'll get any worse/

'If he was any worse, he'd be dead/ I say, looking over at the wasted figure almost draped over Poal's sunburnt shoulders. 'And looking at him, I'm not sure that would be worse/

'Don't say that!' Hopkins exclaims.

'What?' I snap back at him. "You think he's going to survive for long in the Last Chancers while he's in that state? Even if he gets out of this cess tank, the next battle'll kill him, that I'm sure/

'How long does he have left in the penal legion?' Hopkins asks, pulling a canteen from his belt and proffering it towards me. I irritably wave it away.

We're all here until we either die or get pardoned by the Colonel/ I tell him, my voice harsh.

'And how many people has he pardoned?' asks Hopkins innocently.

'None/ I snarl, quickening my step to leave the annoying lieutenant behind.

Dawn on the third day of the march sees us on the ridge above the area Hopkins calls the Heart of the Jungle. From up here it doesn't look any different from the rest of the Emperor-for­saken jungle, but he assures me that inside the undergrowth is a lot thicker, the trees are a lot bigger and closer together.

That's where our captain was exploring,' he tells me as we stand in the orange glow of the rising sun, pointing southwards at an area that might be a slightly darker green than the sur­rounding trees.

This captain of yours, was he a bit mad or something?' I ask, taking a swig of dentclene from a foil pouch and swilling it around my mouth before spitting the foamy liquid into a pud­dle by the lieutenant's feet.

'Not really/ he says, stepping back from the splash and giving me an annoyed glance. As far as I know, he was perfectly stable/

He hesitates for a second as if he's going to say more, but closes his mouth and turns away to look at the sunrise.

'What is it?' I ask. He turns back, takes his cap off and scratches his head, a gesture I've noticed him using whenever he seems to be worried about something.

'Do you really think that those seed pods could be some kind of tyranid weapon?' he asks, crumpling the top of his cap in his hand.

'I've seen stranger things/ I tell him, leaning closer, as if con­fiding something secret to him. 'On Ichar IV, the tech-priests are still trying to eradicate swarms of tyranid bugs, which eat anything organic they come across. I've seen bio-titans twenty-five metres tall, great four-legged things that can trample buildings and crush battle tanks in their huge claws. You ever seen a tyranid?'

'I've seen sketches/ he says hesitantly, placing his creased cap back on his head.

'Sketches?' I laugh. 'Sketches are nothing! When you've got a four-metre tall tyranid warrior standing in front of you, then you know what tyranids are like. Its carapace oozes this lubri­cant slime to keep the plates from chafing, it's got fangs as long as your fingers and four arms. They stink of death, when they're really close it's almost suffocating. They use all kinds of sym-biote weapons to blast, tear, cut and grind you apart/

I remember the first time I saw them, on Ichar IV. Three warriors jumped us as we were doing a firesweep of some old ruins. I can see clearly now their dark blue skin and reddish-black bony plates as they stormed forward. The shock and fear that swept over us when we first saw them, unnatural and unholy in every way. They had guns we call devourers, spitting out a hail of flesh-eating grubs that can chew straight through you, worse than any bullet. Our lasgun shots just bounced off them, and those who didn't fall to the devour­ers had their heads ripped off and limbs torn free by their powerful claws. It was only Craggon and his plasma gun that saved us, incinerating the alien monstrosities as they carved through us. As it was, those three tyranid warriors killed fif­teen men before they were brought down. I remember Craggon died later on Ichar IV, his blood soaking into the ash wastes when a tyranid gargoyle dropped from the skies and tore out his throat.

Hopkins is visibly shaken, his face pale under his deep tan. I point towards my face, or rather the maze of scars criss-cross­ing it. I still don't think he understands the horror of the tyranids and decide to press the point. People have to know about the abominations we face out here in the stars.

'I got these from a tyranid spore mine/ I say fiercely, wishing he'd never brought up tyranids, wishing that of all the horrors I've faced, I could forget about the carnage of Ichar IV and the terrifying, bowel-loosening horror that the tyranids represent. No one who wasn't there, hasn't fought them, can really under­stand what they're like, it's like trying to describe the ocean to a blind man. 'Damn thing exploded as close to me as you're standing now, threw me to the ground with the burst of gasses. Bits of razor-sharp carapace shrapnel damn near tore my face off! Franx bound my head up with his shirt to stop the bleed­ing. I was in agony for weeks, even on regular stimm doses. I'm lucky I've still got both my eyes, Franx tells me. There were men in my platoon who had limbs ripped off in that explosion, had holes punched straight through them. Others lost their skin and muscles to acid from the spore mine, burning through clean to the bone. Do you know what it looks like, a man with bio-acid searing through his body, eating away at him? Do you know what his screams sound like?'

'I... I...' he stutters, looking at me in a new, horrified way.

'Next time you look at one of those sketches/ I tell him scornfully, 'just you remember that, and just you try to imagine it/

He stands there, mouth hanging open, eyes blank. I snarl wordlessly and stalk off up the ridge, wishing he hadn't reminded me about Ichar IV.

Poal curses constantly as he hacks with his bayonet at the branches and vines around us. Hopkins wasn't exaggerating when he said this was the worst part of jungle on the whole of False Hope. It's nearly dusk, and we've travelled perhaps two kilometres down the ridge. We're nearly at the bottom, that much I can tell, but if we have to keep going like this for more than another day or two, we're all going to starve or die of thirst. We found one pool, but it was tainted with sulphur from the volcanoes. Franx thought of catching the rain in canteens, but Hopkins told us there are certain plants, parasites way up near the treetops, which dissolve their spores in the rainwater, so that the stuff cascading down through the trees carries a deadly curse.

One man didn't believe him and tried it anyway. His throat swelled up within an hour and he choked to death. We lost

another trooper to poisoned thorn bushes, the lacerations on the guardsman's legs filling with pus almost in minutes. I shot him, after he begged me to. Hopkins agreed, saying that the infection would pass through his bloodstream into his brain, driving him insane before he died. I began to feel a little more respect for Hopkins after that, when I realised he must have seen his fair share of horrors in this place.

"We need to find a campsite for the night/ Hopkins tells the Colonel as we wait for the men to cut a path through the wall of vegetation in front of us.

'We will look for somewhere when we reach the ridge bot­tom/ he says, dabbing at the sweat on his cheeks with the handkerchief still stained with the giant lizard's blood. At a shout from Poal we turn our attention back to the troopers, who seem to have found some kind of trail. I spy Linskrug among the throng and we exchange a knowing glance. Trails mean bad news in the jungle. Still, the Colonel steps through the opening and I follow, Hopkins close behind. It's almost like a living tunnel, the foliage curves above us to form a solid canopy, and the closeness of the trunks, intertwined with vines as thick as your arm, make a near-impenetrable wall to either side. With a glance back to check we're following, the Colonel sets off and we file after him.

It's almost impossible to tell how long we've been in the labyrinth of plants. The only real light is a kind of glow from the dying sun seeping through and reflecting off the leaves around us. A few patches of luminous fungi, which grow more frequent the further we press on, cast a sickly yellow aura across the path and fill the air with a decaying smell. Side tunnels, or that's what I'd call them, branch off now and then, and it soon becomes obvious we're in an extensive network of paths. The roots of the trees higher up the ridge jut out of the ground around us, twisting about each other in the centuries-long fight with each other for sustenance. There is no sound at all except our own laboured breathing, because if it was hot before, we're being boiled in our uniforms now. Sweat constantly runs from every pore in my body, soaking my fatigues and shirt, making them stick in wet folds to my body.

The air is still, no chance of a breeze through the layers of greenery surrounding us. My mouth is full of salt from my own

sweat, drying on my lips, making me want to keep licking them clean. My eyes are gummed up with sweat as well, forcing me to squint in the half-light as I shuffle along, trying not to trip on the roots snaking across the path. Franx is just behind me, recovered enough to be walking on his own now, but just barely. The moisture in the air is playing hell wim his lungs, making him cough constandy. Still we stumble on, following the stiff-backed oudine of the Colonel forging ahead.

All of a sudden we find ourselves in an open space. It's like a massive amount of pressure is lifted, the air seeming to clear slighdy. There's movement in the branches around us, like the wind, and as the rest of the troopers trudge in behind us, we drop to the floor. I close my eyes and take a deep lungful of air. The humidity isn't so bad, but there's another tinge to the atmosphere in here. I take a deep sniff, trying to identify where I know the scent from. It's like rotting flesh or someming. Perhaps there's a dead animal nearby.

'Kage...' croaks Franx, and I sit up and look over to where he's lying flat out a few metres to my right.

Л\Яш?' I ask, seeing a disturbed look on his face.

'I think I'm having delusions/ he tells me, pointing straight up. 'I can see people up in the trees/

I follow his gaze upwards, squinting to look into the canopy that arches about thirty mettes above our heads. I see a tremor of movement and stare even harder, blinking the sweat from my eyes. A shiver of fear courses through me as I pick out the shape of a woman directly above me, half-cocooned in a nest of leaves and vines.

'C-colonel...' I stammer, seeing more and more bodies hang­ing in the branches overhead, mind balking at how they could have got there.

'I know/ he says grimly, pulling his power sword from its scabbard, the blue glow of its blade casting shadows in the leafy cavern. The others have noticed too, and they're stum­bling about, looking upwards and pointing in disbelief.

'Kage!' shouts Linskrug. I look back. I see what he's seen - the entrance to the chamber has disappeared, there's just a solid wall of branches and leaves all around us.

'Get those flamers burning!' I call out to the men, noticing as I do mat about a quarter of them are missing, presumably cut off on the far side of the vegetation.

'Some of them are alive/ hisses someone to my left, and I look up. I see an arm stretched out, withered as if drained of blood or something, but the fingers are slowly clenching. As I look around, I see that the movement in the leaves isn't caused by the breeze, it's more people, almost out of sight, writhing in their torment. I snatch my knife from my belt and run towards the nearest, hacking away at the leaves in between.

My eyes meet those of a young girl, pale grey and staring, her blonde hair covered in mud, twirled around the branches entombing her. She's trapped a metre from the ground. I rip at the leaves around her face with my spare hand and saw at a thick branch curled around her waist. She croaks something, but I can't understand what she's saying. Her face is pinched, the skin dry as parchment. To my left and right, others are tear­ing at the tree-prison, trying to pull people free. I manage to work my arm around the litde girl's waist, trying to avoid her staring, pitiful gaze. I heave and she gives a gasp of pain. Pulling harder, I manage to get her head and chest out of the cocoon, but as she pitches forward I see thorns as long as my forearm but as min as a finger are imbedded into her back. Her blood is leaking down her backbone. I grab the nearest spine and try to pull it free, but as I do so I feel something slithering around my left leg.

I look down and see a tendril pushing out of the ground, wrapping around my ankle. It tugs and I fall backwards, slam­ming hard into the mulchy ground, the knife jarred out of my hand. I curl forwards and grab the vine with both hands, trying to wrench my foot free, but the ming is incredibly strong. Suddenly Franx is there, sawing away at the tendril with his bayonet. Between the two of us, we manage to yank my foot free and we both stumble away from the plant. Others are doing the same, congregating around the Colonel where he stands in the middle of the green chamber. Some are too late, I can see them being enveloped by leaves, pushed upwards along the branches until they're a good few metres off the floor.

There's an explosion off to my right where a flamer cylinder is crushed, spewing flames over the branches and suddenly the area around the detonation is thrashing madly, tossing the burning canister away.

"We have to get out/ shouts Poal, glancing around for some avenue of escape. As far as I can see, mere isn't one: we're

trapped. We're in an unbroken dome of branches, vines and leaves, about sixty metres in diameter. All around us is a solid mass of vegetation, slowly creeping closer and closer, forcing us back to back in a circle. Men start firing their lasguns at the approaching vines, shearing through the tendrils with bolts of compressed light. But for every one that's blasted, another seems to snake forward, the whole of the cavern constricting around us. Something darts past my face and I hear Warnick scream, a fanged leaf slashing at his neck. His blood sprays over me and more of the horrid tentacles fasten on to him. I step away from him, only to feel someone bumping into my back, obviously avoiding something else. Glancing over my shoulder I see that it's the Colonel, teeth gritted, chopping through attacking tendrils with sweeps of his power sword. I'm gripped by a sudden desperation to get out, overwhelmed with the feel­ing of being trapped like a fly in a web.

Someone else jogs my elbow and I see that it's Hopkins, eyes wide, staring around at our leafy tomb.

'Treacherous bastard!' I spit, my fear suddenly turning to anger. I pull free my laspistol and push it against his temple, forcing him down to his knees. 'You knew what was here! You led us into a trap! You were the bait, weren't you? I'm gonna see you dead before I'm taken!'

He gives a shriek and throws himself down, curling up on the floor. I can hear him sobbing.

'Don't kill me/ he pleads. 'Don't kill me, I didn't know any of this. Please don't shoot me, I don't want to die. I don't want to die!'

It's obvious from his horror that he's telling the truth, that he wasn't left in the station to lure us here. He's just as dead as the rest of us, as well, so there's no point shooting him.

As the living chamber grows smaller, ten or perhaps twelve metres across now, I can see more and more of the poor souls captured inside. Some of them are corpses, that much is obvi­ous from their sunken features and empty eyes. Others are still alive, their mouths opening and shutting with wordless pleas, their eyes full of terror, staring at me, imploring me to do something, but I'm just as helpless as they are.

'That's the captain!' I hear Hopkins shout, and I look to where he's pointing. There's a man in an officer's coat the same colour as Hopkins's jacket, his brown eyes staring intelligently

at us, just a few metres away. His skin is almost glowing with health, in stark contrast to the wasted faces of the others trapped by the plant. I take a step towards him, but suddenly there's a dense fog in the air, a cloud of something that fills my mouth and nostrils. It's like the heavy incense the Ecclesiarchy use, almost making me gag. I see brown shapes in the leaves around me, ovals bigger than my head, and recognise them briefly as the same as the seed pods we found back at the sta­tion. My head feels stuffed with bandage gauze, I can't think straight with all of the stuff clogging up my throat. It's then that I hear a voice, almost like it's inside my head.

'Don't fight it/ it tells me, strangely melodic. The god-plant will make you immortal. Embrace the god-plant and it will reward you. Embrace it as I did. See its divine beauty, become part of the god-plant's great benevolence/

Around me I dimly see many of the men stop struggling, star­ing in rapturous awe at the leaves curling down towards them. The air has a purple tint to it, like a haze across my vision, glit­tering slightly. My limbs feel leaden and I have to fight hard not to lose my grip on the laspistol.

There is no point struggling,' the voice continues calmly. There will be no pain, the god-plant shall see to your needs. It will sustain you, even as you sustain it. Provide for the god-plant and it shall provide for you in return/

The cloud of spores is thicker than ever, a purplish mist swirling around my head, fogging my vision and mind. I sense a leafy tendril sliding up my arm, curling towards my face. I feel weak at the knees, it would be so easy just to give in. To become one with the god-plant. I can feel its magnificence, spreading out all around me, its alien life coursing through roots and branches for many kilometres in every direction.

I feel tiny pinpricks of sensation on my neck and dumbly look down, seeing a red liquid seeping into the collar of my shirt. Somewhere in the back of my mind a distant voice tells me it's my own blood, but I don't really take any notice. My throat and neck are warming up, building in heat, like relaxing tonic spreading through my body.

The voice - my voice, I realise - is nagging at me to wake up, to shake off the plant. I feel very tired, but from deep within me I start to feel a surge of energy, welling up from my stomach. I feel my fingers twitching into life and my head clears a little. I

gaze around, trying to look through the haze that has dropped over my eyes. I can see vague outlines of other people, as if through a fog, some of them standing still, others struggling violently. Noises, real noises from outside, filter through the dull humming filling my ears, strangled shouts and violent cursing.

Like waking from a deep sleep I rise to consciousness again, startled awake by the sharp pain in my neck. Shaking off the last vestiges of the dream-like state, I snatch the tendril biting into my neck and tear it free, my blood scattering in crimson droplets over its greeny-yellow leaf. With a snap I'm fully aware of what's going on again. The Colonel is standing to one side of me, slashing back and forth as vines snap towards him. Franx is on the other side, fallen to one knee, both hands fend­ing off another leafy tentacle lunging for his face.

Without actually thinking about it, I begin snapping shots off from my laspistol, bolts of light flaring into the plant around us, severing tendrils and slashing through leaves.

'Kage!' the Colonel barks over his shoulder at me. 'Hold these off. I will deal with Nepetine/

He takes a step towards the captain and I jump to fill his place, my laspistol spitting bolts of energy into the green, writhing mass still slowly constricting on us. There's a lull in the attack, the god-plant concentrating its alien limbs on pick­ing up the men who are standing around in dumb acquiescence, pulling mem away and into the branches above our heads, their limbs dangling lifelessly like dolls. I see the Colonel fighting with Nepetine, the captain's arms flailing weakly at Schaeffer as the Colonel pushes his hands deep into the leafy folds surrounding Nepetine.

'Step back/ orders the Colonel, pushing me and some of the others away from the captain. A second later and there's a roar­ing noise, a flame blossoms around Nepetine, shredding the god-plant, throwing pulpy vegetation and human flesh all over us, covering us in blood and sticky sap. The god-plant suddenly recoils, the branches thrashing madly as they rapidly draw away into the distance. The dome retreats slightly, giving us room to spread out a little.

'Anybody still got a flamer?' I shout out, casting my gaze over the few dozen of us left, keen to grab the offensive while we still have the chance. 'Repentance' Clain, murderer of seventeen

women, steps forward, the ignition flame on his weapon burn­ing with a piercing blue light in the gloom of the god-plant's bowels.

'Burn a way out!' I snarl viciously, pointing vaguely in the direction where we came in. Repentance gives a grim smile and jogs up to the receding walls. With a torrent of flame that hurts my eyes to look at he opens up, the flammable liquid splash­ing across the leaves and branches, turning them into an instant inferno. He blasts gout after gout of fire into the retreat­ing vegetation, the whoosh of the flamer accompanied by the crack of burning branches and the staccato popping of explod­ing seed pods. The leafy wall draws back even more rapidly, trying to get away from the deadly flames. The rest of us join him, firing our own weapons around the flames, forcing the god-plant to open up even further. After we've blasted our way a good hundred metres clear of the chamber, there's still no sign of the men who were cut off, presumably they're already dead.

A few tendrils half-heartedly snake towards us from the ceil­ing, but the Colonel easily hacks them apart with his power sword. Slowly but steadily we push forwards, the god-plant relenting before our ferocious attack, closing behind us but too far away to be dangerous. I don't know how I can tell, but the god-plant seems to be getting more and more desperate, some­thing in the uncoordinated way it flings biting leaves at us, something about the gradually yellowing, sickly colour of its foliage. We press on, letting the flamers do the work.

The air is filled with the stench and smoke of burning plant, choking me and stinging my eyes as I stumble after the flamer teams. Franx is coughing up so hard now that Poal and one of his men have to carry him again. The green light, tinged with sudden bursts of red and yellow from the flamers, is making me feel sick as well. For what seems like half a lifetime, we push our way forwards through the depths of the god-plant, fending off its ever weakening attacks. I feel the ground rising and I realise we are starting up the ridge. I'm surprised by how far this thing extends, how long we were wandering around inside it, oblivious to the peril as it let us get closer and closer to its centre, where I suppose it thought we would never escape.

It's with a shock that we burst through onto the open rock of the ridge. Glancing behind me, I see the others come

stumbling out, some turning around to open up with a fusillade of lasfire to drive back the god-plant's alien limbs as they creep towards us. Gasping and cursing, we haul ourselves up the rocky slope. There's no other vegetation around, obviously devoured by the god-plant to make room for itself.

After a few minutes we're far enough away, half way up the ridge, the going a lot easier witiiout the twisting confines of the god-plant's outer reaches to ensnare and misdirect us. I turn and look back and I can see the god-plant contracting. Its outer edges are a sickly yellow colour by now, looking like grass in a drought. It leaves bare, grey dirt in the wake of its retreat, drained of all nutrition.

'Sergeant Poal/ I hear the Colonel saying behind me as I con­tinue to stare at the plant monstrosity, 'get your comms-operator to call down the shutties, and order a bombardment of that... thing.'

It's the first time I've ever heard the Colonel almost lost for words. Dragging my gaze away from die strange beast, I push myself a few more steps up the ridge to stand next to the Colonel. Hopkins is diere, blood pouring down from a cut above his right eye.

'Well, that was something,' the lieutenant pants, gazing in amazement at die god-plant.

'What die hell was it?' Franx asks, flopping down exhaustedly on a patch of mud in front of me. Omers are collapsing around us, staring vacandy at the sky. Some fall to their knees, hands clasped in front of them as they offer up thanks to the Emperor. The Colonel steps forward, gazing intentiy towards die god-plant.

4Vhatever it was/ he says widi a hint of satisfaction, 'it is going to be dead soon. I am tempted to request diis whole world be virus bombed, just to make sure/

^Vhat did you do, sir?' Hopkins asks, dabbing a cuff gingerly to the cut on his forehead.

'Frag grenades/ the Colonel replies, breaking his gaze from the view to look at the lieutenant. 'I have heard tales of such symbiotic creatures, diough I have never heard of them taking plant form. They lie dormant for centuries, perhaps even mil­lennia, until tiiey can ensnare an alien mind. They form a link witii their victim, somehow using their intelligence. Captain Nepetine seemed the conduit for that connection, so I blew

him apart with fragmentation grenades. I think we were right at its centre, the damage we did was considerable/

He looks over all of us, before fastening his gaze on me.

"Those we left behind were weak/ he says sternly. 'To give in to alien domination is one of the greatest acts of treachery against the Emperor. Remember that well/

I remember how close I came to succumbing and say noth­ing-

It's with a good feeling in die pit of my stomach that I look out of the shutde window as we roar up into the sky of False Hope. Out of the window I can see a raging fire, setting light across hundreds of square kilometres of jungle. Another bright flash descends from orbit into die ground with an explosion as our transport ship, the Pride of Lothus, fires another shot from its plasma driver into the god-plant.

'Burn, you alien piece of crap/ I whisper, rubbing the fresh scabs on my neck. 'Burn!'

THREE

BAD LANDINGS

The feeling in the cell is even tenser than normal. Everybody's shaken up by what happened on False Hope, the memory of our fellow Last Chancers being eaten by the god-plant fresh in our memories. To make matters even worse, there's been no sign of the Colonel for the past three weeks. Talking to the rat­ings, it seems he disappeared on a rapid transport two days after we left False Hope orbit, taking Hopkins with him.

Not wanting to think about the future, determined to leave the past behind, I try to lose myself in the day-to-day drudgery. I've had to reorganise the men again: there are only forty-seven of us left. I've made an ad-hoc command squad out of Franx, Kronin, Gappo, Linskrag, Becksbauer and Fredricks. The odier men are organised into four squads, with Poal, Donalson, Jorett and Slavini as the sergeants. Everyone's getting really shaky now; I need the calmest heads in charge if I'm ever going to survive this whole mess. With less than fifty of us left, we're a below-strength platoon, not even a full company of men. There's an unspoken feeling floating around the unit, a feeling that the end is getting very close. Roughly three thousand nine hundred and fifty Last Chancers have died in the past two and a half years, I can't see forty-seven of us surviving the next bat-de. Not if the Colonel comes back.

The thought of the Colonel's not returning doesn't leave me too optimistic either, I can't help feeling he's dumped us. There are too few of us to do anything useful that I can think of. I mean, given time the Departmento Munitorum can muster reg­iments numbering thousands of men, so what can four dozen Last Chancers do? In my gossiping with the ratings I've also learnt that we're heading to a system called Hypernol for re-supply. On the face of it, diere seems nothing particularly odd about that. On the other hand, I can remember some of the

men, dead now, who had been drafted in from a penal colony in die Hypernol system. The Colonel leaving and us being shipped to a penal colony - coincidence? I don't mink so. He's left us to rot, I'm sure of it.

I'm not the only one to add two and two. As usual, Franx and Gappo are sitting with me during the sludge-eating gala they call meal time, a few cycles after dropping back into warpspace, some three weeks after leaving False Hope.

'Can't believe that's it/ Franx says vehemendy, his voice a ragged whisper since his infection on the deathworld. 'Four thousand men dead, all over? Just like that, all finished? Doesn't make sense. What have we done? Fought in a bunch of wars, lots of men have died, but we haven't achieved anything. Can't believe this is the end/

'You think there's some grander scheme?' laughs Gappo. 'Don't be naive! We're just meat in the Imperial grinder, noth­ing more/

Л\Яш do you mean?' I ask the ex-preacher, slighdy disturbed at his words.

'Sitting on a prison hulk or in some penal colony, we were just dead meat, carcasses hanging from the body of humanity/ he replies after a moment's thought. 'We're all criminals, according to the Colonel, who have wasted our chance to serve the Imperium. It doesn't matter if we live or die, as long as we're doing something useful. So they give us guns, put us into a war and let us hurl ourselves at the enemy/

That's stupid, too/ argues Franx, shaking his head. 'If we're such a waste, why bother sending us anywhere? Why not just kill us? Men are hung and beheaded and shot, all punishments listed in the Codex Imperialis. Having a naval transport at our beck and call is unheard of. Those resources don't come cheap, somebody owes the Navy/

That isn't normal, I'll grant you/ Gappo concedes with a thoughtful look. Then again, we've all heard the Colonel. He genuinely believes in our Last Chance, in giving us an oppor­tunity to save our souls from Chaos by allowing us to serve the Emperor again/

'Can't see how the Colonel has enough clout to have a Navy transport seconded to us/ counters Franx, wagging a finger at Gappo. 'For all the Colonel believes in his mission to save our souls, I don't think it's enough of an argument to convince the

Lord Admirals to give him a ship that can carry stores for fifty thousand fighting men, to ferry around a few hundred. Logistics don't make sense/

'It's not just logistics, though/ I tell them, looking at Gappo then Franx. 'If you knew this was going to happen to you, would you have still defied the cardinal or let your men revolt against your superiors?'

'Not sure/ answers Franx, gnawing at his bottom lip in thought. 'Never really thought about it/

'I know what you mean/ Gappo exclaims excitedly, as if he's just stumbled on some secret truth about the galaxy. 'It's the deterrent, you're saying?'

We've been in twelve war zones now/ I remind them. 'How many other regiments have we come in contact with? There were at least thirty on our batdefront on Ichar IV; there's the Perditian Outriders from Octo Genesis, the Choreks at Deliverance, and about another ten from other places. They all saw or heard about the dirty jobs we have to do, the massive casualties we suffer. I know for a fact that if I'd seen this com­ing, my knife would have stayed firmly in my belt that time/

'Still doesn't explain why there's a few dozen of us left/ Franx argues, his voice rasping and quiet. Gappo's about to answer back but Franx holds up his hand to stop him. He takes a sip of his juice before continuing. Throat feels on fire... Anyway, it would make sense to round up convicts as we travel. Four thou­sand men are as much a deterrent as fifty, much more useful military force/

'So perhaps that's where the Colonel's gone/ I suggest with a smug smile. 'He's gone ahead to the penal colony to organise some new recruits. They'll be waiting for us when we arrive/

'I don't know which would be worse/ Gappo laments, look­ing thoroughly miserable again. 'Getting locked up in a prison somewhere for the rest of my life, or dying on a battlefield/

'I want to go down fighting/ I tell them firmly. "Whether the Colonel's right or not about my immortal soul, I want to die doing something that's worth a damn. I joined the Guard to fight for the Emperor, I ain't gonna rot in a cell, be sure about that/

'With you on this one, scarface/ Franx laughs. 'Give me a gun, a googly-eyed alien to shoot it at, and I'll die a happy man/

* * *

It's another twenty cycles before we drop from warp space into the Hypernol system. The tension and uncertainty is almost tearing us apart. A trooper called Dress was shot by the arms-men when he attacked a Navy warrant officer during unarmed combat drill. Another, Krilbourne, got a broken arm from a fight with Donalson, and everyone, including me, has a few bruises and cuts from flaring tempers. I've tried everything to ease the men: drilling them hard so they're too exhausted to scrap, organised a meal time rotation system so that everyone eats with everyone else and the squads don't get too isolated, stuff like that. None of it seems to be working too well, but then again maybe things would be a whole lot worse if I hadn't.

I'm not sure why I'm bothering, to be honest. Actually that's not true, when I think about it. On the face of it, I could quite happily let them strangle each other in their sleep, even Franx and Gappo, and I wouldn't shed a tear. Nearly four thousand in the regiment have died, and I hardly ever give them a second thought, except perhaps in my warp-dreams. No, it's not a con­cern for them individually that I'm worried about. It's my survival that bothers me. If the Last Chancers are going to keep going, which means I get to keep breathing, they need to stay sharp, need to keep it together as a fighting force. They always fight and bicker, more than even your normal Guardsmen, but in a fight they watch out for each other.

There's something about battle that unites men like us, whether it's for a common cause or, like us, just for survival. You're all in the same crap, and that makes a bond stronger than friendship or family. But as soon as the battle's finished, the cause is gone and they fragment again. I've come to realise a lot about these men, and myself along with them, over the past thirty months. They're born fighters, men who are at their best in combat. Any other situation and they're not worth a damn, but with a knife or a gun in their hands they seem a whole lot happier somehow. I know I am. I like to know that the man in front of me is the enemy and the one behind me is an ally. I can handle that without any problem. It's the rest of it that I can't stand: the politics and personalities, the responsibilities and the frustration and helplessness of it all. If you haven't been there, you might have some clue what I'm talking about, but to really understand you can't just watch, you have to take part.

* * *

It's with confusion and trepidation that we're herded back into the cell after exercise; rumours are flying everywhere that the transport the Colonel left in has come back. My feelings are mixed, and I'm just waiting to see who's come with him, if any­one, before I start worrying about the future.

Sure enough, an hour later the cargo hold door opens and the Colonel steps in. I bark orders to the Last Chancers, form­ing them up for the unexpected inspection. The Colonel walks along the five ranks, looking intently at each of the men, before standing next to me.

The men appear to be combat ready, Lieutenant Kage/ he quietly says to me.

They are, sir/ I reply, keeping my eyes firmly directed for­wards as my drill sergeant instructed me back in basic training.

You have done well, Kage/ he tells me and my heart skips a beat. I barely stop my eyes flicking to the right to see his face. That's the first word of praise I've ever heard slip from the Colonel's lips. It's stupid, I know, but to hear him sound pleased makes me feel good. The praise of this murderous bas­tard, this unfeeling tyrant, makes me happy. I feel like a traitor to the other Last Chancers, but I can't stop myself.

Той will have to reorganise the squads again/ he tells me. You have some new troopers/ He takes a couple of steps back towards the door and gestures to the armsmen waiting in the corridor. Two figures walk into the cell chamber and I stare in amazement at them.

The two of them are almost identical. Both are tail and slender and dressed in urban camouflage fatigues. Even in the yellow light of the cell their skin is incredibly pale, almost white, and so is their hair. Not silvery grey with age, but pure white, cropped about two centimettes long. As they march into the hold and stand to attention in front of the Colonel I can see their eyes, strikingly blue, a lot darker than the icy colour of the Colonel's, but still very disturbing. Looking more closely at them, I see that the one on the left is a woman. I can see the roundness of small, firm breasts under her shirt, and a curve to her hips which is alto­gether quite pleasing to the eye. There were about forty women in the Last Chancers when we first started out, but the last of them, Aliss, was killed on Promor about a year ago. The only women I've seen since then were the Battle Sisters at Deliverance, and they were always wearing power armour.

'See that they settle in, lieutenant/ the Colonel orders, snap­ping me from my contemplation of the finer points of the female form. He strides out and everybody relaxes.

'Names?' I ask, walking up to the new pair, my eyes still drawn to the woman.

'I am Loron/ the man says, his voice quiet, almost feminine. He indicates his companion. This is Lorii, my sister/

'I'm Kage. You two will join my squad/ I tell them, pointing towards where Franx and the others are lounging. Without a word they walk off, sitting next to each other near the wall, in the vicinity of the squad, but not really with them. Franx waves me over.

4Vho are they?' he asks, staring at the two troopers.

'Loron and Lorii/ I tell him, pointing each one out. 'Twins, I reckon/

'Not exacdy your normal guardsmen, are they?' Linskrug mutters, stepping up beside Franx, his eyes following our gaze.

"What do you call a normal guardsman, baron?' Franx asks with venom in his voice. There's always been a bit of a thing between the two of them. I blame Franx's experience with the officers of his regiment for his distrust of anyone from the Imperial aristocracy. Linskrug didn't help himself; he was a bit off-hand when he first arrived a couple of years ago. But since then I mink he's realised he's up to his neck in crap, just like the rest of us. Franx doesn't seem to have noticed the change, though.

'One with a bit of colour, I guess/ Linskrug chuckles, slap­ping Franx jovially on the shoulder. They do seem a bit distant though/ he adds.

'Quit staring, the pair of you!' I snap, tearing my own eyes away. They'll soon warm up, once they've shared a few meals and exercise periods. They certainly won't settle in with every­body giving them the wide-eyed treatment all the time/

'Gives me a strange feeling,' Franx says with a mock shudder before strolling off. Linskrug wanders away after another few sec­onds, leaving me standing there with my own thoughts. I glance at the two again. It's odd, you'd think that combat fatigues would make a woman look more masculine, but to my eye the manly clothing only emphasises her female attributes even more. Giving myself a mental slap to clear my thoughts, I march away, hollering for Poal and lorett's squads to report for exercise.

* * *

'Witchery, it must be! says Slavini, dropping to a crouch and bending his head forward to stretch the muscles in his back.

'I don't think they'd taint us with a thaumist/1 reply casually, continuing my own warm-up exercises.

'But nobody's heard them utter a word to each other/ protests the sergeant, standing up again. Twins are more prone to magical infection than others, everyone knows that/

'Well, they keep themselves to themselves/ I admit, 'but I'd prefer that to more gossiping old women and bad-mouths like you/

'Ah/ he says with a triumphant look, 'that's something else as well. In the week they've been here have they given you any trouble at all? Any fights started? Tried to steal anything?'

'No/ I tell him, rolling my head back and forth to loosen my neck. 'I wish you were all like them, in that respect/

'So it stands to reason, doesn't it?' Slavini says emphatically, looking at me for some sign of agreement.

'What stands to reason?' I ask him irritably, wishing he'd talk sense for a change.

Twins, perfectly behaved/ he says in a frustrated fashion, as if his point is obvious. 'Is there any other reason that they'd end up in the Last Chancers you can think of? Witchery, it has to be/

'It doesn't have to be anything of the sort!' I argue. 'Perhaps they're cowards, that's why they're so quiet. Maybe they refused the order to attack or something/

They certainly don't come across to me as cowards/ Slavini counters, leaning against the wall and pulling a leg up behind him with his free hand. There's something hard-edge in there, not fear, when they meet your gaze/

'Okay/ I admit, 'they don't seem to be cowards, but that doesn't make them psykers/

'Does to me/ Slavini exclaims, getting the last word in before jogging off along the gantry. Shaking my head in disbelief at his stubbornness, I run after him.

Like everyone else, I gaze open mouthed as the albino twins walk back into the cell after their exercise break. Lorii is stripped from the waist up, displaying her perfectly formed chest to all and sundry, a sheen of sweat glistening on her alabaster skin. She's talking quietly to Loron, their heads

leaning together as they walk, totally oblivious to all around them.

'Okay, put your eyes back in!' I snap at the men close by, and most of diem avert dieir gaze. I notice Rollis still staring from where he's sat with his back against the wall, and I begin to walk over to remind him who's in charge when I see something even more pressing. Donovan, a real snake from Korolis, is sidling towards the twins, rubbing sweat from his hands on his combats. I head off to intercept him, but I'm too slow and he stands in front of Lorii, stopping her. My stomach gives a lurch of anxiety, because I know mat whatever happens next, this is going to turn out bad.

"That's a fine showing, Lorii/ Donovan says with a leer. He reaches forward and places his right hand on her chest, gazing into her eyes.

She snarls, slapping his hand away angrily and trying to step past, but he wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her back with a laugh. I don't see exactly what happens next - they've both got their backs to me - but half a second later Donovan starts screaming his head off and drops to his knees, clutching his face. Lorii spins apart from him and starts to walk away widi Loron. I call out Lorii's name and she stops and walks over to me. She smiles sweetly, holding her right hand out, closed around something.

'I don't like being touched by perverts/ she says lighdy, her blue eyes staring straight into mine. I feel her place something wet in my hand before she turns and walks off. Looking down, I see one of Donovan's eyes staring back at me from my palm. My interest in her body immediately drops to below zero.

Gazing out through the small round port in the Colonel's office, I can see the world we're orbiting. It's grey and cloudy, not particularly remarkable. The Colonel is watching me intently, as always, and I self-consciously avoid meeting his eyes.

'Hypernol penal colony is on the moon of die planet below us/ he says, confirming my earlier suspicions. 'We will be trav­elling to the surface at die start of the last pre-midcycle watch. The Pride of Lothus will be re-supplying at the orbital mar­shalling station. When we reach the penal colony, I will be dispensing with the services of certain members of your pla­toon who have failed to perform satisfactorily/

'May I ask who, sir?' I inquire, curious about this change of attitude. The Colonel's never mentioned expelling anyone from the Last Chancers before. Up until now the only options for getting out have been death or a pardon. It seems to me we can die just as well as anyone.

*You may not/ the Colonel replies sternly, reminding me that I'm still gutterfilth in his eyes, for all of the recent increases in my responsibilities. He turns to look out of the port, and as I look away from his back I notice somediing out of the corner of my eye, on Schaeffer's desk. It's a picture of Loron on a file, and with the Colonel's attention elsewhere I lean forward a lit­tle to try to sneak a look.

"You could just ask, Kage/ the Colonel says without turning around.

'Sir?' I blurt out, startled.

"You could just ask what crimes Loron and Lorii have com­mitted/ he replies, looking over his shoulder at me.

"What did they do?' I ask uncertainly, wondering if this is some kind of trap or test being set by the Colonel.

'Disobedience/ the Colonel says simply, turning around fully. They refused an order/

'I understand, sir', I assure the Colonel, crowing inside because I was right and Slavini was wrong. Witches indeed!

'I am sure you will, lieutenant/ the Colonel says with an odd look in his eyes. 'Prepare for embarkation on the shuttle in one hour's time/ he adds before dismissing me with a waved hand.

'Okay,' admits Slavini when I tell him as soon as I get back to the holding pen. 'But that doesn't mean that's what really hap­pened, just because tiiat's what the record shows/

'Emperor, you're a suspicious man, Slavini/ I say sourly, annoyed that he still won't admit that he's wrong. 'Come widi me, we'll settie this once and for all/

I grab die sergeant's arm and drag him over to where Loron is sitting against the wall, staring at the floor. I put him and his sister on different exercise details in the hope that it would force them to communicate more with the others, but it just seems to have annoyed and upset diem. Well, I've had it with their introverted ways, they're going to become a part of the unit whether tiiey like it or not.

'What are you in for?' I demand, standing with my hands on my hips in front of Loron. He looks slowly up at me with those deep blue eyes of his, but doesn't say a word.

'As your lieutenant, I'm ordering you to tell me,' I snap at him, furious at his silence. 'Or is that another order you're gonna refuse?' I add viciously. He stands up and looks me straight in the eye.

'It isn't what you think/ he says finally, his glance moving back and forth between me and Slavini.

'So tell us what it really is/ I insist. He looks at us both again and then sighs.

'It's true that Lorii disobeyed an order/ he tells us slowly. I look smugly at Slavini, who scowls back. 'It was an order to retreat, not an order to attack/ he adds, and we both stare at him in astonishment.

'Ordered to withdraw, you refused?' Slavini says incredu­lously. You'll fit in nicely with the Last Chancers. Are you suicide freaks or something?'

'I was wounded in the leg/ Loron explains, face sombre. 'Lorii refused the order for general withdrawal and came back to get me. She carried me over her shoulders for the kilometre back to the siege lines. They said she had disobeyed orders and dishonourably discharged her at the court martial/

They didn't get you on some crappy conspiracy or complic­ity charge, did they?' I ask, wondering how Loron had ended up joining his sister.

'No/ he replies. 'I insisted I be discharged with her. They refused, so I punched the captain of my company. They were only too happy to throw me out after that/

To stay with your sister, you punched your captain?' laughs Slavini. 'No mistake about it you're fragging weird, man/1 look at the albino's sincere face, seeing an odd look in his eyes that makes me wonder even more about them. About where they're from.

Very well/ I tell him. 'I'll keep you and Lorii together from now on, if that makes you feel happier/

'It does/ Loron replies with a slight smile. He takes a step to walk past Slavini and then stops. He looks back at the sergeant and the smile on his face is gone.

'I would suggest you don't use words like freak and weird around Lorii/ he says, his voice dropping to a menacing tone. 'She is more sensitive and less reasonable than me/

I bet she is, I think to myself as Loron walks off, leaving Slavini visibly shaken. In an unconscious gesture, the sergeant rubs his eye with a knuckle and then wanders off, thoughts obviously somewhere else.

'So, Lorii,' Linskrug says, leaning as far forward as the shuttle safety straps will allow to talk across Kronin's chest, 'I bet you didn't think you'd be going back to the penal colony this soon!'

"We've not been in a penal colony/ she corrects him. The twins have begun to lighten up finally, as everybody gets used to them and gives them some space. For their part, they've started talking a bit more, as if the both of them have resolved that they're not going anywhere, so they better at least try to get along with some of the others. In fact, I'd say Lorii has got a soft spot for Linskrug, though I can't think what she sees in the handsome and once wealthy and well-connected baron. Kronin's asleep between the pair of them, snoring gently, as the shuttle takes us down to the moon.

'Sorry?' I say, catching on to what she said. I look over to my right where she's sitting next to the aft bulkhead. You mean the Colonel hasn't just picked you up from the penal moon we're going to?'

'No/ she says with a fierce shake of her head. "We've been fighting with a punishment battalion on Proxima Finalis for the past eighteen months/

"Why has the Colonel singled you out?' I ask.

"We weren't singled out/ Loron says, and we turn our heads to the left to look at him. 4Ve were the only ones left/

'Only ones?' Franx croaks beside me. 'How'd that happen?'

'Cluster bombs from ork fighter-bombers dropped straight into the middle of the battalion as we made an assault/ says Lorii and everyone's gaze shifts back to her. 'Blew apart two hundred troopers - everybody except my brother and me/

'Woah/ Broker says from the other side of the shuttle, shock showing on his face. That's pretty awesome/

^Vhat happened then?' I ask Lorii, curious as to how they ended up with us.

The commissars weren't sure what to do with us/ Loron con­tinues the story, dragging our eyes to the other end of the shuttle. That's when Colonel Schaeffer turned up again, had a word with the commissars and then brought us here/

Turned up again?' Gappo asks, before I get the chance. You'd seen him before?'

Yes/ Loron replies with a nod. 'It was over a year ago, when the punishment battalion was first formed. He came and met the captain. We don't know what they talked about/

I'm trying to work out what we were doing roughly a year ago. It's not that easy, for a number of reasons. For a start, in the past year or so we've been to five different worlds, and they all blur into one long war after a while. Added to that, what was a year ago for Loron and Lorii might not be the same for us, what with warp time and the rest. It's like this: a ship in the warp can travel so fast because time there doesn't flow the same as it does in the real universe. Well, that's how a tech-priest tried to explain it to me on my first trip off Olympas. In our universe, time passes normally, so the people on the ship might experience only a week to a month, while three months have really passed them by. I've not had any reference to, for want of a proper term, normal time since Ichar IV two of my years ago. For all I know, ten years might have really passed me by in that time.

The shutde suddenly lurches, slamming my head back against the hull and wrenching me from my reverie. Everybody's glancing about at each other, wondering what's going on.

"What the frag?' I manage to bark out before the shuttle dips to the right sharply, hurling me forward into my harness.

'Turbulence?' suggests Linskrug, the calmest among us. I twist my head over my shoulder to look out the viewport behind me. I can see the circle of the moon below us, too far away for us to be in its atmosphere yet.

'Nope/ I growl, pulling the release on my straps and hauling myself to my feet. 'Stay here!'

I try to work my way to the front bulkhead, leaning on peo­ple's knees as I pull myself along. The shuttle shudders and banks the other way, tossing me sideways and pitching me to my hands and knees. Clawing my way forward, I pull myself up the bulkhead and lean against the wall next to the comms-unit connecting us to the forward chamber where the crew and Colonel are. Pushing the switch to activate it, I steady myself some more as the shutde seems to waggle from side to side for a few seconds.

'What's happening Colonel?' I shout into the pick-up. The link crackles for about a second before I hear the Colonel, his voice distant and tinny.

'Get back to your seat, Kage/ he orders. The pilot has suffered a synaptic haemorrhage. Prepare for crash landing/

Everybody's looking at me, and they've heard what the Colonel said. Almost all of them seem to start talking at once, I can't make out a word diey're saying.

'Shut up!' I bellow, flicking the comms-unit off again and leaning with my back to the bulkhead. 'Check your harnesses are tight. Really tight. When we hit, get your arms over your face and keep your ankles and knees together. If we have to ditch after we land, Broker's squad goes first, followed by Donalson, Jorett and Slavini. I'll follow up. Until then, don't say anything/

The next few minutes pass agonisingly slowly as I stumble back to my place and strap myself in again. We're utterly help­less, just hoping that die pilot's back-up can regain some kind of control. The moon's got enough of an atmosphere to burn us up if we enter wrong, and even if we survive that we'll slam into the surface at something like a thousand kilometres per hour if die landing dirusters don't fire. Even if the dirusters do slow our descent, we could be spun around like crazy, smash­ing side or top first into the ground. Assuming the plasma chambers don't explode on impact and incinerate all of us, some of us might just get out of this alive.

It's about ten minutes after the first sign of trouble when I feel die hull vibrating widi die constant burning of attitude adjusters, altering our roll and pitch as we plunge towards the moon. That at least is a good sign, because it shows diat some­one's regained some manoeuvrability. Looking out die port again, die moon is looming large, filling it up. It's a sandy yel­low colour, orange wisps of cloud drifting through its atmosphere. The anti-glare shutters snap up, blocking my sight, protecting us from the blinding light caused by entry into the atmosphere. Half a minute later and the shuttle starts shaking violently, bouncing me a few centimetres or so up and down on die bench, despite die fact diat my harness is biting painfully tight into my gut and shoulders. I hear the whine of die engines turn into die customary roar as die turbo-jets kick in, and I realise we're not going to burn up. That still doesn't

help the fact that we were going twice as fast as we should have been. If the pilot hits the retros too hard he could snap the shuttle in half; if he goes too late we'll be flattened on impart.

The warning lights snap on, glowing a constant red, indicat­ing imminent landing.

'Get ready everyone!' I shout. I wait a moment to check they're all braced properly before wrapping my arms across my face, cupping my hands over my ears to stop my ear drums being blown out by any explosive change in pressure. My heart is hammering, my knees trembling as I try to press them together. This has to be the most terrifying experience of my life, because I'm totally helpless to do anything. There's not a single fragging thing I can do to alter whether I live or die, except protect myself and try not to tense up too much. That's easier said than done when you know you're plummeting groundwards at high speed.

The air fills with a high-pitched whistling as we scream down through the air. I grit my teeth until I remember that you're supposed to keep your mouth open. I can hear some of the troopers praying to the Emperor, and I offer a silent one of my own. Please don't kill me this way, I ask him. Keep me safe and I'll never doubt you again, I promise.

With a near-deafening crash we hit, and the impart hurls me backwards. I feel like we're skidding, the shuttle is jumping and lurching, yawing wildly left and right.

'Fragfragfragfragfrag!' I hear Franz wheezing next to me, but I'm relaxing already, realising that we're down and still alive. Then suddenly I feel light again and can sense us plummeting downwards, like we slipped over the edge of a cliff or some­thing. I pitch towards the front of the shuttle as we go into a nose-dive, and a wild screech forms in my throat, but I manage to bite it back in time. Everything is spinning wildly, making me dizzy and sick. There's a sudden jolt and the spinning changes direction. Across from me, Mallory gives a high pitched yelp and then dirows up across my boots. Then there's a sudden moment of calm and I can still hear Franx's cursing.

'Fragfragfragfragfragfrag!' he's spitting. I glance at him and see his knuckles are pure white, he's clenching his fists so tightly. It's then that I notice a pain in my palms and realise I've been digging my fingernails into my hand, even through the cloth of my gloves. Forcing myself to unclench my hands, I

stare fixedly at my knees, trying to ignore the nausea sweeping through me.

The next impart smashes my knees together and is accompa­nied by the wrenching sound of torn metal. And men we've stopped. Suddenly it's all over; there's no sense of motion at all.

'Frag me!' Slavini shouts, breaking the silence, punching a fist into the air, his voice shrill, a wild grin across his face. I'm grin­ning like a madman too. Someone starts whooping, I burst out laughing, other people are crying out with joy. Feeling hysteria threatening to overwhelm us all I bang my head sharply back against the fuselage, the pain jarring some sense back into me.

'Stow the celebrations/ I bark. 'Is everybody okay?'

There's a series of affirmatives, and then I hear Lorii's melodic voice.

There's something wrong with Crunch/ she says, indicating the burly guardsman on her left. I release my harness and make my way over to him, telling everybody to stay sitting in case the shutde shifts or something. Crunch is flopped in his seat, his head against his chest. I crouch down in front of him and look up into his open eyes. There's no sign of consciousness in them. As I stand up again, I notice a massive bruise on the back of his neck. Fearing the worst, I put a finger to his chin and lift his head up. As I suspected, there's no resistance at all.

'Damn/ I curse to no one in particular. 'His neck's snapped/ Letting Crunch's face flop back to his chest, I go along to the comms-panel.

'Everything all right up there, sir?' I ask.

The pilot is incapacitated, that is all/ the Colonel tells me, his voice crackling from the comms-panel. "What is your status?'

I glance around for another check before replying.

'One dead, probably a few dislocations, sprains and bruises, but that's all/ I report.

"We seem to have broken through the surface into a cave/ the Colonel's metallic voice tells me. 'Organise ten men for a sur­vey party, I will be with you shortly'

Switching off the comms-unit I turn back to the cabin. Everyone seems to have got over their initial delight, realising that we're stuck somewhere on this moon. We don't even know if the air outside is breathable, or anything else about this

place. There could be a fire in the engines for all we know, still threatening to blow us to the warp.

'Jorett, how's your squad?' I ask, stepping between the benches towards the sergeant. He glances back at them before replying.

'All present and able, Kage/ he tells me with a relieved smile. 'Fraggin' lucky us, eh?'

'Okay, when the Colonel gets here, we'll see where the frag we've ended up/ I say, dropping into the empty place next to Jorett and sighing heavily. Something always happens; the curse of the Last Chancers always manages to strike when you least expect it. Not even a simple shutde ran can go right for us.

What's that bloody noise?' Jorett asks as I hand out the rebreather masks and photolamps. I listen for a moment, brow furrowed, and hear it as well. It's like a scratching on the hull, an intermittent scraping noise.

'Haven't a clue/ I tell him with a shrug, pulling on the head­band of my own mask. Apparendy the moon's atmosphere isn't breathable, but other than that, and the darkness of being in an underground cave, everything else is tolerable. The Colonel's watching over the men as we attempt some rudi­mentary repairs to the engines; the power relays were punctured during the crash. The tech-priest pilot is phasing in and out of consciousness, and from his scattered mumbling it's clear we're not going to go anywhere until the engines are back on-line, and a few other things are fixed up. The warrant officer who took over piloting says his last navigational contact placed us about thirty kilometres from the penal colony, well out of marching range. We've only got enough rebreathers for a dozen people, and even if we had one for everybody the tanks last for only half an hour or so before they need refilling from the shut­tle's filtering system, and that's at full stretch at the moment, running on auxiliary power. We're going outside to check for any damage to the exterior, but there's been no hull breach as far as we can tell. If the shuttle's contaminant detection systems are working, that is.

We're running on secondary power with the engines offline and so have to hand-crank the ramp down. It's a laborious process, because two sealing bulkheads have to be lowered first to form an air-lock. It's sweaty work and the air circulators in

the small boarding cabin are almost at overload with the eleven of us puffing and panting, making the air stale and thin. After about an hour's work we're ready to get the ramp into position.

'Okay, get your masks in place/ I order, pulling down the mouthpiece of my own. I take a few experimental breaths to check it's working properly and then push the two nose plugs up my nostrils. I pull the visor down from my forehead, set­tling it across the bridge of my nose, and then check everybody else is ready. I get three of the men on each crank wheel, and they start turning, lowering the ramp centimetre by centimetre. I feel the wisp of a breeze blowing in as the air outside flows fit­fully inside. Five minutes later the ramp's down and I march down into the cave, switching on my photolamp. In its harsh red glare I can see the strata of different rocks in the jagged wall of me cave. Looking up, the beam disappears into the darkness, so the roof must be more than ten metres above us. I wave the rest down and set off towards the engines, the most vital part of the shuttle at the moment. Grit crunches underfoot, the floor littered with shards of rock brought down by our crash. I can hear the strange scratching noise again as I near the engine pods. The heat emanating from the thrusters makes me break out in a sweat as I approach closer.

I ran the beam of the photolamp over the nozzles of the thrusters, looking for any cracks or dents, but don't see any­thing. I see Jorett walk past me, playing his photolamp over the engine housing on the other side. He takes a step forward for a closer look and then straightens up, a frown on his face.

'Kage/ he says, voice muffled by the mask, waving me over, 'have a look at this/

Stepping up beside him I look carefully where his photo­lamp is pointing. In the ruddy glare I can make out a shadow about halfway up the engine housing, just above my head. It looks like a hole and I curse inwardly. If the housing is punc­tured, it'll need patching up before the men inside can go through to reconnect the relays. Then the hole seems to move, changing shape slighdy.

What the frag?' I hear Jorett murmur. Pulling myself up the grab rail a little, I peer closer. The hole isn't a hole at all. It's some kind of many-legged creature about the size of my hand. I can see its eyes glittering in my photolamp beam. Its ten legs

splay outwards, hooking on to the hull of the shuttle. Its three centimetre mandibles work in and out and I see a kind of froth by its mouth. It seems totally oblivious to my presence. I prod it with the photolamp but it doesn't even move. Something else catches my eye and I look further up the fuselage. I can see another two dozen or so of the things clamped to the hull. Bubbling rivulets run down the hull, leaving metallic trails through the heat-blackened paintwork.

'Send two men to the weapons locker in the boarding bay, and bring every flamer we've got/1 order Jorett. He hesitates for a second. 'Now, Jorett!'

They're eating the shuttle/ I tell the sergeant after he's sent a couple of his guys heading back to the ramp. 'Have a check up front, see how many more of them there are. If they penetrate the fuselage, the air will bleed out and everyone inside will choke to deatii...'

As he walks off, I turn my attention back to the alien bugs spread across the shuttle. Walking around to the far side of the shuttle, I count twenty more. I guess they must be like the ferro-beasts on Epsion Octarius, digesting metal ore from the rocks. The shutde must be one hell of a banquet for them, that's for sure.

There's about forty of the fraggin' things down here!' I hear Jorett's muted shout from the front of the shutde. The two men sent inside return, each carrying a couple of flamers. I take one from each of mem and tell them to get forward with the sergeant.

'Help me burn the litde fraggers off/1 say, passing the flamer to Lammax, the dream interpreter. I take a step back and push the firing stud on the ignition chamber, the blue flame spring­ing into life. Tossing my photolamp to one of the others, I take a firm grip of the flamer in both hands, bracing my legs apart, pointing the nozzle up at the top of the shutde. I pull the trig­ger and let flames spray out six metres across the shutde for a couple of seconds. In the pause between bursts I see flickering orange from ahead and know that Jorett's doing the same up front. Lammax opens up and I can see patches of steaming grease where the alien beasties used to be. Lammox redirects the flow of fire and burning flamer fuel slides down the hull, splashing a metre or so to my right.

'Watch where you're fraggin' pointin' that thing!' I cry out and the flames disappear. Opening up the flamer again, I send

an orange jet of fire washing over the thrusters, making sure none of the creatures are hiding inside the nozzles. For another minute I make my way sideways along the shuttle sending bursts across the roof every few metres. Patches of flamer oil carry on burning, stuck to the fuselage, illuminating the cave with a flickering orange light.

'Okay, cease fire!' I call out. Swapping the flamer for my pho­tolamp again, I clamber up the grab rails to stand on top of the shutde. Playing the beam of the photolamp across the roof, I can see blistered, melted paint and nothing else. I turn to call back to the others that it's all clear, when a strange noise starts echoing around the cave, a low continuous scraping. Scanning around with the photolamp, I see that there's a tunnel leading off about twenty metres from the rear of the shutde. As I look, I see a shadow moving down the tunnel towards us, accompa­nied by the same scratching sound we heard inside the shutde, only getting much louder.

'Oh frag,' I whisper as the tide of aliens sweeps into the chamber, spreading across die cave floor like a living carpet.

'Flamers!' I bellow to the oblivious guardsmen below, point­ing to the approaching mass of aliens. Jorett comes running back from the front of the shutde as once more blazing fires illuminate the cave. He sets himself up next to Lammax and fiddles for a moment with the nozzle of die flamer before send­ing a wide sheet of fire arcing towards die tunnel. I hastily clamber back to the ground, constantly looking over my shoul­der to see what's going on.

'We're bloody holding diem/ declares Jorett as he unleashes another burst.

Yes, but not forever, they're spreading out/ adds Lammax, pausing to point to his left. I see that it's true, the creatures are spilling around the flamer fire, threatening to surround us.

'Darvon! Thensson!' I call out to the troopers with flamers. 'Get yourself over there and push them back to the tunnel/ As they do as I ordered, I step up between Jorett and Lammax. We've got to keep die little fraggers contained within the tun­nel, where they can't get around us/

As we force them back, step by step, something else occurs to me.

'Did you see any other tunnels down the front?' I ask Jorett, casting a panicked glance behind me.

'Rest up/ he replies. That was the first fraggin' thing I checked/

Breathing a sigh of relief I step back and let them carry on with their work. A couple of minutes later and we're stood at the mouth of the cave. It's about two and a half metres across and the same high, almost circular.

'I'm out/ calls Thensson, pulling the flamer up to his shoul­der.

'Get to the weapons locker, there should be spare canisters inside/ I tell him.

They've stopped!' exclaims Darvon. Pushing past, I see he's right. There's no sign of them for the twenty metres we can see up the tunnel, before it curves away out of sight.

They'll be back/ I say heavily. They must have a nest or something close by, for that many to get here so quick. We'll go and hunt them down/

'Are you fraggin' sure?' asks Jorett. We've already been out here ten minutes. We've only got twenty minutes of fraggin' air left/

'Emperor alone knows how many of those things are up there/ I tell them. The flamers are almost out of fuel already. Who can tell how many more attacks we can stave off. No, we hit the lair, get them all in one place at the same time/

'I'm not sure...' Jorett continues, squaring up to me.

'I'm in charge/ I growl at him and he backs down, shaking his head.

I was right: the tunnel led direct to their nest, about two hun­dred metres from the shuttle. There's a massive cavern, the far wall too distant to see in the light of the photolamps. There's one more refill for each of the flamers, which might not be enough, because there's thousands of the creatures. They seem to be in some disarray, swarming haphazardly all over the place, covering the floor and scuttling along the walls and roof. Like before, they're not paying us any attention and I lead the squad further into the chamber. I can see another four tunnels leading off this cave, some heading up, others heading down, it's quite a network they've chewed themselves out down here. I wonder if the authorities at the penal colony know what's right under their feet.

'Sir/ Jorett attracts my attention with a terse whisper, jerking his head to one side. Looking over in that direction I see a mass

of yellow alien eggs, little fleshy sacs about the size of your thumb. They stretch across the floor in a rough circle, spread­ing beyond the beam of the photolamp, tens of thousands of them. In the ruddy glare of the photolamps I can make out a larger, darker shape. It's about a metre tall, bloated atop dozens of spindly legs, sitting on a pile of eggs at the centre of the nest.

'I reckon that's the breeder/ Darvon says with a meaningful look.

'Let's torch it!' I snarl, grabbing Darvon's flamer and heading towards the mother bug. It turns its head towards us as we reach the edge of the egg-pile, a cluster of eyes staring back at me, a look of intelligence in them. I raise the flamer and point it directly at the breeder, smiling grimly inside my mask. Just then I notice movement to my left and right. The other guards­men have noticed it too and start backing away from the eggs. From the side tunnels, another sort of creature is scuttling into view. They stand waist-high on ten many-jointed legs, with vicious-looking horns jutting forward from their insect-like heads. More and more of them are pouring in, hastening behind us to cut off our retreat.

'Run for it!' I bellow, pulling the trigger of the flamer, engulf­ing the mother alien in flames, seeing it writhe for a moment in the fires before collapsing in on itself. The air is filled with a hissing sound and the soldier bugs, I guess that's what they are, rush towards us, moving rapidly on their many legs. The others are already heading for the tunnel and I pound after them, jet­ting the flamer to my left and right a couple of times as the aliens get too close.

One of the soldiers scuttles up the wall around the tunnel entrance and hurls itself at Jorett, landing on his shoulders and clamping its legs around his face. He screams as it drives its horns into his throat, spraying blood as the sergeant falls to the floor. In his death-spasm the sergeant's finger tightens on the trigger of his flamer sending a gout of fire searing across the back of one of the other guardsmen, Mallory. Mallory flounders for a moment as the flames lick up his fatigues and his hair catches fire. He comes flailing towards me, his skin melting and bub­bling around his rebreather mask, eyes staring wide through the visor, and I have to leap to my right to stop him grabbing hold of me. He falls flat on his face, a gurgling shriek issuing from his lips. He claws at his face for a moment as his mask melts into the

flesh, before collapsing and lying still. I haven't got time to give him a second thought, two of the soldiers are between me and the tunnel, legs constricting, ready to jump. A flame whooshes out from the tunnel, incinerating the aliens in an instant, ashes wafting around in the heat of the fire. I see Thensson standing there, waving me on. Leaping over the charred, smouldering corpses of the soldiers, I head into the tunnel.

We make a fighting withdrawal down the passage towards the shuttle. Thensson, Lammax and I take it in turns to hold back the pursuing aliens before falling back past the next flarner man. It takes us another ten minutes to get back to the cave, where we make our stand again at the tunnel entrance. Lammax is on point when I see that he's aiming too low; some of the soldiers are scutding along the roof of the passage. I shout out, but it's too late, one of them drops on to him, spikes piercing his shoulder. Darvon grabs the thing and flings it away and I drag Lammax out of the way as Thensson steps up to take his place, the first burst from his flarner scouring the ceiling.

Lammax is trying to scratch at the wound, but I hold his hand away, kneeling on his chest to stop him thrashing around too much. The puncture is deep, but doesn't look too bad until I see a thick, tar-like substance smeared with the blood - poi­son probably. Lammax recognises the look on my face and glances at his shoulder, eyes wide with horror. Tears of pain roll down his cheek, pooling at the bottom of his visor. With a lunge, he pushes me off his chest, wrenching the knife from my belt. I make a grab to get it back, but I'm not quick enough; he rams it into his chest up to die hilt.

'Right!' I shout, standing up and pushing the others away from where they've clustered around Lammax's body. 'Everyone share a rebreather and get back on the shuttle. Leave the rest for me.'

"What the frag are you talking about, sir?' demands Thensson over his shoulder.

'We don't know how long it's going to take to fix the shutde engines/ I explain hurriedly, jabbing a finger down the tunnel to remind Thensson to keep watch. 'One man can hold this tunnel just as well as all of us, and if you give me your masks I'll be able to stay longer than if everyone stands out here together/

You get back on board/ insists Darvon, picking up Lammax's flarner, 'and I'll hold 'em off/

'Don't even think about arguing with me on this one/ I snap back. This ain't self-sacrifice crap, I just don't trust you not to get yourselves killed. Now give me that flarner and get your sorry hide onto that shuttle/

They exchange glances with each other, but when they see the determined look in my eye, I see them give up the fight. Thensson backs away, firing a final burst of fire down the tun­nel, before hooking the strap of the flarner off his shoulder and leaning the weapon up against the wall.

'Soon as you run out of fuel or air, get inside/ he says fiercely, staring at me, daring me to contradict him.

'Get out of my sight/ I say, shooing him away with a wave of the flamer.

I'm left on my own, with three flamers and about an hour's worth of air. I just hope it's enough because one way or the other, if either isn't enough I'm a dead man.

I've fended off another half a dozen attacks over quarter of an hour when Thensson comes running up beside me. I've already had to swap masks once, and the tank on the one I'm wearing is getting low.

'What the frag are you doin' here?' I demand, pushing him back towards the shutde.

The Colonel sent me to tell you that main power's been restored/ he says, batting my arm away. 'It'll be another half an hour before we can ignite the take-off thrusters. Do you reckon you can hang on that long?'

This flamer's almost out, the others are both half full/1 reas­sure him. He nods and heads back to the shutde, glancing once more over his shoulder. My attention is back on the tunnel as I see another wave of aliens scutding towards me. I fire the last shot from the flamer and then toss it to one side, grabbing another from beside me and opening up again straight away. It's going to be a long half hour.

I reckon there's four, maybe five, shots left in the last flamer. I'm onto the last rebreather as well, and I glance back towards the shutde to see any sign that they've succeeded in fixing the thrusters. There isn't. Looking back down the tunnel, I can see

a mound of twisted, burnt alien bodies, half-filling it. The crea­tures are amazing, throwing themselves time and time again into certain death. I can't understand why they do it. They don't look intelligent enough to be out for vengeance for killing their breeder, and the shuttle isn't worth the hundreds of dead they've suffered. Then again, people have asked me why I don't just kill myself rather than stay in the Last Chancers, fighting battle after battle. They've got a point, because if I did it myself I could make sure it's quick, clean and painless, rather than risking agony and mutilation on the bat­tlefield. But for me, that isn't the point. I am not going to die for the Colonel.

Once, I was willing to die for the Emperor and the Imperium, but the more I've seen of what they represent, the more I've decided they aren't worth it. I've been around a fair bit in the last three years, since I signed up for the Imperial Guard, and I've not seen anything that makes me think all the sacrifices are any use. Millions of guardsmen and Navy guys are dying all the time, and for what? So that ingrate planetary commanders, car­dinals and officers can notch up another pointless victory? So that some Departmento Munitorum or Administratum clerk can make a notation on a star chart to say that a worthless lump of rock is still under Imperial control? So that I can be stood here on this stupid moon, facing a swarm of alien beasts on my own so that I can go off and risk my neck in some other damned war?

I'm starting to feel dizzy now; the air from the mask has almost run out. I wipe a hand across the visor of the mask a few times before I realise the spots are in my eyes not on the plas-tisteel lenses. There's movement on the heap of dead and I see the aliens pouring towards me once again. I lift the flamer up once more, the gun feeling heavier than it did a moment ago. I pull the trigger and a sheet of fire roars down the tunnel, scorching the live aliens into ashes.

I gasp when I try to take my next breath and I realise with panic that the tank's empty, there's just what's left in the mask itself. More of the aliens are streaming down the tunnel and I manage to fire again, my throat tightening as I try to breathe non-existent air. The dizziness floods up into my head and my legs just collapse underneath me. I can hardly move, but I can see the darker shadow of the alien wave getting closer. I'm

choking, my chest tightening, but I manage to angle the flamer in front of me and fire again, forcing the soldiers back a final time. All life goes from my fingers and I see rather than feel the weapon slipping from my grasp. I try to push myself up, to find some last reserve of strength, but there's none there this time. There's a roaring in my ears and blackness swirls around me.

I jar awake, feeling something touching me. Flailing around weakly with my arms, I try to fend off the soldier aliens. One of them rips the mask off and I feel something clamping down on my face. Suddenly my lungs fill with fresh air, and I can feel myself being dragged across the ground. As my vision returns, I see Thensson firing a flamer up the tunnel before grabbing it by the stock and hurling it down the passage, shouting some­thing I can't hear. As I'm bundled up the ramp, I see a wave of blackness pour over and around the guardsman, flooring him. Spikes rise and fall, stabbing repeatedly into his body, blood spurting from deep wounds. With a whine the ramp begins to close, obscuring the scene.

"We're in!' I hear someone behind me call out. I'm laid flat on my back and I stare at the glowglobe in the ceiling, entranced by its yellow light. It seems blindingly bright after the cave, but I keep staring at it. The floor beneath me begins to shake violently and I feel the increase in weight that indi­cates we've taken off. Out-of-focus faces cluster into my vision; people talk, but their voices are just a mixed-up burbling. I close my eyes and concentrate on filling my lungs as much as possible.

The jury-rigged shuttle managed to make it the score of kilo­metres to the penal colony, where the Colonel commandeered one of theirs to take us back to the Pride of Lothus. The tech-priest died from his feedback injury before we reached the colony, and we left the body there. As we're disembarking into the transport's shuttle bay, I approach the Colonel.

'You didn't leave anyone behind, sir/ I point out.

You are right, I did not,' he replies, watching the guardsmen plodding exhaustedly down the ramp.

'And we're not getting any new recruits, either?' I suggest, watching his face for some betrayal of what he might be think­ing, but there's nothing there at all.

You are not/ he confirms, finally turning to look at me.

'Why, sir?' I ask after a moment, wondering if I just need to ask, like he said with Loron and Lorii's history.

'None of them were good enough/ is all he says, looking straight at me and then turning to walk away.

'Good enough for what?' I ask, trotting after him.

"You are full of questions today, Kage/ he says, striding across the mesh decking. He looks over his shoulder at me, sizing me up, and then seems to reach a decision. 'Come with me back to my chamber, the armsmen know how to get your men back to the holding pen/

We walk in silence, my head spinning with thoughts. What was he going to show me? Or was he going to give me a dress­ing down in private, not wanting to spoil discipline by taking a few lumps off me in front of the troopers? Then again, it's never stopped him before.

The Colonel keeps glancing at me as we ascend through the decks on the ironwork escalator. This sudden turn of events both worries and excites me. As we walk down the corridor towards his study, one of the robe-shrouded flunkies approaches from the other direction. He gives me a startled look but doesn't say anything. We both follow the Colonel inside and he closes the door behind us.