The NEW, revised Last Chancers series analysis thread

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2012-12-28 09:27pm

Oh.

Yeah that sounds awesome. :O

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2013-01-15 06:25pm

And we're back with 13th Legion. Last of the 'training' and the start of the actual mission that Kage and his comrades have been winnowed down for.

Page 101

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 battle.

4000 last chancers at the start (once again.)

Page 102-103

"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.."
..
"Can't see how the Colonel has enough clout to have a Navy transport seconded to us.."
...
"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."

The transport's normal complmeent is 50,000. And the Colonel's access to the ship (as a secondment) is considered unusual.

Page 104

...rumours are flying everywhere that the transport the Colonel left in has come back...

Again, suggesting the transport has warp capabilities. He left with one guy and comes back with two different ones from a new location, and again no other starship is mentioned (if another was involved, rendezvous with the transport would make more sense, rather than the Colonel going to fetch them.) Given they join the Last chancers, it makes you wonder if they were a special case, or was the Colonel winnowing down several regiments simultaneously (or one after another, and then stashing them away) in order to prepare his force.

Page 111

"We've been fighting with a punishment battalion on Proxima Finalis for the past eighteen months."
..
"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."

Size of a penal battalion.

Page 111

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.

Comment of time dilation in the warp.. given the implied ratio, a week or month in the warp equals 3 to 12 weeks in realspace (3-12x dilation)

Page 112

Assuming the plasma chambers don't explode on impact and incinerate all of us, some of us might just get out of this alive.

Shuttle has plasma reactors onboard.

Page 115-116

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...
...
"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.

Rebreathers.

Page 120

They stand waisthigh on ten many-jointed legs, with vicious-looking horns jutting forward from their insect-like heads.
...
...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.

Assuming they mass 20-30 kg total (10-15 kg apiece), we'd probably be talking 40-60 MJ at least to cremate them. It's just an approximatino though, but another case of flamers cremating.

Page 125

"You all know my promise," the Colonel says, the first words he's uttered to me since we left the shuttle hangar. "I give you a last chance. If you die in my service, you have earned the right for absolution. It means a number of things; it is not just sophistry. Your name can be entered into the Imperial annals as serving the Emperor and doing your duty. If we know who they are, your children will be cared for by the Schola Progenium; your families will be contacted and told the manner of your death."

You know, if you're not a coldblooded, selfish bastard... that can have quite a few benefits since it means your children can be cared for, amongst other things. Of course being cared for by the Schola serves the Imperiums benefits, since it means they can churn out more fanatically indoctrinated minions as well.

Page 127

..scribes and logisticians scurried to and fro carrying information detailing the latest enemy offensive. In the centre of the room, amid banks of dials and tactical displays, a hololithic projector showed a schematic diagram of the fortress, red blinking icons indicating the positions of enemy formations. Blue symbols represented the defenders, mustering to their places to fend off the assault.

Hololithic display.

Page 131

And what's this authority he says he has? As far as I know, the only non-naval rank who can command a ship to do something is a warmaster, and that's because it takes the nominations of at least two admirals to make you warmaster to start with. Well, so they told us when they explained the local ranking system when I joined up.

Election to Warmaster. Apparently this is a 'local' rating, even though other sources have repeatedly noted there is ever only one Warmaster in the Imperium at a time.

Page 132

The
Colonel had a Navy tech-priest look over our Chimeras, bearing in mind the freezing conditions they'll be operating in. We've got vegetative processors loaded on board the Chimeras in case we need to chop down trees to fuel them. Blizzard filters have been installed over the intakes and exhausts and double-graded ignition systems fitted to the chargers to make sure they won't ice over.

Cold weather adaptations to Chimeras. including 'vegetative processors' so you can run them off trees.

Page 132-133

Then I can see it, nothing more than a shooting star at this range, sweeping past the furthest frigate.

...
"How the hell do you know it's eldar?" asks Gappo incredulously from my right.

"Watch how they turn," Jamieson tells us, nodding towards the window. I strain my eyes for a few minutes before I can see the orange-red spark again. Then I see what Jamieson means. The pinprick of light slows for a second or two and then speeds off in another direction entirely. Even burning retros and working the manoeuvring thrusters to maximum, one of our ships could never turn that tightly. Nowhere near that tightly, in fact.

Comment on the manuverability of Eldar starships. In this case its dark eldar, but they can change direction and speed apparently within a couple of seconds. Bear in mind to hit the target at thousands or tens of thousands of km the projectile would easily have to be moving at thousands/tens of thousands of seconds, although the kind of projectile affects this (does it need direct hits or proximity hits to do damage? If the latter, velocity can be alot lower. And if its guided velocity cna go down further still.)

Page 133

I realise it's the Justice of Terra powering across us, over the top of the transport just a few kilometres away. She's immense: gallery after gallery, rows and rows of gunports moving into view. Even through the blast-filter tint of the armaglass I can see the directional engines burning briefly into life along her port side, pushing her a bit further from us. Her plasma drives start to come into view, huge cylinders crisscrossed by countless kilometres of massive pipes and cables, feeding vital power from the plasma reactors deep within her armoured hull.

Cruiser

Page 133-134

The Navy may have some strange ideas about strategy and defence, but you have to hand it to them, they know a hell of a lot about firepower. Their anti-ordnance defence turrets have weapons larger than those carried on Titans, their barrels over ten metres long, dozens of the point-defences studding the hull of a ship the size of a cruiser. Their broadsides vary, sometimes they have huge plasma cannons capable of incinerating cities, other times it's mass drivers that can pound metal and rock into oblivion. Short-ranged missile batteries can obliterate a smaller foe in a matter of minutes, while highenergy lasers, which Jamieson tells me are called lances, can shear through three metres of the toughest armour with one devastating shot. Most cruisers carry huge torpedoes as well, loaded with multiple warheads charged with volatile plasma bombs, carrying the power to unleash the energy of a small star on the enemy. It makes my humble laspistol look like spit in an ocean.

More like a hundred oceans, actually.

Armaments of a cruiser. Dozens of titan-scale (well bigger) defence turrets. Plasma cannon that can 'incinerate cities' (implying megaton or greater level firepower). Missiles can destroy foes (smaller ones) in minutes. Lances penetrat 3 metres of armour per shot.

Torpedoes release the energy of a small star on the target. Naturally this cannot be taken as anything but hyperbole (snicker) but if it wasn't hyperbole, we might infer that as hundreds of gigatons to several teratons. Whether thats per warhead or for the torpedo as a whole (or for the torpedo volley as a whole) we don't know, but its damn impressive. I should note I've had some interesting discussions with a few other 40Kers I know, and apparently Gav Thorpe is big on the belief that modern nukes would be a hugetastically devastating weapons in 40K terms (particularily in space) even weapons like we saw in Hiroshima. Which does sort of fit given his HH writings (12 megaton bombs blowing up a battle barge purportedly) but if that is then its an opinion not every 40K author shares, and his lack of attnetion to numbers sometimes contradicts him in this. Either way its still interesting to know.

Page 134

We have three of the Chimeras on board one of the dropships and are getting ready to take another two onto the other...

Drop ships seemingly can carry 3 chimeras apiece, and their crews. Rather small by dropship standards (contrast with some depicted in the IG novels, for example.)

Page 134

I can't see the ship clearly, it's defended by what we call holo-fields, which twist and bend light so you can't see the exact location and sends augurs and surveyors haywire. Another example of the infernal witchcraft the eldar use in their weapons and machines

Holo fields. Rather odd DE have those.

Page 136

...I can see men being hurled to the floor by blasts of dark energy, or torn to shreds by hails of fire. Right in front of me I see a pulsing star of blackness burst through the Navy ranks, smashing through a handful of men, tossing their charred bodies into the air and flinging severed limbs and heads in all directions.
...
..whickering noise from the eldar's splinter rifles and cannons.

Splinter weapons and dark energy (matter) beams.. definitely dark eldar.

Page 137

Their armour is plated and covered in blades and spikes, which glisten in the erratic light of the firelight.

Again, armour suggests Dark Eldar

Page 137

His visor is pushed back and I see his hate-filled snarl as he opens up with the shotgun, a dozen shots crashing through the approaching eldar in the space of a few seconds. Pulling the dram magazine from the shotgun and flinging it aside...

Drum magazine automatic shotgun. a dozen shots in a few seconds, suggesting a ROF between 240-360 RPM.

Page 140

I look back out of the window and see the launch doors beginning to buckle under the strain. The huge doors, three metres thick, give way with a loud screeching, each one weighing several tons, ripped off their massive hinges and flung into the darkness. All hell breaks loose on the shuttle bay deck as shuttles, dropships, Chimeras, men and eldar are sucked into the air by the escaping atmosphere.

Thickness of doors. Given they're big enough for Chimeras and drop ships to fly out of, I'm willing to bet they weigh a whole hell of alot more than 'several tons'. On the other hand, we've just had a lenghty discussion about the problems in this passage so the doors are really the least of this scene's problems.

Page 143

"He was driving one of the Chimeras onto the dropship while the assault boats closed. Was still inside while we were battering it down. Could have used the on-board transceiver. Good for fifteen kilometres, plenty of time to send a quick message to his alien accomplices."

Range of onboard comms of Chimera.

Page 144-145

As he doubles over gasping for breath, I grab his greasy hair and smash my knee into his face. In a flash of blood-red I can see Slavini's face again, exploding, slowed down in my mind's eye.
..
But I can't stop; I keep getting flashes of those men sucked into the darkness, blood turning to thousands of sparkling crystals in the freezing void. I claw my left hand and rake it down his face, punching the fingers into his eye sockets.

It's then that I realise that I'm not the only one beating him. Fists and feet are pitching in from all around, pummelling him this way and that, driving him to the floor. I stagger back as others force their way into the fray, and all I can see is Rollis writhing under a storm of kicks and stamping boots.
...
Another flurry of blows descends on the traitor, accompanied by the sound of breaking bones.
...
It's then that everyone realises that it's all over. Without another word spoken everybody disperses, each making their way back to their regular spots. I look at the broken, battered corpse of Rollis, and I feel nothing. No hate any more, no contempt. I don't feel sorry either. He was a total bastard, and whether or not he betrayed us to the eldar, he had this coming a long time.
...
"He never deserved a last chance; he should have been executed a long time ago. Some things are beyond forgiveness. I'm surprised it took a bunch of criminals like us to realise that."

Another one of those 'dual' scenes, shocking for the sheer brutality of one set of criminals turning on another, but also shocking because they seem to have standards (or Kage at least sees it that way.) - they may be horrible but even there are limits. And yet it's also personal - they hated the guy and felt he deserved his fate even if he didn't betray them like he believed. He didn't 'measure up' to their standards and thus suffered the fate. It's very.. tribal. And at the same time it shows Kage is not a total psychotic or cold killer - he's driven by his own inner turmoil, his conflicts, and violence seems to be one way he comes to term with that (we see this again later.)

Page 147

"Admiral Becks, your plan is totally unacceptable," the wizened warmaster said, smoothing the folds in his long black trench coat. "It is impossible to reduce Coritanorum from orbit."
...
"Nothing is impossible to destroy, Warmaster Menitus..."
...
"It may take a decade of bombardment, but we can annihilate that rebellious fortress and everyone in it."
...
"By ancient decree, as long as Coritanorum still stands, Typhos Prime remains the capital world of the Typhon Sector and the Typhos Supreme Guard are excused off-world duties. My superiors will do nothing to endanger that privileged position."
...
"Then you will send in another ten thousand men to be slaughtered in yet another hopeless assault?"

Ah, politics between Guard and Navy. The Navy offers to solve the problem via orbital bombardment and save the Guard the loss of life a ground war entails, but politics (or stupidity, greed, take your pick. Certianly don't want the Supreme Guard having to serve offplanet, do we?) dictates it as 'impossible.' Why it might take a decade to reduce the fort, I don't know.

Page 147

"You should concern yourself with keeping track of Hive Fleet Dagon, admiral.."

Hive Fleet Dagon. I wonder if this is the successor splinter to Kraken?

PAge 149

..the locals use a transport built from a Chimera chassis on top of a set of skis and driven by a giant turbofan engine.

Local chimera variant.

page 150

"The southern polar regions kick up some weird element that fritzes comms transmissions over any distance greater than about two hundred metres. Every station has an astrotelepath to communicate with relay satellites in orbit. In the summer it isn't so bad, but the timing of the ork invasion couldn't have been worse for us."

Weather difficulties of some sort fuck with comms, so they use astorpaths to communicate with orbital relay sats. How they do that I have no clue.

Page 150-151

"Ansidium ninety!" he tells us with a grin. "There's millions of tons of ansidium ore beneath the rock."

"What's so damn useful about ansidium ninety?" I ask, wondering what could be so important that three million people would live in such an inhospitable environment.

"It produces a catalyst agent used in plasma reactors," he says, pulling a plasma pistol from its holster among his snow-covered saddlebags. "It's one of the most stable ignition elements for plasma weapons, for a start. They say a plasma gun made with Kragmeer ansidium has only a forty-five per cent malfunction rate."

Ansidium ninety and a bit on plasma reactors and weapons (including similarities in design, it seems.)

Page 156

At least we're getting some fresh food, roasted snow-ox, Kragmeerian pod-wheat and other such basics. It's good wholesome stuff. The Colonel realises that we wouldn't be able to carry on in these conditions on a bowl of protein slop a day.

Local cuisine.

Page 157

It [Kragmeer day] lasts about half as long again as a Terran day, which is what they use for the shipboard wake and sleep cycle. In the middle of winter, that's still twelve hours of straight slog..

Local timeframe, as well as shipboard time synched (unshockingly) to Terran standard.

PAge 158

...a few of us try to get as close as possible to the portable cooker, desperate for any warmth.
...
..the stoves have been chosen for their suitability for the conditions, using a hot plate rather than an open flame that could set light to the tent.

For heat and cooking.

Page 162

"Depends on how fast the orks are moving, sir"' he replies with a shrug. "A ploughfoot can cover the ground from the pickets in a couple of hours, and assuming the cloud stays up, you should be able to spot a force that size a good ten kilometres away."

"About five or six hours, then?"

Implies Ork speed through snow of a few km/hr/

Page 164

The detachment in the primary trenches open fire with their heaviest weapons at about eight hundred metres, the crack of autocannons reverberating off the valley sides. I can see the sporadic flash of fire from the gun pits dug into the trenchlines, about three hundred metres further down the slope from where I am. The orks respond by starting a low chant, which slowly rises in volume as uiey advance, until it drowns out the fire of heavy bolters and lascannon.

Weapions ranges against Orks.

Page 167

We're about fifty metres from the orks, charging full speed towards them, men slipping and floundering in the snow, the greenskins encountering similar difficulties. I start firing with my laspistol again, dismayed to see the flashes of energy striking targets but not having too much effect against the tough aliens.

Kage's laspistol range, at least when charging.

Page 168

The las-bolt from my pistol takes it squarely in the left eye, smashing out the back of its head, flinging the creature down into the snow.

Kage's laspistol blows out the back of an Ork's skull. Single/double digit kj at the very very least.

Page 179

It's kind of a tradition that an Imperial Guard regiment serves for a maximum of ten years at which point it can retire, maybe returning home or going off to join the Explorator fleets and help claim a new world for the Emperor. A lot of them won't spend half that time fighting. I've been up to my neck in blood and guts, seeing men and women and children dead and dying, for nearly three years now.

Interesting that Kage believes the max time in the Guard is 10 years (unless one voluntarily stays in, which some do.) or more probably regimental traditions ays otherwise (MEat Droid Kriegers ain't ever getting out I suspect.) He also seems to think they don't endure nearly as much combat as the Last Chancers have.

Page 179-180

Just then there's a screech of airbrakes and a black-painted armoured car slews to a halt in front of us, twin cannons on its roof pointing in our direction. A man jumps out of the back hatch, bolt pistol in hand, dressed in a commissar's uniform.
..
Ten black-clad troopers pour from the armoured car, thick carapace breastplates over their uniforms, faces hidden behind dark visors. The Commissariat provosts have us surrounded...
...
..at the bulky laser carbines pointed at us...

Commisarial provosts/troopers and an armoured vehicle lage enough to hold fifteen (10 troops, commissar, and at least 4 prisoners.)

Page 184

"One squad… twelve men."

Size of a squad on/in Coritanorum.

Page 191

Red fire explodes everywhere, plasma shells spewing a torrent of molten death onto the far side of the trench where the recruits had been
lounging.

(liquid) plasma shell. some sort of incendiary probably.

Page 192

"Without thinking I thrust with my stained blade into this guy's shoulder. He just takes it, can you believe that? A span of mono-edge in his arm and the guy just takes a pace back."

Kage has had a mono-edged knife since before joining the Last Chancers. Must be IG issue where he comes from.

Page 193

"They ain't flares. They're landing barges evacuating this battle-zone. There are twenty or thirty transports up there in orbit, waiting to pull out. Guess they've decided to wipe out everything from space - virus bombs, mass drivers and all the rest.

Coritanorum is a lost cause now. The rebels are too well dug in. In the past eighteen months, there've been thirty-eight assaults and we haven't advanced one pace. They're pulling back and guess who's left to hold the front line…"

Mass drivers to (I presume) wipe out all life on the planet, like with virus bombs. Exterminatus for all intents and purposes

Page 194

Suddenly, there's a howling roar directly overhead and a squadron of Marauders streak across the sky, Thunderbolt fighters spiralling around them in an escort pattern. While the others cower in stupidity, I see a line of fiery blossoms blooming over the enemy positions. Our own artillery has set up a counter-barrage and the incoming fire suddenly stops. Then the attack run of the Marauders hits, sending up a plume of smoke as their bombs detonate and the blinding pulses of lascannon smash through the enemy fortifications and explode their ammo dumps. The ground attack is over in an instant as the planes light their afterburners and scream off into the storm.

...
"Bombardment, air attack - next comes the orbital barrage," I tell them. I've seen it half a dozen times, standard Imperial battle dogma. "Those damned rebels are in for some hot stuff tonight!"

Just as I finish speaking, the clouds are brilliantly lit up in one area and a moment later an immense ball of energy flashes towards Coritanorum. The fusion torpedo smashes into the citadel's armoured walls, smearing along the scarred and pockmarked metal like fiery oil. Several more salvoes rain down through the storm, some shells kicking up huge plumes of steam as they bury themselves in the mud before detonating, others causing rivulets of molten metal to pour down Coritanorum's walls like lava flows.

Then the rebels' anti-strike batteries open up, huge turrets swivel skywards and blasts of laser energy punch through the atmosphere. For almost a minute the return fusillade continues, dissipating the clouds above the fortress with the heat of their attack. The ship in orbit must have pulled out, as no more death comes spilling from the cloud cover.

Aerial, Artillery, and Orbital bombardments, as well as counterfire.

Page 196

...the remnants of another squad joins us, two of the guardsmen carrying grenade launchers. They start fiddling with their sights to get the correct trajectory but by this time there's more incoming fire as the snipers behind the ridge get reinforcements. I snatch one of the launchers, select a frag round and send the charge sailing through the air.

Single squad with 2 grenade launchers, and the launchers have variable selection 'yield'

Page 199

As I had predicted, the turret turns with a slow grinding and the huge Demolisher cannon, wide enough for a man to crawl inside, tilts upwards.

Apparently the demolisher cannon has an improbably huge diameter.. considering a man is probably 300-500 mm 'wide' depending on the kind of guy, we're talking a good 12"-20" shell. Which seems.. crazy. but meh. Inferno says they can have autoloaders so who the hell cares.

Page 201

...Wall upon wall stretch into the hills, gun ports blazing as the artillery barrages a point in the line a few kilometres west of us.
Searchlights roam across the open ground before the fort, showing the rows of razorwire, the mass of plasma and frag minefields, the tank traps, death pits, snares and other weapons of defence.

Range to and defenses of rebel fortress.

Page 205

The Colonel told me on the way here that just after they left me Gappo managed to find a plasma charge minefield, the hard way, and was scattered liberally over a wide area.

Plasma minefields.

Page 207

"I am two hundred and eighty-six," he wheezes back sadly, head hung low. "They took my enhancements away and without regular doses of anti-agapic oils I'll suffer increasing dysfunctions within the next month owing to lack of maintenance."

AdMech life extension and maintenance.

Page 209

"there is the small matter that Coritanorum is the most impregnable citadel in the sector, the most unassailable fortress for a month's warp travel in every direction."
..
"The fact that five hundred thousand Imperial Guard, backed up by the Imperial Navy, haven't been able to take the place doesn't vex you?"

Forces assailing the planet and the scale of its defenses.

Page 211

We're sitting on a rocky hillock, about eight hundred metres past the current Imperial trenchline, as far as I can tell. A plain stretches out for a few kilometres in front of us, swarming with rebels. It seems to be a kind of staging area, the open ground buzzing with activity

Approximate distance between Imperial lines and the fort.

Page 211-212

Two gatehouses flank a big armoured portal dug into an outcrop of rock from the mountain into which most of the citadel is dug. It's that mountain that makes it so easy to defend, rendering it impervious to all but the most sustained and concentrated orbital bombardment. Who knows how deep its lowest levels go? The parts that are above ground are rings of concentric curtain walls, each metres thick and constructed of bonded plasteel and rockcrete, making it hard to damage with shells and energy weapons, their slanted shape designed to deflect attacks towards the dead ground between them.

The fortress in depth.

Page 213-214

"Oh, we have some very large ordnance, Mr Kage," he says, pulling a complex-looking device from beneam his cape. He squats down and opens up a shutter in the fist-sized box, holding it up to his eye. His fingers travel back and forth along a row of knobs down the side of what is evidently a range-finder or something, making small adjustments. Pulling the box away from his face, Striden looks down and I see a series of numbers and letters displayed on a digi-panel. He nods with a satisfied look and then looks upwards into the cloud-filled night sky.
...
"..and it looks as if there is a counter-cyclic at about six thousand metres."
..
"Oh no, they don't go up at all, they just come down," he replies amiably, pressing a stud on the bottom of the gadget and holding it up above his head.
...
"I'm ground observation officer for the battleship Emperor's Benevolence. She'll be opening fire shortly."
...
"A battleship?" I ask incredulously. My mind fills with memories of the cruiser that was with us in the Kragmeer system, and the rows of massive guns along her broadside. Emperor knows how much firepower this battleship has!

"Here it comes," Striden says happily, directing our eyes upwards with his own gaze.

The sky above Coritanorum begins to brighten and a moment later I can see the fiery trails of ten missiles streaking groundwards. As they approach, movement on the ground attracts my attention as the rebels begin to scurry around in panic when they realise what's happening. With a vast, thunderous roar the torpedo warheads impact into the plain, and a ripple of explosions, each at least fifty metres across, tears through the assembled traitors, tossing tanks thirty or more metres into the air with great balls of fire. I don't see any bodies flung around, and I assume the men are completely incinerated. The ground is engulfed in a raging inferno, and then the blast wave hits us, from a kilometre away, causing the Navy officer's cape to flutter madly as the blast of hot air sweeps over my face, stinging my eyes. The air itself seems to burn for a few seconds, blossoms of secondary explosions filling the skies. Striden taps me on the arm and nods upwards and I can just make out a series of streaks in the air, reflecting the light of the flames around Coritanorum. The Colonel climbs out of the trench to watch, his eyes glittering red from the burning plain.

The shells' impacts are even more devastating than the torpedo fire as they explode in four parallel lines towards us, each one ripping up great gouts of earth and hurling men and machines in all directions. The roar of the detonations drowns out their screams and the screech of sheared metal. The blasts from the shells extinguish the murderous fires from the plasma warheads; a black pall of smoke drifts into the night sky, silhouetted against the twinkling lights of distant windows in Coritanorum. The salvo continues, numerous explosions creeping closer towards us across the plain. For a full minute the shells impact nearer and nearer and I start to worry that I'll go deaf with the intense, continuous pounding in my ears.

This is replaced by a more urgent fear as the bombardment carries on into a second minute, and it seems as if the battleship is going to go too far. When shells start exploding at the bottom of the ridgeline and keep coming, panic grips us, and everybody starts hurling themselves into the trench. As the bombardment continues I begin to fear for my life. I wouldn't trust ground artillery to shell that close to me, never mind a battleship more than a hundred kilometres above my head!

The Colonel jumps in after us, a concerned look on his face, but Striden just stands there on the lip, gazing in raptured awe as the devastation approaches. Rock splinters are hurled into the sky by an explosion no more than fifty metres away and in the bright glare of the detonation, I see Striden raising his arms above his head and just make out shrill laughter over the tumult of the barrage. His cape is almost being ripped from his shoulders by the successive blast waves, but he stands there as solid as a rock.

Preliminary tacticla bombardment. Kiloton range (or even sub kiloton) is likely givne the results, its a bit hard to say from this, esp given over a five minute period. Of course its nowhere near 'max yield' so. Torpedo detonations at least 50 m across which might be worth a couple kt per torp approximately.

Of main interest is the methods of providing the telemetry for orbital bombardment and the implied accuracy (or lack thereof.)

Page 215-216

I survey the scene as it is now, not even five minutes have passed since the starshells went up. The plains are pockmarked with hundreds of craters, at a rough guess, and from here, with my eyes still reeling, I can just about make out tangled heaps of wreckage scattered around. For about six kilometres in every direction, the plain has been bodily ripped up and dumped back down again.
..
I can tell that even he's impressed by the magnitude of the slaughter - there must have been near on ten thousand men down there a few minutes ago, and upwards of a hundred tanks. Now there's nothing.
...
We need to move quickly, but the route to Coritanorum is littered with burning tanks and mounds of corpses, not to mention the fact that the ground has been torn up and in places the rims of the shellholes are six metres high and fifty metres across. As we get nearer, within a few hundred metres of the gate, a thick layer of ash carpets the ground, in places piled up in drifts which go knee-deep. I remember that this is where the plasma torpedoes impacted.
..
"Do you know what happens to someone who gets caught in the noval centre of a plasma warhead explosion?'" Gudmanz asks nobody in particular as he hauls himself up the slope of another impact crater, his robes covered with flecks of grey ash. We all shrug or shake our heads. Gudmanz bends down and grabs a handful of the dusty grey ash and lets it trickle through his fingers with a cruel, rasping laugh.

Aftermatho fthe devastation. Unless they were only using part of their battery (possible) 'hundreds' of shell craters in a minutes-long bombardment means only a couple shells every second on average. Also a 6-12 km diameter area of devastation. That fits (roughly) with the FFG Rogue Trader depiction of orbital bombarmdnet (10 square km devastated by battery fire) you might figure between 250 meters and a km diameter per second affected which would be tens or hundreds of tons of TNT per second. 50 m diameter craters would be about 20-25 tons of TNT assumiung rock cratered (by the ADC). 10,000 people reduced to ash suggests (asuming between 200 MJ and several GJ per person to cremate) between 2 TJ and 20 TJ. For 10 missiles (or more) that is at leats 200 GJ to 2 TJ per torpedo.

Also 6 km on either side suggests the range is at least 6 km to 12 km between the fort and front lines (range of the guns, presumably direct fire)

Page 216

Inside the tower men and women are strewn haphazardly across the floor and up the spiral stairs, their faces blue, contorted by the paroxysms of death.

"Airborne toxin, I suspect."

virus weapon as we learn later.

Page 217

"How can you remember all that information? This place is over forty kilometres across!"

"Subcutaneous cerebral memograph,"

Memory augmetic, and the size of Coritanorum.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2013-01-22 04:10pm

Well I'm stuck home as a plague vector rather than having an actual life, so I can use this time to wrap up a bunch of stuff. I'll finish off 13th Legion and move onto Kill Team.

Page 217

"Coritanorum is run by three plasma reactors," he explains as everyone else gathers around. "We will get into the primary generators and disable them. Every system, every defence screen and sited energy weapon, as well as many of the major bombardment turrets, are linked into that power system."

Power source for the weapons and defenses of the fort. The enregy screens (power fields? Voids?) might explain why the base is so hard to bombard from orbit. We know that powrefields/ (and some) voids can be close to the surface and enhnance the durability of physicla structures (EG Nightbringer, Battlefleet Koronous, etc.)

Page 218

It's black, without any decoration at all, and I wonder if it isn't some local branch of the commissariat.

Local version of the Commissars, later identified as a 'security officer'

Page 218

Even if a sizeable enough force could gain access, the layout of the lower levels is roughly circular, a series of four concentric rings according to Gudmanz. Each is only linked to the next by a single access tunnel, which are on opposite sides of each ring so that to get from one to the next you have to get around half the circumference of the ring. The builders even made the air ducts and power conduits circular, so there's no quick route through there eidier. It's taken us a day and a half just to get around the outer circle.

Internal structure of the fortress-city

Page 224

"Yes, civilians," repeats the Colonel. "This is the capital city of Typhos Prime, it is not just a fortress."

There are civilians in the fort. Of course 40K not drawing a distinction between a fortress and a city is hardly a new thing.

Page 225-226

"You can't just kill her!" Striden exclaims, stepping protectively between the Colonel and the woman.

"She's already dead," Gudmanz says quietly in his grating voice. The Colonel looks at me and gives a slight nod. With his attention fixed on the Colonel, Striden doesn't see me cross to the side of the bed. The woman is also staring at the Colonel, probably wondering why a security officer is in her home.
I lean across the bed and before the woman knows what's happening I grab her throat in both hands.
...
She writhes and squirms as I squeeze tighter, her eyes locking on mine, alternating looks of pleading and anger. I feel someone grabbing at my shoulders, Striden shouting something in my ear, but my whole universe is just me and the woman.
..
"'Like Gudmanz said, she's already dead," I tell them. "They're all dead if we succeed, all three million of them."
...

"I'm not a tech-priest, but the hive I'm from ran on plasma reactors," I tell them, flopping down onto a plastic chair in front of what looks to be a dressing table. "Once they start, you don't shut them down, it's a self-fuelling process. But you can make them overload."
...
"All three of them, actually," replies Gudmanz. "They are omaphagically linked, if one of them fails, they all fail."
...
"A plasma reactor is, in essence, a miniature star captured inside graviometric and electromagnetic force walls. If you remove the Machine God's blessing from those shields, the star goes into a chain reaction, resulting ultimately in detonation. Three plasma reactors fuelling each other's chain reactions will create an explosion roughly sixty kilometres in every direction."

"Nothing but ash will be left,' adds the Colonel, 'and at the heart, not even the ash will survive."

At this point the novel has taken a much more dramatically serious, grim and rather dark turn. The curious thing about this is in how the Last Chancers, Kage specifically, deal with this. Kage is a odd sort - he's a mix of cruelty and selfish pragmatism coupled with a peculiar code of ethics, and even herotics. One of the more intereting aspects of the story is how amidst all the war and 'action' there are bits of horror and brutality - deliberately so - to remind you these guys are criminals, and they act like criminals. Its a bit of a mindfuck, considering that its more than a bit easy to like Kage and the rest. At this point onwards the way they act and treat the people in this city (who are not really evil people, just misguided) aren't really people anymore.

The rest of the passage deals with plasma reactor operations. Earlier in my analysis I treated 'self fuelling' as evidence of something exotic, which frankly was silly on my part. 'self-fuelling' could refer to 'self-sustaining' reaction. Or, being like a star the fuel might be part of the reactor (or a fission reactor, as someone who pointed out the error in my earlier analysis noted. although its silly to say plasma reactors are fission reactors evenw ith the odd 'minerals used to make fuel' aspect.

)

As far as any other 'star' related analysis goes, I earlier alluded to power genertion but that's unfounded. Its interesting they use both magnetic and gravitic forces to contain the star, which suggests the reaction iis star like itself. If it were fusion reactions, it might have star-like efficiency as well (100 kt per kg IIRC).

Of course the 'fuelling each other's reactions and the 'self fuelling' bit could refer to something exotic - we know enough weird qualities to say plasma reactors are still exotic even if this didn't

The last bit is the 60-120 km 'explosion' which could be the fireball (as I initially said) or just blast effects. Technically its 3 separate fireballst hat merge, so you really can't treat it as one single explosion, but ech might be ~50-60 km on a side) A few GT per explosion seems possible (at least) even if we go by blast rather than fireball, but fireball would still be double or triple digit. Of course since this is a detonation this doesn't say much about sustained output. triple digit GT over a few years could still be single digit kilotons per second sustained output, for example

PAge 227

Strolling along with Striden, who's been in a silent, tetchy mood since I had to kill the woman, I catch snippets of conversations from the people around. Most of them are chatting about usual stuff - how the boss is having an affair with some wench from the factory floor, what the plans for the wedding will be, how the food in the factory kitchens has been getting worse lately. Day-today life that denies the raging conflict only a short distance away.

But they do talk about the war a bit, and that's what's started confusing me. They keep talking about the ''damned rebels'' and ''traitor army'' camped outside their walls. These people seem to think that we're the rebels, not them.

I always find that dashes of the mundane offer a nice contrast to the fucked up horrors in the 40K galaxy. The idea that people in that galaxy might live lives not much different from ours one day, and then get inflicted with alien invasion, Chaos incursion, or whatever is just... different. It works better than the perpetual 'EVERYTHING IS ALWAYS BLEAK AND DOOMED AND DEPRESSING' caricature that is only viable if you're going for joke or parody (and even then it requires proper execution of humor.) Again you can't really have a contrast if oyu keep piling on the same repetitive bullshit over and over again.

Page 230

"Anyone moves, I kill them," I tell them, keeping my voice calm and steady. I mean it as well. I look down at their dumbfounded faces, and all I can see in my mind's eye are little piles of ashes. They're all dead if we succeed. They're walking corpses.
...
The two children are clinging to their mother, a slim young woman dressed in red coveralls, their eyes wide with fear. But they're not two children really, just two tiny, pathetic piles of ash.
..
As we walk forward, the crowd parts around us, everybody's attention fixed with grim fascination on the strange men who have dropped into their lives so violently and unexpectedly.
..
..some idiot hero makes a lunge for Kronin's gun. The pistols in my hand spit death, flinging his ragged corpse into the crowd, who immediately break into hysterical screaming, fleeing towards the safety of their homes.

There's something appropriately.. warlike in this. It's not 'heroic America FUCK YEAH' type crap from a John Ringo novel, its a sort of terrible 'horrors of war' type of thing - these are our heroes, yet they are contemplating mass murder (supposedly with a necessity) and to achieve that they willingly dehumanize these innocent civilians, and even kill/terrorize them to facilitate their escape. Even the mother and her kids evoke no emotions from Kage, because he knows they're dead. Although given the ending, one has to wonder if this is more him suppressing those feelings or trying to pretend they don't matter, rather than actually doing so - Kage tends to react rather poorly to what he had to do to earn his freedom. It could be that the Colonel is the madman (via his intense, fanatical faith), not Kage, and broke Kage to make him his instrument in the process.

Page 233

"Why didn't they blow up the reactors?"

"It is a very complex process, to curse a containment field of the type we are talking about," explains Gudmanz as he hobbles down the rockcrete steps in front of us. "The bulk of a plasma reactor is dedicated to creating wards and heligrams to make sure the Machine God's blessing remains. Many fail-safes will stop you, you cannot just touch a rune and say a few canticles to turn them off. It takes one of my order to do it."

Difficulties in nuking reactors.

Page 235-236

"The rest of you, I personally recruited. I studied your files, watched you in battle, and weighed your personalities. I did not wage war on a dozen worlds overthree years for no reason. I had to be sure of you."
...
"You mustered four thousand men, when you knew that only a handful would be able to get into this place?"
..
"Because we needed the best, Kage," he says through gritted teeth. "Like it or not, the Last Chancers produce the best fighters and survivors in this part of the galaxy. You have all shown the combat skills and qualities of personality needed for this mission. I have tested you to destruction, but I have not been able to destroy you."
...
"Many of the events over the past three years have been chosen or engineered to focus on different parts of your military ability and personality traits. They have tested your initiative and resourcefulness. They have examined your determination, sense of duty, discipline and responses to fear. I admit it is not a precise process, but I think you will agree that I have managed to turn all the situations to my advantage, and along the way we have helped win a few wars. Is that so bad?"

When you consider that similar processes happen (whether deliberate or otherwise) with regular IG regiments as well (the process by which we get veterans) it's not really surprising that Schaeffer and his Inquisitorial patron might do this. Especially with penal legions. Hell it makes you wonder if the Darwinian aspects of the IG in this regard might not be deliberate to weed out all but the best/strongest soldiers to form the core of the army. The whole 'win a few wars along the way' would fit in to that process as well.

It's also interesting how Kage reacts to this in his discussion with Schaeffer. as I alluded to before, there's a certain cruelty and brutality to the Last Chancers (esp Kage) when it comes to people, especially in how they undergo this mission. And yet Kage is a sentimental man, capable of becoming upset or angry at the deaths and losses of his comrades. Indeed at being used this way (even though part of him can make sense of it.) That's what makes Kage a complicated character, really.

PAge 238

The Colonel stands there with a compact stub gun in his right hand, a bulky silencer screwed on to the end of the barrel.

The talkative guardsman looks back and his eyes widen in surprise a moment before the first bullet smashes his head to a pulp, spraying blood and brains across the floor just to my right.

Subsonic stubgun ammo headsplosion. Again presumably a laspistol can match that, in its own way.

Page 239

"We want something with a bit more firepower than lasguns." the Colonel tells us from up ahead, as he scans the rows of boxes and racks of guns. "We need one-hit kills if we are going to challenge their numbers."
We search around for a few more minutes before Gudmanz uncovers a shelf of fifteen bolters.
..
"I want something with a better rate of fire." I mutter to myself, looking around for a more suitable weapon.

bolters have 'a bit more firepower' than lasguns, although they don't have as good of ROF. Take that as you will.

Page 239

"Fractrix pattern assault laser," he says with a smile, running a gnarled hand lovingly along its length. It's the first time he's looked happy since I met him. "Five shots per second, twin power pack capable of fifteen seconds' continuous fire. Multiple target designation range-finder. I used to be overseer on one of the manufacturing lines," he adds, glancing at me.

"Reliability?" I ask, knowing that there's always a catch, otherwise everyone would have them.

"Oh, it is very reliable," he assures me. "The only drawback is that the focus prism needs to be changed every one thousand shots, and that requires a tech-adept. Not practical for extended battle conditions, but perfect for our task."

Gudmanz was from the forge world of Fractrix as we note, so this is probably a local sector variant of a lasweapon. The properties of the weapon show a dual magazine capacity, 75 shots (15 seconds at 5 shots per second) although whether that is from each pack, or both together we don't know. If its from both that could mean that the rifle consumes twice as much energy as a normal lasgun. The 5 shots a second is interesting given what we note later, but not impossible given uplifting primer values. Indeed a slow ROF is not impossible for lasweapons depending on how its designed (sustained beams, or a series of pulses representing each shot', etc.) - it could be a decent tradeoff between firepower and acucracy (a sustained bam can be raked across the target over that duration, for example.)

Also a fancy scope as we note as well. I take it also that 'assault laser' is to mean assault rifle, which we get confirmation of later.

The 'tradeoffs' aspect of this discussion is particularily interesting. Kage seems to take it for granted that lasweapons will always come with some sort of tradeoff - a capability in one area means a shortcoming in another. This tends to be reflected in the innumerable lasgun designs and veriants and the different capabilities they might have, so its perfectly understandable and consistently reflects the versatility and adaptability of IG lasweapons.

He also doesnt seem to be particularily surpirsed by the capabilities - at least he thinks that if it weren't for the tradeoffs, this could be a fairly common weapon (in this region of space, at least.) Which meshes with the 3rd edition idea about hwo lasguns were equipped, really.

Page 240

"You must disengage the safety link before the optical array is powered up," he tells me, pointing towards a fingernail-sized stud just above the trigger guard. I give it a push and the assault laser gives a little hum as the power cells warm up. Sighting again, I look back towards the others. In the small circle of the gunsight, each is surrounded by a thin light blue glow, outlining their silhouette.

"It can detect heat patterns as well," Gudmanz tells me proudly. "You might not be able to see the person, but you will be able to see their outline."

Again a fancy scope. Very consistnet with 3rd edition. Of course contrast it with other sources, EG the Ghosts, where only the marksmen/Snipers like Larkin have any sort of scope like that.

Page 240

grin to myself, swinging the laser so that it is pointing at the Colonel. One squeeze of the trigger and a storm of las-bolts will tear him into little pieces.

Apparently a single burst from the lasweapon (5 shots?) will blow apart a human sized target. That's grenade level damage (see bolter analysis thread from Mythbusters eps) but we can corroborate it another way. REcall the 'flash burn' calcs with flaying to the bone. For a man sized target (assume only torso, but on both sides - call it 30-40cm) is between 720 kj to 1.28 MJ per burst. At 5 shots per second thats 144 kj to 256 kj per shot. I'd 'tenatively' call that an order of magnitude estimate (double to triple digit kj per shot, and hundrds of kw sustained outpurt at least.) but its within the range of values established. Especially if the increased power comes from the 'dual-powerpack' arrangement. Power settings may also be an issue, but another possibility (allutded to later) is pertaining to the rate of fire being different.

Page 241

I fire the assault laser from the hip, spraying dozens of red energy bolts into the Typhons by the gateway, pitching men off their feet, scouring burn marks along the walls.

Loron and Lorii open up with their bolters, the explosive rounds detonating in a ripple of fiery blossoms, blowing fist-sized holes in the Typhons' chests and tearing off limbs. I see a guardsman's head blown apart by a direct hit from the Colonel's bolt pistol.
..
And then, as suddenly as it started, the fight is over. A few seconds of concentrated bloodshed and the job's done.

a few seconds worth of gunfire from the lsgun sprays 'dozens' of lasbolts at the targets That's at least a rate of fire of 8-12 shots per second, if not more. While this contradcits the earlier rate of fire, we don't really knwo what a 'shot' consists of. A single shot could be a barrage of pulses/bolts with each shot, so 5 'shots' could eactually mean several dozen (or more) bolts/pulses, which might actually reflect more of a 'pulse laser/blaster' type weapon. As far as the earlier calc goes, it would suggest lower 'per shot' yields (more to double digit kj.. say 720 kj divided by 24 shots per second is 'only' 30 kj per bolt for example.)

Also typical bolter weapon damage, except these rae non-Astartes variety. Interesting that it implies lasweapons don't do this much damage (yet other sources and even examples in this book suggest otherwise.) Perhaps firepower for bolters reflects not just the damage on raw flesh, but penetrative/anti-armour qualities as well. Also that the fort has these weapons alongside everyone else - I wonder which troops use them?

Page 241

A las-bolt zips off the wall and catches Lorii across the shoulder, spinning her to the ground.
..
"I'm fine," Lorii replies, pushing herself to her feet, blood streaming down her left arm in a red swathe. Loron tears a strip from a dead guardsman's tunic as Lorii strips off her flak jacket and shirt.

Typhon PDF/Guard flak doesn't seem to be very protective.

Page 242

In the laser's sight, his head and shoulders are brought into sharp focus as he leans round the corner for another shot, and I squeeze the trigger gently. Half a dozen red bolts flash into his upper body, a couple of them punching straight through and dissipating further down the tunnel.

Half a dozen shots from a single trigger pull (a 'gentle' one at that, maybe not a full trigger pull.) That might be a single 'shot', which would mesh with the implied ROF earlier (I doubt it was a full second)

Also note the penetration.. they overpenetrate an (armoured) soldier and go all the way down. This again suggests a more 'blaster' style lasweapon (drilling through) as well as hinting at the interpretation regarding ROF. Assuming 20-30 cm torso punched through, we're probably talking about 1.5-2cm diamter holes.. so at least a few kj (probably more) to penetrate (about what Luke Capbell's Battle Laser does, as described on Atomic rockets.)

Of course this isn't exactly 'tearing apart' a person either, although again that depends on number of shots. Or it could be settings as I've noted. Maybe the lasguns have two rates of fire not unlike the certain variations of the BAR. Then again rate of fire itself need not be absolute so...

Again note the scope.

Page 242

..a shot from either Loron or Lorii punches through his leg, the impact of the bolt severing it at the knee...

Penetration/kinetic impact of the bolt rounds seems to be enough to blow off limbs.

Page 242

Even as the blast dissipates, I'm charging down the corridor, assault laser at my shoulder, using the sight to pick off the Typhons through the smoke and haze.

Kage's scope can see through smoke too.

Page 243

..Lorii's back on her feet in an instant, a laspistol in her hand....
...
Her next is straight and true, punching into his plump face with a small fountain of blood and shattered teeth,...

Might imply at fairly sizable hole in the human head.. shattering the jaw at least?

Page 243

I must have missed one down a sidetunnel, because as I'm pounding forward I feel something slam into the right side of my head, making my ears ring and my knees buckle..
..
I pull off my helmet and look at it, still a bit dazed from the hit. There's a charred gouge just where my right ear would be, almost burnt through. I poke at it with my finger and I'm shocked when my fingertip passes straight through. The las-bolt had been within the thickness of a piece of parchment from actually getting through!

Kage's helmet stops a las-bolt from a rifle at point blank range (just barely). As noted before, Typhon armour doesn't seem to be the best, but then again they only seem to go with the soft/flexible flak jackets without any sorts of chest plates, plate inserts, or other rigid components. something made from the same stuff as the helmet might be more effective at stopping the bolts, actually (like the Ghosts or Cadians have.) Sometimes the flak jackets alone just aren't enough - they make shots survivable but don't really stop it, much in the same way kevlar vests without inserts can mitigate damage but need the SAPI/ESAPI plates for full effectiveness.

Assuming carbon (diamond really, since I'm using Luke's calculator on the Death RAy website) as hinted at for helmets in the uplifting primer.. a finger-wide hole would proably need to be at centimeter or two deep to acount for the damage. This also (probably) means a single pulse, meaning the weapon can do alot of damage to flesh, but probably sucks at penetration. Either way we're talking somehwere between 10-30 joules for the pulses (with higher the penetration, and more pulses in the train, the less 'per shot' energy.) although 15-20 kj seems a fair compromise between the two. Nanotube/fullerine probably requires significantly more energy due to design, but I'm not sure how justified as 'armor' for the Guard we can make that (although some IG armour is pretty exotic..)

If the lasweapon is more 'thermal' and less 'blasty', then the energy output is considerably greater (triple digit kj or more) since it needs to melt/vape through the carbon (although at the cost of efficiency as far as damage mechanism goes.)

Page 244

..opening fire, spent cases cascading from the bolter's ejection vent and piling up next to her.

Bolters ejecting casings!

apparently they can be rocket propelled or cased ammo, or possibly both although that seems needlessly complex (and IIRC Sea Skimmer saying so, pointless and generaly stupid..)

Page 245-246

He notices me too and as he brings his lasgun up to fire, I force myself back, rolling the dead guardsman on top of me. I lie there for a second or two as las-bolts thud into the corpse, feeling it rocking from the impacts. Teeth gritted and eyes screwed up from the closeness of the shots, I fumble with my free hand for the dead man's lasri-fle. More energy bolts sear into the body and I feel one pluck the material of my trousers, scorching the hairs and skin of my left calf. My hand closes around the trigger guard of the discarded lasgun and I swing it towards the corridor, finger pumping on the trigger, blasting randomly for a good five seconds.

I wait a moment for more return fire, but none comes, and I risk a peek over the now-ragged body.
...
I'm covered in blood and little scraps of charred flesh, but none of it's mine in any appreciable amount.

Lasguns have 5 and 6-7 seconds sustained fire rate, the latter of hwich seems not to penetrate the (dead) Guard's armoured body to hit kage beneath (although it messes up the trooper taking the hits, and chars him pretty well.)

Assuming 2-7 seconds worth of fire and that the chest and inflict at least severe 3rd dgree burns (100-150 J per sq cm, ignition tems) but not quite flaying (400 J) Assuming a 30x30cm chest area messed up (the body is still intact) thats betwene 90 kj and 360 kj. Over 2-7 seconds that works out to 13-45 kw, and 50-180 kw respectively. Its not absolute, but tens or hundreds of kw sustained firepower seems likely from that as an approximation.

Page 246

..hand mopping sweat from his face, handing me the assault rifle with the other

Kage's laser referred ot as an assualt rifle, confirming my earlier assessment.

Page 246-247

..pulling a cylindrical canister from the now much smaller heap of ammo belts and energy packs on the trolley. Twisting off the top, he up-ends the tube and ten discs, each about the size of your palm, clatter to the floor.
...
It's four centimetres thick, split into two halves around its edge. On the top is a bright orange button, set into a small well.
..
"Press the red activator, it sets a five-second delay. Then clear away quickly, because although most of the melta-blast is directed towards the door, there is a slight backwash."

Melta bombs. I'd guess 10-15 cm across and 4 cm 'thick'. 10 per cannister.

.
Page 247

..Kronin gives a startled cry and pitches back from the end of the corridor, smoke rising from the scorch mark on his flak jacket, just above his heart.
..
Loron comes running up to us, dragging the unconscious Kronin with him.

Another flak jacket hit. He's still alive, at least.

Page 249

"Who else would have the resources or authority to destroy a sector base?"

Coritanorum is a sector base as well as a capital.

PAge 249

She's crouched next to Kronin, who's slouched against the wall, still out of it. He's barely alive, the lasblast caught him full in the chest.

Kronin is barely alive, but took a lasblast 'full in the chest' whatever that means. It makes wounds survivable, assuming you get immedaiet treatment. Apparnetly there is no bleeding either, so what the trauama is (burning, internal trauma? both?) we dont know. Which is funny because lots o fother lasgun examples in this novel feature bleeding (Lori taking hits, etc.) This could mean there are many different 'kinds' of lasguns being used by troops here, each with different damage mechanisms.

PAge 250

"Of the three and a half million people left in Coritanorum," the inquisitor tells us from the other side of the doorway, "seven hundred thousand are fully trained guardsmen."

Ratio of guardsmen to civilians in the base. Assuming this held constant (The planet has billions of people, remember) we'd be talking about 700-1000 cities, hundreds of millions of troopers on the planet. That's a rather high percentage of militarization, but for a fortress/military base that makes sense.

Page 250-251

Our banter is cut short by a succession of distinctive ''whump'' noises, and five fist-sized shapes come bouncing into the plasma room.

"Fragging grenade launchers."
..
"They'll be wary of any heavy weapons fire from now on."

Grenade launchrs firing fist sized grenades.. that would be alot bigger/devastating than 40mm grenade.s Also they're not using heavy weapons near the reactor from this point onwards. Apparently weapons fire can make them explode (at least heavy weapons fire.)

Page 251

We're running low on ammo, I've had to ditch the assault laser, which stopped working during the fourth assault. I must have used up my thousand shots. I've got one of the spare bolters now, a big lump of metal that weighs heavily in my hands, a complete contrast to the lightweight lasgun that I'm used to.

Lasgun endurance, and lasguns are lighter than bolters.

Page 251-252

"Gas," I say shortly. "No damage to the reactor, but we'll be dead, or asleep and defenceless."

"They can't use normal gas weapons," Oriel informs us. "The ventilation of each circle is sealed to prevent an agent being introduced from the outside, but it also means that any gas will be dispersed into the surrounding corridors. It's another of the defence features working against them."

"I've heard of short-life viruses," Striden points out. "We had a few warheads on the Emperor's Benevolence. They're only deadly for a few seconds. A base the size of Coritanorum might have something like that."

"Yes they did," Inquisitor Oriel confirms with a grin. "Unfortunately their stockpile seems to have been used up by someone."

Discussion of gas and viral weapons. Interesting that both starships (Battleships at least) and bases have 'short life' virus weapons, apparently in some sort of tactical 'bombardment' role (given their use on Coritanorum.) I wonder if the battleship's are tactical or exterminatus grade....

Page 252

"Only the command staff are the real rebels."
..
"If they're still loyal, they could overpower the commanders easily."
...
"Why do you think they are rebels?"
..
"Well, you, the Colonel, everyone says they are,"
..
"My point, exactly," agrees Oriel with a wry smile. "You know they are rebels because you have been told they are rebels."

"And the Typhons have been told that we are the traitors," I add, realising what Oriel is saying. "For all we know, they could be right, but we trust the Colonel. We don't decide who the enemy is; we just follow orders and kill who we've been told to kill—"

"And so do they,"
..
"So that's the reason why this rebellion at the sector command is so dangerous and must be dealt with," Loron follows on. "If they wanted to, the command staff could convince admirals and colonels across the sector that anyone they say is the enemy. The command staff could say that any force that moved against them was rebelling against the Emperor."

"It is one of the reasons, yes."

Comments on the nature of chain of command and authority in the Imperium, as well as a rather serious flaw in command and control if you get traitors or rebels. I find it interesting that from this city they could control sector-wide naval and military forces reliably and without problem.. again interesting about command and control, methinks.

Also it illustrates the sort of.. horror of the stories. These people are going to blow up an entire city, millions of loyal citizens and hundreds of thousands of loyal troops, just because of some rebel commanders. And one Inquisitor's fuckup, of course.

Page 254

Without even thinking, I pull the trigger of the bolter and a moment later the guardsman's lower back explodes, his legs crumpling under him, his spine shattered.

Bolt round again.

Page 254

Las-bolts flare from the far end, kicking the corpses into jerky life again. One seems to strike Oriel full in the chest and a blinding flash of light burns my eyes. As I blink to clear the purple spots...
...
"Conversion force field."

Assuming a single bolt is brokein up and converted into bright light equal to sunlight (.14 J per square cm) all around the body (call it 25,000-30,000 sq cm) we get between 3.5-4.2 KJ for the bolt.

PAge 255

Another shot: half a man's head disappears in a cloud of blood. Another shot; a lasgun explodes under the impact.
..
Another shot: a woman hurls herself sideways, clutching the stump of her left wrist..

More bolt fire.

Page 256

"Kronin's dead," I hear Striden say, and everybody turns to look at him, leaning against the wall over Kronin.
..
I hadn't spared a thought for the wounded madman while I was battling for my life. I feel a touch of sadness that he died alone and unnoticed. He was alone when he was still alive, it seems disrespectful that none of us saw him die. I offer a prayer for his departing, tortured soul, hoping it isn't too late.

"Internal bleeding probably."

Internal bleeding but no external for Kronin. again different among lasweapons, since some do just internal, but some wounds clealry let bleeding externally happen. Kronin lasted quite a whilte - at last an hour and a half or more.

Also interesting how Kage, a man who is willing to destroy millions, views them as little piles of ash to remove their humanity, and yet he can feel guilt and sadness at losing his comrade. The ability of Kage and others to both empathize and dehumanize people depending on the situation is interesting yet a bit frightening too. This is not a bad thing I think, since it shows it as being a terrible sort of thing for a person to do to themselves, and does reflect how the 40K galaxy can be a horrible place.

Page 260

Loron glances back and smiles, but when he steps out into the main corridor his head explodes, splashing blood across Lorii who's right next to him.
...
I grab her and pull her back as more las-bolts slam into the wall nearby

The guards head-pop Loron. Given that they'v eonly fired lasguns, and that 'more lasbolts' slam into the target one sentence after (a descrpitive one at that), we can probably figure a lasgun did it. That would be at least single digit kj.

Page 261

I realise with a start that I'm the only Last Chancer left. I feel empty, hollow. Alone in my soul as well as physically. Lorii's death seems to sum it all up.
..
There aren't any heroes these days, not like Macharius or Dolan, just countless millions of men and women dying lonely deaths..
..
I feel like falling to my knees and giving up just then.
..
I'm still alive, and I owe it to them as much as to myself to survive, so that this is remembered, that whatever happens, this sacrifice and misery doesn't die with us.

A big part of this story seems to revolve around Kage and coming to terms with everything he's put up with for the past few years, his struggles, the losses of his comrades, and even (to an extent) his crimes (at least I interpret' sacrifice to include that.) It does show that despite being a criminal, and having some very nasty aspects to his character, he's not wholly bad. He's capable of emotion and empathy, but that the situation he is in forces some harsh choices on him if he wants to survive.

And while I don't discuss it via quotes, Kage has a bit of 'closing the circle' bit going on, as he earns his Pardon and then... breaks the law ending back in the Last Chancers. But the reason for why he breaks the law ties in with that 'coming to terms' with everything he's endured (and been made to endure) in the Last Chancers. All the comrades he's lost, the sacrifices he's made, the people he's killed.. that's all left a mark, a burden on him, and he struggles with that, even to the end. And its that peculiar morality in action again - Kage can do horrible things without a moment's hesitation sometimes, and yet be capable of surprisingly humane, even compassionate acts in another.

And as mentioned, there's also the issue of whether Schaefer himself is the true monster, as he's the one who operates the Last Chancers, who orders (and helps carry out) these horrible acts... and yet he doesn't exhibit any of the emotional scars or remorse Kage does. Schaefer's the zealous sort who feels that he is doing a good deed by 'redeeming' their souls (which, admittedly, do exist in 40K), but there's a horrible 'ends justifies the means' aspect to his viewpoint that makes him seemingly worse than Kage simply because he sees nothing wrong with it.

PAge 262

The other glances at me in confusion before I pull the trigger, the bolt tearing into his chest, the recoil almost wrenching off my arm.

Bolter recoil.

Page 263

Forests stripped to bare rock, even the dirt consumed by the tyranid swarms.

tYranids consuming dirt.

PAge 266

I'm shocked to see his left arm stops just above the elbow, the end a charred mess..
...
He doesn't seem to have noticed he's got an arm missing.
..
"Plasma blast"

Plasma blast burns away Schaeffer's forearm. Probably kj range somehow.

Page 266-267

Oriel bounds up the steps but I step into his path as he ducks to get into the shuttle.
..
"How did a genestealer get here, months or years of travel from the nearest hive fleet?" I ask him, all the pieces beginning to fall into place in my head.
...
I'm right, and this man has a lot to answer for.
..
"You let it escape didn't you? Frag, you might have brought it here, for all I know."
..
"Four thousand dead Last Chancers. Unfortunate. Three and a half million dead Typhons. Unfortunate. A million guardsmen from across the sector. Unfortunate. Risking fifty worlds. Unfortunate?'"
..
"You could never understand," he snaps, stepping back a pace. "To defeat the tyranids, we must study them. There's more than a few million people at stake here. More than fifty worlds. The whole of the Imperium of mankind could be wiped out by these beasts. They must be stopped at any cost. Any cost."

"I guess this is pretty unfortunate too," I add, ramming the grip of the pistol into his chin, tumbling him down the steps. I step backwards through the hatch and pull it shut, cycling the lock wheel.

Again we see Kage's peculiar morality in action. he's not a total sociopath, at least not yet, although he's been scarred both physically and emotionally in countless ways by the warfare he's been subjected to.. he's still human in certain core, essential ways. That the deaths might be neccessary for a greater good he could accept (especially if it means his own freedom) but he can't tolerate all those people dying (And himself being used) just to cover up some asshole's mistake. So like with Rollis we see a peculiar sense of morality and justice at work with Kage, even though he is a criminal as well. He still has limits.

It also sort of underscores what sort of mental toll being an Inquisitor might be, the burdens and horrors of that. We can't judge Oriel since we dont know all the facts, and we know that sometimes they have to do horrible things like this. It's a sort of gray area, POV thing.

Also 50 worlds in tye Typhon sector, which also had 500 billion. Thats 10 billion average per planet. If we extrapolate to this from a million world Imperium, we get 20,000 sectors and 10 quadrillion people. And 1-1.5 million starships for all those sectors

Page 267

I look back and see Coritanorum stretched beneath me, built into the mountains almost fifty kilometres across.

A ball of orange begins to spread out behind us, a raging maelstrom of energy surrounded by flickering arcs of electricity. Two others erupt just after, forming a triangle until their blasts merge. The immense plasma ball expands rapidly, hurling stone and metal into the sky before incinerating it. For a moment I think I see a black fleck racing before the plasma storm, but it might be my imagination. Then again, there was another shuttle in the bay. Mountains topple under the blast and all I can think of is the pile of ash that'll be left. A pile of ash worth three and a half million lives because someone made a mistake

Coritanorum's last moments. Note the odd plasma destruction, so I dont think we can quite use the nuke calcualtor for yield, but its still interesting for the level of inineratio nat least. Assuming a 60 km hemisphere at incineration temps (1000K or so) we might get somwhere in the 100 GT or so estimated, although I'd say that the 'exotic' nature of plasma reactors (heh) might make this iffy (orange fire!) Its destroying a mountain as well.

Also the city is 50 km across almost here, and Kage is contemplating all those deaths again. He's not totally untouched by what he did. Indeed, Kage ends up back n the Chancers precisely because he can't forget all those people, and they have to have meaning for him to have done things so horrible to earn his pardon. Coming face to face with that, and that people don't acknoweldge the sacrifices he knows about (They can never know about) seems to be his breaking point, and things come full circle and he's back where he started. And in a way, its where he ought to be because it suits him so well.

Page 270

"The pardon is revoked if ever you transgress any Imperial Law or, should you remain with the Imperial Guard, any article of the Imperial Guard Code and Laws of Conduct"

Laws of conduct? In the Guard? Wow.

Page 271

"your final rank of lieutenant will be transferred to whatever regiment you end up joining. There are quite a few here to choose from. But I recommend you stay away from the Mordians"
..
"I kinda like the uniforms of the Trobaran Rangers, so perhaps I'll see if they take me."

Regimental recruitment.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2013-02-08 05:58pm

Well I've been letting this one sit around long enough. We're back to the Last Chancers, with Kill Team. Kill Team pits a much smaller crew from the outset against the tau, so there is no gradual attrition ot pick the best. Instead, the Colonel uses Kage as his pet training monkey. So basically Kage ends up in the Colonel's position, being the one in charge of making other people's lives miserable (the position he started in in the first book.) What's more, the situation last time is not the same for him. The book is basically Kage on the other side of the coin, caught between his experiences under the Colonel from the last book, and what duty and the Colonel require from him now. It also warrants mention that the strain is showing on Kage.

It's also notable for an interesting for Gav thorpes... interesting take on the Tau. I suspect he's not fond of them.

Anyhow, I'm only going to do this one one at a time, planning on three total updates. enjoy!

Oh yes, and the the old thread is here

Page 284

After the Colonel picked me up again, I've been in a holding cell aboard the Pride of Lothos. Must have been several weeks travelling, crossed quite a few systems I reckon.

Kage makes a guess at the time he spent travelling. at least 2-3 systems (20-30 LY) in 2-3 weeks is 10 LY per week, or an average speed of 520c. That's not neccesarily a lower or upper limit, although I'd guess we're still within a sector or two of space, so its probably not much more than an order of magnitude or so greater.

Page 284-285

I'm sat on a bench at a long wooden table, twenty of us to each side, the bowl of soup, the hunk of dark bread and the plate of what may once have been meat but now resembles boot leather in front of me.
..
The food tastes like crap, but when you only get cold gruel for breakfast and this sump filthtwelve hours later, you'll eat whatever they dump in front of you. It's quite varied, to tell the truth.Sometimes the unidentifiable carcass is seared beyond recognition into charcoal, other times it's so bloody and raw I'd swear the fragging thing is probably still breathing. Never somewhere in betweenthough, never nicely cooked. And the thin, watery spew that passes for soup, well, it probably came outthe same animal is all I can say. Doesn't stop me soaking up every last drop with the fist-sized hunk of mud that passes for bread. Better than going hungry, as I learnt from two years of protein chunks on mylast tour out with the Last Chancers.

Prison fare.

Page 289

As the authority of the Imperial Commissariat on this world, I sentence you to twodozen lashes, to be carried out before breakfast tomorrow in front of the other inmates.

We've known Commissars serving in dual roles before (Gaunt being an officer in the guard and a commissar) but this is the first time I can remember hearing of a commissar-governor.

Page 295

I tell him, pulling the trigger of the pistol and blowing half his face away.

Prison warden's pistol. auto or stub, I don't know.

Page 303

"And his mental condition?" the man asked, moving his gaze from the warden back into the cell.

"The chirurgeon has examined him twice and has declared him psychopathic, sir,' the guard replied after a moment. 'He seems to hate everyone. He refuses to eat anything except protein gruel. The only time he allows us near him is when we take him down to the exercise hall. We can't allow him in there with other prisoners though, and no one is allowed to carry anything that might be turned into a weapon in his presence. We learnt that when he tried to escape."

"Perfect," he whispered to himself.

Apparently Schaeffer has deliberately set out to drive Kage insane, for his own purposes. I suspect this is a more personal sort of 'winnowing' process he performed on the Last Chancers. Precisely what this is supposed to do to KAge is beyond me, although Kage seems to have a bizarre love/hate relationship with the Colonel, and is unusally loyal/compliant towards him. (at least Schaeffer seems to have no worries about Kage.)

Kage's madness and the effects of his imprisonment nad everything he did and learned in 13th Legion form something of a basis for this novel.

Page 311

"This prison contains some of the most specialised soldiers in this sector of the Imperium. I have had them incarcerated here for just this purpose, gathered here in one place where I have easy access to them rather than scattered across the stars. It makes assembling a team much more straightforward, with the additional benefit that few people know they are here, and I can maintain absolute secrecy"

An indication of Schaeffer's authority, given he can arrange matters in so specific a manner. Odds are he pulled this off with Oriel's aid. Just what their relationship is I have always wondered about, and the closest I can come is that Schaeffer is some sort of Acolyte/agent. Although what sort is up for debate (and if he is, Schaeffer is an agent with considerably greater independence than agents are noted to have.)

Page 312

But there's something particular about this bunch of convicts. They're all specialists of one kind or another. There's pilots, snipers, infiltration experts, saboteurs, engineers, jungle fighters and cityfighters, tank crews, artillery men, storm troopers, pioneers and drop troops. Like the Colonel said, he's gathered together some of the best soldiers from across the segmentum, and they're all here for me to choose from.

An indication of what passes for 'specialists' and 'elite' in the Imperial Guard, at least across this segmentum.

Page 313

I begin to appreciate more why the Colonel did what he did for the last mission. I start to understand that perhaps dragging four thousand men and women through hell and back and seeing who survives is the only way you can really find out who has that warrior instinct; who the fighters and survivors are, and which ones are just cannon fodder, destined for a bullet to save the life of a better soldier.

Apparently, at least to KAge and the Colonel's way of thinking, there can still be 'grades' or qualities of penal trooper as well.

page 314

"Kolan Aphren, ex-drill sergeant of the 12th Jericho Rangers,' he begins in a monotonous drone. 'Seven years' service. Three campaigns. Arrested and court-martialled for brutality of recruits. Sentenced to dishonourable discharge and five years' hard labour. Sentence converted to life imprisonment, order of Colonel Schaeffer, 13th Penal Legion.'"

"A drill sergeant? I could've guessed," I say to him, meeting his angry gaze with a cold stare of my own. "Like beating up on the new guys, eh? You're no good to me, I need a real soldier, not some training camp bully. Someone who's fought in a battle."

Apparently, there are limits to the things the IG lets its instructors put the troops through. shocking, huh?

Page 315

"Bit of an odd choice, joining the Imperial Guard."

"I didn't ask to join,'" he mumbles back, not looking up.

"Oh, a draftee."

You can be recurited into or drafted into the Guard. Part of me suspects they aim for the first, but will settle for the second if they must. This would imply that each world has a 'quota' it must fufill within a certain period of time (the parameters of hwich likely vary from world to world) and they will use either method to fufill it. If they can't make quota via recruitment (probably from the PDF first, then civilians) then they forcibly conscript them. We do know of the Guard establishing and maintaining 'recruitment camps' and offices on worlds.

Page 316

"Ex-marksman, Tobrian Consuls. Thirteen years… service. Six campaigns. Arrested and court-martialled for firing on Imperial citizens without orders. Sentenced to hanging. Sentence… sentence overturned to life imprisonment by order… order of Colonel Schaeffer, 13th Penal Legion.'"
..
"Used to hunt deer an' such in the mountains. Then they came an' said that I could shoot orks if I wanted to, and that seemed like a good offer."

"So how come you shot non-combatants?" I ask, wanting to hear the story in his own words.

"They was in my way, sir," he replies in a matter-of-fact tone and a slight shrug. "They shouldn't a been there."

Kage finds out the guy has shot over 50 people 'without orders' which he judges as TOO trigger happy, which is kind of amusing because Kage thinks as long as its 'under orders' everything is ok (like what he did in the last novel.) It's an interesting reflection of the peculiarities of his madness, methinks, and hsows what a 'veteran' guardsmen might look like in the madness department.

Also shooting civilians (without orders) is considred a crime. Whod've thunk it.

Page 317-318

"The commissar and his storm trooper company were participating in a night drop attack, as part of an anti-insurrection operation on Seperia," I tell the Colonel, dredging back the details I spent most of last night committing to memory. "The attack was a complete success: the enemy camp was destroyed, all foes eliminated with no prisoners, as ordered. The problem was, they had the wrong target. Some departmento map maker had mixed up his co-ordinates and our hero here led his men on an attack into the command camp of the 25th Hoplites. They wiped out their entire general staff. Without loss, I should point out," I smile at Moerck, who has remained dispassionate throughout the sorry tale. "To cover their own hides, the departmento charged the entire company with failing to carry out orders, and they were drafted into the penal legions. That's when you came in and transferred the hero here. A genuine mistake, and probably the only innocent man in this whole prison."

Ah that wacky Munitourm. Never wnats to admit an error. Also note Commissars being attached to Stormies.

Page 320-321

"Sniper first class, Tanya Stradinsk"
..
"Without a doubt, she's the best shot in this prison, probably in the sector. Four hundred and fifty-six confirmed kills over nine years of service. Has won thirty-eight regimental and inter-regiment shooting medals, also awarded three medals for acts beyond the call of duty. She's in here for refusing to fire on the enemy, something which she did four times before being court-martialled. She was involved in an unfortunate incident that left the royal nurseries of Minos a flaming ruin and killed twenty children, including the Imperial commander's heir. She was exonerated of all blame by an investigation conducted by the Inquisition, but has since been unable to shoot except on a firing range. Don't let that fool you into thinking she's had it tough. There is a suspicion that she fired on that nursery on purpose."

Differences apparently between a sniper and marksman made here. The really interesting thing is why she was investigated (and cleared) by the Inquisition. especially givne that whole 'innocence proves nothing' angle. I guess innocence can be proven, even by the Inquisitors.

Page 321

"It seems he can't stop messing about with machinery," I continue hastily at the Colonel's prompting stare, pulling my thoughts away from the young soldier's strange appearance. "Following several complaints from servants of the Adeptus Mechanicus and despite reprimands from his senior officers, Quidlon here continued to make unauthorised alterations to the weapons and vehicles of his tank platoon. Fed up with him, and wisely not wanting to start a feud with the tech-priests, his superiors eventually charged him with insubordination."
..
"'I like to know how things work, sir, and the changes I made didn't do any harm, they made the engines and guns work better."

Funny thing is, such tinkering is not unheard of unofficially in the Guard (It forms the basis of the Salmander Scout vehicle, after all.) Indeed, the only problem with Quidlon seems to be that he got caught and someone complained, which probably forced the officers to take official notice and punishment. You don't want to piss off the AdMech, and trying to usurp their monopoly (or being seen to) is a good way to do that.

Page 322

"Oynas Trost, a former expert in sabotage and terrorism"
..
His eyes meet mine and a shiver runs down my spine. They're dead. I mean absolutely emotionless, flat like they're painted on. It's a look that tells me I could be on fire or bleeding to death and he would just walk past without a second glance.
...
"Trost, covert agent of the Officio Sabatorum. He has probably killed more people than everyone in this tower put together, including you and me, Kage. I remember that he made a mistake and ended up poisoning three admirals and their families."

Officio Sabatorum agent.. apparently the Imperium's sabotage and terrorism element. I imagine the difference between the Assassins and the Sabatorum agents is that the Sabatorum doesn't care how many it kills. and the terrorism thing.

Page 325

"Take your punishment like a soldier," I hiss at him, sickened, levelling the bolt pistol at his left eye. One smooth pull of the trigger is all it takes, the crack of the bolt's detonation ringing off the walls as the explosive round blows Regis's skull apart, spattering my legs with blood and shards of bone. I step back, the pistol smoking slightly, and look at the others.

Point blank pistol headsplosion. The interesting thing about this I think is how it reflects Kage's utter obedience (Even against his will) to Schaeffer's orders. Schaeffer made Kage execute the guy, and there is a blatant bit of psychology there - the Colonel is testing Kage, to make sure he is properly obedient. One thing you never quite shake in this book is how Kage is basically the colonels' pet killer (emphasis on pet.)

Page 332

"I mean, that I only offer one last chance," Schaeffer says. "You have already squandered that. There is no pardon for you this time."

I had suspected as much, though it's still a blow hearing it stated so bluntly. So, this is it. There is no pardon, no end to the fighting except death.

I'm surprised by my own feelings, I find myself strangely calm. I get the weirdest sense of detachment, of someone else taking control of my life. It's an odd feeling, hard to explain. My whole life I've fought against everything. I fought to get out of the hives on Olympas. I fought boredom on the world of Stygies, and ended up in the Last Chancers. I fought for two and a half years to escape the Colonel and the death I was sure he had waiting for me. I fought against the guilt and depression of being the only survivor from Coritanorum and failed. And for the last six months I fought to get out of prison, and against the growing madness that all the fighting had been building in my head.

I realise that, as last time, even if I was free, I would still be fighting. I don't know how to do anything else. Call it my destiny, my fate, if you like. Perhaps it's some part of the Emperor's scheme for me to fight until I die. Maybe that's all I have to offer Him.

It's then that I'm struck by a revelation, astounded that it didn't occur to me earlier. That's why I am here, why the Colonel has chosen me, and why I survived when thousands of others died. I fight. It's what I do. Perhaps I might have been able to change given the chance, but the Colonel made sure that never happened, with two and a half years of constant bloodshed and battle. I have become his creature. Now I really am his type of scum.

This passage really reflects how things have changed for Kage and how he comes to terms with that. The Colonel more or less owns him (literally), and in reflecting comes to the conclusion that perhaps that is where he is best suited because of his nature. He seems aware that he is happiest when he is under the Colonel's orders, in a war - even though he hates it at the same time. The complicated path of his mental state is kind of interesting in this novel, as he's not completely resolved to it (as we learn.

Page 334

It's the first day of real training, aboard the ship Laurels of Glory. A fine vessel, and no mistaking. Purpose built for storm troopers, the Colonel informs me, the Laurels of Glory has got just about everything you might want. Right now, we're stood in one of the combat bays. The ship has fourteen, each of them rigged out to represent all sorts of warzones and maintained by a veritable army of tech-priests. There's a jungle bay, a city bay, a desert bay, a nightworld bay, shooting ranges, drill quadrants, even a beach in one of them. I've not actually seen any of them yet, so I'm kind of curious to see how you can make a jungle on a spaceship. Trees made out of planks, perhaps? The best thing is that there's an armoury you could overthrow a hive city with, housing all kinds of lethal kit that I'm just itching to get my hands on.

IG storm trooper transport. Its interesitng just how big the ship is implied to be for each of those training bays (as big as or bigger than a cruiser, would be my guess) as wlel as all the faculties. Also a ship purpose built for stormies.

Page 338

"I use explosives, gas and poison. If I had to fight man-to-man that meant I'd been discovered, which meant my mission had failed. I never failed a mission."
..
"The mission was still completed. Normally a few additional deaths are allowed."

Trost on his role as a Sabatorum agent again.

Page 346

I've issued everyone with lasguns, the standard Imperial Guard armament, as well as knives, ammunition for a hundred shots each, rations, water canteens, bedrolls and everything else

Full equipment. I'm guessing they have 2 clips of 50 shots each.

Page 346-347

It's amazing. On one side of the door is metal mesh decking. On the other side steps lead down into rolling hills and fields. I can see a small pre-fabricated farmhouse a few hundred metres to my left, smoke drifting lazily out of its chimney. We walk down the wide stairwell on to the grass, gazing around us like first-timers in a brothel. With a clang, the doors slam closed behind us.

I assume the walls have some kind of image painted on to them, because the agri-world landscape stretches as far as the eye can see. Above our heads, small puffy clouds dot a deep blue sky. I blink in disbelief as I notice the clouds are drifting across the ceiling.
...
The doors have disappeared, as have the steps. As in every other direction, the hills stretch as far as the horizon. In the far distance I can just make out the purple slopes of a mountain range, topped with snow. The others are murmuring suspiciously, shrinking back from the open sky above.
...
...dropping to his knees and running his fingers through the grass. "It feels real, and even smells real."

I notice that he's right. It smells like an agri-world. There's even a faint breeze blowing from our left. Fresh air, on a ship where the air gets constantly cycled through great big refiners, breathed millions and millions of times before until it's almost thick with age. I was expecting something pretty special, after the Colonel told me there were only a couple of dozen of these ships in the entire navy, but nothing as extravagant as this. His powerful contacts have been working hard for him again.

"It is real," I say ominously, a sudden shiver of unnatural fear coursing through me. "I think it's been grown here by the tech-priests."

This is wrong, a voice at the back of my mind tells me. Ships don't have woods and meadows on board them. They have engines, and guns, and they're built out of metal, not dirt. At that point a voice blares out, seemingly from the air itself, shattering the illusion.
...
"Tech-priest Almarex will be monitoring you in training bay six. If you need to contact him, adjust your comm-sets to shipboard frequency seventy-three. When you wish to leave, return to this point and transmit a signal on shipboard frequency seventy-four and the doors will open. Oh, and a word of warning. Our climate regulators predict rainfall for most of the night, so set up a good camp. Good luck with your training"

Interior of a training bay. It's interesting to speculate how much of it is real and how much is illusory (however it is created). It's at least a bit of both given their obersrvations (the grass being real, yet the door disappearing into the atmosphere. And then the rainfall.)

It's also worth noting that they apparently have comm-sets of some kind (plural not singular, which suggests its not just a single set one guy is using, but everyone in general.) Whether this is just for shipboard or if they have micro beads of some kind we don't know.

Also the transport is one of a few dozen types.

Page 348

"Right, our mission for today is to take and attempt to hold that farmstead." I point at the clutch of buildings about half a kilometre away.

An indicator of the scale of the training bay. I'd say its probably at least a kilometre long, which almost certainly means the ship itself is many miles long.

Page 351

"You talk about enemy moving round and encircling, but aren't these just pop-up targets like on the shooting ranges, Last Chance?"
..
"First, this whole area is littered with those targets and the tech-priests in control can raise and lower them in sequence to simulate movement."

Pop up targets. If there is anything holographic there must be some kind of limit to it, as they cannot simulate targets.

Page 353

If I fail them, if they die, then some of it must be down to me, mustn't it? All those other bodies, all those dead faces that haunt my dreams, they weren't my fault, I'm sure of that. I wasn't the one who put them there, I wasn't the one who was responsible for them. But these Last Chancers, these are my team. Chosen by me, trained by me, and I suppose led by me when the time comes. The weight of that dawns on me and my hands begin to tremble.

The Kage of Kill Team is a different person from the Kage of 13th Legion. The Kage from the last book was responsible only for his mission and himself. This time, his responsibilities are greater, and they are a burden on a mind that has been strained by everything he's gone through before. The Kage of the last novel was a participant for the pardon, while the Kage of this one is more an observer and instructor - he won't be getting away - something he is still trying to come to terms with.

PAge 356-358

"No one on board fully understands what happened to you. We don't have anyone who has done much more than a cursory study of this area of madness,"
...
You are suffering from some kind of battle-induced vapours leading to a self-destructive trauma."
...
"Your years of intense fighting have allowed dangerous amounts of ill vapours to build up in certain parts of your brain, affecting your mental state..."
...
"Something that happened in the training bay triggered another release of these vapours, which have begun eroding your senses of judgement, conscience and self-preservation."
...
I never did know much about medicine, and all this mad talk of vapours eating my brain sounds like grox crap. I mean, I'd feel it if my brain was melting.

"The symptoms you displayed in the training bay all point towards a serious battle-psychosis developing, hence your suicide attempt."
...
I've never even thought about killing myself, not in all those long months and years of fighting and locked alone in that cell. Suicide is for the weak, the ones who have nothing useful left to offer. I'd never kill myself! Emperor, what kind of soldier does he take me for?

"You tried to slit your own throat," he confirms, seeing the disbelief in my eyes. "Luckily, the madness vapours had also affected your ability to control your muscles so you just ended up slashing your jaw."
...
"It is a fairly standard practice, though not common," he tries to reassure me."'Biologis Alanthrax has performed it several times before, with almost fifty per cent of his charges making full recoveries. It is a simple matter of temporarily removing a portion of your skull, making an incision into the affected area to release the vapours and then bone-welding the cranium back in place."

A bit of a medical disucssion regarding Kage's suicide attempt and his (archaic-sounding) treatment.

Page 358

Pumped up on Alanthrax's witches' brew, my dreams are plagued by the dead from my past, just like last time. Men and women missing limbs, their heads sheared in half, entrails open to the world, wandering aimlessly around my bed, staring at me with accusing eyes.
...
All the time, the two small children I saw in Coritanorum stand at the foot of the bed and just stare at me. Their eyes say it all. You killed us, they say. You burnt us.

I want to scream at them to leave me alone, that I was just following orders, it was them or me,...

Kage is caught between the ghosts of his past and the burdens of responsibility of his current task, which places a massive strain on an already-frayed mind. The guilt and fears of both what has come and what he must do are conflicting, which no doubt resulted in the aforementioned suicide attempt. This is, I think, what makes these stories good as a tragedy rather than grimdark - its a war story and we get plenty of action and booms, but there are definite consequences - an aftermath. Kage is a hard person, but he is still fundamentally human, and even doing the hard things has a cost for him that he must bear. That, for me at least, makes a 'Good' War story. Things should not be simple or straightforward or one sided.

Page 361

"...this Brightsword virtually rules one of the tau worlds only a few weeks' travel from the Sarcassa system that falls within the Emperor's dominions. Over several years, Brightsword has been very aggressively sending colonising fleets into the wilderness space surrounding Sarcassa. We believe it is his intent to invade this system within the next two to three months. His superiors, the rulers of the so-called Tau Empire, very wisely wish to avoid a bloody and costly war with our forces and have agreed to this co-operative strike."
...
Either they must be really scared of what we'll do to their little empire if Brightsword goes ahead with his mad plan, or they really don't have much sense of loyalty to their own people.

Clarification of the current mission. Rather interesting to contemplate how much 'diplomatic' traffic must be involved between the Imperium and Tau empire to convey all this. It stands as yet (another) example of how the Imperium does traffic (to certain degrees) with aliens, at least on an informal, limited basis.

PAge 361-362

"Unlike our own great Imperium, the tau have no great Emperor to bind them together.."
..
"They are godless, as far as we can tell, and have this strange concept which the tau call the ''greater good''. Their empire supposedly sustains itself through harmony between all of its subjects, rather than by making the supreme sacrifices the Emperor asks of us. As you might understand, with no such guiding hand, their empire is very fragile. Any hint that there are those not working towards this fictitious greater good undermines the whole basis for their society. They cannot admit to their citizens that one of their commanders is, in essence, a renegade. Similarly, they cannot risk being uncovered trying to assassinate that commander, for the same reasons. Thus, we have constructed a subterfuge that allows us, as outsiders, to kill Brightsword, posing as renegades rather than Imperial servants. We can show them official records and provide witnesses if necessary that will show that you are all military criminals. That is another reason why I am using scum like you."

It's a bit amusing (and hypocritical) to hear the Colonel describe the Tau Empire in this fashion - usually this is the sort of description attributed to the Imperium (sometimes by the Tau, such as in 'Courage and Honour') And again we get a strong indication of just how much diplomatic activity occurs between the two Empires for something like this to be planned. And all the 'plausible deniability' with the use of military criminals is even more interesting.

Page 363

"Just as on this ship, each of these training areas represents a different type of locale, and can be modified to represent specific targets and objectives for an upcoming campaign. After our first diplomatic envoys to the tau reported on the efficiency of their tactics, we sent agents to observe their military facilities. On this vessel, and her sister ships, we have replicated the more laudable and practical aspects of their training methods. The tau have a somewhat lax attitude to the perils presented by over-reliance on technology, so the Adeptus Mechanicus have been unable to duplicate the more arcane and blasphemous systems employed by the tau. However, these ships represent the best training facilities we have currently at our disposal. Our tech-priests are currently reconstructing three of the training bays to represent the battle zone where we are planning to trap and kill Brightsword."

Comment on Imperial vs Tau training technology. The whole 'over reliance' on technolog yis a bit silly given the AdMech's own obsession with becoming more mechanical. In other news the Imperium replicates the more 'laudable and practical' aspects of their training techniques. Copying form aliens.. HERESY.

PAge 364-365

I hear the sharp crack of Stradinsk's marksman's rifle...
...
Bending over him, I see the bullet hole in his left cheek. I roll his head to the side and half his skull comes away in fragments. I feel something pluck weakly at my arm. He's still alive!
..
He coughs and spits, pieces of shattered tooth spraying bloodily onto his tunic.
...
I look at the side of Stroniberg's face, or more precisely the gory, ragged remnants of it...

Marksman rifle's effects. Whether it did any brain damage is up for debate. And he didnt live long after the shot, either way.

Page 373

Destrien stiffened at the mention of Bane, Warmaster and overall commander of the Imperial forces in the Sarcassa region. This inquisitor wasn't playing around. He had organised this thoroughly, from the top down.

This is the second Warmaster mentioned in Segmentum Ultima - first was in and around Typhos Prime, and now we have another in Sarcassa. I have to wonder if 'Warmaster' is actually an informal title for something like Lord General Militant, because we know from other sources there are generally only one Warmaster (or at most, one per Segmentum.) This isn't the first time something like this has happened though, Eisenhorn mentions a sector 'Warmaster' as well...

Page 382

My return shot catches him low in the right leg, blowing the limb off below the knee...

Shotgun blast blows a Naval Armsman's leg off.

Page 391

Something streaks past my field of vision, a tiny yellow spark, that erupts into a massive plume of red a moment later. The pilot dives the shuttle underneath the plasma burst...

Plasma warhead of some kind, I'd guess.

Page 401

There's nothing anyone can tell me about losing comrades in battle, because I've lost them all. It's one of the reasons I feel I have to carry on with life, so that someone remembers them and the sacrifices they made so that others would be safe. They'll never be commemorated, never be heroes except as I remember them. I can see their faces as I walk along the corridor behind the armsman. Good memories. That might seem strange, and I never would have considered it at the time, but there's not a bunch of people I would rather go through hell with than them. But they're not here this time, so it's just up to me now.

Kage reiterates the reason for his will to live. This still stands as a strong reminder that while he is mentally scarred and twisted , he is still human and capable of feeling something.

Page 403

"Our relationship with the tau is delicately balanced. At the present time, their empire is slowly expanding into the Emperor's domains, and contest for worlds has occurred. However, they are not overtly hostile to mankind, they merely see us as being in the way. Unlike, for example, the tyranids, who would wipe us out. In fact, with the massive tyranid threat posed by their latest hive fleets, in this area of the galaxy we cannot afford to start a long and costly war with the tau without weakening our defences in other sectors. Therefore, for the moment we try to keep our approach as peaceful as possible. Soon, some time in the future, the tau will need dealing with. But not yet."

Basically the tau are the lesser of two evils with the Tyranids in the neighborhood. Of course from the Tyranid POV the Imperium is 'in the way' too, its not like the 'Nids have an actual malice behind their actions - they just see anything organic as a potential food source. And the tau, as they note, aren't really malicious, just very expansionist.

Page 408

They think my mind's more twisted than a rock drill head. I don't see it that way it's not bent at all. In fact, it's so straight, so focussed on what I am that it might seem mad to other people. They like to clutter themselves up with all sorts of little illusions about who they are, what they're here for.
...
..I'm a weapon, nothing more. Point me at the enemy, and let me go. That sort of clarity is more comforting than worrying about if I'm doing the right thing, wasting time and energy agonising with my conscience and my morals. My conscience is the orders I'm given; my morals are the ones I'm told to have. Somebody else can have that responsibility, someone like the Colonel or Oriel. I just don't care any more.

Kage reflects on his current state of affairs, including mentally. It really wouldn't be surprising if he were a bit fucked up, given all he's been through and that the Colonel has inflicted upon him (great idea, subject someone to the most brutal and horrific conditions, make him or her watch their comrades and friends die, all to find the most 'survival' oriented lunatics you can. And afterwards.. you release them into society. Small wonder Kage snapped like that. What's worse is that the Colonel often makes it sound like he expected that.) to the point that Kage is literally an extension of hte Colonel. His attack dog, his tool. He claims to do it for the Emperor and the souls of those he tries to redeem, but in a way that is what makes him far more monstrous than Kage ever could be, because he's got the conviction of his beliefs that can justify anything. He is a monster. The Emperor's monster, and Kage is really just a victim.

I think the worst thing is, as the passage indicates, Kage not only knows this, he takes comfort from it. Its the only certainty he has in his life, and I suspect that was also intentional on the part of the Colonel.

Page 414

"If you say my name, the ship will inform me.."

An indicaiton of Tau AI capabilities onboard starship.

PAge 416

"'The tau employ a great many of these things, which I believe are called drones. I've never seen one working before. It must be some kind of anti-gravity technology. You'll have to get used to them, apparently they're all over the place on the tau planets, running errands, taking messages and such. Think of them as odd looking servo-skulls, mindless but capable of following simple orders and performing basic tasks. Of course, these are merely constructs, they have never had a soul like a servo-skull. One reason the tau must halt their expansion into our space. Who could tell what mad, heretical notions might grip the populace if they heard of such abominations?"

It's pretty amusing how they try to make servo skulls out to be better than drones, even though there is functionally no difference.

PAge 417

"The tau do not eat flesh apparently," confirms Oriel. "I don't know if it's a biological thing, or maybe religious. There's not much data on that aspect of their culture."

This suggests the tau, or at least the air and perhaps water and Earth castes, are vegetarians. Might be different for Fire cAste.

Page 417

"Extensive research into some of our oldest records has recently shown that several thousand years ago, we almost wiped them out. Luckily for them, warp storms prevented the colonisation fleet reaching their home world."

Yep. Lucky tau.

Page 418

"You've seen what the battle domes are like, and now you've got some idea of the technology we're up against, so you can understand why we wish to avoid a widespread conflict with the tau if possible. In the main, the fire caste are still kept in check by the ethereals though, even if some like Brightsword and the renegade Farsight are straining at the leash."

Fire Warriors seem more aggressive although they do not (yet?) seem hostile to humanity. Although that may change over time.

Page 418

"The tau don't see it that way at all," counters Oriel, leaning over and dragging one of the food trays closer, making its engines whine in protest for a moment before it complies and glides next to him. "This notion of the greater good which they believe in binds them together. It teaches them from birth that everyone has their place, and that the survival of the Tau empire is more important than any individual."

"That's not too different from the oaths we swore when we joined up," comments Tanya.

"This is nothing like dedication to the Emperor,' Moerck argues angrily. 'Mankind would never survive without the Emperor to protect us, no matter how many sacrifices were made. These tau are heathen creatures, devoid of any spiritual guidance. They will fall prey to their own selfishness and base desires in time."

Kinda interesting how humanity and the tau can be paralleled like this (which isn't the first time by far something like this has happened) and yet the Imperium will denounce heavily NO ITS NOT THE SAME AS THE FILTHY XENOS. The same way the tau try to deny they're alike... and yet the similarities exist. Tanya is right, the oaths are similar, both from the religious angle (The Adeptus Terra - the Ecclesiarchy in particular - attmept to use it to control people.) There is of course the Fire Warrior/Space Marine parallels as well...

Page 418-419

"There are already indications that the further they expand and the more contact they have with other races, the more stretched this ideal of the greater good becomes. We need only look at what is happening with Brightsword and his kind. At the present they are expanding rapidly, dominating whatever races they meet and incorporating them into their empire or expelling them. Yet, when they run into serious opposition, it remains to be seen how much sacrifice the castes are willing to make for the greater good. And we will do what we can to hasten that day. Until then, however, they are a highly motivated, united society which presents a significant problem in this area of the galaxy, and we should not underestimate them just because their society is spiritually and philosophically flawed."
...
"We do not have any strength in the Sarcassa system to display. If Commander Brightsword is allowed to attack, he will be victorious if all things remain as they are. We will not be able to respond, and this will further bolster the tau's courage and resolve, believing us to be weak."

Further evaluation of the tau Empire's threat in relation to the Imperium. They are a threat, but a local one, and mainly because they are (as noted) less a threat than the Tyranids are. But it also says they haven't run into serious opposition, and the Imperium evidently lacks the military power (due to the Tyranids, probably) to challenge them.

The second point - the bias angle aside, I'm curious to see if the 'stretched ideal' has any merit in the future for the tau. I doubt it applies much to their own race (at least with a strong Ethereal presence) but it might stretch when it comes to others (the Kroot ignore/obey it as they see fit, for example, and this despite their extreme gratitude towards the tau.) Fire Warrior has hinted at this before as well (with the reactions to Tyranids and the Orks) and it could be an issue with humanity. I've also never heard of the tau 'expelling' races, unless that means they're kicked off a planet the tau want (which they might do.)

Page 420

It all becomes clear though when a portal opens to our left and a long, silvery, bullet-shaped vehicle glides into view..
...
At our approach, the vehicle changes, like it's sloughing its skin, revealing a door which opens upwards and over the transport. A row of large windows shifts into view as plates rearrange themselves underneath the vehicle, and a ramp silently extends down from the door to meet perfectly with the small landing at the top of the steps.

Tau transport inside the ship (like an elevator or lift, I guess?) It'd be interesting to guess what the materials might be made out of, because their doors seem to behave similar.

Page 422

"Here is our primary power plant," Por'la'kunas announces with just a hint of pride. "There are two sub-stations on the lower levels in case of emergency or battle, but this plant provides enough power for normal usage."
...
...it really is a window. I gaze into the green glow, my eyes adjusting to the brightness, and realise I'm looking into the heart of the reactor itself. It's full of something like a gas or fluid, with strange eddies and currents merging and breaking apart in a constant flow. It's quite entrancing actually, looking at the ever-shifting shapes coalesce and disappear. Bright, star-like points dip and weave in the energy currents, like tiny suns caught in a storm.

Tau power sources. They seem to believe in the same liquid/gaseous crap as 40K 'plasma'. Also there are two backup power sources to assist the main one (redundancy?)

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2013-02-25 11:29am

A much-delayed update to Kill Team.

Page 423-424

They look a bit like us but they certainly don't think like us. They don't have any individuality as far as I can tell. They're so wrapped up in their greater good that they've pushed out any scope for individual achievement.
...
That's the big difference between their beliefs and ours. I've been to over a dozen worlds in the Imperium, and they've all been different in some way or another. We've changed and adapted to live on ice worlds, in the depths of jungles, on airless moons and on board space stations, yet everyone is still human in some deep down way. The tau on the other hand are just repeating themselves, trying to turn the galaxy into their vision. That's what will kill them off in the end, I reckon. Life will throw all sorts of different challenges your way, and sometimes you have to go around them, while I think the tau will just try to ride straight through it all, driven on by their stupid idea that the greater good will see them through.

The idea that they have 'no individuality' is a bit ludicrous, given that we've observed Fire warriors acting/behaving differently (some are more hostile to humanity than others, for example, whilst some are better disposed to cooperation.) and we get far more diversity in the way the tau act/behave in the Fire Warrior novel, but the perception has some truth to it. The Tau do favor conformity over individuality in their philosophy of the Greater Good. That doesn't mean they expect everyone to be a robot, but it does at reflect certain limits on personal choice and freedom. Tau certainly (willingly) subordinate themselves to Ethereals in most respects, for example.

Kage's assessment also is an interesting contrast to the whole 'Tau are Dyanmic' thing.

I would also say that Kage needs to draw a distinction between 'humanity' and 'the Imperium'. The Adeptus Terra is just as big on conformity and would do what the tau succeeded in - if they could manage it (they just love the idea of an uhthinking populace.) Rather funny how that's ANOTHER similarity, isn't it? But humanity (as a whole) is far more fractious and 'different' as Kage says, which is what hampers the attempts at Imperial conformity. Humanity's diversity thrives in spite of the Imperium, not really because of it.

Page 425-426

He directs our attention to the large screen, which pans across the stars before settling on a reddish blob. As the ship powers closer, the blob expands into a spiral pattern erratically expanding and contracting in on itself. It shifts colour too, and sometimes disappears from sight altogether.
...
"Ahead is the sho'kara," the water caste tau informs us with due grandeur. "Which you might called the lens or window, perhaps. We will pass through the sho'kara into warp space and ride the currents within."
...
"You have to use these warp holes, or lenses or whatever, to enter the warp?"
...
"The flo have yet to find a successful method of creating an artificial sho'kara," admits Por'la'kunas sheepishly. However, he rallies well. "It will only be a matter of time before the problems they have so far encountered are resolved."

"And when inside the warp, you navigate how?"
...
"The captain informs me that the ship navigates along an extensive network of pre-designated pathways,' he announces, not quite hiding his faltering confidence. He glances back at the captain once before continuing. 'El'savon says that powerful beacons allow him to travel between our planetary systems with great speed and accuracy. For instance, we shall be arriving at Me'lek, our destination, within six rot'aa. From what I know of your time partitioning, that will be approximately four of your human days."

The Tau can travel through the warp apparently. I'd guess this is in addition to ether drive. It may seem like a contradiction, but it actually makes sense for them to keep Ether drive capability hidden if they can, and warp portals are bound to be faster than ether drive. Again as noted in other sources, the tau haven't managed to create artificial warp portals, which is what the warp portal amounts to. Although they seem to have some measure of 'piloted' warp navigation ability like the chartist captains use. It also demonstrates the tau must have mastered gellar fields or some variation, as they can go into the warp without the ship being fucked up by daemons.

And while we don't know the distance between the system I'd guess at least 10-20 LY, perhaps a few hundred LY. In 4 days that translates to nearly 1000-2000c at least, to upwards of a few tens of thousands of c. Gives us an idea of what 'piloted' warp jumps are capable of (for the Imperium), given IIRC Ether drives can make at least a few thousand c.

Page 426

"A kor'vesa-piloted vessel is used for communication between ships in transit and our worlds, and also for the sending of messages to the widespread outposts of our sizeable empire," Por'la'kunas duly informs us, using the opportunity to try and scare us away by talking about the size of the Tau Empire.
..
I bet there's more of us on a single hive world than they've got in their whole empire.

Tau communications. Kage also speculates there are fewer Tau than there are aon a Hive World. If one went with more conservative estimates (and the larger hive worlds, like Necromunda) this might be true, although its probably more accurate to say they are as populous as a sector or subsector.

This passage is also interesting as it hints the tau are not aware of the true scope of the Imperium (yet). Or if they are, these guys don't believe it.

Page 429

..steps gingerly into the depression, shoulders hunched. Water begins to spray down from the ceiling, and I see that tiny holes have appeared where there weren't any before.
..
Quidlon takes a couple of steps towards the showering area and then quickly backtracks as a panel appears at waist height in the wall next to him and slides out of view into the ceiling. As he moves away, the panel reappears and then slots back into place, leaving only the faintest of lines, so thin you wouldn't see them if you didn't know they were there.
..
"Everything must be activated by proximity detectors..."
..
If you look closely, you can see faint panel lines and the same kind of discoloration that activate the doors.
...
..Oriel works out that the sink is activated just by putting your hands inside.

Tau bathroom technology. Clearly superior to the Imperium. And also terrifies the Imperials.

Page 430

I never thought I'd ever appreciate the simplicity of taps and towels, but the episode with the shower room brings home to me just how lucky we are that the tech-priests keep control of the wild excesses of techno-magic.

More Imperial bias and ignorance. The chilling thing (for me) is that while we're clearly supposed to laugh at the backwardness and ignorance of the Imperium (TECHNO MAGIC) in this case.. it's not that far off from similar behaviour in real life equally based on ignorance of science, logic, or whatnot. US Healthcare Death Panels, Birthers, etc. Some owuld also view religious beliefs as being similarly absurd.

Page 431

"...the tau already look down on us, so they'll forgive most of our indiscretions, and the more they believe we're a stupid and short-sighted race, the more they'll underestimate us in the future..."

Which is essentially true. They may not always be explicit about it, they do have a sense of.. superiority, even arrogance when it comes to their attitudes in the Greater Good vs the attitudes of others.

Page 433

..that a drone-controlled pod has been despatched to Me'lek to ensure our arrival is anticipated.

Message pods (drone controlled) can be sent thorugh the warp, at least via the gates, and they travel much more quickly than the ship does.

Page 434

"We are all equal in our labours for the greater good. Such enforcement of hierarchy is unnecessary within our society. We were just discussing how to resolve this situation."

True of most of the castes probably, but not the Ethereals.

Page 434

"For, we are as united and equal in our dedication to the great Emperor of the Galaxy as you are to your cause."

HAH! KOMEDY!

Page 435

They only have one thumb and three fingers on each hand. Of course they would count in eights, and it makes some sense.

Tau apparently work in Base eight, rather than base ten.

Page 436

I ignore him and examine the device, seeing a small stud, which I press. A blade extends outwards, thankfully away from me, I could have slit my wrist by accident. It begins to shimmer. In fact, judging by the feel of it, it's vibrating rapidly. I use the knife to slice some bread for myself, and then press the stud again, turning the vibro-knife off.

Tau vibro-knife, for cutting bread

Page 440

The machines are about three and a half, maybe four metres tall, and broadly humanoid in shape. Judging by their shape, and assuming they actually have pilots, I'd say the driver sits in the main body, the flat, many-lensed head atop the broad form just some kind of remote link. The arms are stocky and heavyset, and armoured plates cover the shoulders and thighs. The lower legs are actually made of open struts, though everything else is encased in heavy-looking, gently faceted armour. Each machine also has an extended back pack from which protrude rows of nozzles, possibly some kind of jet device. They're obviously war machines of some sort; the devices mounted on their arms are unmistakably weapons of different designs. Several of the battle suits also have weapons mounted on one shoulder, long-barrelled guns and rocket pods in the same efficient clutterless design of all the tau machines I've seen so far. Several of them have drones hovering around them, which flicker with some kind of energy field.

Tau (crisis) battlesuits

Page 441

Their uniforms are made from a light, billowing material, over which they've got plated carapace armour on their chest and thighs, and thick shoulder guards protecting their upper arms. All of them are wearing helmets, fully enclosed with a small cluster of different sized lenses instead of a proper visor.
...
They're armed with long rifles, about two-thirds my height. I suspect those guns have got enough punch to put a hole in the back of a battle tank.

Fire Warriors.

Page 444-445

...our vehicle is waiting for us. It's similar to the transport on the ship, in that it hovers above the ground, although only about half a metre up. It's made from the same silvery material, but is a lot less broad. Its blunt nose is rounded at the corners, the front curving up and blending seamlessly with a transparent windshield which extends another metre above the seating inside. The back end is open to the elements, a roughly oval cavity lined at the edges with padded seating...
..
"This ground car, as you might call it, has a small artificial brain inside, much like the drones you have seen. It is not really sentient as such, but does know the layout of Me'lek City and can respond to simple verbal commands."
...
"I suspect it is safer than a vehicle driven by a sentient pilot. It cannot be distracted, nor does its mind wander and daydream. Its sensors are far more accurate and cover a much wider range of the spectrum than any living creature's."

Tau antigrav ground vehicles, drone controlled like much of their tech,.

Page 446

"...returned to Es'tau almost a kai'ro-taa ago."
..
"...that is almost two Terran months."

Month conversion to Tau analogue.

Page 448

"O'var's expansionist aggression will, if allowed to continue unchecked, inevitably lead to conflict with your people. Much more widespread conflict than the relatively small skirmishes that have so far been fought. And, of course, ignoring your somewhat premature and abortive crusade through the area you call the Damocles Gulf."
..
"We, of course, wish to avoid all conflict where possible." Coldwind smoothes over the tension. "It is unproductive and counter to the needs of the greater good. Your officials," he looks at Oriel then, "Also realise the folly of a war between our two states and wish to avoid conflict. Thus, we arrive here, conspiring together to rid us both of a problem."

"So why can't you just depose him or something?" asks Tanya. "Promote somebody else in his place?"
"I am afraid that would be contrary to the tau'va," the ambassador explains. "On appearances, O'var is doing nothing wrong. He is expanding our domains so that the tau'va may be spread to other races across the galaxy."

So wait, the DGC was a foolish venture, but its okay and perfectly consistent for Brightsword to be ruthlessly expansionist (even to the point of antagonizing humanity, which they *supposedly* do not want to do?) Talk about BS.

Page 448

"The thought of killing another tau is absolutely horrific to us, except for certain shas ritual combats." Coldwind is actually physically repelled at the thought, his skin blanching a paler blue. "Even if such an individual could be found to perform the act the risks are far too great. If it were ever discovered that we had done such a deed, it would cast doubt on the tau'va. Surely you understand that."

I can understand killing another Tau, even for a perceived crime, would be abhorrent to the Tau, because of their past, but I'm not sure how it could actually undermine the Greater good.

Page 451

"You're a nocturnal race?" Quidlon asks quickly.
"Only culturally," replies Coldwind. "Biologically we are like humans, capable of diurnal and nocturnal activity. Our traditions place great regard on the night.."

Tau are culturally nocturnal

Page 453

"I come from a city that stretches three kilometres into the skies of Olympas," I tell the tau, trying to make it sound as impressive as I can. There's no point letting them think they're the only ones who can build a fancy city. "The lower levels are delved a similar distance into the rock. A billion humans live in that one city, and there are thirteen such cities on my world."

"That cannot be," argues Shas'elan. "That is more humans on one world than there are tau in this sept!"

"We call them hive worlds, from the busy nests of insects," explains Quidlon. "There are many hive worlds in the Imperium, and other kinds of worlds too."

"Many worlds with this many humans?" Shas'elan looks shocked and glares accusingly at Coldwind, muttering something in Tau.

Kage talks about his home hive world, which has a population of 13 billion (approximately - its debatable he knows the full value, but I doubt its vastly greater than he says either.) There are 'many' such Hives in the Imperium.

It's intersting that the tau Fire Warrior seems so shocked not only at the density of the worlds, but the sheer numbers implied. Clearly the tau don't share information about the possible scope of the Imperium (or as noted, do not believe it.) Tau treating such human 'facts' as myth is not unheard of. We know that there are some (Major) tau worlds with several billion, but presumably less than 13 billion (for a whole system, much less a planet) That would imply the tau Empire is on the order of hundreds of billions, perhaps low trillions depending on how extensive their auxiliary empires are.

Page 454

"Often when dealing with alien vessels, we use the superior acceleration capabilities of our own ships to give them a boost, as you would say."

Tau ships have superior acceleration to Imperial vessels

Page 454-455

"I have also arranged for you to be conveyed by lifter to the outer regions of the system so that you may engage your warp engines as soon as possible."
...
"It is a short journey, relatively speaking. I would estimate three, perhaps four rot'aa," he replies after a moment's thought.
"That's just over two days?" Oriel says, glancing over to Coldwind for confirmation, who gives a nod.

Time to the system. We dont know how far it is, but probably less than a few hundred light year,s and at least 10 LY or so. We're talking 1800c at least.. again single/double digit thousands of c. Apparently it is a warp drive. Whether this is computer or Navigator piloted we dont know, but I suspect renegdes having a Navigator would be suspicious.

Page 455

There's a decommissioned ex-navy transport in orbit, a small vessel barely capable of warp travel..

Their starship.

Page 456

"If that comes to pass, it is almost certain that I will lose much prestige and rank," Coldwind agrees with a nod, still seemingly at ease with the thought. "However, my personal circumstances and career are secondary to the needs of the tau'va."

"You would risk having your life ruined for this?" Tanya asks, leaning forward. "This tau'va must be pretty important."

"I certainly risk much for the tau'va, it is true," answers Coldwind slowly. "However, ask yourself this. Why do you all risk even more than I do, for your distant Emperor?"
..
There were those who worked and fought for mankind and the Emperor. They were the ones who dedicated themselves to an ideal bigger than them. They were the ones who would be gloried in the afterlife when the Emperor took them. Then there were the others, the leeches he called them, sucking life and blood from the rest of us. They had no purpose beyond themselves, and when they died there was only the Abyssal Chaos to greet them.

It is certainly true that the tau will willingly sacrifice much for the Greater Good (or Ethereals, for that matteR) - up to and including their lives. And it is quite interesting how similar this is to the Imperium's devotion (usually) to the Emperor, so its a good question to ask. It also illustrates once again the similarities between the Tau and the Imperium.

Page 457

I hear the ting of small arms fire rattling off the transport..
..
"'Where's it coming from?"
..
"The construction site!" I snap, just as Tanya says the same, and I point. It's about three hundred metres away...
..
..more bullets rattle into the roadway...

Implied range of (tau?) weapons. Bullet weapons

Page 457

"There are some fundamentalists who believe we are too tolerant of other species, particularly humans"
..
"The shas hunt them down when they can, but there are always one or two who refuse to see the wisdom of our policies."

The tau explanation for the attack. Sufficed ot say, its bullshit.

Page 458

...salvoes of missiles erupt from shoulder-mounted pods on two of the suits.

The other three leap forwards, powering away into the air with hissing bounds, their multiple weapons spitting bullets and plasma bolts into the half-built dome.

Tau battlesuit weapons. Projectile and energy.

Page 458

The gun itself is huge, easily three or four metres long, and blocky. As it passes us by, the whine of its engines making my ears ring, the tank opens fire again, spitting a ball of energy into the target zone..

Tau tank, with weapon.

Page 459

"I have never heard of tau dissidents before," states Oriel, deep in thought. "If such radicals did exist, then the whole subterfuge with Brightsword would be entirely unnecessary. No, Coldwind was lying to us about that, I could sense it. I also think Coldwind was anticipating the attack."

Because there are few to none, and any there are probably get reeducated (brainwashed) to fix this. Such dissidents would be considered sick and requiring care.

Page 465

"Psykers," Oriel replies quietly.
...
As we get closer I see that the figures are small aliens, nearly naked but for short skirts, grey-skinned with wide yellow eyes and completely devoid of hair.
...
"Think of something simple, something easy to remember," I hear Oriel say. "Like an old nursery rhyme, or a gun drill, or a marching chant. Repeat that in your head, just keep thinking it over and over again."
...
As we pass between the aliens my skin crawls. I probably imagine it, but I swear I can feel something poking around in my head, like clawed hands turning my mind over and having a look.
...
"Don't think about them, it will make it easier for them to read your mind."

An interesting passage for a number of ways. For one thing, are these the Nicassar that the tau have recruited into their Empire? If not (and its possible - IIRC the Nicassar are telekinetic but not telepathic) then the Tau have at least another psychic race in their Empire. Supposedly the Nicsassar are ursine, but if there is a source that has stated that anywhere I have never seen it or I've forgotten it. Anyhow, the tau also are aware of psychic powers, and knowledgable enough to use them for security measures. They don't seem to be aware of the Warp/psychic connection though (their knowledge of Warp Space is actually more limited than the Impeirum, given their attittudes towards Chaos.)

Secondly we learn some bits about the mechanics of telepathy. Although Oriel states later he was providing some protection, it seems that the repetition bit (a rhyme, song, etc.) helped him with that. Likely what it does is provide a sort of 'focus' for the mind to dwell on, preventing stray thoughts and dwellign on other (undesirable) things. also, thinking about the aliens allows them to more easily access minds.

Page 466

"How do you think I knew El'savon could speak Gothic? How do you think I ensured our privacy aboard his ship? How do you think I know Coldwind was expecting us to be attacked, or that he's been hiding something ever since we met? If it wasn't for the protection I just gave you all, we would have never got past the telepaths."

As noted, Oriel provided some psychic protection, although the advice he gave helped him. More, he apparently can at least understand and receive telepathic messages from the tau, despite them having little or no connection to the warp themselves. He can also apparently use it o them as well, which we learn again later.

PAge 469

"Aah, machine god is it?" the gun-runner butts in. "You humans all same. You idea that there be machine god, you make bad weapons."

"You don't seem to be shy of a few," Strelli argues, indicating the assorted Imperial weapons.

"That because only cheap humans buy bad work like this," the dealer smiles. "Proper fighters want proper weapons."

This tends to suggest human weaponry in general is inferior in some fashion to the weapons other races have (in general.) Given tau, Eldar, and Necron weapons at least this seems quite true, and many of the FFG races seem to bear this out as well. On the other hand in terms of effectiveness the difference is not significant (or does not include tradeoffs of some kind) And there is always the fact the guy is a merchant, so he may be slightly biased (indeed this stands as an indication of just how badly humans are thought of by other races.)

Then again the AdMech has been known to fuck things up cuz of 'Omnissiah' so there is merit to that as well.

Page 469-470

"You all seem to speak Gothic quite well."
..
"You humans speak nothing else, and humans are troublemakers." the security thing grunts back...

Again we see how well regarded humanity is.

Page 470

Small, clawed hands clasp their drinks tightly, long snouts twitching in our direction. I catch the hint of a tail whipping nervously under their table.

"Hrud," the inquisitor replies. "Scavengers and tunnel-dwellers for the most part, you'll find them all over the galaxy, though never in large numbers. They're pretty much parasites, if you ask me."

Hrud. This seems to be more of the 'Space Skaven' interpretation than what we've seen in recent times. Not quite sue how to handle it, unless these were just mistakenyl identified as Hrud (ORiel isn't omniscient after all.)

Page 470

..indicating three multi-limbed creatures splayed on a bench along one side of the bar. They have no heads, but clusters of eye-like organs wave towards us, like grass in a breeze. They have no arms or legs, just a set of six tentacle limbs which I guess must serve them for both purposes.
..
"...they match the description of galgs."
...
"I think their world was conquered by the tau a few centuries ago. They're not particularly warlike as far as I remember, and not too advanced technically either."

Another client race of the tau.

Page 472-473

"You said the tau conquered these galg things?"
..
"Conquered is not really the right word." Oriel replies thoughtfully. "Coerced them might be a bit better. You see, the tau'va, the greater good, isn't really a religious thing just for them. They believe it's a common destiny across the galaxy, and includes everyone. The tau would much rather prefer other races as allies, or really servants to be honest, than enemies. You see, they're not fighting a war against anyone really, but there are lots of races in their way that they need to deal with."
...
"Sending an invasion fleet seems to be an odd way of not fighting a war,'"
...
"..that's Brightsword being overzealous," counters Oriel, taking another sip of his drink. "We sometimes have the same problem with Imperial commanders taking it on themselves to pick a fight with some other world which we don't need to fight just yet. Unlike the tau, we can remove them without worrying that it damages our beliefs. After all, the Emperor is infallible, not his servants."
...
"The tau arrive at your world, with a fleet, tanks, attack craft, fire warriors and battle suits, and they ask if you want to join in their quest to achieve the greater good. Well, that's the way I think it happened with the galgs. The galgs were clever enough to say yes, but there are some records that show what happens to those worlds who say no. Sooner or later they either say yes, with their cities burning and their soldiers rotting in their open graves, or are in no position to say anything at all."
...
"I guess there must be a lot of resentment then, all those conquered races, the tau obviously in charge, not everyone's going to be happy with that."
...
"Unfortunately, that isn't usually the case," Oriel replies with a shake of his head. "The tau are very magnanimous in victory. Those races that become a part of the Tau Empire aren't slaves, although they certainly aren't in charge either, as you say. The tau find out what they are able to do and then put them to good use. They don't always colonise the worlds they've conquered either, sometimes they just want to remove a strategic threat. As you've probably noticed, they favour very hot, dry worlds and there's usually not much competition in that regard."

Another (lengthy) discussion of Tau expansionism and the Greater Good. To put it brief - they use whatever means are neccessary to assimilate and/or conquer whoever they need to as efficiently as possible. This can mean by more peaceful means, by subterfuge/manipulation (or sabotage), or it may even mean force (up to and including extermination - not everyone is reasonable.)

Now, its easy to go 'HA HA EVIL TAU' based on this, because they are just as expansionist as the Imperium, but there ARE differences. For one thing, (as Oriel notes) they're much better at incorporating those they conquer into their Empire. That doesn't mean the people are HAPPY about being conquered - its doubtful the tau give them any options - but they're very good at manipulating people, so they probably can (one way or another) get them to accept it. I imagine bribes of technology, security, and safety can help. This doesn't make them mustache twirling villains, because there really is nothing personal in this, it's 'just business' and they may even think they're doing the aliens a favor (the Greater Good and all that.) And the tau are a hell of alot better at assimilating alien races than the Imperium's own 'compliance' of humans is (Even during the Great Crusade, as we've seen in the HH series.)

Page 473-474

I saw tarellians on Epsion Octarius. Well, their corpses at least. Narrow-waisted and broad shouldered, the tarellians are a bit shorter than most people, with long canine-like faces, which is why we call them dog soldiers.
..
If I remember my legends correctly, we virus-bombed a few of their worlds back when the Emperor was leading the Great Crusade. Guess they still haven't got over that after ten thousand years.

Tarellian dog soldiers. Another race not fond of humanity, with good reason.

Page 478

"You forget, humans are despised by most races here.."
...
"Why such bad feeling?" I ask, wondering what we could have done that is so upsetting.

"You humans are everywhere, you spread across the stars like a swarm," Orak tells me, with no hint of embarrassment. "You invade worlds which are not yours, you are governed by fear and superstition."

"We are led by a god, we have a divine right to conquer the galaxy." I protest, earning more clicking laughter from the kroot leader. "It is mankind's destiny to rule the stars, the Emperor has told us so."

"Driven by fear and superstition, even worse than the tau and the tau'va." the kroot says, his voice suggesting good humour rather than distaste.

"So what do you believe in?"
..
"Change," he says, looking at me with his piercing dark eyes. "As we learn from our ancestors, we change and adapt. We learn from our prey and grow stronger. The future is uncertain, to stagnate is to die."
"You worship change?" I ask incredulously.
"No, human," he says, showing signs of irritation again. "Unlike your kind, we simply accept it."

I like this passage because it provides an independent comparison of the Imperium and Tau, both in their own flaws and good parts. Alot of the humans in the book (Kage included) have their own particuliar biases towards aliens and such, and this really puts it in perspective, especially in contrast to the Kroot POV. It also highlights how the Tau and humans are different, especially in their handling of other alien races despite being expansionist (again the Tau are better relatively speaking than humanity, and the fact they do have a Godlike entity does not really excuse it.)

This also reflects how not everyone will embrace the Greater Good openly, or at least not in the same way. The Kroot attitude can vary - contrast this POV with the more 'Greater Good compatible' view the Kroot had in 'Fear the Alien'. I'd actually say this position might have more merit, though. Despite however grateful they re to the tau or how much they may like them, they are not fully committed to the Greater Good (at least not all Kroot are), and they keep their own secrets (EG warp drive) from the tau.

Page 479

"They believe that by consuming slain foes, they can take the prowess and skills of their enemy. They also eat their own kind, supposedly to preserve their souls or something. It's a bit complicated really, but some magi amongst the tech-priests believe that the kroot may be actually capable of absorbing information from their food, and passing it on to future generations. I don't understand the details, and it seems highly implausible to me, but the kroot certainly believe it."

"They're cannibals?" I say, gazing around with new found horror at the aliens around us. "That's pretty sick."

"To you or I, certainly," Oriel agrees with a nod. "To them it is perfectly natural."

Kage's reaction is amusing, but the way the Kroot are described is accurate.

Page 485-486

Oriel gave a silent prayer to the machine god, hoping that the infernal tau surveyors had been fooled by the specially constructed stealth shield. The tech-priests had assured him this would be the case, but he was never one to rely heavily on the artifices of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
..
As he stepped off the ramp, it hissed back into place and the shuttle shimmered, the cloaking field activating fully, causing the small craft to disappear from view. Within a few seconds the small transport, which was barely three metres high and five metres long, was invisible.

Stealth/cloaking field on a shuttle. They have it, but it doesn't seem exactly common in this variant. Or the AdMech is hiding it,

Page 488

"When the time comes, it's almost like the rapture some preachers talk about. It's like the Emperor enters me, takes me over, like I become his weapon and nothing more."

Given what happens in the third novel (and the hints dropping in this one) this is actually a bit ominous, but it may explain Kage's value to Oriel and the Colonel too. Although it also makes me think Oriel is something of a Radical, which makes his association with the Colonel more ominous (and hilarious, because the Colonel is some sort of lunatic puritan-type with cetain blinders where Oriel is concerned.)

Page 489

Suddenly the detachment is gone,...
...
For a moment I see them as people, looking past the names and labels I gave them. There's Tanya, strong and confident again, but still haunted by her guilt. Trost, a merciless killer who acknowledges the pleasure he has gained from his bloody work and now relishes it. Strelli, without a care about anyone or anything else, determined to survive. Like I was a couple of years ago, I suddenly realise. And Quidlon, more restrained, more awed by the wondrous and horrifying galaxy we live in, his eyes opened to the perils he has to face, but still determined to examine it, to try and understand it. And then there's Moerck, sanctimonious, unforgiving, unrelenting in his beliefs and morals. He sees himself as a rock amongst the effluence of the stars. I couldn't hope for a better team.
...
"If you make that shot, you get to see another sunset and another sunrise."

"Is that a threat?" she asks calmly.

"No," I say with a smile she can't see. "It's my promise. If you make that shot, I'll make sure you see another sunrise."

"You said to never trust you," Tanya points out. "How do I know you won't abandon me?"

"You're one of my Last Chancers," I say after a short while. "You're my team, not the Colonel's. You're my Sharpshooter, and I picked you because you're the best. I picked all of you because you're all the best at what you do. I want to see you get those pardons and walk free, to do that thing which I can never do again. I want you to enjoy your next sunset, knowing you can enjoy them for the rest of your life. Most of all, I have a head full of memories which are all that are left of the Last Chancers my first time around. I don't want to add any more. There's enough dead folks in my dreams."

Kage exhibits a bit of his remaining humanity here, although I suspect it's not completely altruistic. He's got enough ghosts in his past that he can't handle more. Everything about the mission is personal for him - he's more in the Colonel's position than in the Chancers unlike in the first novel. They're HIS people and he feels the responsibility towards them. Tanya in particular seems to be in the role Kage was in the last book, and Kage feels the need for her to succeed where he failed. He knows he'll never escape his fate, or the Colonel, but he can see to it that those under his command will if they survive the mission, and at this point he'll accept any kind of victory he can.

Page 490-491

"I've been shown much more than I would've ever seen at home. There's so much in the galaxy I never knew about that I know about now. Every day has opened my eyes to something else. I've met soldiers and navy staff, I've talked to officers and commissars, I've seen sunrises on other worlds, and looked at different stars in the night skies, and none of that would have happened if I hadn't joined the Imperial Guard."
..
"I want to see more, but I've seen a hundred times the things most men see in a whole lifetime, more than I ever imagine existed when I was growing up"

Well if there can be an upside to being in the Guard, this is an interesting one.

Page 491

"Like I said, there's so much more to see here in the mortal world before I pass over."
...
"...or perhaps to visit one of the great cathedrals, or make a pilgrimage to Holy Terra itself."
...
"To travel more, oh certainly," he tells me with a smile. "I don't know how I'd do it. Perhaps I could continue working for Inquisitor Oriel, or maybe sign up as a crewman on a starship; after all I know a lot about mechanics."

"I'd avoid the Navy if I were you." I caution him. "You don't seem to mix well with the Adeptus Mechanicus, and there's hundreds. of tech-priests aboard every vessel."

Interesting that it suggests some measure of travel is possible even if you're poor (at least if you have a trade useful on a starship - like the void born) or working for some other Imperial official. Also Quidlon's 'skill' with mechanics does not seem unusual, his only flaw seems to be his inability not to get caught.

Also if Kage is to be believed hundreds of coggies per ship seems typical.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2013-03-04 02:57pm

Last update for Kill Team. Then I'm going to throw Annihilation squad all out at once. Time to move on to greener pastures.

Page 491

As I sit there, the pain behind my eyes starts again, a dull ache that spreads through my brain, not unbearable, but certainly uncomfortable. I get a glimpse in my mind's eye of bolts of lightning, and the stench of charred flesh. I try to ignore the thoughts and listen to Quidlon.

A bit of foreshadowing.

Page 495-496

"I think the power will shut down for several minutes," he tells us, dusting himself off and putting some oddly-shaped tools back into his pack.

"You think?" Moerck barks at him.

"I don't know how tau timing systems work, they don't even use seconds and minutes, so I'm having to guess." he moans back, obviously aggravated. "I couldn't even read the labels on all the switches and terminals, so think yourself lucky I'm not a fried mess right about now."

It says something about Quidlon's education (if not how he got it) that he can figure out how to do this to tau tech, despite it being supposedly more advanced and the differences in language.

Page 497

A tau in a fire warrior's uniform sticks his head out and the Colonel fires, the bullets impacting into the alien and flinging him backwards.

With a skill born of years of practice, Trost lobs a grenade straight through the opening and there's panicked shouting from inside.

The detonation blasts out the back five windows and hurls a body out of the door. About two seconds later an accompanying explosion takes out the front half of the train. Trost reaches the steps first and throws himself up, firing with his lasgun as he jumps inside. I go in next, firing the autogun to the right, one-handed, pulling myself through the hatch with my spare hand. Glass crunches under my feet and I see tau bodies strewn all over the benches that ran the length of each side of the transport. One or two move and we fire into them, and I hear the Colonel jump up behind me, his autopistol at the ready.

The others burst in from the front and we stand there looking at each other and the three dozen or so corpses lying between us. A few more start to come round so we begin the grisly job of executing them all, pulling off their helmets and putting a round into every single head.

Kage fires his autogun one handed. This probably suggests its a fairly compact, low-recoil design, even allowing for him not firing very accurately. Indeed given the amount of ammo he carries and burns through in bursts, they might be fairly small calibre bullets (caseless even? Hard to say)

Also, this implies tau body armour might not be good at stopping lasgun/autogun fire or grenades. Bear in mind that it doesn't specify the quantity (stopping a single shot and stopping a 3-4 round burst are not the same thing.) and alot of it depends on where the rounds hit as well. The other problem (which I never acknowleged before) is that 'uniform' may or may not include armor. The fact they had helmets suggests that, but they may very well have takne it off.

Furthermore, there is nothign to say that all tau armor is identical. It may just mean these troops aren't as well armoured as other infantry. Hell, even if it penetrates it may have made the rounds survivable (they had to go and execute some with headshots)

Page 498

I reckon it must be as least three, maybe four kilometres across at the base, dwarfing anything we saw back near the space port. Even the battle dome on Me'lek was only half the size..

Size of training domes for the Fire Warriors.

Page 499

I rise up slightly, still with the autogun on the window frame, and open fire with a short burst, gunning down the nearest tau, the bullets kicking across his stomach and chest, ripping chunks out of his armoured breastplate. The Colonel aims low at another, the row of bullet impacts from his pistol stitching a line along the wall before kneecapping the warrior. Oriel is jumping through the door, firing as he leaps, scoring a cluster of perfect hits on the helmet of a third warrior.
..
A fire warrior turns to run through one of the archways, but I get a bead on him first, the shots taking him high in the back and pitching him forward. He rolls and clambers to his feet, still alive and kicking...
...
..I see Quidlon fire from inside, his fusillade of las-bolts slamming into the fire warrior and spinning him down again.

More Imperial firearms vs Tau body armour. Again it seems like it does do damage, and may penetrate (or at least cripples/disables) but it doesn't always say its a definite kill. The helmet bit for autopistols also suggests its burst of fire rather than single shots.

The fact that a Fire Warrior takes a burst from Kage's rifle and survives (and gets incapacitated/killed by the following lasgun burst) may suggest it has some durability at least against bullets as well as lasweapon. AT the very least it would suggest comparable performance (for this particular body armour) to flak armour with the rigid components, and even if it penetrates it may still make the wounds survivable. Of course, nothing says that Tau arrmour is any less 'variable' than Imperial armour, either.

Page 501

Tanya pulls out the lascutter and gets to work on the next door as we provide covering fire. Three more fire warriors go down further along the narrow corridor..

More fire warriors going down (crippled or killed) by a short duration lasgun/autogun weapons fire. Again where it hits isn't specified.

Page 501

They're domed discs about a metre across, with thick aerials protruding from their curved tops, each underslung with a pair of linked guns that track and swivel as they scan the jungle for us. Tanya opens fire, plucking the closest out of the air with a single shot, its fractured casing spinning to the ground trailing sparks. Quidlon and I shoot next, a converging salvo of las-bolts and bullets that sends three more of the drones out of control, smashing into trees and plunging into the bushes.

The two that are left return fire and we duck for more cover as the shells smash fist-sized chunks from the tree trunks, hurling bark everywhere and spattering me with sweet-smelling sap. I roll sideways through the ferns, flattening leaves, and finish on my back, firing up. The shots ricochet off one of the drones, causing it to judder in its flight...
..
The shells strip through the leaves at knee height, splintering along the log...

Tau Drones, firebpoer and durability. I'd guess fist sized holes in trees might be comparable to bolters, at least in explosive power. Also the weapons are firing shells, not energy bolts.

Page 502

I drop the autogun and grab its circular rim with both hands. My muscles strain against its anti-gravity motors as I turn it vertical...
...
..I break into a headlong run at the nearest tree, pushing the drone in front of me, and smash it against the trunk....
...
I smash it against the tree again four more times, until the motors die and it suddenly becomes heavy in my hands.

An indicator of the weight of the drone and the strength of its antigrav motors.

Page 502

"Check your direction-finder, idiot," I tell Quidlon, and he pulls the magneto-compass from his belt, turning its dials to align properly. He gives it a shake and adjusts it again.

"It's no use," he says, shaking his head. "I think the tau have got some kind of interference generator, or perhaps just the structure of the dome is jamming the scanning beams."

Imperial compass and (sensor) jamming.

Page 503

..dropping down, the gun blazing in my hands. At this range I can't miss and the drone explodes into a shower of flaming shrapnel.
...
The next in line raises his rifle to blast me apart but I kick the muzzle aside and the shot tears through his comrade, nearly slicing him in half.

Durability of drone and firepower of Tau rifle against armoured tau

Page 503

...driving the autogun under his chin and pulling the trigger. The top of his helmet explodes across the ferns in a bloody spray.

Autogun shot (burst?) blows off top (or back?) of tau skull and the helmet from point blank shot. Whether it gets under the helmet or not to penetrate the fabric suit is not known.

Page 503

The two remaining aliens turn and flee, but Quidlon snatches up his lasgun and cuts them down with an intense salvo of bolts before they get out of sight. I take a pause to catch my breath, looking at the mutilated bodies. Rather them than me.

Sustained lasfire cutting down more Tau. Messily I'd gather.

Page 504

I catch a glimpse now and then of something, but nothing I could definitely identify as a tau. It's then that my attention is drawn to the large bole of a tree pretty much directly opposite from where I'm crouched. I look at the deep score lines in the bark running up and down, and they bend and twist slightly. The strange thing is, the pattern of the lines is almost a perfect humanoid shape.

"Sneaky bastards," I whisper to myself, lining up a shot on what I take to be the head of the near-invisible warrior. I pull the trigger softly, sending a single round cracking out across the clearing, it impacts on something in front of the tree and it's then that I see a figure thrashing to the ground, the light somehow bending around it, making it near impossible to see.

Stealth suits.

Page 504

There's incoming fire from every direction, a massive fusillade of bullets that converge on our position, shredding leaves and branches and punching into the thick trunks of the trees spraying iron-hard splinters around us, forcing us to hurriedly duck further back into cover.

Stealth suit gunfire. again projectiles.

Page 506

I see shadowy shapes to the left and right and sight along the barrel of the autogun, picking my shots. I loose off one burst to the left and see a figure drop, then another to the right is kicked off their feet by the volley.
..
I fire back at the muzzle flares and hear a muffled scream as my shots hit home.

more autogun vs tau

Page 507-508

With the fronts of the thighs lowered down for access, I can see that there's a seat inside, surrounded by display panels and rows of illuminated buttons. Hooking his leg inside, Quidlon drops into the seat, and I notice how his legs drop into the thighs of the suit. Bracing clamps close with a hiss around his legs, locking him in place.
...
His left hand settles on a stubby control column while his right punches a few more buttons.
...
The thigh panels flip back up into place, sealing shut with a clang, and then with a whining of motors the main canopy drops down.
...
Then the war machine begins to judder, shaking violently for a couple of seconds. With a hiss, the chest plate opens up again. The canopy hinges away to reveal a charred corpse in the seat, still smoking, burnt lips peeled back from grinning teeth. There's a few crackles of energy still playing around two rods inserted into either side of Quidlon's head. Silently, the rods withdraw back into the sides of the cockpit. The thighs peel downwards revealing his ravaged legs, pieces of material burnt onto the bone. The stench of burnt flesh fills my nostrils and I gag. I gulp heavily to stop myself throwing up.
...
I fire a few shots into the corpse, causing it to collapse into a pile of bones and ashes which spill out from the suit. I spit on the pile and then kick at it, scattering ashes and chunks of shattered bone around me.

Tau battlesuit, and what I take to be either a security defnese against unauthroised use, or an indication of the MIU-like elements (which we know of from other novels like Fire Warrior) being lethal to non-Tau beings. Either way Quidlon gets cremated and the interior survives intact.

What's more, recall that Kage had a bit of an inkling something like this would happen to him, so we've just gotten another hint at Kage being a psyker (which is part and parcel of the third novel, actually.)

Page 508

..I see fire warriors coming into the surrounding chamber, and fire off a few bursts of shots, taking one of them down and forcing the others back out of sight.

More autogun stuff.

Page 509

Moerck follows them, firing shots at the fire warriors dashing across the chamber, taking a couple of them down.

Moerck has a lasgun.

Page 510

I see Oriel, Moerck and the Colonel fighting hand-to-hand with a squad of fire warriors. I'll say this, the tau have impressive guns, but they don't know the first thing about close combat.

Wonder if this means 'close quarters' as in short range firefights as well as melee, or if it just means melee. This being 40K, the latter is quite likely. Then again, Fire Warriors using those big, cumbersome rifles would be at a disadvantage at close in. Pathfinders would be different (although that's offset by lighter armour.)

Page 512

A multi-barrelled cannon on his right arm swings in our direction, a missile pod mounted on his shoulder angling up towards the tower. On his left arm is a shield-like device which I can see crackling with energy. His bodyguard are armed with the same multi-barrelled guns, and a mix of other lethal-looking weaponry.
...
I see the four barrels of Brightsword's gun begin to spin, building up speed, and then he opens fire with an explosive burst of light, the shells tearing into the wall just behind me.
..
..I dive to one side and roll, feeling the whip of bullets screaming around me. Something hot and painful catches my foot, sending me sprawling again, and I look down to see blood oozing out of a hole in my right boot. Biting back a shout of pain, I bring round my autogun and open fire, spraying bullets at Brightsword. They ricochet harmlessly off his battle suit in a random pattern of sparks, leaving tiny little dents but having no other effect.
..
One of the bodyguards peels off towards me, and points what is unmistakably a flamer in my direction.
...
I open fire with the few bullets left in my magazine, aiming for the canister of flamer fuel on its left arm. The canister explodes, setting fire to the left side of the armoured suit and hurling molten shrapnel across the floor.

The suit's pilot ignores the damage...

Tau battlesuits in action. Lasgun/autogun fire ineffective, their burst cannon firing bullets, and they have a flamer (with exposed tanks.

Page 513-514

The others direct their fire on Brightsword as he looms over me, las-bolts and bullets pinging around us. I get the strangest sensation that I've been here before. I then realise this is like the waking nightmare I had on the shuttle. In fact it's almost exactly the same - the gunfight around me, the massive figure looming over me. He turns, raising his shield arm, and the shots ricochet off it wildly, causing small crackles of energy to leap from the disc.
...
It's like I know somehow that he's not going to kill me. Then I hear a sharper crack over the zip of lasguns and rattle of autoguns. Something slams into the shield, causing it to detonate in a bright shower of blue sparks, falling to the ground in three shattered pieces. More shots ring out, armour-piercing shells punching neatly through the battle suit in a tight cluster at the centre of the main chestplate.
...
The next incoming shot hits one of the barrels end on, causing it to split, and as he fires, the gun ruptures, shearing off the whole arm, which spins past and clangs to the ground just to my right. More shots in rapid succession cut through the struts of his right lower leg, causing it to buckle under the weight of the suit and toppling him down to one side.

While it doesn't explicitly say so at the time or in the immediate pages, its quite obvious that Tanya (Sharpshooter) is using her sniper rifle on the battlesuit. We dont know the calibre or power of the rifle, but it probably is AMR grade, although recoil is going to limit how powerful (we're not talking packing a 30mm cannon in rifle form, for example, unless she has some really fancy counter-recoil systems. Indication of durability of Brightsword's command Battlesuit, (including shield) at least in this configuration.

Also the 'waking nightmare' bit, another instance of Kage's nascent psychic power manifesting.

Page 514

There's a hiss from the battle suit, and a moment later a section of the body is punched away on four small jets, hurling Brightsword from the crippled machine.

Battlesuit ejection pod. At least for the important commanders.

Page 514

He slumps to the ground and looks up at me, anger in his eyes. He mutters something in Tau and takes a deep breath.

Tau feel emotion, but can face death with calm. I must admit I wasn't happy to have KAge just bash his brains out. And the bodyguard seem not happy with it since they intend on vengeance.

Page 515

"Can't you use some magic on them or something?"
...
"Persuade them to go away? I don't think that will work."
...
"Make em think we're dead or something, they'll go after the others then and we can make a break for it."
...
"Alright, I'll try it." Oriel agrees. "Lie down and play dead."
..
I can hear feet crunching, quite a few aliens by my judgement - inside now - and something prods at my back, the barrel of a rifle. There's more talking, and I hear the clump-clump of the heavy battle suits receding outside, followed by a burst of gunfire. The tau around us move out hurriedly, leaving us in peace.
...
"Sit tight, wait for them to leave the chamber."

Oriel uses ihs psyhic powers to fool the Tau.

Page 517-518

"It's Brightsword's shas'vre. Coldwind has betrayed us."
...
"First rule of assassination. We should have realised"
..
"Kill the assassins"
..
"Your people will weep and your worlds will bleed!" a voice from one of the battle suits booms out, echoing off the surrounding buildings. "You will not live to see the misery you have brought upon your people!"

ITS A TRAP! well really this isnt surprising. What I wonder about, given Coldwind's earlier revulsion at the thought of killing tau.. did the Tau actually intend for Brightsword to die, or not? It's not impossible for them to view his sacrifice (despite their distaste) as necessary for the Greater Good, but there is still the revulsion and morale impact. I mean clearly the tau are pissed. If I guess, they didn't INTEND for him to seriously die, but they did place his life at risk and consider him dying possible to achieve the plan (again for the greater good.) That would suit their mentality.

I also wonder how widespread this plan was.. I am willing to bet they didn't tell anyone the greater plan so they had plausible deniability. It's obvious they intended to betray the Last Chancers all along, after all, and the deniability was built into the plan (they can just turn it around into a propoganda victory.

Oh and the tau getting pissed is nice to see again.

Page 518

..loading large calibre bullets from her bandoleer into the sniper rifle in her hands.

Implied scale of Tanya's sniper rifle bullets. I'm betting this is .50 cal or greater, much greater probably.

Page 518-519

Two and a half metres tall, and nearly a metre broad across the chest, the Space Marine towers over the burning bodies scattered around him. Clad head to foot in black power armour decoratively chased with metals that glint in the firelight, he advances on the battle suits.
...
I make out an Inquisition symbol on his left shoulder pad, an ''I'' picked out in gleaming gold. In his left hand he carries a long power sword, gleaming blue in the darkness; in his right he raises a bolter and opens fire...
...
I can just about make out the flickering trails of the bolts as they scream across the open ground, three of them impacting in quick succession on the closest of the battle suits, the one whose flamer I destroyed earlier, tearing great gouges out of the armour and knocking it backwards. Still advancing steadily, the Space Marine opens fire again, three more shots, three more perfect hits that set off a chain reaction in the suit, causing it to explode in a shower of shrapnel and burning body parts of the pilot.
...
Their cannon fire dims even the searchlights, and I see the shells converging on the Space Marine. Their impact would have shredded a normal man and hurled his bloody carcass a dozen metres, but the Space Marine is simply forced down on to one knee under the cannonade. Cracks and dents appear in his armour under the fusillade, and a shoulder pad goes spinning off, trailing sparks from its powered mounting. Unbelievably, the Space Marine pushes himself to his feet, ignoring the shells ripping up the ground around him and scoring across his breastplate, and returns fire, his bolts ripping through the burst cannon of one of the battle suits.
...
He tosses away his bolter and grabs the power sword two-handed, breaking into a charge, his long strides covering over three metres every step, his boots cracking the concourse under his weight.

The nearest battle suit, now one-armed, takes a step back, readying itself for a jump, but somehow the Space Marine gets there before the jets fire, swinging the sword in a crackling arc that severs one of the battle suit's legs and topples it to the ground. Without a pause, the Space Marine spins and delivers another blow, the glowing blade of his sword carving a massive rent in the body of the suit, shearing it wide open.

Deathwatch Marine vs Battlesuits. And its amazingly one sided. Despite that (and my old amusement at this, which I still have because this is something that would enrage some tau fans) I suspect this isn't *quite* representative of normal Marine armour. We know Deathwatch sometimes (often) get fancy tidbits, and the fact they onyl assigned a single MArine to help rather than a whole Kill Team - which strikes me as EXTREMELY odd - suggests that perhaps he might be wearing some sort of higher grade armour - artificer armour of some kind is likely, which would have far more resilience than normal power armour. That isn't to say that tau weaponry would easily breach Space Marine armour either, it's just that standing up against sustained burst cannon fire like this seems... iffy. On the other hand if they're just firing bullets rather than pulse ammo, that might make a difference too.

Also the marine makes 3 metres with every stride, which is a bit slower than the Dark Angels in 'Angels of Darkness.'

Page 519

I glance up and see Tanya at one of the windows, kneeling on one leg, her sniper rifle tucked tight against her shoulder, aiming up into the air. Even as the dust settles around her, she fires a shot, ejects the spent casing, tracks further up and fires again. In all, she looses off five shots in the space of a few seconds.
...
..seconds before the disabled tau battle suit comes plummeting down through the ceiling..

5 shots in 'a few seconds' to disable (Crisis) Battlesuit. Again the sniper rifle.

Page 520

..the other jetting away, firing salvoes of rockets at the Space Marine, who ducks down behind the cover of one of the rained tau machines..

Tau rockets seem to be a danger even to the Deathwatch marine.

Page 521

...I pull the trigger on the rifle. It has no kick to it at all, the heavy shell smashing straight through the closest tau and punching the next in line from his feet. The third brings up his rifle, but far too late. The next shot almost takes his head off completely, his body flopping messily to the ground.

I'm not sure whether this is a pulse rifle or rail rifle, but it may not make much difference either way. Given how many 'bullet' examples there are in this novel (and we know Kroot use pulse ammo) we might figure they have compact railguns alongside their pulse weaponry. Assuming a between a half gram and one gram bullet which is 2-5 kj, which would fit with the overpenetration and taking the head off.

Page 521

"I regret nothing," he replies calmly, meeting my angry gaze with a passionless expression.
..
"All that I have done, I have done for the tau'va," he says evenly. "I foresaw that I might die. I am not afraid. I have served the tau'va. We shall continue to grow."

"But why the double-cross?" I ask, curious. "Why risk this happening? Why sour the deal?"

"To teach you humans that your time is finished." he says with a short nod of amusement. "You are old and decrepit, like the crumbling mansions your rulers inhabit. Your time has passed, and yet you so jealously cling on to the remnants of what you once had. We are superior. The tau'va is far superior to your dead Emperor."

We see here how dedicated tau can be to the concept of the Greater Good, both in the sense that any action is justified, and any sacrifice willingly made. That kind of.. devotion (or fanaticism) is both impressive and frightening - it matches anything you would see out of (for example) the Death Korps of Krieg - or indeed Space Marines.

We also see the confidence - indeed, arrogance- of the tau based on the Greater Good. They clearly don't have an inkling (yet) of just how vast the Imperium is - or how lucky they are they are distracted with the Tyranids, but they think they actually can topple the Imperium. And this isn't the first time we've heard rhetoric like that from them, either.

Page 522-523

..tapered helmets clearly marking them out as tau. Two of them are pitched off their feet by hits and I hear two reports of a rifle echo around the quiet town.
...
...I try to make out Tanya's position, as I guess she's the one picking off the enemy with such precision..
...
...a long barrel extends out from the shadows.

There's a small flash and a bang, and one of the tau is spun to the ground by a clean hit to the chest. I see Tanya get up and move further down the street...

I'd guess if Tanya's sniper rifle can punch through Battle suits armor, fire warrior armour should not be a problem. The fact they get knocked backwards at all may indicate that the weapon is indeed in the highe nd of the rifle range (say .50 cal rifle)

Page 524

Standing with them is the Space Marine. He's even more impressive this close, my head barely comes up to his chest. His armour is scratched, pitted and cracked in dozens of places, but he doesn't seem bothered in the least.

Deathwatch marine. His armour has taken damage, but he's still fully functional.

Also this suggests Kage is close to 2 m tall himself, depending where exactly 'barely' to his chest goes (In my case I guessed the lower part of the chest, meaning they're 50-60cm shorter.)

PAge 528

Just then something flashes inside, through the opening: a bolt of light that catches one of the battle suits in mid-jump, turning it into a fiery ball of slag.

Probably a lascannon. It implies it melts the entire battlesuit (which is either crisis or Broadside) In my previous calc I assumed a Crisis battlesuit of iron composition (2-3 tonnes) for 2-4 GJ. If we assumed it something closer to silicon it would be several times greater, and a broadside battlesuit is (IIRC) ~4 tonnes.

That said, one thing I never noted (or really considered) was whether all the energy comes from the suit or not. There are reasons to go both ways - the suit is obviously not an inert target (reactors or power cells, ammo, etc.) but I doubt the battlesuit has ammo (and if it did it would probably explode, not immolate.) We saw a batltesuit flamer in action - that might immolate but the last time it didn't completely melt the suit either. Pulse ammor or capacitors are murkier - batteris can 'explode' I think but they can also set something on fire, although I don't think it would melt it completely in mid-air either.

Even aside from that doesn't mean a lasweapon would easily melt the suit either.. it would require a very broad beam (or one tracking over the target very quickly) to melt it like that. And there's always the possibility it is describing a 'fireball' melting it - that it is exploding.

Even if I was off by an order of magnitude (or two) we're still talking double or triple digit MJ (significant melting, and still a low end) but it would also demonstrate a more purely thermal weapon (Rather than mechanical.) And if I'm 1000 times off? Well we already have single digit MJ lower limits for lasweapons already, so no problems there.

And there is always still the fact that we don't quite know WHAT weapon did it, which furthe rmuddies the issue.

Page 528

Explosions light up the sky all over the town-scape, as Imperial drop ships plummet groundwards, bombs and missiles heralding their approach, cratering the wide roads and smashing the buildings to pieces. Imperial Guardsmen are running everywhere, fighting with tau fire warriors and battle suits.

IG deploying directly into battle with the tau via drop ship, and the drop ships themselves are armed (At least with missiles and bombs, if not guns.)

Pgae 528

I look over at Oriel as a platoon of guardsmen run past dressed in mismatched uniforms, carrying all sorts of weapons. One of them sets up a lascannon, steadying it on its tripod, before firing again at the tau, the bolt of energy going wide this time.

A rather interesting case of a man portable lascannon on a tripod carried by a Guardsmen. Must be a rather small lascannon (and/or carried by a Bragg-like Guardsmen) givne that we usually see only Space Marines hefting lascannon anything like a rifle.

It also suggests with the 'firing again' that it might have shot the battlesuit down, although that isn't definite.

Page 528-529

"Make for open ground, more drop ships will be landing"
..
Out of a blasted doorway I can see the open desert surrounding the battle dome, now littered with drop ships as more troops land, dozens and dozens of men and women pouring down the gangways. Tank carriers land, their heavy ramps dropping quickly, Leman Russ rumble out of the holds, their battle cannons turning towards the tau force as soon as their tracks hit the sand. There's a rush of air, and sand is billowed up from the ground only a dozen metres away as a drop ship lands close by, its jets kicking up a dust storm that swirls into the buildings.
...
As we wait for the squad to disembark, another two drop ships land close by, and soon the air is filled with a choking, roiling dust cloud and the whine of engines powering down.

More dropships deploying. I'm guessing the 'dozens' implies they might be platoon or company sized dropships. Also we get tank carriers, so this is very much a combined arms assault, deploying straight into the middle of the tau force from orbit in a very short time (minutes probably, hours at worst)

LAst time I did this analysis I noted that this was clearly an example of the tau getting their asses kicked. Which it is, showing that the tau do not always get the best of things when they fight the Guard, but I really had the wrong intention (which is usual when it comes to Guards vs tau.) Basically it just shows that the fight between either is not 'absolute' and should not be reduced to single variables (EG tech, tactics, doctrine, or whatever someone chooses to 'favor' as being instrumental.) It depends on quite a few different varaibles. This demonstrates that, given surprise and preparation, an IG force can make an effective, crushing assault on the tau. It also shows the guard are not restricted to fighting in just one way against them, either. And as I've noted, the tau approach has its own flaws which can be exploited. It's not something that can (or should) be simplified down.

to be fair to the tau this is probably not a major world for them, its more of a psychological victory.

Page 529

Turning away, I notice smoke rising from the main city in a dozen places, and look up to see the vapour trails of planes returning to orbit.

Fighters too. Whether they are starfighters (Gav Thorpe version of marauders and thunderbolts, which are space/atmosphere hybrids and hudge) or atmospheric fighters with a booster is up for debate. It's also up for debate whether they are guard or Navy.

PAge 530-531

"...this was more than simply a matter of preventing O'var from invading the Sarcassa system, although that did provide me with a reason for instigating a much wider scheme.."
..
"The tau are a threat to our future in this part of the galaxy..."
...
"It is a threat that we are unable to deal with fully at this moment in time. Other pressing matters, such as the advance of tyranid Hive Fleet Kraken, draw away the military resources we would need to wage war on the Tau Empire. That much is true, as you have been told before. That the tau are not keen to start a serious military engagement with the Imperium either, that much is also true. However, they had the upper hand. They thought that we could not combat the spread of their empire in this sector, and without this intervention we could not. However, by their own complicity in the assassination of Commander Brightsword, they provided me with a golden opportunity to give them an object lesson in the nature of the foe they face. They think they are clever, learning tricks of manipulation from the eldar, but they are young."
...
"we're sneakier than they could hope to be, given the right conditions."
..
"Es'tau is just an outpost, little more than a fire caste staging area for O'var and his warriors.."
...
"The loss of Es'tau, which by the way should be called Skal's Breach as it is marked on our star charts until they took it from us, is not a major blow to the Tau Empire. Except in one regard. No longer can they feel they can encroach upon our territory without reproach. No longer will they be certain that we won't respond to their aggressive advances into our space. We cannot hold back the expansion of their empire with might and guns. Not in the straightforward sense. But we can make them pause and think. Perhaps to turn their attention elsewhere, to easier areas to colonise which do not belong to us yet. We have sent them a message that will give them pause for consideration. That was my larger purpose in this enterprise. I wanted Brightsword dead, make no mistake about that, but not to stop him invading Sarcassa. I wanted him dead so that the chain of command was broken, so that the tau were disrupted, so that their attention was focussed on the battle dome and not on the half a dozen Imperial transports in orbit, packed with guard masquerading as renegades and mercenaries. Even now, three thousand more troopers are landing on the surface, eliminating the resistance that remains."

Again, in the tau's defense this is not a major conflict for either side, and not a real loss for them, but it served other roles (at least according to Oriel. I doubt the tau would listen, given their own sort of 'manifest destiny' - something that as the kroot earlier noted breeds their own sort of confidence the same way the Imperium's faith in the Emperor does.) Barring something like the Jericho Reach conflict, most of the tau-Imperium battles are pretty small scale (thousands or tens of thousands). If the Imperium had engaged in a serious war, the tau would be crushed utterly.

Besides, there's also that interesting blurb about the Eldar teaching the tau. As I recall one of the older 4th (or 3rd) edition CW Eldar codexes had Eldrad feeling protective of the tau (or something.) I believe there's been rumours (tied to the origins as outlined in Fire Warrior) that the Eldar (specifically, Harlequins) had a hand in 'uplifting' the tau, for some reason.

As I've said before, the tau are lucky.

Page 531

"When I accused you of being a witch, why did you say that of all people I should not judge you?"
..
"You're intelligent, Kage, you'll work it out for yourself."

Oriel knows Kage is a psyker. Indeed, Kage has repeatedly demonstrated in this novel he has some flickers of precog/divination, and its quite likely his powers are a factor in his 'luck' or survival. IT will also be a problem later in the next book.

This also makes you wonder just how many wyrds or latent psykers might remain in the guard unnoticed, and the impact it has on them.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2013-03-04 03:11pm

Annihilation squad. Last book of the Last Chancers series. And frankly the least enjoyable. That isn't to say its bad. its just.. average. ITs a real let down compared to the other two, or Angels of Darkness. I mean it shouldn't be any different than the last two, same formula at least.. but it definitely lacks. I suspect it is the fact that it IS formulaic, but there really is no where to go in exploring Kage's character in relation to the last chancers. First novel he was a chancer and got out (and blew his chance.) The second onvel he's in the Colonel's shoes ensuring those under his command get THEIR last chance. And in this one... he's a psyker and daemon bait. It really doesn't fit the pattern, except in the sense that it explores the Colonel and Kage's relationship and Kage's role in the Imperium, but even that doesn't get explored too much because the bulk of the novel is devoted to the mission, which takes place during Third Armageddon. So what we end up with is basically a decent IG novel, but one that fails to live up to the past two books. It still manages to bring the series to a sort of close, and the stuff pertaining to the Colonel AND Kage that is in tehre is interesting, but that's it.

since I am going to breeze through this, we'll do a couple updates all at once. Then I can move on to other stuff.

PAge 543

The Immaterium. Warp space. It is a seething mass of roiling emotive energies, a kaleidoscope of colours and textures that reflect mankind's passions and fears. Sharp red waves of anger crash against blue whirlpools of despondency and soft purple clouds of passion. It is scattered with flickering pinpricks of white, a firmament of souls, the spirits of the living that resemble tiny stars of energy: miniscule, fleeting and soon forgotten. Here and there, like a candle in an insane wilderness of crashing colours, burns the soul of a psyker. The turmoil feeds its fire, giving it strength.
Through the tempest of feelings surges a ship, its harsh lines obscured by a miasma of fluctuating forces. Its Geller Field pushes back the burning energies of the warp. Its eagle-beaked prow tears through hope and despair, the stubby wing shapes of its launch bays cut
across love and hate, leaving wispy trails of rage and disappointment.
Behind the ship drifts a shadow, an empty tide of nothingness that consumes the disturbed energies, and feeds upon them. The cloud is more than a shadow; it is a shoal of emptiness made from thousands of warp-entities - daemonic sharks of the Immaterium that prey upon the energy of mortals. They gather around the ship, flickers of protective power flash along its length as they attempt to break through. But they are flung back by the psychic shield.
The Getter Field brightens and dims under the assault of the daemonic creatures; its power waxes and wanes. Around the vortices of its warp engines, a brief tear opens, and the energy of Chaos seeps in, a lone shadow flitting through the momentary break in the warding fields.
It passes effortlessly through the steel hull of the ship, seeking a host. It can feel its life-force dripping away, leeched from its invisible, incorporeal form now that it is cut off from the sustenance of warp space.

the Warp.

Page 545

We've been travelling for nearly a year now. A single, long, virtually impossible warp jump. I've never heard of such a thing before, I didn't even know it was possible. Usually a ship will jump into warp space for a short time, and then jump back into the real galaxy a week, or perhaps a month later. Ships that jump further get lost, or are destroyed. I've heard tales of ships that got caught in warp storms, only to emerge five hundred years later, their crews aged by just a few months. And I've also heard of ships that have disappeared for only a week or two, and are then found drifting, the crew nothing but ashes, the ships' logs showing that they died of old age.

- According to Kage, they have been travelling in the Warp for nearly a year now. A "single, long, virtually impossible warp jump." Evidently (as implied later) they have been travelling from the eastern fringe of the galaxy towards Armageddon (from around the vicinity of the Tau Empire, or where their last assignment took place.) Given that as true, this probably means a jump of around at least 40,000-50,000 light years or so. Given the fact they were It cna't be *quite* sure if this is "Warp time" or realspace time, but Kage's comments (and subsequent commentary in the book) seem to indicate this is realspace time (or if warp time, the two in this case were not dramatically different.) We can therefore conclude that (within an order of magnitude) the transport's warp speed was easily a good 40-50 thousand c.

Page 546

Each one of the thirty people sharing this chamber with me is being punished for their crimes. I murdered my sergeant because of a woman. Topasz, who lies to my left, is a thief who stole from the officers' mess of her regiment. Keiger, the bearded man to my right, hung his own squad for supposed insubordination. Looters, heretics, mass-murderers, rapists, thieves and all the other scum of the Imperial Guard end up here, doomed to spend their short lives fighting to their grisly deaths in battle.

The sorts of crimes the IG punishes for.

Page 547

On the way out I count the cutlery, including the spoons, to make sure nobody's smuggled out anything that could be used as a weapon. It's bad enough that we give them guns to train with. Who knows what they'd do if they were let loose with a fork.

Kage once escaped from a prison by using a sharpened spoon as a weapon. Experience is the best teacher.

Page 547

After this, and the odd argument, scuffle or backbiting comment, I lead the platoon down to the small stores room to gear up for training. Two commissariat provosts, even meaner and leaner than Navy arms men, guard the door to the armoury. They eye us through the black-tinted visors of their helms, shotguns held across the carapace armour on their chests. Anyone would think we were a bunch of criminals that might try and take over the ship. Nobody's had that idea since Walken got his head blown off by these two about six months ago.

- introduction of commissariat provosts (elite troops), armed with shotguns and wearing carapace armor. One of the Last Chancers got their heads blown off by the provost's shotguns. Sometimes they get hellguns.

Page 548

Behind his worn counter sits Erasmus. His bespectacled eyes peer at us across his stores ledger, his quill-skull hovers over his left shoulder.
...

He looks at me and nods, before whispering something to the quill-skull. It hovers over his shoulder, the polished bone gleaming in the yellow light of the storeroom, and a dripping pen extends from its whirring innards. The scuttlebutt maintains that the skull is actually from Spooge's father, who died in service to the Departmento, and Erasmus inherited the position. Along with his father's skull, of course, now refitted as an auto-scribe. At Erasmus's promptings, it scribbles squarely across the ledger, leaving dribbling blots as it goes. Little wisps of smoke bubble from its machinery-filled eyes. When it's finished, Erasmus gives it an affectionate pat. It returns to its position, hovering just above the armourer-scribe's shoulder.

- Deparrtmento Munitorum armorer on ship has a servo- "quill skull" that runs on an antigrav suspensor and can do simple tasks for the armorer. (for example, it has a penlike device inside it and can write down requests or keep records.)

And yes his last name is Spooge. I try not to dwell o nthat.

Page 548

Erasmus, or Munitorum Armourer-scribe Spooge as he is known officially, has a way of making every sentence a question. I have no idea how he does it, or if he's even aware of it, but it's impossible for him just to make a statement.

"Grenades and demolitions, dummies only." I tell him and his smile turns to a pout.
"Dummies?" he says. "No live charges? How will your men learn if they use decoys and dummies all the time? I mean, I know there was that poor business with Morgan the other week, but do you think the others will stop being so sloppy if they're using dummies?"

The 'poor business' he's referring to was the premature detonation of a faulty grenade Erasmus had supplied. Stephan Morgan, a first class soldier as far as I could tell, excepting his predilection for finding alcohol everywhere and anywhere and being drunk on watch, was blown into so many pieces it took four servitors to clean up the mess. I've got another scar on my ripped up face as a memorial to his bloody death. The only other thing that marks the occasion is a small entry into the ledger. I can't read much, but knowing the Departmento Munitorium, it probably says something like, "Grenade, fragmentation Mk32, faulty, item unavailable for inspection."

A faulty grenade blows apart one of the Legionnaires.. showing the firepower of grenades (its at least as good as a modern grenade, if not better.)

It also shows pretty much how worthless thge Munitourm bureacracy is. I mean the guy's name is SPOOGE for crying out loud.

Page 548-549

One of the provosts opens the armoury door and I see a servitor tottering away between the racks on six skeletal, artificial legs. Its arms have been replaced with a lifting hoist. Scraping and clanking, it works its way along the shelves, picking out crates and canisters. It loads them onto the flatbed back of another servitor, doubled up under a heavy plate. There are tracks where its legs were that grind across the grated floor. Its withered arms are bound across sagging breasts, life support tubes have been driven into its ribcage. The monotonous hissing of artificial lungs reverberates through the air. Drool hangs from its slack lips. The servitor's blank eyes look straight through us as it trundles out of the door, coming to a halt just in front of me.

Munitorum servitor.

Page 549

Geared up, we make our way back along the ship, passing through humid, pipe-filled corridors above the engine rooms to the training deck. It was a loading bay once, but as it is the largest space on the cramped ship, it was turned to a more useful purpose. Seventy-five metres long and twenty-five metres wide, it's just about big enough to be a firing range, as well as a drill square. We ripped out most of the cranes and other machinery to make more space, dumping them before we jumped into warp space. With the help of the tech-priests we kept a couple rigged up for moving heavier objects around.

Their training grounds.

Page 549

A year in the warp, and drill every single day, they must have done this fifty times already. Still, no soldier is happy unless there's someone shouting at them, so the three sergeants, Blurse, Candlerick and Fiakir oblige, haranguing them for being slow and sloppy as they trot down to the far end of the chamber.

Once more, a year in the warp/

Page 549

The 'tank' was devised by the Colonel. Made from welded-together packing crates and bits of old machinery, it's a blocky, square replica of a real tank, complete with turret and a gun made from old cable pipe. We moved a set of rails, which had previously run into one of the side chambers, so that they stretch for three-quarters the length of the training hall. Pulled along the rails by a loading winch, the tank can actually pick up a good speed for about twenty metres. We also have a dummy aeroplane, made of wood, thirty metres up in the overhanging gantries, which we can use to simulate an enemy strafing run.

IG Improvisation as its best.

Page 550

I cause him a few problems though, because in his experience the Imperial Guard is run by NCOs like himself, while the officers are just around to make sure everything looks nice. In his regiment, the 38th Cordorian Light Infantry, he was used to the officers just giving him the nod and expecting him to sort everything out. Then he had to go too far, and anticipate the orders of his captain one time too many, leading an attack against a traitor camp. It would have been good if the captain had not already ordered an artillery strike a few minutes later, so that half of Blurse's platoon was blown apart by their own gunners' shells.

This suggests that perhaps the officers don't do much directly, and that the NCOs 'interpret' the orders. you see this crop up alot in military sci fi for some reason I have noticed.

Page 551

"That's a tank, in the Emperor's name, containing an engine and shells." I say, and I see realisation dawn on the corporal.

"Secondary explosions, sir," the corporal says. "Squad two failed to wait and see if the charge set anything else off, sir."

Stuff inside the tank be explosive.

Page 552

Responsibility for cooking is shared between the three squads, with Blurse's unit on food detail today Not that it takes much, opening packets of dried rations, boiling them in water that's been reclaimed Emperor knows how many times in the last year.
I elbow my way into a space on the cramped bench with Candlerick's squad, who are tucking into the reconstituted slop with little vigour. I spoon the gruel in without ceremony, noting that it tastes of salt and not much else.

IG Cuisine. also again a year in transit. Showing the relative endurance of the transport.

Page 552

"I can't see how this anti-tank training will be much use, sir." he says, waving his spoon around.

"How so?" I ask.

"Infantry support." Festal says, putting the spoon down. "No tank commander's going to roll into a town or forest without infantry. We would never go in with just a tank."

I look at him for a moment, and then at the rest of the squad.

"You were a drop trooper, right?" I say and he nods. He was one of the elite first company of the 33rd Kator Gravchute Regiment, in fact. He led an unauthorised landing to loot a town behind enemy lines, after it had been abandoned in advance of an ork attack. "Used to operating behind the lines, then?"
"Yes, I'm trained as a pathfinder." he says with a shrug. "What of it?"
"So you're trained in sabotage, guerrilla activity and the like, then?" I ask, and he nods again. "What do you think we're going to be doing?"
"I don't know." Festal says with a shake of his head. "The Colonel hasn't breathed a word about our mission."
"That's right." I say, finishing off the gruel and dropping the spoon into the bowl with a clatter. "I don't know what we're up to either, but I'd bet my life it's something secretive. Not on the frontline, where tanks and infantry move together, but behind them, on tracks and roads, waylaying convoys and such."

Commentary on drop trooper training as well as yet another drop troop regiment mentioned. Also a comment on IG tactics in general. Also, the Guard frowning on military looting.

Page 555

What makes it worse is that Oriel knows, and maybe the Colonel too. I can't understand why the Inquisitor has let me be, I always thought that rounding up untrained psykers like me was their reason for being. I don't know what worries me more: the thought that I might get turned in to the Inquisition for being a witch, or the idea that for some reason Oriel and Schaeffer are using me for something else. There's no way I can let the rest of the platoon find out. If they didn't kill me themselves, they'd be sure to make the Colonel take action.

Kage and his Inquisitor ally/master realize Kage is a psyker, but keep it secret from the rest of the platoon. This tends to make me think Oriel is a radical by nature.

Page 555

It's entirely possible, I suppose, given what I've been through. I instinctively touch the scar on the side of my head, a reminder of the operation I had. Some bastard drilled into my skull to release a dangerous build up of 'vapours', then dug around in my brain with a knife for good measure. I'm no medico, but surely messing around with someone's head like that can't be good for them? But the hallucinations had started before then, so who in hell knows what's happening up there.

Dorden he's not.

Page 556

I felt a strange relief to find that another Last Chancer managed to get out of Coritanorum.
...
Someone else knows about the three million men, women and children we killed. Someone else understands just what it is that the Last Chancers do, and why we have to do it.

I remember trying to explain it to the last squad, about how a soldier has to act, and learn to kill without thought or remorse. This time I haven't bothered to try. They'll either figure it out, or they'll die. Either way, I'm not thinking of them as my soldiers anymore. That was my mistake last time -thinking that the squad was mine. They never were; we're all the Colonel's meat for the grinder, and he doesn't think twice about any of us - not even me.

Kage reflects on the mission in 13th Legion.

Page 556

The last time I had seen her before then, she had run off after her brother who had gotten his brains blown out while were were in Coritanorum.

Reminder of what happened to Lorii's 'brother' Loron in 13th Legion. Implied to be a projectile weapon, but may ave ben a lasweapon.

Page 557

"Nearly a year with them, and you cannot stop them stealing from each other, or fighting?" he says.

"Well, sir, if you had given me a storm trooper regiment, I guess they'd be happy and smiling,"

Nearly a year of transit (aain), and mention of a storm trooper regiment.

Page 558

It's two more days before Goran steps out of line again and gives me the opportunity to do what I've been wanting to do for the past six months.

Implies six months (at least) have paseed.. so more than half a year but less than a year, approximately.

Page 560

In fact, I've come to believe that the Last Chancers are probably the ideal soldiers. I can understand why the Colonel finds us so useful. Every man or woman who joins the Imperial Guard knows that they can never go home. They are shipped for months to a war on a world they've probably never heard of. They might carry the memories of their home world and their family, but the reality is that they will never see either again. A regiment that serves well, does its time, fights its campaign, is often allowed to retire with honours. Some make their home where they have fought; others join an explorator fleet and conquer a new planet in the name of Holy Terra and the Emperor. Those are the ones that survive, of course.

Us Last Chancers get to live if we do well. It's as plain and simple as that

- According to Kage, a Regiment that retires with honours may either settle on the world they fought for, while others may jjoin an Explorator fleet and conquer (or colonize) a new planet. I think Kage's attitude is more a reflection of his ability to rationalize his situation (trying to find a purpose or pride in being a Penal legionnaire)

Page 561

Take Brin Dunmore, for instance. His sin was pride. He's a top heavy weapons expert, trained as part of an engineer corps from Stralia. From heavy stubbers to lascannons and mortars, he can use them all. Problem is, he had to prove just how good he was. He took a bet that he couldn't use an anti-tank missile to shoot down an airplane. He proved he could, but unfortunately the plane he shot was an Imperial Interceptor returning from a sortie.

- one of the Last Chancers was put into the Legion because he boasted (and managed) to shoot down an Imperial interceptor with an anti-tank missile system (when the plane was returning from a sortie.) which perhaps shows either the versatility or interchangability of Imperial equipment. I have heard of hunter killer missiles used as air to air and surface to surface weapons, and missile launchers have been used ot shoot down aircraft(Eg Savage Scars, other sources.)

Also (assault) engineer regiment.

Page 561

I don't ask questions; I just turn and shout at the squad to move out to the armoury. I follow them down the spiral staircase to the deck below. Erasmus already has the doors open and is handing out lasguns and shotguns. I notice that the provosts are nowhere to be seen.

Last Chancers equipped for shipboard combat are allowed lasguns.

Page 561

I reach the upper deck at the head of the platoon and hear shots roaring out and ringing off the walls. We're halfway along the central access corridor that runs the length of the ship; it is about three hundred metres long.

300 metre long access way, they're about halfway along it. Provides a minimum size on the transport as well as a potential shipboard weapons range.

Page 562

The Colonel emerges from a side chamber just before I reach the double doors at the end. With him is Vandikar Keith, one of the ship's Navigators. He's tall and thin, with the distinctive bulbous skull of a Navigator. He wears a silk scarf tied tightly across his forehead. He swishes past me in a skintight green suit under a white robe, and looks down the corridor.
...

"It is Forlang." says Keith, turning back to me. He is referring to the other surviving Navigator. The third that started with us, Bujurn Adelph, went crazy and threw himself out of an airlock six months into the journey.

again at least 6 months of travel time. also 3 navigators for the ship.

Page 562

Three of the ship's crew are on the ground next to them, one of them a smouldering burnt husk, the other two missing limbs. I see Forlang standing at the foot of the steps. He's naked, except for a few tatters of bloodied white robes that hang from bony protrusions jutting from his flesh. His fingers have fused into long claws; there are scraps of flesh hanging from their tips.

A provost steps into the breech and fires his shotgun, obscuring my view. A moment later the sound of lots of bones snapping at the same time echoes down the hall and the provost collapses, crumpling in on himself.

Effect of Navigator eye on humans.

Page 562

To my right, Topasz screams. The sound echoes shrilly off the walls. There's the sound of a lasblast and parts of bloody matter spatter across my face and arm as she blows her own brains out.

lasgun blows apart a skull with a single blast. single digit kj at least.

Page 563

"How do we destroy it?" the Colonel asks.
"We cannot, not here." says the Navigator. "I have a... a chamber, a special cell. I can keep it there until we jump back to the materium."

There are special cells onboard to hold psykers and/or navigators.

page 565

For another eight days we travel in-system, before the Colonel tells us to turn out for disembarking. We assemble in the docking bay, eager to find out where we are.

...

I exchange knowing glances with the other members of the platoon, and we swap raised eyebrows and shrugs. It's no surprise really; we were expecting a war zone after all. Judging by the time it took us to get here after dropping from warp space, this is near the outer edge of the system - wherever that is.

- the transport arrives in armageddon and travels eight days insystem to reach some sort of monitor picket. eight days and we're not even into the syetem. That's VERY slow progress and that is just from the warp emergecne point ot the edge of the system. Either its a security measure or a reflection of how crowded/dangerous the system is (EG they emerged from far out to sneak in.)

Page 566

"Armageddon,' the Colonel says, looking at each of us in turn. There are groans from some of the others. "Even out on the Eastern Fringe, you have heard what is happening here. To bring us up-to-date with the facts, Commissar Greyt has compiled a briefing.

- Schaefer confirms that prior to their warp jump they'd been out on the Eastern fringe. Meaning they jumped from close to Tau space to Segmentum solar. Closer to a 40-60K LY jump in beween 6 months to a year. call it 40,000c to 120,000c.

Page 566

"Three Terran years ago, the orks returned to Armageddon," the commissar says, glancing down at the data-slate. "Led by the warlord Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka, a large invasion force comprising hundreds of warbands entered the Armageddon system. Aboard hulks and smaller vessels, they swarmed in-system, and were engaged by Imperial Navy warships. However, we could not prevent a mass landing. Sporadic reinforcements have arrived over the years, some of them destroyed, but others get through. We do not know how, but orks from hundreds of days of journeying around Armageddon are being drawn to this world."

It's interesting that the timeframe says "three terran years ago" since from what I recall the Third gothic war took place in 998.M41 some time, suggesting no more than a year or two could have passed before sliding into the 42nd Millenium. This would, in turn, suggest that this novel is taking place just after the turn of the millenium. Alternately, the timeframes are off slightly due to warp distortion.

Page 567

"As well as this recent invasion, our forces on Armageddon must contend with indigenous feral ork populations that have remained since the first invasion fifty years ago," he says, standing stock straight with his hands resting lighuy on the lectern. "Located in the equatorial jungles and the mountain ranges, these tribes have forayed forth in considerable numbers to engage our reserves, hamper logistics and generally stifle our efforts to destroy the ork landing sites. One hive has been destroyed, the others are heavily contested."

Orks from "hundreds of days journey" are converging on Armageddon. Close to a year's journey. This could mean many thousands of LY, which shows you the scope of the threat really. Once you throw the massive Nid invasion ongoing, as well as the 13th Black Crusade...

Page 567

"Sector naval command was transferred to the Armageddon System and the naval facility of Saint Jowen's Dock was rebuilt and expanded to accommodate all classes of interstellar warship. We established three monitor stations on the edge of the system, this is Mannheim and there were two others, Dante and Yarrick. Other orbital and ground munitions, bases and forces were substantially bolstered. In addition, a ruling council representing many Imperial organisations was convened to govern the planet. The previous Imperial commander, Herman von Strab, had disappeared at the end of the war."

The resources and forces amassed after second Armageddon. Note that like Vostroya, Armageddon sems to be council ruled, which makes it a 'directly administered' world.

Page 567

"Armageddon is the most militarised planet you will have ever encountered,' Schaeffer says. 'The orks number in their millions, as do our own armies."

Scope of the forces on Armageddon. It's safe to say this is probably an under-estimate.

Page 567

"We thought Ghazghkull was dead after the first invasion, but we were wrong." he says, his voice and gaze steady. "We believe now that he retired to his stronghold in the Golgotha Sector, to recoup his losses and plot his return. As bold and huge as his first attack was, it was nothing compared to what was to come fifty-seven years later. There are some, myself and Colonel Schaeffer included, who think that his first invasion was merely to test our defences. It was nothing more than a reconnaissance, only performed on a planetary scale."

Ghazzie has been around for close to 60 years now. second armageddon was alos just a probe. Or rather it probably was a serious assault. Ork nature is such that it won't let a defeat stop it. It will just come back stronger and tougher next time. What makes Ghazghkull remarkable is the manner in which he withdraws to come back stronger.. he's vastly more intelligent than many warbosses.

Page 567

"Roughly thirty years ago, our base on Buca HI was annihilated by missiles fired from an ork base hidden on an asteroid." Greyt continues. "The asteroid remained undetected before its attack, and we have now realised that this was the first test of what we now dub rock forts. They continue to play a pivotal role in this war, providing transport and fortification that can be landed on the surface."

The first (appearance?) of Ork Roks in this region of space.

Page 568

"It was believed at the time that von Strab may have fled to avoid the attention of the Inquisition regarding his less than loyal conduct during the invasion/ says the Colonel, stroking his chin. As it turns out, that was true, but he had also actually sided with Ghazghkull. Although his knowledge of the details of the system's defences was outdated, there is little doubt that his intelligence regarding our general strategic and military methods aided Ghazghkull in his planning."

Von STrab is alive and allied with the Orks.

Page 568

"Monitor station Dante transmitted a hurried message warning that over fifty ork cruisers and several hundred escort vessels had entered the system, before the transmission was cut. We despatched several battleships and their attendant task forces, and a series of naval engagements took place. Against overwhelming numbers of the orks, Admiral Parol's forces were gradually forced back, in order to preserve ships for an extended campaign."

The invasion force.

Page 569

"It took the orks six weeks of battle as they orbited Armageddon, bombarding Saint Jowen's Dock into uselessness while they were advancing."

..

The landing itself happened after a three-day battle, but by then we were too late. It wasn't long before every hive was besieged."

The invasion timeframe.

Page 569

"And so it has been for three years." the Colonel concludes, standing up again, ignoring Grey's irritated stare. "The lines have moved back and forth, back and forth, but there has been little advance since the invasion was stifled in the first few weeks of fighting. We cannot afford to let up for a second, and the orks are never going to leave of their own accord. We are one of a number of strategies being employed to counter the orks or break the deadlock in the Imperium's favour. It is no exaggeration to say that our mission could decide the fate of Armageddon."

Again thee years since third Armageddon began,a nd the Imperium is still trying different ways to win decisively.

Page 569

He leads down on to a different docking area, where we file on board an intrasystem transport, no roomier than our previous berths. But there is a bed apiece this time since there are no warp engines taking up half the length of the ship.

The warp engines on the transport consumed half the length of the ship. That implies it might have been a relatively compact vessel (at least 600-800 m long.)

Page 570

"The system is still swarming with ork attack fleets." he says to me. "Wе'ге part of a ten-strong convoy that's gathered here to proceed to Armageddon, with a light cruiser, that is, the Victorious, and two frigates as escort."

the System is still thereatend by Ork raiders, so convoys must be used to transit from the edge of the system to Armageddon. 10 ships have a light cruiser and 2 frigates as escort.

Page 570

"It's about twenty days until we reach the fleet in Armageddon orbit."

- its about "twenty days" from the edge of the system (monitoring outpost mentioned before) to Armageddon orbit. Given that Mannheim is just outside Pelucidar an unknown distance, we might figure they are 7.1-14 AU at least (up to billions fo km).. we're talking an average transit velocity of around 500 km/s to 1300 km/s (assuming Armageddon is on the far side of the system.)

Page 571

"Millions are dying in space, and on the planets of this system, and you're concerned about profit"

"mililons dying' over unspecified timeframe.

Page 571-572

"We steer the ships through the Immaterium." he says. "You know this."
"But how?" I ask, trying to keep up with his long strides.
"Think of a crystal of ice in an ocean." he says, slowing his pace, his gaze drifting to the ceiling in thought. "It bobs on the surface, gets drawn down by currents, and if it should melt, it would meld and become one with that ocean. That is how it is to navigate warp space."
"I don't understand." I say, my eyes straying to the scarf wrapped across his third eye. "What is it that you can see?"
"Imagine a ship as a grain of sand." Keith says. "When it drops into warp space, it is flung on to a huge desert. It is part of the desert, just like the untold billions of other grains of sand. But as the winds shift and change, those grains of sand also move, forming valleys and drifts, hills and shallows. Imagine, if you will, how that grain of sand would travel if it had a mind to steer itself into the winds it wished to follow, and to avoid the swirls and gusts that would take it from its path."
"I still don't see what you mean." I admit.
"That is my point, lieutenant." he says. "To explain the warp to one who cannot see it, touch it, is like explaining light and sound to a deaf, blind man. I have senses you cannot comprehend. Some call it the third sight, but sight is such a basic sense in comparison. You cannot imagine the sensation of seeing into the warp, of reading motions born of desires, sensing the fragile flicker of souls. You cannot understand it, as much as I cannot understand why a man would be a soldier."

Warp navigation as explained (as best as he can to a normal person) by a Navigator.

Page 572

The convoy proceeds as normal for eight more days, during which we practise anti-conflagration drill, close quarters boarding combat and all the other things that are essential to space combat. The Colonel tells us that we're just passing Chosin, the fifth planet out from the Armageddon star. We should reach Armageddon orbit in the next twenty days.

Unfortunately for us, despite the stretched patrols of the Imperial Navy, the orks are still very much active in the system, and a group of them comes out of hiding over Chosin and comes after us.

- after eight days of travel, they've passed the fifth planet of the Armageddon system. It will take twenty more days to reach the planet. We're talking closer to a month to reach the planet.. which suggests its orbits are not neatly lined up. It may also be that they travel slow to make hiding and evasion easier.

Perversely, Chosin is 1.7-2.2 AU out from the star, whilst Pelucidar is 7.1 AU, which means they covered around 5-5 1/2 AU in eight days, suggesting an average velocity of 1000-1200 kps. This means that for some reason they need 20 days to cover 1-2 AU tops.

Page 573

"The data on the screen is almost half an hour old." Keith tells me, crossing his arms and leaning up against a dormant panel behind us. "The strategic information from the Victorious has been interrupted."

Realtime transmission lag I suppose, although that would imply the ship is half a light hour out.

Page 573

"No, the fighting hasn't started yet." Keith says. "The orks are coming in fast and straight, but it'll still be another hour before first contact, unless the escorts turn to meet them."

Given the aformenetioned velcoities they must be at least 3-4 million km out.

Page 573

...noticing for the first time a servitor wired into the wall beneath the screen. It's chanting something in a monotonous tone, too low for me to make out above the humming of the bridge equipment and throb of the engines that are powering into full life. Keith notices the direction of my stare.
"It's a comms-servitor." explains the Navigator. "It relays and records all traffic received and transmitted across the convoy frequencies. And no, in answer to your question, the frigates and Victorious are not capable alone of preventing a flotilla of six ork raiders breaking through into the convoy."

Comms servitor.

Page 574

"Could they buy us time to get away?" I ask.

"Unlikely." the Navigator replies. "This ship is a little faster than the others, but there are a few ships in the convoy that would get run down within a few hours."

Assuming no changes in velocity I mentioned earlier (1000-1200 kps) and 2-3 hours we're talking ~10 gees for the Orks to overtake the transports.

PAge 574

"The Victorious can outgun any one or two of the enemy." Keith says, stroking his chin. "The frigates will try to ensure that they stay in support of her. Ork ships are generally not very manoeuvrable at speed. They'll have to attack in a series of passes. The frigates will try to herd them onto the light cruiser's guns one or two at a time."

- a light cruiser can outgun two ork raiders (roks?)

Page 574

"There's actually a Navy task force, with the cruisers Holy Wrath and Torch of Retribution, about two days away." the lieutenant says. "We're to proceed to the enclosed position and meet up with them."

At least two cruisers patrolling the Armageddon system.

Page 575

"Which ship is that?" the Colonel asks, pointing at a solitary blue circle split off from the main cluster of the convoy ships.

"The Spirit of Gathalamor, sir." replies one of the lieutenants from a position to the forward and right.

"Oldest bucket in the merchant flotilla," mutters Ligner. "Emperor knows how Izander keeps her going, she must be at least seven hundred years old by now."

- 700 years is considered old for a troop transport/cargo vessel. Also recall the 'EVERY SHIP IS ANCIENT AND PRECIOUS' bit and older is always better

Page 576

"Victorious has announced torpedoes launched." the lieutenant says and a new icon appears on the screen, its projected line intersecting the starboard ork ships a few minutes from now. Her payload launched, the Victorious slows suddenly and almost turns around completely, powering up her engines to cut through the heart of the convoy towards the other ork squadron.

The ork ships slow and turn away to avoid the torpedoes and several minutes later they're falling behind. The frigates close in on the ork squadron as the Victorious approaches them from the other side.

"Cunning bastard." I mutter, seeing the orks are in a classic crossfire, the light cruiser and frigates are attacking at right angles to each other, and the Victorious's course takes her across their vulnerable sterns.
"Frigates have opened fire." announces the comms lieutenant. "Report light damage to one ship, no hits on the others."

The frigates close their range as the orks desperately try to turn towards them.
"Ork ships have most of their guns to the fronts." explains Ligner. "They should have stayed on course and come for us, now they're in a turning race they can't win."

- the light cruiser launches torpedoes, which will intersect the Ork cruiser in "a few minutes" from launch. Note that given the fight, it takes several minutes or so for the Imperial frigates and cruiser to destroy an Ork raider. Assuming something between 20-200 km/s velocity for the torpedoes we'd be talking 3600-36,000 km range, not including the velocity imparted by the ship's own motion (assuming some several hundred km./s velocity we're talking tens of thousands of km/s extra. Possilby up to 120-180 thousand km, if we use the earlier 1000-1200 km/s velocity.) Weapons fire from the frigates traverses the distance in far less time (seconds as oppposed to minutes, subjectively) although we dont know the armaments (it could be projectiles or beams, or both.)

Page 576-577

A solitary icon appears in the middle of the transport flotilla.
"A ship can't just appear!" I say, looking at the lieutenant, who ignores me; he is intent on the information being relayed down his earpiece and through the comms servitor.
"Space goes up and down, as well as forward, backward, left and right." says Keith, shaking his head in a condescending manner.
"You mean they're above us?" 1 ask.
"Or below us." he says looking down towards the decking.
"Give me an intercept time." says Captain Ligner, moving across the bridge to another station where a fresh-faced young ensign is analysing incoming data.
"Thirty to thirty-five minutes, given current velocities." the ensign replies, pointing to something on his panel. Ligner looks over his shoulder to the main screen.
"Enemy destroyed." announces the comms lieutenant. A red icon disappears from the screen to the starboard of the light cruiser. "Full broadside from Victorious."
The Victorious is still engaged with the other two of the squadron, while the group of three ships to the flank has managed to pull out of its course away from the torpedoes. It swings round to the front of the convoy.

Another target 35 minutes out. At 1000 kps maybe 2 million or so km away.

Page 577

"Better than just a ship's complement." he says. This is the only troop transport in the convoy"

The Ship Kage and crew are on is a substellar troop transport.

Page 577

"You've haven't told us what we're going to do on Armageddon yet. But I'm sure that if it's important enough to drag us across the galaxy, then it's important that we don't sacrifice ourselves for a few grain and mineral transports"

Technically 'halfway across the galaxy' but close enough. It could be argued they didn't come directly from their fight with the Tau right off, I mean they had to get ahold of more legionnaires and all that, and get their transport. So we're talking half a year to a year to travel half the galaxy or the full length of the galaxy. AT least 40-50K times lightspeed, to 100-200K times lightspeed.

Page 578

"How many orks are there on one of those ships?" I ask, looking at the main screen and the flashing red icon of the newly arrived ork vessel.

The crew probably numbers in its hundreds

This seems hilarious in contrast to Rogue Trader numbers.

Page 578

"How many vessels are armed?" the Colonel asks.

"Every ship has close defence turrets, the Yarrick and the Boncephalis have a few bigger guns." he tells us. "It doesn't matter though, just a few salvoes from that ork ship would be enough to destroy any one of us."

Armor and armament of the convoy ships.

Page 580

We're assembled on the docking platform when the provosts join us. Like us, they're geared up in vac-proof environment suits. Grey, bulky and hot, they'll be the only thing protecting us from the chill airlessness of space once we break through the hull of the ork ship.

zero-g enviroment suits.

Page 582

A thought crosses my mind briefly. If I just leave one of the clamps, just one of the four, a bit loose, it'll compromise the suit's integrity. Nobody would know what went wrong. Hell, these suits malfunction, break seals or just disintegrate one time in ten anyway.

- according to Kage, Vac proof enviroment suits (like spacesuits) tend to fail one time in ten

Page 582

"Comms check." the Colonel's voice echoes in my ear with a tinny note.
A series of affirmative replies come back from the platoon, and I add my own.

Comm beads for the penal legionnaires. Probably due to using the enviro suis, but it suggests they can't be terribly uncommon if they can be put into space suits.

Page 583

We never went to Danaa Secundus, but everything I've heard makes it sound like the Colonel would have loved it. More tyranids, a splinter of Hive Fleet Kraken after Ichar IV. Turned into a rout, only twenty thousand men out of a three million strong army got off alive. The number of non-combatants who escaped the three-month onslaught amounted to about a tenth of that. Three months is all it took for a world to die. Makes me glad that we won on Ichar IV.

Mention of another force fighting Tyranids,a nd 3 months to consume the world.

Page 583

Looking out of the canopy, I see a slowly spinning field of stars. After a moment, the ork ship comes into view, its bulbous nose studded with cannons and jutting spars. A bright blue flare glows from its engines. It's several kilometres away, but I can see that, oddly enough, it seems to be painted red. What look like columns of flame are pouring from underneath the ship and as I watch, a series of detonations explode along its length.

- Ork ship is painted red, and its in visual range (a few km away' - must be a rather small raider to only be distinctively visible at that short range.

Page 583

"The Yarrick is reporting a previously unregistered energy spike." the pilot informs us.
"What does that mean?" asks the Colonel, his voice in my comms-transmitter but distorting from the external speaker at the same time.
"Someone else was lying in wait, systems offline to avoid detection." the pilot says. They were playing dead, basically."

Balh blah no stealth in space.. and so on.

Page 585

It's a cautious approach to Armageddon orbit. Despite the fleet's victories, there are still hundreds of ork vessels unaccounted for, some of them large and dangerous. Added to that, it seems the orks have captured one of the rocket factories on the surface and have been randomly launching warheads into space, adding to the general fun.

- the orks captured an Armageddon rocket factory and have been launchign rockets into space agianst starships.

Page 586

Playing it safe, Ligner orders the ship to be cleared and braced for combat, while he edges us into the asteroid field. I'm on the lower deck with Dunmore and Lorii, securing energy cells near the engine room. The rest of the platoon is on various other duties throughout the ship, under the supervision of the provosts. Lorii's just passing me a fuel canister when the deck trembles under my feet.

I look at the others and their bemused expressions confirm that they felt it too. We exchange glances as I cautiously lower the fuel cell to the deck

fuel/energy cells.

page 587

Behind him, cowering from the flames is Spooge, his servo-skull still obediently bobbing along behind him. The polished bone is tarnished with soot and oil now, and its anti-grav motors sputter and choke occasionally, causing it to dip alarmingly towards the floor.

- confirmation that the servo-skull autoscribe runs on antigrav motors.

Page 590

With no gravity field to support it, the quill-skull is nestled in the scribe's lap, buzzing erratically.

AG needs a graviy field to act against. Even a ship's field works.

Page 590

The boom of the shotgun is unbearably loud in the confines of the pod. The recoil sends me crashing into the door and bouncing back. The remnants of Corthrod drift around in the air, globules of blood and brains spattering against my face and chest as I glide through the cloud of gore. Everyone's looking at me aghast, except the Colonel and Lorii.

- shotgun recoil sends Kage slamming into the escape pod door in a zero-gravity situation

Page 593

Aided by Keith, the Colonel manages to at least get the automated telemetry working so that the capsule will take us into the atmosphere at the correct angle, rather than bouncing off or burning us up. Well, in theory. The only way we'll know if they've really got it right is when we hit the upper atmosphere in about fifteen minutes.

.

Escape pod.

Page 599-600

The going is tough, and I'm seriously short of breath after just a few hundred metres. The Colonel says that Armageddon's air is so full of pollutants that it can kill a man in three days. We're lucky we landed in the jungle, where the trees make it a litde more bearable. Out in the desert, we'd have been coughing and choking the moment we were out of the pod. What with the thick air and the exhausting effort of wading through dead leaves, uniform-snagging bushes and sometimes having to saw our way through vines with our knives, it's an arduous march.

..

The Colonel advises us not to drink any of the water. Thousands of years of industry have contaminated pretty much everything on Armageddon. It's a wonder the jungle flourishes as it does. I guess sometimes plants know how to hang on to life just as much as a Last Chancer.

Armageddon's enviroment is only 'mostly' inhospitable. The jungle areas are habitable (mostly) still, although you still don't want to drink the water.

Page 602

"I'm not sure, but I don't think I'm even thirty-five years old. It's never been much of an issue. I was a kid, then I was a factory worker and then I was in the Guard."

"You don't know how old you are?" he asks, incredulous. I shouldn't be surprised by his reaction; after all, he does surround himself with numbers and figures every day. I think statistics and records are his lifeblood. "Give or take a couple of years for transit deviation, mistranslation and primary reference error, you're not even thirty Terran standard."

Kage doesnt know what his age is, but Spooge can tell him within a few years due to various factors.

Page 608-609

There, just a metre away from me, autogun still at my throat, is a jungle-fighter. His eyes stare at me from out of the camouflage across his face. He's sprawled headfirst down the bole of one of the trees we were sheltering under. His free hand and toes are rammed into the thick cracks in the bark to hold himself in place.

With measured precision, the gun muzzle not wavering more than a centimetre, he spins himself around until his feet are on the floor. He winks at me and then makes a purposeful glance over my shoulder. I turn and look back into the hollow to see the others with their hands up. There're three more troopers on the far bank, guns levelled at the rest of the squad. They notice my stare and one of them points up. I follow the gesture with my gaze. As my eyes focus, I see the faintest of glimmers from a scope right above us, and then a movement that my brain only recognises after a moment.

It's a sniper waving at us.

Armageddon Ork hunters.

Page 610

"I notice your platoon doesn't have a commissar." he says, looking around.

"They tend to have accidents in the jungle." says Thorn, glancing round at the rest of the command squad, who give knowing nods.
"Their greatcoats aren't good for jungle work." says one of them, a comm-set strapped to his back.
"Too ready to rush in when you should be falling back." adds another, slowly sharpening his long hunting knife on a.whetstone. "Gotta be nice and
careful out here, nice and quiet, like. No good running about bellowing orders when you've got an ambush set up, is it?"
"Most of them stay back at Cerberus." explains Fenn. "Those that venture out tend not to come back, I'm afraid."
"Sometimes they're even got by the orks." mutters one of the men, to the stifled laughs of the others. Fenn scowls

- Wilderness regiments on Armageddon, like Catachans, ,have high attrition rates amongst commissars (mainly due to the fact their own troops frag em.)

Page 611

After only a short while, we're at their supply cache, hidden in a cave between two tumbled boulders, a fallen log concealing the entrance. Inside are several packs full of water and rations, as well as ammo crates, spare autoguns, heavy stubber barrels and power packs.
The platoon begins to gear up properly and Fenn invites us to join in. I snatch myself an autogun and five mags of ammo, and while I'm at it I snaffle a couple of frag grenades. Lorii passes out full water bottles, which we thirstily drink from, having had only a few mouthfuls since we crashed down. We spend the next few minutes checking magazines, finishing off part-full water bottles to avoid them making noise, all that kind of stuff. After a few minutes, Fenn gives us the nod, and we move out again.

Ork hunter supply cache.

Page 613

He nods over to the other members of the command squad. One of them has a 25mm heavy stubber across his shoulders, and the other two are stripping down and oiling their heavy bolters.

- one of the Wilderness fighters is using a 25mm heavy stubber. The others are hefting heavy bolters. This is perhaps the largest caliber stubber I've ever heard of mentioned.

Page 613

"How come you use autoguns instead of lasguns?" asks Lorii. "Surely lasguns are more practical for extended patrols, what with being able to recharge the packs?"
Thorn smiles. The black and green camouflage twists across his face, his bright teeth showing.
"It's a platoon-by-platoon thing," he says, pulling his autogun off his shoulder and patting it. "Carrying ammo can be a bitch, you're right, but we don't mind trading that hardship for the added psychological effect."
"What psychological effect?" asks Brownie. I notice with a smile that he managed to find a heavy stubber for himself. He has ammo belts looped over his shoulder, and spare shells thrust into pouches in his belt.
"You have to understand how an ork thinks to fight him properly." says Thorn, getting serious. "Autoguns make a lot of noise and bright muzzle flare, and that's something they can respect. There are not many things orks are scared of, but you can be sure we're one of them. When a platoon lets rip with these beauties from hiding, the air's filled with hot metal and it's an almighty din. Especially at night, when we usually operate. Orks just don't care about the pissy little zip-zip-zip of lasguns, it just doesn't register as proper weapons fire for them."
"Weight of fire counts for a lot, too" adds Fenn, and we glance up, not noticing that the sergeants have dispersed and he's joined us. He moves so damn quietly all the time, despite his bulk. "When you're laying down fire into the bush, you're not looking for precision, aimed shots. Hell, that's why we got snipers in each platoon. And when one of them big green uglies is legging straight at you, you want to put as much fire into him as possible, 'cos it don't matter whether you shoot him in the leg, the head or the chest most of the time."

They explain that they use autoguns rather than lasguns because orks respect autoguns because of the noise and smoke they make (which, to orks, means its a dangerous weapon.) which lasguns don't. (in other words, purely psychological effect.)

Page 613

"Weight of fire counts for a lot, too." adds Fenn, and we glance up not noticing that the seargents have dispersed and he's joined us . He moves so damn quietly all the time, despite his bulk. "when you're laying down fire into the bush, you're not looking for precision, aimed shots. Hell, that's why we got snipers in each platoon. And when one of them big green uglies is legging straight at you, you want to put as much fire into him as possible, 'cos it don't matter whether you shoot him in the leg, ,the head or the chest most of the time."

- this seems to imply that autoguns and stubbers have higher rates of fire than lasguns.

Page 617-618

The bushes to our left erupt with muzzle flare and the chatter of autoguns. This is swiftly accompanied by the roar of the 25mm opening up. The front orks go down in the first concentrated hail of fire, bloody eruptions stitching across stomachs and chests, heads blown apart by heavy stubber fire. The heavy bolter opens up with a distinctive rapid booming, each shot hurling a rocket a little bit bigger than my thumb. The first shot explodes against a tree trunk, hurling bark and sap into the air. The gunner adjusts his aim quickly, the second bolt smacks cleanly into the chest of the leader and explodes, tearing the ork boss apart from inside, scattering ripped entrails.

- A single shot of which will explode an entire ork "boss" (one of the larger ones) from the inside.
The heavy bolter shell explodes an ork's chest from under the ribcage. Funny enough this is roughly the same level of damage an Astartes bolter is known to inflict on Orks.

Page 618

I pull the autogun round and squeeze the trigger, letting off a four shot burst to get the feel of the gun. It's got a bit of a kick to it and with my next burst I aim low at an orks that's raising its crude gun towards Fenn's position. Three shots rip out, the first missing, but the next two stick it in the abdomen. It swings back from the shots, its own gun roaring wildly into the trees. I down it with my third burst, putting a few rounds into its chest and neck.

Autogun with four shot burst. I think this implies a fairly high ROF unless he's somehow 'controlling' the full auto mode (EG half second burst)

Page 618

The pursuing squad opens fire, adding to the din of autofire, and three of the orks go down in the surprise salvo, their backs ruptured and bloody. One of the orks falters and turns, only to get a heavy bolter shell in the ribs under its half-raised arm, its chest exploding outwards from the detonation.

Effects of autogun fire and another heavy bolter round on Orks.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2013-03-04 03:17pm

Last bit. Home stretch!

Page 618

He plants the shot straight into the side of the ork's low forehead; its head disintegrates a moment later. The steaming remnants of an eyeball plop onto my leg as the ork's headless corpse falls across me.

- the Colonel's bolt pistol "disintegrates' an ork's head, including a steaming eyeball. Its not sure why it is steaming. This is considerably more impressive than human head-blasting, consideirng Orks are many times more massive and generally toughr than a human. This is also roughly Astartes-bolter level damage (and even some lasguns, at least on a high enough setting.)

Page 619

I'm not sure what I was expecting Cerberus Base to look like, but it's nothing like what I would have said if you'd asked me. I was thinking of some huge armoured bastion, with towers and ramparts and everything. What I find out, as Fenn leads us through the gap in the fourth concentric ring of razor wire surrounding the Imperial station, is that it's a huge camp. And it looks a complete mess.

The jungle is scorched and ripped up for about a kilometre in every direction, craters dotting the landscape. There are wooden watch towers placed along the razor wire and minefield defences, and I can see mortar and artillery emplacements dug down into the earth behind wood-reinforced revetments. Here and there I spy a bunker roof, buried under sod and leaves, heavy stubber and lascannon muzzles protruding menacingly from their dark interiors. Trench works criss-cross the whole hill as it rises up from the jungle, overlooking the surrounding wilderness for kilometres on all sides.

Cerberus base on Armageddon.

Page 622

Through another doorway we walk into the real nerve centre, with comms panels all around the walls, linked to the various other stations in the hill I guess. Monitor servitors and lexmechanics churn out data from the incoming flow, scribbling the intelligence on long reams of parchment that spill onto the floor. Every now and then a map officer walks back in, tears free a strip and then goes back to update the map again.

At the far end, sitting in what can only be described as a metal throne hooked up with monitors, is a broad man, leaning over talking to a huddle of tech-priests and a man with the markings of a major on his cap. He looks up as we approach, smoothes his thick moustache with a gloved hand, and then slicks back his short greying hair.

..

I then notice that he's not actually sitting in the throne, he is wired into it. He has no legs, the stumps sitting in metallic cups. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the Colonel do his best to straighten his dress coat and brush off the worst of the burrs and scratches inflicted by the jungle trek.

Marshal Vine. I know he shows up in Jonathan Green's Armageddon novels as well. Also the interior of the Cerberus Base command center.

Page 620

I've heard that advice given many times before, something to do with orks reproducing with spores or some other stupid theory the tech-priests have.

- Kage consideres the theory of "ork reproduction via spores" to be stupid.

Page 625

"It is within my power, under special considerations of the Imperial Commissariat as a penal legion commander, to commute any sentence, sir,"
"Ah, so I don't have to flog this worthless idiot then?"' says Vine.
"You have to sentence him first, sir, for the powers to be active."

..

"By the laws that you yourself invoked, Fenn can come with me or he can be put to death." says the Colonel. "It is the choice you gave him. My credentials with the Commissariat are of the highest authority, and I do have the power to remove you from command."
..
"He will be mine with or without your approval. The association with countermanding an officer of the Commissariat will be enough to ruin you"

- Colonel Schaeffer is not only a Guard Colonel, but evidently an officer in the Commissariat (much in the same vein as Ibram Gaunt.) Only not so nice. It's actually rather interesting. Scaeffer is obviously an officer, but he also has ties and powers above and beyond that - the AdMech rebuild him. He wields commissarial powers. He works alongside Inquisitors. His status and his position are not really clear cut in any way, nor does he seem to fit into any obvious pattern or role within the known Imperial Hierarchies (or even some impromptu ones - he's not exactly a Inquisitorial agent, otherwise he'd be able to wield authority in an Inquisitor's name.)

Page 626

Luckily, Schaeffer managed to commandeer us some rebreathers from Cerberus, but that still doesn't stop the stinging in your eyes, or the feeling of your skin being constantly etched away.

Scaeffer can commandeer equipment, including breathing gear.

Page 629

Over two hundred metres long, the heavily-armoured barge cruises through the murky river waters at speed, a bow wave foaming ahead. It leaves smaller vessels bobbing madly in its wake. Smoke billows from three exhaust stacks, the clanking of powerful engines clearly audible over the noise of the dock. Two gun turrets jut out of her prow deck, each housing two large-bore cannon, and a third smaller gun is mounted on her rear. As she slows and pulls up at the wharf, a long metal gangplank hisses out on hydraulics, clanging down onto the ferrocrete.

Some sort of massive and heavily armored land-barge thingy. Similar to what we've seen the Iron Hands use as fortress monasteries on Medusa, or the land trains of Necromunda (or what Squats were known to possess.)

Page 636

Kin-Drugg is snapping off shots left, right and centre, and I can already see a discarded power pack next to him. Each of those is good for forty shots, so he's been busy. Lorii's close by, crouched a couple of metres behind me, waiting for my signal.

- the lasguns on Armageddon (which Kage and the other Last Chancers borrow) are evidently worth 40 shots or so.

Page 635

Grinding along the road is a huge armoured vehicle, larger than a Leman Russ, three turrets pointed at the mortar section down the road. Its iron-rimmed wheels crush masonry and corpses under its weight as it rolls forward, oily smoke fuming from a cluster of exhaust stacks at its rear, filling the street with a reeking stench. Crude banners flap from flagpoles attached to its main turret.

"Battle fortress!" I turn and shout to the others.

Ork Battle Fortress.

Page 638

The sound of a shell, much heavier than a mortar bomb, whines overhead and a moment later the road just behind the battle fortress erupts, tossing orks into the air and causing the immobilised tank to shudder. As the smoke clears, it reveals a deep crater. I can just imagine the forward observation officer's next words. Concealed somewhere around here, he'll be saying, "Fire for effect."

Battlef ortress shell is heavier (more powerful) than a mortar bomb of some kind.

Page 638

Lorii has the same idea, leaping clear and disappearing into the building where Kin-Drugg and Fenn are. I imagine I hear the distant boom of massive artillery pieces, though I doubt it's true, and I jump down, stumbling over the ork bodies littering the road.
..

Hurling ourselves through a shattered window into the street, we pick ourselves up and start across the roadway. A second later, there's an immense series of detonations. The building explodes into dust under the artillery bombardment, and the shockwave hurls us from our feet again. For several seconds the salvo continues, the floor shaking under the impacts, the air filled with choking smoke and dust. After the tumult dies down, it starts raining body parts. Green-skinned gobbets of flesh and dark blood spatter down onto the street around us, ash sticking to the gore as it settles slowly.
Kin-Drugg pulls himself up to a sitting position and looks back across to where the street had stood. The buildings are now nothing more than a crater-pocked wasteland about two hundred metres across.

- temporary artillery bombardment of a few seconds reduces a 200 meter diameter area to a cratered wasteland. Assuming 80-100 guns or so and a fairly even dispersion of shells (one volley, spacecd several meters apart) would lead to a crater around 15-17 meters in diameter, average.

Page 639

You can easily see them out in the ash wastes, even a few kilometres away. The ground is swarming with them: huge mobs camped out in the harsh dunes, buggies and bikes roaring back and forth. The smoke from the fires and engines casts a pall for kilometres in every direction.
As we watch, something draws our attention to the horizon. They start out as specks, and at first I think I'm imagining it, but as the orderlies come and take Kin-Drugg, I stand there watching the distant shapes. As the minutes pass they grow larger, changing from specks to blobs. To be able to see them at this distance, they must be immense.
"Gargants." says Fenn, shielding his eyes against the glare. "Massive war engines, larger than a Warlord Titan. Three of them by the looks of it, plus a load of battle fortresses."
The orks on the plains seem to be content to wait for their reinforcements to arrive. There's a cry of pain from Kin-Drugg inside the makeshift blood-station. Nobody turns round.
I look over the defences arrayed against the orks, from the batteries of cannons and howitzers on the far bank of the Chaeron, to the legion of troopers in and around the buildings themselves.

- gargants are stated to be larger than a warlord titan, although in pratice gargants have proven as variable size and capability wise as titans themselves.

Page 640

"Last time they came in with just one gargant, they almost overran us in a few hours." he says. "Luckily we had orbital support back then."

You supposedly need orbital support to take on a Gargant if you don't have titans.

Page 643

When the Colonel had said we were travelling on a supply locomotive, I had been expecting some rickety old steam engine. The reality is very different. The glistening black armour is scuffed and dented in places and covered in ash, but the six carriages and engine look pretty impregnable at first glance. About three times higher than I am tall, the ten-metre long armoured compartments are each protected by anti-aircraft cupolas with twin multi-lasers, while the carriage behind the engine boasts a modified tank turret.

Climbing up the ladder into the central wagon, I note the thick armour plating spaced a little way off from the carriage sides. Inside it's sparse though, it is still a supply train after all. There are no windows, and as the crew slam the door shut we're plunged into darkness. We sit ourselves down on the reinforced steel floor, feeling something gritty underfoot. I don't know what it was delivering, but there's still some of its previous cargo scattered across the floor.

Use of armed supply trains on Armageddon. Armament of battle cannon and AA guns.

Page 644

Settling myself against the edge of the hatch, I swing the guns left and right along the rail. They've got a good traverse, moving around three-quarters of a circle to the front and sides. The elevation is good, almost going up to the vertical, although the size of the wagons themselves means that they're little use for clearing the ground unless the target's a few hundred metres away. Hearing the other hatch clang open, I glance over my shoulder to see Brownie pulling himself up. Turning my attention back to the guns, I press the power up switch and read the charge meter. Both power packs are almost full, which is good. Overall, everything seems to be in good order. Stowing the multilasers back into their locked position, I take the opportunity to have a look around.

Multilasers seem to be running off dual powerpacks.

Page 644

As night closes in, I give the word to break out our rations. I realise that we left most of the kit on the barge in the Colonel's eagerness to get into the fighting. It's just what we've got in the pouches on our belts, probably enough food and water for three days. I hope that it's either a short journey, or the Colonel has made other plans. I've already had enough of being hungry and thirsty.
Gnawing on a piece of bland dried meat substitute, I take a swig from my canteen to soften the rations.

Rations. Bland dried meat substitute. Better than corpse rations (unless that IS corpse rations)

Page 650

It lopes towards me and I pull the trigger, but my reflex shot goes wide. Everything slows down as it charges towards me, just a few strides away. It seems like an age has passed as I hear the recharging power cell whining in my ear.

..

A bolt from Lorii takes it square in the chest, scorching flesh and knocking it sideways. Its faltering step is all the time I need as the firing light on my lasgun flicks on and I pull the trigger again. Everything is suddenly happening at once. I put more more shots into it as it crumples to the ground, and then turn my fire on the aliens storming forward from the cave entrance.

Apparently Kage's lasgun has a brief 'recharge period' between shots at some point.. possibly indicating that the lasgun runs mostly off a capacitor which holds more energy than the power cell discharges, and it takes time for the capacitor to charge up to full. The capacitor could be dischraged as a single shot, a series of smaller shots, or something in between.

Page 650

"Frag," I mutter, snatching my lasgun by the barrel in both hands.
I step forwards and swing upwards; the attack catches the ork by surprise. The butt of the lasgun smashes into its jaw, shattering a tooth, and it stumbles, falling to one knee. Swinging the lasgun from overhead, I slam my weapon into the side of its head, flattening it. I'm about to swing again when I see that there are more of them just behind. I don't have time to finish the green bastard off.

Kage's Lasgun is durable enough to literally beat an Ork to death with.

Page 651

I notice the shot counter on my gun is down to the last few, so I use the lull to rip out the power pack and stow it in my belt, drawing out a fresh one and slamming it home. I wait for the gun to recharge and then bring it up to my shoulder, sighting along the barrel.

Again there is a brief 'charge time' after putting the fresh powerpack in before the gun can be used. although I wonder why the old powerpack hadn't 'fully charged' the capacitor or such before Kage changed it. Maybe it was in the midst of charging.

Page 655

"Well, obviously there was the space battles, but in terms of the ground assault, I guess that was when the rocks forts came down/ he says. 'Big asteroids hollowed out and protected with force fields, like mobile bases with engines fitted."

- Ork Roks (or rock forts) are equipped with forcefields as well as engines and weapons. This probably explains why in other sourcecs (IE Shadow point) why ork roks were so resilient to weapons fire (even from nova cannon.)

Page 655

"So you mean mat we got dragged across the galaxy for Emperor-knows-what because some ork warlord's pissed off and wants to get his own back?"

Again 'across the galaxiy' in about six months to a year.

Page 655

"There are millions, tens of millions, of Guard and Space Marines on Armageddon, what the hell is Schaeffer expecting us to achieve?"

- mention of "millions, or tens of millions" of Guard and space marines on Armaggeddon (obviously, the majority are Guard)

Page 656

She has a far away look in her eye and I know exactly what she's thinking about. She's thinking about her twin brother's blood splashing across her face; his head blown apart.

- mention of Loron, Lorii's brother, having his head blown apart (when it happened in 13th Legion.) once again.

Page 657

Not far on, the rail track comes to an abrupt end as it disappears into a crater several hundred metres across. The rock has fused in strange organic shapes from some immensely hot detonation. The mountains are obscured just a few hundred metres higher up the slopes by a thick layer of cloud. It has a dirty, reddish tint to it, clinging to the mountainsides. I make a silent plea to the Emperor that we don't have to go up into the deadly-looking smog.

Several hundred metre diameter crater with 'fused' rock.

Page 659

"The status of Armageddon is finely poised. A shift in power either way may yet decide the fate of the planet. Victory on Armageddon is more than just a strategic necessity; it is also a spiritual and moral test. If the forces of the Emperor cannot prevail here, where we are in such strength, then what hope is there for those worlds far from Terra, out on the Eastern Fringe, in the far-flung stars? The Imperium needs hope now more than ever, because enemies surround us on all sides. This is a test of our fortitude that we have not seen the likes of for hundreds of years. If Armageddon can endure, then the realm of the Immortal Emperor can also endure."

Sounds like Armageddon is more a propoganda war than anything - this is a position taken by other sources like Cadian Blood (Where the goal is to retrieve a frikking Baneblade) To be fair, Armageddon is stated ot be so important that it provides resources to worlds thousand(s) of light years around it and sectors away, but still...

Page 662

"When the Departmento Munitorum withdrew from the Diablo Mounts, there was a certain oversight in its stock records." says the Colonel, prompting a gasp from Erasmus.

"An oversight?" the scribe says. "But... but that's impossible, isn't it?"

"No, not impossible." says Schaeffer. "And especially possible if certain documents are requisitioned and classified by the Inquisition."

"The Inquisition?" I say, instantly suspicious. I knew it had to be too good to be true. Nothing's ever straightforward when the Inquisition is involved.

"The Inquisition has had a strong presence on Armageddon/ says the Colonel, as we walk between the shelves of stores. 'Given the nature of most of its activities, it is only prudent for them to maintain facilities and resources overlooked by normal channels."

Inquisitors seem to feel that despite having authority to commandeer (in theory) whatever the hell they want, they can also secretly or covertly "mis-appropriate" vital supplies. One wonders how much of the inefficiency of the Administratum and Munitorum is the result of stuff like this . Not all of it surely, but some may be. It is hilarious to see 'Spooge' (God that name is hilarious) lookin incredulous at the idea the Munitorum might fuck up.

Given heavy Inquisitorial invovlemtn in all three books, I think its safe to say that the Last Chancers actually represent one of the myriad tools Inquisitors keep and use. This also makes Schaefer something of an Inquisitorial agent, much like Ciaphas Cain. Of course this makes one wonder why he doesn't just use Inquisitorial authority rather than invoking Commissarial powers. Perhaps his connections to the Inquisition are meant to be a secret.

page 663

"It took a lot of resource and clout to get us all the way over here from the Eastern Fringe. Now, I know you've got a good record of success, but I can't believe that we're the only ones who could do this"

- again mention of the Last Chancers being transported to Armageddon from the Eastern fringe, which is suggestive of 'half a galaxy' more than 'the full galaxy', but nothing means it was a striaght line course to Armageddon - the warp doesn't really work that way. It's quite possible they had to cross over much of the galaxy then loop around to reach the planet or something equally indirect.

Page 667

We spend two days getting ready. The secret storehouse has pretty much anything we want: there are weapons and ammunition obviously, but also rations, canteens, blankets, packs, picks, shovels, knives, mugs, bowls, magnoculars, cold weather suits, mountaineering equipment, gas masks, rebreathers, eyeshades, portable cookers, lanterns, tents, poles, rope and a hundred other things besides.

The time not spent hunting down rogue boxes of ammunition or searching through piles of foil-wrapped bagging for ration bars we spend asleep or resting. We find blankets and bedrolls and make ourselves a cosy little camp in one corner of the warehouse amongst the shelves of crates.

Contents of the Munitorum supply base.

Page 668

Brownie, for example, insists that as well as the heavy stubber he's dragged all the way from the jungles, and five hundred rounds for it, a light mortar would be extremely useful. Fenn, on the other hand, is all for carrying extra water to be on the safe side. Hidden in a dusty corner, amongst piles of tent poles and coils of rope, I found a few
innocent-looking boxes not even listed on Erasmus's inventory. Prying one open, I discovered that it was full of gold coins. I guess the Inquisition isn't above greasing a few palms.

Rather interesting that the munitorum inventory included money.

Page 670

"I have intercepted a communication from high command on one of the comms sets." says the Colonel, stepping forward. We look at him attentively. "The orks have launched a serious offensive against Helsreach, so a lot of our forces will be drawn south. "

The stockpile had comm sets as well.

Page 670

"However, there are rumours that Thraka himself visited the hive not long ago, with fresh instructions for von Strab. But these are unconfirmed."

Apparently Ghazzie makes periodic returns to Armageddon even though he's mostly off elsewhere causing trouble.

Page 672

"The forces drawn into Acheron by his presence are far beyond any military threat posed by this so-called army of liberation. However, the moral threat he poses is greater than any other on the planet. We cannot allow Ghazghkull to have such a man under his sway, whether it be as a pawn or an ally."

the 'importance' of Von STrab, so to speak.

Page 673

While we march between the shattered shells of Infernus Forge, I marvel at how much destruction has been heaped upon Armageddon. I've been to war zones before - from the tyranid-scourged fields of Ichar IV to the trench lines of Coritanorum - but I've never seen a world so wholly torn up.

Of course Armageddon was torn up to begin with, but considering the devastation it's an interesting point.

Page 673

"It was once teeming with Adeptus Mechanicus, but then the gargants came. Only the adepts' Titans could match the firepower of the ork war machines. The whole place was virtually destroyed in the crossfire."

- only Adeptus Mechanicus Titans are noted to be capable of fighting on an equal footing with Gargants (which is odd, given CAves of Ice.. but then again, maybe not..) they also mentioned orbital support before helping them take down gargants and we know of fighters packing anti-titan ordnance payloads.

Infernus Forge was destroyed in a crossifre battle between Titans and Gargants. Another instance of a 'Forge' (AdMech territory and fabrication) being built on a world alongisde other non-AdMech factories.

Page 674

"History was never my strong point, especially not when it concerns events on the other side of the galaxy"

Once more 'other side of the galaxy' comments as to ranges/distances covered. This also tends to suggest much of the Last Chancers took place in Ultima Segmentum or thereabouts.

Page 675

Fenn waves a hand for Kin-Drugg to join us, and he fishes around in the drop trooper's pack. He pulls out the compact comm-link receiver and switches it on. Static and chopped messages squawk out from the speaker message as Fenn twists the frequency dial.

Either its a hand held comm, or its the handset for a rather compact vox set fitted into the drop troopers backpack. he's certianly not carrying an enitre vox set on his back.

Page 677

"However, a battle barge of the Marines Malevolent is currently disengaging itself from its current duties and will be preparing for the bombardment."
..

"So that's the great hurry." I say, realisation hitting me. "Someone's been buying time for us?"
"Buying it with the lives of Imperial soldiers and Space Marines." the Colonel murmurs, his face grim. "Despite our best efforts, time is running short. Desperately short, in fact. We have twenty days, twenty-five at the most, before the destruction of Acheron begins. In twenty days, if we have not removed von Strab, millions of soldiers and citizens in Acheron will die under Imperial guns."

The reason to take out Von STrab.. this must be one of those 'other measures' mentioned before.

Page 681

"On the contrary, millions of refugees, soldiers, Space Marines and orks are out there." says the Colonel. 'It is still a constant battle for control of the ruins. Commissar Yarrick declared that Hades would never fall. Blood is spilt to ensure that he does not have to break his word/"

Again the silly propoganda angle to things... echoes of Cadian blood.

Page 682

"It is a possible fate for all the hives on Armageddon." the Colonel says, smoothing over the subject. "The orks will ravage this world, and without Armageddon's factories, without the forges and the hives, worlds a hundred light years from here will weaken and wane, in a long chain that stretches back to Holy Terra itself. Acheron could be the turning point in preventing that. Alternatively our failure could see the beginning of the end for the Imperium."

"That sounds overly dramatic," says Keith. He's taken his pack off and has leaned it against a rock. To do so is a mistake, because he'll only have to struggle to put it on again.

"I wish this were a simple melodrama," says the Colonel. "And I wish I was merely making speeches to rouse you. But I am not. We are beset on all sides by a galaxy full of enemies. Our foes are held back only by the Emperor's vast fleets, his armies, and the might of the Space Marines. If those foes sense weakness, they will descend on us like a pack of scavengers and pick apart the Imperium piece by piece. A squad is only as good as its weakest member, and the Imperium is only as strong as the weakest world."

We contemplate this in silence as the Colonel leads us back down the ridge. The sight of a smouldering, ruined hive that once teemed with hundreds of millions of lives is certainly one that I'll never forget. I've seen horror: in the eyes of a strangled woman and on a battlefield literally heaving with the wounded crawling over the dead. Even the crater that was left from Coritanorum, the death place of over three million souls, was nothing compared to the ruination of Hades.

While there is an element of over-reaction and propoganda to this, there is an element of truth. we know that there is certain level of inter-dependency amongst worlds of the Imperium, especailly when it come sto the military side of things. Some worlds depend greatly on the output of hives and forges, whilst those worlds depend on food and raw mateirals provided by other worlds.

Also note the Hive having 'hundreds of millions' as opposed to 'millions.

Page 684

Each day as the light of the sun begins to glow through the clouds, we pitch our crude shelters to protect against the wind, each little more than a two-sided sheet held up on a pole. There's nothing for the pegs to bite into, so we hold down the guy ropes with ammo cans and packs. After setting camp each day, we break out the rations and use one f the low-detection stoves that the ork hunters take into the jungle. A ration bar crumbled into a little boiled water makes a passable broth. We cluster around the heat from the plate with our gloves off, taking it in turns to bask in the relative warmth.

IG issue shelters, stoves, and food.

Page 684

The constant temperature changes are playing havoc with the equipment. I'm pretty sure the barrel of my lasgun has warped and points slightly to the right now. I don't think it'd be much use in a fire fight anyway, now that grit has got into the lenses and trigger mechanism. I make a point of remembering to tell everyone to clean and check their weapons before bedding down each day, so that if trouble does come along we might at least fire back.

Kage's lasgun still works later on, it must be noted, so whatever is done to it by Armageddon's enviroment is either temporary (until cleaned) or isnt enough to significantly degrade wepaon performance.

Page 688

The smoking remnants of a gargant - seventy metres of ruptured metal plates and jutting many-barrelled cannons - stand a few kilometres from the complex. There are swarms of movement around its base. Although it's impossible to make out any details through the dust cloud kicked up, it's obvious the orks are there in force. Flickers of light from the forges are accompanied a few seconds later by the tinny, distant thumps of heavy gunfire.

Oahebs points to the west of the forge, and there we can see the shadowy shapes of two Battle Titans; Warlord-class I'd guess by their size. They are standing watch over the industrial complex. Like huge sentinels, sixty metres tail; they stand immobile, their giant plasma reactors dormant and their huge weapons silent. A column of vehicles, tanks and personnel carriers is making its way along the highway in front of the nearest titan. They look like toys compared to the armoured titans; each is smaller than its head. I can imagine the crew in the carrier manning their stations, waiting for the order to unleash the destructive potential of their war machine.

- Warlord-class Titans are 60 meters tall. Armageddon gargants apparently are 70 metres tall.

Page 693

We step out into the wastes from the shattered pipe to see Acheron rearing up in the distance, about thirty kilometres away. Thousands of metres tall, it spears the sky like a dark spear, the upper spires obscured by the low toxic cloud. Flames burn from its ravaged shell, and there are still signs of heavy fighting as artillery batteries bombard its lower reaches.

Like a giant stalagmite, it rises up from the wastes, pocked with shutde docks and entryways. Even at this distance, we can see the smoke issuing from a million flues, the haze rising and clinging to the hive's upper reaches, adding to the smog that obscures its lofty pinnacle. Buttresses that housed tens of thousands splay outwards, scarred and ravaged with shell holes and craters. The ferrocrete skin is worn by millennia of erosion into strangely flowing, organic shapes. It looks like a massive fire-ant mount, excreted up from the core of the planet.

It reminds me of Olympas, my home, and not since fighting around the hives of Ichar IV have I felt so far from there. The pipeline starts again less than a hundred metres away, but I take every second to drink in the dark majesty of Acheron. I can imagine the thousands of factories within, the millions of souls labouring in forges and mills, workshops and garages. The thump of engines, the clanging of hammers will be resounding through the hive city; the sounds of my childhood. Generations live and die without ever breathing air that has not been reclaimed for millennia, and without drinking water that has not been the piss of five hundred generations before. Most have never seen light except from a glow-globe. Many of them don't even know such things exist.

Kage remembers his own hive world experiences after seeing Hive Acheron.

Page 694

This could be last sight of a hive I see in all of its glory, a great mound of humanity's industry with a life and personality of its own. In just two weeks, it might not be there. It might become like Hades, a ruined wasteland of craters, testament to the orbital fury of the Marines Malevolent. Those millions - no billions - of souls exist in ignorance of the doom that hangs over them. They are condemned simply because it would be pointless trying to save them. So it has always been, and so it must be, for the Imperium does not count in millions or billions of lives. Such numbers are insignificant. What does the Emperor care, all-seeing from the Golden Throne of Terra, if a billion souls die so that a world is held against the darkness? It is a mere drop in a sea, amongst a million oceans.

Kage muses on the scope of things relative to the Imperium - the passage strongly implies billions of people are an insignificant portion of the populations of many (most) worlds in the imperium.. a million 'billions'. Also hive Acheron is estimated in the billions.

Page 694

I linger for a few seconds as the others clamber back into the pipe way and continue on. I can't let Acheron die. If Acheron dies, then so could Geidi Hive on Olympas. No matter what has happened to me, or happens to me, I've always felt sure that Geidi would live on, as old as the Imperium itself, enduring war, poverty, insurrection and upheaval.

The people change, regimes come and go, but Geidi will always be Geidi. Now that might not be true. Perhaps even now it is a flaming pyre for three billion people, destroyed by orks, or eldar, the tau or the traitors of Abyssal Chaos. Perhaps the soldiers of the Emperor have obliterated it. If Acheron can survive, then so can Geidi and part of what I am will last for eternity.

Kage shows both a bit of humanity and mentions the population (approximate) of his hive. He also demonstrates knowledge of Chaos.

Page 697

A shadow looms over us in the yellow glow of the lantern. We look up to see the Colonel standing over us, his face in shadow. His head turns to look at each of us, the whites of his eyes barely a slit. With the fingers of his left hand, he pulls off his right glove and holds his arm out. I expect to see the metal of an augmetic, but the skin is tough and wrinkled; small hairs stand out from his wrist. He leans forward and waves it in front of my face.

"They grew a new one for me." he says, bending close.

"Who?" asks Brownie, before flinching as the Colonel turns his gaze to him.

"The tech-priests, of course." he says, pulling his glove back on. "It took three weeks of constant pain, feeling bone growing, new flesh knitting to old flesh, and skin hardening under the glare of special lamps."

"You never mentioned it before." I say, and the Colonel straightens up.
"Why would I?" he asks. "You may fear and loathe the Inquisition, but they are powerful allies and have their uses. A new arm took a while, but not as long as it took them to rebuild my spine after I was crushed by a tank."

He leans forward again, centimetres from me.

"Do you think I was born with these eyes, Kage?" he asks, his whisper sending a shiver down my spine. "Even they cannot grow eyes, did you know that? These were donated?"

"Who was the donor?" Lorii asks in a hushed voice, peering at the Colonel closely. Her hand unconsciously moves to touch him.

"A heretic who sinned against the Machine God." Schaeffer says. "A mindless servitor now, with no need of eyes to monitor the power fluctuations in a plasma reactor aboard a battleship."

"That's so fragged." I say, shaking my head. "What else have they done to you?"

He gives me a confused look.

"You make it sound like a punishment." the Colonel says. Behind him, I see that the others have woken up and are listening intently. Erasmus looks as if his eyes are going to burst, they're bulging so much. "It is not a sentence, it is a gift. I have been kept alive for six times the natural span of a human, that's nearly three hundred years. Three centuries of service to the Emperor - three centuries of dedication."

"Three centuries cheating death, and knowing nothing but war?" suggests Lorii, earning herself a bitter laugh from Schaeffer.

3 centuries - 'six times the natural span of a human' suggests an average lifespan in the Imperium of 50 years or so.

Schaeffer's lifespan is really a testament to Imperila (AdMech) medical technology, albeit one iwth drawbacks (pain, since apparently they regrow the limb back onto the arm) - they apparently can regrow limbs and rebuild spines, but not grow eyes. Or rather, not eyes in the body or in isolation. They can implant eyes from other living beings (and we know they can grow them in clones) which suggests they can do some pretty impressive transplant tech. Of course given their abilities with augmetics this isn't surprising.

Page 697-698

Her expression turns to one of sadness. She looks pleadingly at the Colonel, who steps back and looks away, arms crossed. She looks at the others, and then at me.

"I was one of five hundred brothers and sisters." she says, looking down, head bowed. "We were bred from the seed of Macharius himself in an incubator. We were fed on artificial stimulants, and combat doctrine was pumped straight into our minds."

She falls silent, hands tightly balled into fists in her lap, her shoulders shaking with anger.

"They thought they could make a perfect soldier." the Colonel says, without turning around. "They took the seed of the great Macharius without his knowledge just before he died. For centuries they laboured in secret, their goal shunned by other tech-priests. They did well, considering. Five hundred healthy babies were created out of fifty thousand attempts. Five companies of soldiers were raised from their unnatural births to fight."

"I'm the last one." says Lorii, still gazing at the oil-slicked floor. Then she looks up, her eyes brimming with tears. She looks at me, and her anger returns. "When Loron died, I was the only one left. You think you suffered, believing you were the only one of us to survive Coritanorum? What if you were the only living proof of an obscene experiment performed by outcasts and heretics?"

"The tech-priests understand the working of the body, even the mind, and the ways it can be manipulated." says the Colonel.

Lorii's origins. I believe this is a reference to that 'Afriel Strain' stuff from older fluff. It seems that the Imperium (or the AdMech at least) make periodic attmepts at creating super soldiers. one example were the Lostock gland warriors, but this is another it would seem. Whether they were grown as in vitro fertilization, or they are clones, we don't know. It woudl be interesting if they have parallels to Krieg or other troopers.

Whatever they did, it had limited success (or maybe this was the usual success rate, who knows.) The stimulants and the 'hyno-indoctrination' thingy is interesting, echoes Spaarti cloning a bit from HTTE.

Page 712

Beneath us stretches a massive furnace room that eventually disappears into the smoky gloom. The heat is intense from the high open furnace doors; everything is bathed in a red glow. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, toil at great coal heaps, with pails and shovels, to feed the furnaces. From young children to old women, their painted flames are smeared with sweat and toil. Their labour keeps the fires burning. Braziers gutter everywhere, lending their smoke to the fumes of the furnaces.

As the elevator touches down with a loud crunching clang, Supurnis opens the door and we step out. He swings the door shut and slaps loudly on the framework of the cage, which lifts off a moment later, clanking back up into the gloom.
It's then that the noise hits me properly. There's the crackle of flames, the creaking of great steam wheels and the hiss of boiling water. But there are also groans, moans and the crack of whips. Through the gloom I see large, stooped shapes shuffling amongst the lines of workers, barbed whips in their hands, cudgels and clubs occasionally raised to beat a flagging worker about the back and shoulders.

- Acheron hive apparently is coal powered (or at least it is now.)

Page 715

"Stop or your master dies," I shout, and the ork pauses for just a second before bringing its blade down onto the Firefather's head, splitting it to the cheek. It gives a guttural chuckle as it wrenches the blade free, blood and brain fluid dripping from its hand.

"Not master," it says, its large jaw twisting obscenely to form the words. "Slave."

Orks speaking english, rather well actually.,

Page 718

The Colonel's bolt pistol booms and the fire worshipper's head disintegrates in a cloud of blood and splintered bone, his headless corpse collapsing to the floor in front of the conveyor.

More bolter head-exploding.

Page 724

"Loron's death wasn't my fault."
"No, it was the bullet through his head that killed him." she says, her voice dripping with bitterness.

- Lorii notes a "bullet through his head" killed Loron - presumably an autogun, rather than lasfire like I've assumed. Not that it matters, because 2nd edition Wargear implies lasguns and autoguns are comparable in effect.

Page 738

The man stands mouthing wordlessly, his hands flapping ineffectually at his sides. Von Strab clicks his fingers and his henchman, von Spenk, steps forwards with a revolver in his hand. A single shot through the left eye blows the man's brain out and he flops to the floor.

Stubgun of some kind blows out the back of the skull I suppose.

Page 739

"Look at him." von Spenk says, nodding towards von Strab, who now has the two plaintiffs balancing on one leg, to see who falls over first. "Centuries of intra-family breeding never gave him the best start in life, but this whole business with the beast has made him worse than he ever was."

Maybe this is why the Famulous take a hand in breeding nobles? I wouldn't put it past nobility in 40K to be too stupid to get things right without a manual (or outside help) like that.

Page 745

He jabs a clawed thumb over his shoulder at me. I'm suddenly acutely aware of the green hunks of muscle looming up behind me. I feel nothing from them, except their stench. You'd think I could sense their rage, their bestial hungers, but they're as blank as the chair von Strab sits on. It's not like they love violence, or loathe their enemies. It's just what they do, without thought and without feeling.

Kage (in his psycho alternate mode) psychically reading Orks. It shows the 'straightforward' and 'uncomplicated' nature of the Ork, and why it is so beneficial to them.

Page 748

I bet their loyalties would be different if they learned that Acheron was soon going to be turned into a smouldering lump of molten metal and rock, reduced to rubble by plasma and cyclotronic bombardment.

- Earlier in the book it is mentioned a battlebarge of the Marines Malevolent was tasked with the duty of destroyign Acheron hive should the Last Chancers fail. Assuming a 10 km diameter and 8 km high hive, made of iron/silicon mix and 90% empty air we get between 50-75 GT at least - over an unspecified (but presumably short) timeframe. If we assume an 16 km wide, 10 km high Hive (something more akin to Necromnunda rough dimensions) we get 120-190 GT. Assuming a 2 hour bombardment we get between 7 and 26 MT/s sustained bombardment. Broadly call it megaton/gigaton range bombardment.

I also assume 'cyclontronic' is ment to refer to cyclonic torpedoes, but it could be some other weapon (particle beam perhaps? some form of lance?)

Page 750-751

Next is Keith, who delicately slithers out of the pipe with his back to us. As he turns around, his jaw drops.

Without hesitation, he sweeps his hand up, pulling back his headscarf to reveal his warp eye.

To my left, von Strab and von Spenk both start screaming, flinging themselves to the ground with their hands clawing at their faces. Urkug stands mesmerised for a moment, his eyes glazing over, and a rope of drool dripping from his jaw. Then he topples to the ground, stiff as a board. The other orks react with a mixture of terrified wails and angry roars, firing their pistols at unreal phantoms. One of them stares for a long moment before its eyeballs explode and it crumples into a heap on the ground. The other Last Chancers are in similar comatose or panicked sates. Brownie is squatting on the ground gibbering softly. Kin-Drugg starts tearing wildly at the bandages on his leg, driven by some personal mania.

I just look at the Navigator, the swirling, ever-changing deep vortex in his skull nothing new for me. I can feel the warmth of his immaterial stare wash over me as he turns in my direction. This time it is Keith whose eyes widen in horror as he looks at me with his warp eye for the first time, seeing my true form.

"Daemon!" he hisses, recoiling, his natural eyes scanning left and right for some avenue of escape. "Get away from me, foulest of the foul!"

Navigator Warp eye affects humans and Orks, but not a daemon when he's in control of a human (KAge is also shielded.) With the warp eye exposed, Keith (The Navigator) can also discern Kage's state of possession.

Page 751

"You're a psyker, you've been possessed by a daemon. I'm a soulguard, an earthing rod for psychic energy. When you're away from me, the daemon will try to come back. You must fight it. Believe me, try with all your will and soul!"

..

One of the orks has regained enough presence of mind to drag Oahebs from me. Retching, the Last Chancer doubles up, and I see blood clotting in his ears and strange burn-like marks on the back of his neck. He glances back at me, his left eye now completely white, pain etched across his face.

Soulguards. Not to be confused with Pariahs, although the two are similar. They get a mention in the Inquisitor RPG as "psychic vaccums' that could absorb magic and protect nearby people from Chaos. - they were made rather than born, however, and the Inquisitor RPG implies they aren't a wholly good thing (or at least Quixos creating them wasn't.) Possibly proof that the Inquisitors Schaeffer is workign with aren't exactly Puritans, but they're at least taking Kage's condition seriously.

The psyker Inquisitor Stele used in the first two Blood Angels novel had similar abilities.

Page 755

And as far as I can tell, Urkug is the only straightforward one here, which isn't surprising. His orders from Ghazghkull are to keep von Strab alive and well, and to keep an eye on him so he can't betray the warlord. Von Strab thinks he's playing a subde game, with his Army of Liberation and his plotting, but he's admitted that Urkug is smarter than he appears. Even he hasn't figured out what's going on, it's clear that Ghazghkul is intelligent enough to be aware of von Strab's potential double-crosses.

Again we get hints Ghazghkull is on Armageddon still, which suggests this war isn't quite over yet.

Page 757

I can't guarantee that von Spenk can take out Urkug with his revolver. Even a point blank shot to the head isn't always fatal to an ork.

On the other hand, if Urkug nails one of us with his heavy pistol, it's going to be all over pretty damn quickly.

Orks can survive point blank shots to the head, which perhaps explains why they try to opt for weapons that guarantee to blow apart the head.

Page 758-759

With a smile, I lunge forwards, the fingers of my hand driving towards Schaeffer's eyes. I can get this body to work faster than he ever imagined. I go on the offensive, striking with left and right blows, taking him on the chin and above the eyes. Turning my attention lower, I drive a fist into his gut, lifting him to his toes, and then slam a punch into the side of his head, making him stagger sideways.
...

He looks up at me, chest heaving; his face a picture of hatred.

"He is one of mine," he spits. "I want him back!"

He takes me by surprise, hurling himself off the wall, driving a shoulder into my midriff and bundling me into the far wall. My spine cracks against the stonework. The pain is easy to ignore, as he batters my face with combinations left and right punches. My right eye swells and closes up, my nose spills blood down onto my lips. He's panting badly now and I slap him with the back of my hand, my bony knuckles tearing the skin from his cheeks.

Clawing my fingers, I rake my hand across his face. My new talons tear off the lobe of his left ear and he sways to avoid the blow. He throws out a hasty punch, which is easily stopped. Grabbing his wrist, I trap it under my arm and wrench upwards. His elbow bends the wrong way with an audible snap. He hasn't once groaned or cried out in pain yet.

...

He breaks my grip and forces his arms between us, throwing me backwards.

"I know," he says. "You are a creature of the abyss, a weak, despicable cacodaemon. I want him back, fiend of Horus, leech of the void!"

"But I'm right here," I say with a laugh. "I am Kage, you know it. This is what I'm really like. This is what I want to be like. This is what is inside me, in my soul. It was easy to release myself, my psychic gifts saw to that. Now I can be free, from you, from the accursed Emperor, from duty and guilt."

"You are never free from me," snarls Schaeffer, smashing a fist into my chest, and cracking a rib. I laugh. It won't take long to heal, not now that I've unleashed my true potential. A few more modifications and this body will be perfect for me.

I stop his next punch in the palm of my hand and my long fingers close around his fist, crushing knuckles and pulverising the flesh. I force him down on to one knee and then let go, bringing my hand across his face with the same movement, splitting his bottom lip.

Schaeffer goes toe to toe with the possessed Kage. You have to give the guy credit, he has balls and he doesn't let anyone go unless he has to.

Page 761

Somehow, Spooge is still carrying that bloody broken servo-skull, tucked under his arm. Before the little fragger dies, I want to smash it into pieces in front of him. I want to tear out all the mechanics and gears and cognitive analysers and scatter them to the winds.

- mention of the servo skull auto-scribe having "cognitive analyzers"

Page 764

In that single moment, my entire soul becomes focussed in on itself, like a collapsing warp hole. I suddenly understand everything. I look at Oahebs, and see the blank white orb of his eye and the scars left across his face from the psychic energy that is coursing through him from me.

The Soulguard in action again.

Page 764-765

For ten thousand years we have endured, sometimes we have thrived, other times merely survived. For a hundred centuries we have fought and died, spilt the blood of our enemies and our own over an uncountable number of battlefields. Mankind has sacrificed itself, for itself, so that it might last for another generation, and another, and another. Those sacrifices are for no greater cause than for the acts themselves. It is done in the unspoken hope that some day, perhaps in another ten thousand years, a generation will live without sacrifice and mankind's destiny is fulfilled for eternity.

The Emperor will not remember you by your medals and diplomas, but by your scars.

It is not only in death that we offer up our lives to Him, but also in life. We are not judged merely by the manner of our deaths, we do not earn His eternal grace merely by dying in His name. It is by the way we live out our lives before we die that defines who we were. It is easy to sacrifice a body, for it's nothing more than a mortal shell for our soul. To sacrifice your life, not your death, is the ultimate test of faith.

[/quote]

I only included this because it's better than your usual grimdark takes on the whole 'sacrifice' angle - it actually makes it seem like something other than meaningless bleak bullshit.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

The NEW, revised Last Chancers series analysis thread

Re: The NEW, revised Last Chancers series analysis thread

Re: The NEW, revised Last Chancers series analysis thread

Re: The NEW, revised Last Chancers series analysis thread

Re: The NEW, revised Last Chancers series analysis thread

Re: The NEW, revised Last Chancers series analysis thread

Re: The NEW, revised Last Chancers series analysis thread

Re: The NEW, revised Last Chancers series analysis thread

Re: The NEW, revised Last Chancers series analysis thread