(Hell consider it a Christmas gift. LOL)Anyhow, this is another of those series when I covered (much as like the Ultramarines series as we'll discover) when I was in some weird 'thematic' mood. I was trying to see if I could discover/discern some interesting ideas in the various works I read, and what I felt was working for me in the story, what didn't work, etc. I've kinda toned that down recently I think (mood has passed) but who knows, it might come back. (Incidentally this phase also saw alot of the Necromunda, some HH, a number of the IG novels and a few others having more THEMATIC in them too. Rather odd how that worked out, since I'm no less technically obsessed than I was before that.)
I would say that along with Angels of Darkness, the Last Chancers novels remain some of Gav's best work. His Eldar stuff was.. okay. I'll get to those later. Purging of Kadillus was meh (par for the course for some SMb novels), and the Horus Heresy stuff he pertaining to the Raven Guard is pretty good. Ravenwing comes out (for me) this month (or rather at the start of Janurary) so I suppose its a good time to delve into some of his good writing. And that means I also have something to place alongside Angels of Darkness at some future point (I even hear the Ravenwing book is pretty good so far.)
so yeah, Last Chancers. One of those 'drawing inspiration from WW2' things the Guard is famous for. In this case, its more akin to the 'Dirty Dozen' in analogy. Basically a Penal Legion with some extreme special-operations roles (and high expendability). The funny thing is I suspect the Last Chancers model has influenced how penal legions are viewed (at least thats how it seems from the 5th edition version, they seem to emphasize the 'expendable prisoners but with valuable skills' aspect, at leats.) The books, however, are a bit more complex than that. They aren't directly about the Last Chancers themselves - they're more of a vehicle for carrying the story. What the Last Chancers stories are about really is Lieutenant Kage, our (sort of) protagonist. He's cynical, murderously bloodthirsty, psychotic... but also a highly sympathetic character (especially in the first book.) It is Kage's mind, and his relationships (with the other Last Chancers, both comrades and those he commands later on) and with Colonel Schaeffer (who has a role but like the Legion is also a bit of window dressing to contrast off Kage.) Kage more or less embodies the Last Chancers as we learn, and that makes him something of a tragic figure (and where much of the sympathy for him comes, despite him being a mad-dog killer.) because there are reasons why he is as he is. And why Schaeffer himself is the way he is (in a way, he's just as crazy as Kage, just in a different vein.)
The setup of the Last Chancer trilogies is a bit similar to Eisenhorn in some ways, with Kage in the role of Eisenhorn. Each story is largely self contained, but also ties into a larger 'idea' that drives the series. I can't say I liked the conclusion of Last Chancers the same way I liked 'Hereticus', but it does fit the overall pattern. I suspect its just I'm not totally fond of Gav's view of 'grimdark' tragedy, or something. It also has some of the 'glimpse of the world of 40K' aspects alot of novels have had (and Gav brings back in his Eldar stuff and we saw in the Inquisition War novels.)
So, the first book is '13th Legion' which included the short story 'Deliverance' which is sort of a prelude to the events of the book and serves as the introduction to what the Last Chancers are (while they fight Tyranids.
Well enough babbling on my part. On we go... oh I also covered the introduction. normally don't feel like doing that, but I guess I was feelling all themy.. or maybe it was again Aaron's fault
Don't expect me to make a habit of it lol.Oh and the link to the old thread
Page 10-11
Yeah, apparently 'grimdark' is supposed to be a theme in 40K. Thank god not every author believes this. To be fair to Gav, the Last Chancers stories are an appropriate one for Grimdark, because they're about condemned prisoners and soldiers, not regular people, so a dose of 'grimness' is appropriate. Sufficed to say there are limits.Another driving concept was to have a brief look at a very strong idea in the Last Chancers series – that of hope, and its eventual pointlessness (well, this is 40K after all).
Page 11-12
So Gav apparently set out to 'dirty up' the tau from the get go. I have to say that personally I have no problem with that, although I know some tau fans resent the idea that the tau are anything but nice and perfect people. As if aliens should be one dimensional and nothing else. also I find it a bit hilarious that the tau are supposed to be 'more like modern humans'. I mean can you really picture the tau as the United States?The tau, in typical 40K fashion, are aliens that are more like modern humans than the humans of the Imperium. In some ways, with their enlightened attitude to science and their co-operative ideals of the Greater Good, there was a danger that readers might start to think they're actually… well, nice! Never one to be too comfortable with anything that seems too clean and shiny, I wanted to add a few scuffs and a bit of grime to the underbelly, and so the idea of the tau being not quite so united, and not quite so enlightened with their dealings with aliens, formed the underlying vision. It was also, through the more ''modern'' outlook of the tau, a good chance to take an askance view at Kage and his fellow Imperials with all their wonderful medieval superstition and xenophobia.
Page 18
'simple mono edged knife'. The interesting thing is that Kage implies the Guard has access to them, but they give them to tribesmen (or might give them to them.)I guess it ain't that surprising, considering that to these guys a simple mono-edged knife is a creation of the gods.
To be fair 'mono edged' in 40K just usually means 'really sharp' although some authors might take a more sci-fi type view (eg James Swallow.) 40K knives are either made sharper, made stronger, or sometimes both (EG mono, adamantium, or the occasional chain/power enhancement.)
Page 18
'Tear apart' a Lictor. Assuming 2 m tall and 50 cm across, and 100 or so lasgun shots equalling the heavy bolter. (and 400 j per sq cm flaying flash burns) thats 20 kj per lasgun shot.The lictor then leaps at Franx's squad, but even as it races towards them, hissing like some damned Oviran cobra, they tear it apart with their lasguns and heavy bolter.
Page 19
Tyranid regeneration/durability.I walk up to make sure it's truly dead. You can never tell with these fragging tyranids. Some of them have got powers of regeneration you wouldn't believe.
Page 19
The Last Chancers, a penal legion, have Chimeras. Chimeras are supposed to be like, super duper rare and hard to procure and maintain and only for the super duper special troop forces. and yet they give them to the Last Chancers. Whether this is supposed to reflect Chimeras being dirt common, or the special pull that Schaefer apparently has (and is demonstrated repeatedly throughout the series.) we don't know, and it can go either way."Mount up and move out!"
Some of them begin to walk back to the Chimera transports..
Page 19
How you end up in a Penal Legion like the Chancers.Like me, like all the Last Chancers, they were thrown out of their regular units for breaking the Imperial Guard's rules in a big way, to serve the rest of their lives in a penal legion.
Page 20-21
2 day (or less) response time from the IG forces. Presumably they had astropathic contact (in another system, since using astrotelepaths in the warp is supposed to be a beacon to daemons and rather dangerous) IT's possible the troops were in the system at the time, but if that were the case it would either be incredible luck or imperial forces make a habit of being nearby this place (whcih is also unlikely, givne the context.)"we've had a contact with the relief force. They are no more than two days away. If we can hold for just forty-eight hours, mere will be two whole regiments of Imperial Guard. The wall should be fairly straightforward to defend. It is eighteen feet high, so we just have to worry about their hormagaunts and lictors leaping straight up it..."
Another irony is that either way its 2 days implied to travel through the warp and reach the system, which includes insystem travel. This is the fastest speed EVER in a Gav Thorpe story, where it takes days (or weeks) to usually travel insystem distances.
Also, hormagaunts and Lictors can make 18 feet high jumps at least.
Page 21
Wow they evne have hydras. This is one well equipped penal legion!"We have two Hydras and this keep has four point-defence emplacements. "
Page 23
Hah! a million men lost is PALTRY losses by IG and grimdark terms, especially against the 'nids. Note the Eldar cooperation with the Imperium.It's hard though, so hard, 'cause I was there on Ichar IV, I saw what they can do to a world, how they fight. There were six thousand Last Chancers back then. Less than five hundred of us made it out. The regular troops, I hear, lost over a million men defending Ichar IV.
There were Titans there, and Space Marines too, if the rumours are true, and even those eldar turned up, I heard someone say once. All those guns, all those men and we only just won the fight.
Also (one) example of a Penal Legion size. high end for Regiments.
Page 24
Kage has a chainsword. What happens to it later we don't know...I rip my chainsword from my belt and get the blades whirling..
Page 25
The flak jacket seems to provide enough protection to prevent the termagant's claws and teeth from gutting him or otherwise tearing out his shoulder. By flak standards thats damn impressive...then something hits me hard in the back. This thing is latched onto me, and I can't get at it. I feel its claws scrabbling at my flak jacket, hear the material tearing away, and its hot breath is on my neck, a long pointed tongue slithering over my neck. Its jaws latch onto my shoulder and I try to angle my laspistol round for a shot, desperately trying to rip this beast off of me, 'cause I don't want to be killed by some damned termagant.
Page 26
Hormagaunt leap. 20-21 feet plus the 18 feet earlier. That's a damned impressive leap, especially vertical from a standing start.They stop there for half a heartbeat, bunching those powerful leg muscles and then they spring up, clearing the wall by a good two or three feet
Page 27
Oh hey a humanitarian priest. No good against Schaefer though."But these men need treating, you cannot make them fight again." Nathaniel's complaining.
"If these men cannot fight, they are dead, missionary."
Page 27
Frankly I remain amazed ANY of that (minus the insubordination or heresy) is illegal under Imperial Law (EG the stuff the Arbites enforce), much less against IG regs. It makes the Imperium sound almost... respectable!"They are thieves, murderers, looters, rapists, insubordinates and heretics. Every sin you can conceive of has been committed by at least one man here. More than that, they are traitors. They once served as free men in the great Imperial army. But they betrayed the trust placed in them by the Emperor and his servants. They have broken the proscriptions of Imperial Law and have profaned the Emperor's benevolence with their selfishness and I will, I must, punish them for it."
Of course considering stuff like the GG series we know things like this, but this is Grimdark novels!
Page 28
Portable gnerators and searchlights.. I help Kronin's platoon rig up some searchlights scavenged from the Chimeras and get them set up on the wall. The constant hum of the portable generators fills the air..
Page 29
Tyranid warriors.Behind them are crouched the warriors, big beasts twice as tall as a man, their four upper limbs evolved into a variety of deadly ranged and close combat weapons.
PAge 29
Rules with lasguns - aim for the weak spots, not the carapace. Apparently this goes even for the 'cannon fodder' 'nids, meaning the lowest Nids are pretty well protected against many 'basic' weapons. When you factor in the redundant physiology and/or regenerative abilities..."When you shoot, aim for the flesh. Your lasguns will have about as much effect on their carapace as punching a Leman Russ. Watch your ammo counters too"
This sort of echoes stuff we learn in the 'Xenos Hunters' story and from the 'Nid codex: the carapace (even of gaunts) is resistant to lasfire by and large, so you aim for the flexible/weak points. Of course if you're a Space Marine bolters are IDEAL for penetrating. Because Bolters are the bestest and most special after all...
Page 32
Strength of a Carnifex. It can shove away/toss aside a ~40 tonne tankWith a screech of tearing plasteel the gates are torn apart and the Chimera gets shunted towards us. There's a sound like a tank ramming a building and the personnel carrier is flung upwards, spinning through the air. It crashes down and its fuel goes up, a massive fireball that shoots thirty metres into the air. In
Page 32-33
The resilience of a Carnifex. Even lascannon fire glances off it, unless you hit it right in the mouth.In the red glare comes this huge tyranid creature, about four metres tall and just as wide. It's some kind of Carnifex, but nothing I've ever seen before. It's got four massive scythe-like arms, but the bony extrusions across its shoulders jut forward, rows of spikes thrust outwards like it's some kind of living battering ram. Nestled between its immense shoulders, its head is kind of fused with its chest, a large fang-ringed mouth open in a permanent roar.
...
Without pause, it shoulders aside the wreck of the Chimera ...
...
Breiden opens up with the lascannon, a bolt of energy powerful enough to cripple battle tanks scoring a wound across the carnifex's armoured skull making thick, dark blood dribble down the exoskele-ton of its body. The heavy bolter in Franz's squad kicks in, explosive shells rippling across legs as thick as tree trunks in a shower of detonations.
...
Lasgun fire, heavy bolter shots and lascannon shots bounce off as it lumbers towards us. Once more its mouth opens for another terrifying roar, but Breiden picks his moment precisely, his aim guided by the Emperor I'm sure, and the next lascannon bolt lands in its mouth, smashing its head to a pulp, scattering fragments of skull across the courtyard.
Assuming the 4 m tall/wide fex.. its head is maybe 1/8 to 1/10 the height/width of the creature.. we're talking 40-50 cm tall/wide head at least. Possibly as much as twice that. A carnifex of that size masses 8-9 tonnes as per IA4. Given head/body mass ratios for a humanoid shape, we might figure on many hundreds of kilos for the 'Fex (close to a ton perhaps on the uppre end of the scale.)
Going by just flash burns (call it 400 j per sq cm) and a 40x40 cm head to 100x100 cm head..at least 640 kj to 4 MJ. The higher ned of the scale is quite possible, as we know that matches the lascannon yield from Inferno Magazine for the Demolisher.
Assuming significant scalding(3rd degree burns)/boiling to a large percentage of the flesh (100-250 kj per kg) as a more approximate 'upper' end - we'd get around 40-100 MJ for a 400 kg 'head' As an order of magnitude (percentage of head volume/mass burnt, level of thermal damage, actual mass of head, etc.) its probably within that range. Overall single or double digit MJ for the lascannon baesd on this seems a reasonable conclusion, although it certainly does not rule out higher - especialyl for a mostly thermal lascannon damage mechanism.
Page 46
Length of the shuttle compartment. I'd guess the shuttle overall is maybe 15-20m long at least.I see the others settling into places along the three benches, securing themselves with thick restraint belts that hang from beams that stretch at head height along the shuttle chamber's ten-metre length.
Page 48
Shuttle can hold at least 40-41 people.Forty pairs of eyes look towards me in anticipation of the next twist of the tale.
Page 50
That would make 4000 Last Chancers.. except that they mention have 6000 in the short story.There are twenty of the massive cells in all. Originally each held two hundred men, but after the past thirty months of nearconstant war, nearly all of them stand empty now.
Page 50
Naval armsmen. Flash visors and shotcannon.The armsmen swagger around, shotcannons grasped easily in heavily gloved hands or slung over their shoulders. Their faces are covered by the helms of their heavy-duty work suits, and their flash-protective visors conceal their features.
Page 51
Crimes that get you thrown into the Penal Legions (which means violations of IG regulation and/or Imperial Law, going by previous statements.) Again it kind of surprises you waht the Imperium won't put up with...leaving me locked in this room with ten score murderers, thieves, rapists, heretics, looters, shirkers, desecrators, grave-robbers, necrophiles, maniacs, insubordinates, blasphemers and other assorted vermin for company.
Page 51
That confirms the 48 hour respons time (approximately) in the Deliverance short story...I can smell their combined sweat from several days on the furnace-hot planet below.
PAge 56
Cuisine of the penal Legions, aboard ship at least. Whatever it is it has protein in it as well. One imagines the Guard must eat better, although how much better is up for debate. The ship crews at least seem to, going by fresh meat.The food is also picked to grind you down. I know for a fact that they brought hundreds of horn-heads on board from the plains around Deliverance, but do we see any sign of freshly slaughtered meat? Do we ever. No, it's just the same brown, half-liquid slush that you have to shovel into your mouth with your fingers, feeling it slide horribly down your throat with the consistency of cold vomit. You get used to it after a while, you have to. You just shove it in, swallow and hope you don't gag too much. It doesn't even taste of anything except the brackish water it's mixed with.
It's cold and slimy, and more than once I've felt like hurling the stuff back into the armsmen's faces, but that'd just get me a kicking and the chance to go hungry. For all of its lack of delights, it certainly fills your stomach and keeps you going, which is all it's supposed to do.
As usual I'm sitting with Franx and Gappo, who are the closest thing to friends that I've got in this miserable outfit. We spend a few minutes cramming our faces with the sludge, before washing it down with reconstituted fruit juice. For some people, fruit juice might seem like an extravagance, but on board ship, where the air's constantly refiltered over and over, and there's only artificial light and close confines, it's the best way of stopping any diseases. There are tales of whole ships' crews being wiped out by Thalois fever or muritan cholettia, and that's too much of a risk to take when you only need to give a man half a pint of juice a day to stave off the worst.
Also, fruit juice to stave off Space Scurvy.
Page 57
Sounds like as close to a paradise you could get in the Imperium. note the reference to having lots of machines to work the land"You know, I'm from an agri-world," Franx says. "Just a farmer, wasn't much hardship. Had lots of machines, single man could tend fifteen hundred hectares. Was always plenty to eat, women were young and healthy, nothing more a man could want."
Page 57-58
Ah, life in the Guard. At least, the downsides. Politics and Munitorum bullshit fucking you over. AT least the stupid side of Munitorum parsimony and bullshit. Oh and forced conscription. At least they feed you."Got listed for the Departmento Munitorum tithe when orks invaded Alris Colvin. I was mustered. That was it, no choice."
...
"As a trooper, I didn't have to worry about anything except orders. Got foddered and watered, had the comfort that whatever I was told to do would be the right thing."
...
"Higher up the chain of command I got, less I liked it. Soon making decisions that get men killed and maimed. All of a sudden it seemed like it was all my responsibility. Colonel was a born officer, one of the gentry, didn't give a second thought to troopers, was just making sure he could sneak his way up the greasy pole of the upper ranks, hoping to make commander-general or warmaster."
...
"Stuck in the middle of an ice plain on Fortuna II, been on half rations for a month because the rebels kept shooting down our supply shuttles. Got the order to attack a keep called Lanskar's Citadel, two dozen leagues across bare ice. Officers were dining on stewed horndeer and braised black ox, drinking Chanalain brandy; my men were eating dried food substitutes and making water from snow. Led my two companies into the officers' camp and demanded supplies for the march. Departmento bastards turned us down flat and the men went on the rampage, looting everything. Didn't try to stop them, they were cold and starving. What was I supposed to do? Order them back into the ice wastes to attack an enemy-held fort with empty stomachs?"
Page 58
Boy, were you born into the wrong universe."Questioning whether there really was an Emperor. How stupid are you?"
"I cannot believe that such suffering could happen if there were such a divine influence looking over humanity," Gappo replies emphatically. "If there is an Emperor, which I doubt, the cardinal and others like him representing such a figure is patentlyridiculous."
Page 61
Hive Fleet strikes again.In their wake, a bare rock orbited the star, scoured of every organic particle, stripped of all but the most basic elements. Nothing was left of the fanning world of Langosta III. There were no testaments to the humans who had once lived there. Now all that was left was an airless asteroid, the unmarked dying place of three million people.
Page 64
Lower limit on the size of the starship.I'm standing in the upper starboard gallery, along with another two dozen Last Chancers. The row of windows to our right continues for several hundred metres.
Page 65
Commentary on planetary importance and naming conventions. Apparently outposts (and penal colonies) are minor and unimportant worlds, relatively speaking."Even the newest explored system usually gets a name, even if it's just the same as the ship or the man who found it."
...
"I've just had a thought. No name probably means it's a dead system, no life-bearing worlds, right?"
"Could be," I say, though I wouldn't really know. Unlike Poal who was brought up by the Schola Progenium, my education consisted more of how to work a las-lathe and parry an axe-blow with a crowbar.
"And a dead system is just the place you'd put a penal colony…"
Las lathe - device used in hive factory.
Page 68-69
Kage and Schaeffer discuss the post Ichar IV situation with Hive Fleet Kraken (or at least, a part of it.) Ichar IV had 190 billion, yet apparently 500 billion is 'more' than a hive or hive world (according to Kage), even though we know some Hive worlds can get that big. It would probably mean that most hive worlds (at least those Kage knows about, if we take him as absolute authority) are far less than 500 billion."It seems that defending Ichar IV was not necessarily the best plan in the world."
...
"Saving a hundred and ninety billion people was a bad plan, sir?" I ask, amazed at what the Colonel is implying.
"If by doing so we cause five hundred billion people to die, then yes."
...
"Five hundred billion, sir?"
...
"Much of it we managed to locate and destroy while the tyranids were still reeling from their defeat. However, we believe a sizeable proportion of the survivors that attacked Ichar IV coalesced into a new fleet, heading in a different direction. It is impossible to say exactly where they are heading, but reports from monitoring stations and patrol vessels indicate that its course might lead straight into the heart of the sector we are now in - the Typhon sector. If we had let them have Ichar IV, we might have mustered more of a defence and destroyed the tyranids utterly rather than scattering them to hell and back where we cannot find them and it is impossible to track them down until too late."
...
"So instead of losing a planet, we could lose the whole of Typhon sector?" I ask, finally catching on to what the Colonel is implying. "That's where five hundred billion people might die?"
...
Five hundred billion people, all of them devoured by hideous, unfeeling aliens if the tyranids couldn't be stopped.It's so many people you can't picture it. It's far more than a hive, more than an entire hive world.
In this context, the Typhon Sector has 500 billion people in it. With thousands of sectors in the Imperium (and hundreds of worlds per sector) that's easily quadrillions of people. It's also a bit creepy to hear them talking about sacrificing an entire world - even a major industrial one - simply to stop the 'nids. It has echoes of Kryptman later on.
Page 73
A rather obvious demonstrateion of KAge's bias... the Navy after all provides the aerial and orbital bombardment support, as well as logistical support in many cases, that those 'ground armies' need. What's more some threats can be dealt with via orbital bombardment rather than deploiyng troops on the ground.I don't know how long the enmity between the Navy and Guard has lasted, probably since they were split up right after the Great Heresy. That was one of the first things I learned when I joined the Imperial Guard - Navy and Guard don't mix. I mean, how can you respect the Navy when they think that they can deal with anything, just by stopping the threat before it reaches a planet. Half the fraggin' time they don't even know there's a threat until it's too late. And then their answer is just to frag everything to the warp and back from orbit with their big guns. I'm no strategist, but without the Guard to fight the ground wars, I reckon the Navy'd be next to useless. All they're good for is getting us from one warzone to the next relatively intact.
Page 73-74
Wiping out an entire sector (100 LY radius) in a few years is easily tens or hundreds of c warp speedIf there are tyranids here, in the Typhon Sector, it's our job to hunt them down and kill them before they do their transmitting thing, or whatever it is they do. If we don't, the Colonel informs me, then there's going to be upwards of a hundred hive ships floating this way over the next couple of years, gearing up to devour everything for a hundred light years in every direction.
Page 78
We stumble into False Hope Station later the same day...
...
The whole outpost is covered with vines and trailing leaves..
False Hope station. The only human inhabitaiton on the planet, which is a Death World of some type
Page 84
Population of aforementioend outpost."Records show that at the last count there were seventy-five Guardsmen and one hundred and forty-eight civilians in False Hope Station,"
Page 89
Dental care in the penal legions...taking a swig of dentclene from a foil pouch and swilling it around my mouth before spitting the foamy liquid into a puddle by the lieutenant's feet.
Page 89
Height of bio-titans. I'm willing to bet these AREN'T the Hierophant chibi-titans outmassed by Leman Russes."I've seen bio-titans twenty-five metres tall, great four-legged things that can trample buildings and crush battle tanks in their huge claws."
Page 89
Warriors are 4 m tall, which are supposed to be 'twice as tall as a man.', which puts a man (or some men) at 2 m tall average. Like in the Ghosts novels"When you've got a four-metre tall tyranid warrior standing in front of you, then you know what tyranids are like. Its carapace oozes this lubricant slime to keep the plates from chafing, it's got fangs as long as your fingers and four arms."
Again people in 40K seem taller/bigger than normal people on average. Although this isn't absolute in all regards, and it can vary according to source.Page 90
According to IA4, winged Tyranid warriors (which I assume are similar to the ground based types) mass 2.5 tonnes and averaged 2.4 M tall (although here it was 4 m tall.. go figure. Assuming a width equal to 1/5 the height we get between 50 and 80 cm wide (2.4-4 m tall) If we assume 'incinerate' meands badly burn, call it 100-1000 J per sq cm. it would be between 7.2-72 MJ and 19.2-192 MJ for 'incinerating' 3 Warriors via flash burns. Assuming the 100-250 kj per kg I estimated for the Carnifex earlier we get between 750 MJ and 1.9 GJ. If outright cremation we're talking double digit GJ.It was only Craggon and his plasma gun that saved us, incinerating the alien monstrosities as they carved through us. As it was, those three tyranid warriors killed fifteen men before they were brought down.
The next question of c ourse is.. how many shots. It's clearly more than 3 shots, but probably fewer than 40 shots (Rogue Trader RPg output, IIRC) For 7.2 MJ we get 180 kj to 2.4 MJ per shot (10x greater for the second value) 480 kj to 6.4 MJ per shot for the second incinverating value. For the ssecond set of calcs we get 19 to 250 MJ per shot, or 48 to 633 MJ per shot. And at double digit GJ.. we're probably talking at least half a MJ to a gigajoule at least per shot, or double digit GJ.
Page 94
Lasguns shearing vines with 'light'circle. Men start firing their lasguns at the approaching vines, shearing through the tendrils with bolts of compressed light
Page 98-99
Plasma weapons on the military transport seeming to ignite 'hundreds of square kilometres' of jungle. We dont know how many shots were fired, at least one, and they probably didn't start bombarding until they lifted off the planet (so for less than an hour, I'd say.) Say, less than a hundred shots, although I'd guess only a handful (or a few dozen). Kiloton-megaton range, at least. Assuming 125 j per square cm to cause flash burns over 200 square km of jungle (at least, we might be talking some 250 TJ at least."'get your comms-operator to call down the shuttles, and order a bombardment of that… thing."
...
The Colonel steps forward, gazing intentiy towards the god-plant.
"Whatever it was," he says with a hint of satisfaction, "it is going to be dead soon. I am tempted to request this whole world be virus bombed, just to make sure."
...
It's with a good feeling in the pit of my stomach that I look out of the shuttle window as we roar up into the sky of False Hope.
Out of the window I can see a raging fire, setting light across hundreds of square kilometres of jungle. Another bright flash descends from orbit into the ground with an explosion as our transport ship, the Pride of Lothus, fires another shot from its plasma driver into the god-plant.
Page 101
Does this mean the transport had some sort of warp capable parasite craft aboard it? Certainly no other vessel is mentioned in the system, if we was being transported elswhere.To make matters even worse, there's been no sign of the Colonel for the past three weeks. Talking to the ratings, it seems he disappeared on a rapid transport two days after we left False Hope orbit, taking Hopkins with him.
