Anyway, some notes. Stop reading if you don't want spoilers:
1) Abnett extensively covers the concept of regimental followers - which are regular civilians who provide services to the fighting troops. It's interesting how Abnett claims that every regiment in the Imperium has a similar entourage of followers which we hardly ever see, but he also introduces the idea that the Imperium gives this entourage a choice of whether or not they want to follow their regiment into a war zone. They are even asked to sign waivers.
The Ghost's followers mostly do end up going with the regiment anyway - one of them includes Elodie (from Blood Pact) who eventually marries Daur in the book. There's apparently no rule against Guardsmen marrying while in service.
2) We finally get to see some loyalist Space Marines in action. And they gun down a ridiculous number of enemies in this book.
On the other hand, it's also shown that despite having only three Space Marines; these Marines are very heavily supported with a lot of heavy weapons. They attack an enemy space fort using a Caestus-class boaridng torpedo, which also essentially acted like a fire support gunship when they got inside the fortress. They also had a large number of combat servitors.
The performance of the Caestus' pilot must also be noted. Although the pilot was supposedly a servitor, he apparently was well-regarded as an ancient and experienced one, and it showed. The pilot almost single-handedly killed 300+ Loxcatl mercenaries on his own without needing any outside initiative. Kind of interesting as we've only seen almost mindless drones for servitors.
3) Gaunt has a son from his tryst with that Chass girl from Necropolis. About time his womanizing bit him in the ass. :p
On top of that though, we also learn that the Imperium also has ways of making kids grow up faster. Gaunt's kid is only 11 years old, but thanks to reverse-juvenat treatments he's physically closer to 17.
Oh, and the kid comes with a bodyguard (named Maddalena Darebeloved. Yes, really) who was modified to look like the kid's mother (plastic surgery in the grim dark future!).
And yes, Gaunt sleeps with her almost immediately, much to poor Curth's chagrin. Looks like she's finally giving up on Gaunt (Yay?) and has moved to getting drunk with Blenner (Gaunt's pudgy best friend).
4) And speaking of Blenner... he's still a Commissar, and an actual cowardly commissar (unlike Ciaphas, with whom you can never be sure). And Blenner is now attached to the Ghosts along with like four other Commissars. You've got Hark, Ludd, and two new ones.
That leaves the Ghosts with like six Commissars, including Gaunt. They try to justify it by saying that the extra Commissars are needed because the Ghosts are now a polygot of three different regiments (Blenner seems to be assigned specifically to the Belladon portion, Hark to the Tanith, etc), but it does seem to be a bit excessive. Then again, Ludd and the two new ones seem to be junior Commissars, and there's every indication that Hark brings Ludd along because he sees the latter as a surrogate son more than anything else.
5) There's a nice space battle sequence (Yay!), with a bunch of Imperial ships against a few Chaos ones. Interestingly, all of the Chaos ships in the book seem to be daemon-possessed ones. They were all chanting their names as they attacked, and were screeching when they got hit.
One of the Chaos ships also used some kind of funky lightning weapon to cheat and wipe out an Imperial frigate outright (Boo!).
6) Finally, the overall strategic happenings...
Apparently, the Sabbat Worlds Crusade is grinding into a stalemate. You've got the Sons of Sek on one side (Cabal Worlds), the Blood Pact on the other (Erynes Worlds), with the Imperials in the middle (everything they've conquered so far - Balhaut, the Khan Group, etc).
Macaroth's been trying to hit both Sek and Gaur, but his efforts are failing miserably. His commanders want him to focus on Sek, but Macaroth fears that this will allow Gaur to entrench and make his position impregnable.
With help from Etogaur Mabbon (the Chaos defector from Blood Pact), they hatch a plan to try and get Sek and Gaur to start fighting. The Ghosts are sent to the titular world of Salvation's Reach (which is really a planetoid built out of a debris field of broken ships), which is a major research facility by Sek. They go in with the Space Marines, kill a lot of people, lose a few guys (notably Dorden and Merrt) and steal some data/artifacts from Sek. They then start broadcasting Gaur battle cries on an open channel to try and convince Sek that the raid was conducted with the help of the Blood Pact.
The novel then ends before showing the strategic results of the raid, but Mabbon was apparently quite pleased by the raid, and the Ghost's ship was apparently being stalked by a Chaos battleship which did nothing while they conducted the raid.
Needless to say, this cloak and daggers gambit seems to be serving more nefarious ends.
But, anyway, enough details for now. Discuss!
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