Chapter 1

The titan's siege horn ripped through the air making the ground tremble and inspiring fear in the hearts of all that heard it. It raised its right arm with its huge siege hammer cocked back and ready for release. The winking lights along the side of the arm glowing green. Cameron stared in silence waiting with his heart in his throat. To his left and right members of the death watch stood poised in an arrowhead formation waiting inside the giant wrought iron gates of the hive city. Cameron raised his power hammer up above his head and bellowed into his vox that was linked to the titan. Its horns raged once again and the surged forward blasting its hammer out. The compressed air drove the hammer forward into the gate blasting it outward. Cameron and the death watch surged forward blasting with bolt guns into the bright white light hearing screeches ring back to them. Cameron was at the lead of the squad swinging his hammer to and fro smashing bodies aside. This was his final moment of glory.

But before his glory was how he was brought to it.

A grey craft slipped out of the warp on the outskirts of a system on the sabbat trail. The crusade was still in a push and forces of chaos were being decimated in the warlord maccroth's path. Left behind was war torn systems left to rebuild themselves. Some considered it horrid but the lighter side was there were no chaos trying to sacrifice them while they were rebuilding.

This system was named after maccroth as before its name had been wiped away by chaos. Most of the worlds were named after commanding generals that had liberated them from the fowl clutches of the great enemy.

The ship was destined for a planet named Lugo after a one of maccroth dogs, it was an uninviting place. From space all that could be seen where the towering hives that stretched to the special limit. They looked like little lit up bulls eyes all of them in a perfect circle. Apparently on the planet Lugo there was 7 hives. The grey ship was destined for the biggest of them. It was s space faring hulk long and slip with a huge cannon hanging on the prow of it. Inside the cannon 10 drop ships could fit comfortably. All along the sides were gun emplacements and laser batteries that were slaved to a servitor each. The grey ship in itself was a floating base of command able to dish out severe punishment while being nimble enough to maneuver around cumbersome capital ships.

The grey ship was a space marine strike cruiser named the unshakeable. It was the proud ship of the death watch. A special team of space marines that lived to hunt out the alien and the heretic and exterminate them. They were the best space marines put forward by each of their respective chapter to serve a 10 year duty with the death watch.

From the ships under belly thrusters of thunderhawks flared to life and shot from the ships hold racing down towards the dark side of the planet with pilots at the helm that excelled in stealth flying making the thunderhawks almost invisible to radar. But just in case they also had a type of jammer logged on the underside of the ship making them just a void in the void of space.

Below the planet sat unawares that they were about to be caught in another war for their lives that they could not win.

Cameron sat in his chambers looking at the wall with a frown on his face. A bad taste hung at the back of his throat making him want to spit but he knew he shouldn't he needed any liquid he could have in him right now. On the bed next to him has a half empty bottle of pills all different colors all to sort out some ache or pain he had accumulated on the necron world. The taste pushed at the back of his throat again. This time he spat out a red pill. It clattered to the floor and bounced until it hit the wall with a little wet plop. Cameron took out a yellow pill and popped it in his mouth seeing if he liked the taste of this one. He swallowed and smiled, he really wished the red tasted better.

His quarters were small and had little in the way of decoration. His armor stood immobile by the door with the helmet at the feet waiting to be put on, the bed was to short for him making his feet stick out over the edge and a bad ache in his back to appear every time he rolled over. There was a metal foot locker that held his weapons. His 2 bolt pistols his bolt gun and the stolen red power sword that he took from a chaos trooper. He had had priests look it over to make sure there was no taint on it; he kind of liked the trinket.

Right now his body was a patchwork of bruises and scars from his recent battle. He had only been drug out of it by his boot laces by the grand master who was now on his way back to titan to report back with the grey knights on his battle.

Cameron spat out another red pill. There was a solid knock at the door. Cameron turned his head and grunted in the general direction. A medic walked in and looked Cameron up and down and totted at the pile of red pills on the floor.

"You know you need those right?" asked the doctor lifting up some gauze on Cameron's shoulder to look at one of his many wounds.

"what? for, they taste horrible and give me gas" said Cameron reaching for another yellow. Why did these ones taste so good?

"Oh and you should lay off the sweets sir." Said the medic rolling the bottle over. Underneath it was a small bag of sugary yellow sweets Cameron had been munching on; they seemed to kill more pain then any of the others. Cameron grunted again as he ate another few of them.

"The reds help your hand bond with your new grafted one. Without them your body could reject it and one day in the heat of battle it would simply pop off" said the medic motioning with his hands to create a grisly effect. Cameron grunted again and swallowed a red. To his dismay it left a nasty streak of bad tasting drool down the back of his throat.

The medic nodded in approval and began to turn to walk out the door.

Oh and sir there's a message for you on the bridge apparently we have new orders." With that the medic disappeared out the door and down the corridor off to some other tasks that Cameron had no idea of.

That sir at the end of the sentence still nagged him he was used to being trooper or grunt or in battle a shouted solider! But now, thanks to the inquisition, he had been granted the rank of interrogator a step below the rank of inquisitor. His work on the traitor Aaron, ha his work all he did was survive and barley even that had made the high lords of the inquisition believe him a capable candidate for service even though he had no physic abilities. And now he was stuck here on this small attack ship traveling through the warp to the sabbat crusade to help in any way possible. Cameron had been warned that I could be field duty fighting the chaos legions or it could be sitting at a desk sorting through data slates. In truth he didn't feel like doing any of those things right now, he wanted to be sleeping and then wake up eat until he could shove no more in and go back to sleep. Yes that's it why cant interrogators do that instead of an inquisitor's dirty work?

He slowly swung his feet to the floor feeling them touch the cold metal. Why were ships always cold? He asked himself as he instinct flinched from the cold. He then stood up walking stiffly to his foot locker. From it he removed his gaurd issue combat jacket and wrapped it over him. The then put on his old guard trousers then slowly closed the lid of the locker. He now shuffled over to his suit of armor. He bent over and unbuckled the boots, slowly he slipped his feet into them feeling the warm gel of the boot coushning his feet. They were possibly the most comfortable thing Cameron had ever worn and he was not embarrassed by wearing them around the ships hull, even if the deck ratings sniggered at him while his back as turned.

He moved slowly out of his room his healing body still screaming out in protest of such brash and cold treatment. His stomach also began to grumble as the yellow sweets churned and mixed with the tasteless paste that was dished out in the mess halls. He shuffled along the small ship, no where near as big as the old inquisitors but as the high lords said, it would do. The halls were all dented from trolleys and other things banging into them, in the background Cameron could hear the engine clunk as it missed a piston or something, Cameron wasn't in any mood to try and speculate the quantum mechanics of a starships engine, he was only in the mood to get those sweets out of him.

The trip was short and uneventful. The ship itself was less than a kilometer long and most of that was used up by the engines and mass amounts of weapons on the ship, the ship master had them put on a long time ago when he had come into possession of the vessel. Cameron thought he was a bit paranoid, but then allot of firepower could be helpful keep dark elder off ones tail.

Cameron reached the bulk head to the bridge and banged his new hand against the door. He winced in pain as it flared up, he could still smell his hand as it was melted away by Aarons plasma gun, but now it was just a painful thing attached to him. The door squealed and slowly cranked open on cogs missing teeth. Occasionally cogs on either side of the door would be missing a tooth and the door would shudder and drop a few centimeters before being caught again.

Cameron hated this tin can. He stepped onto the bridge and looked about. To his left was a display monitor on the wall. To his right was a single astropath that sat in a little built in bowl In the floor muttering to himself as he guided them through the insanity that was the warp.

The ship master was seated in a ring of data monitors that surrounded him giving him constant control over what was happening on his ship and where they were headed. When Cameron stepped through the door the captain turned in his swiveling chair and a broad grin split his face as he saw it was Cameron.

"welcome to my humble home" he said waving about trying to be modest.

"thank you jack." Cameron said with a curt nod that hurt his neck. The commander of the ship, jack, was a thick set man that rarely left his ship. He had been in many scraps with alien forces and had been a mercenary for hire, he also liked to talk allot about his past exploits.

"I heard we had orders jack?" said Cameron looking over some data banks.

"ah yes a communiqué from terra itself believe it or not, apparently the inquisition has reason to believe that the planet in the sabbat system is still corrupted."

Cameron looked up from the banks. "but the crusade had just pushed through there. I thought all of the chaos legions had been purged or mostly so." Cameron now walked over to the wall mounted data screen as it sorted through information.

"yes but that's where it gets interesting." Jack said with a twinkle in his eye, he always loved to get into close calls and heavy scraps. "they believe it to be a planetary officials. They believe that there's is a cult of some sort controlling the higher archly causing havoc among the rebuilding population." Jack sure had a knack for story telling.

"so what planet are we headed to and to we have any back up?" asked Cameron playing with dials on the board. As he did a small squeak emitted from the board.

"please don't touch that interrogator, and we are headed to a planet called lugo, a large hive planet. Overrun by gangs that now control all the lower spires, arbiters are trying to resume control but its hard work and even slower going."

Cameron grunted and moved about looking through other data slates and examining the bridge. On closer inspection the walls were just as dinged and damaged as the outside, and a hefty waft of sacra lingered in the air adding a bad smell with the bad taste in the back of his throat.

"unfortunately that's all I know, we are supposed to be heading to the largest of the hives because that is where its most likely to be found the heretic, and if anything it can get your feet back on solid ground." He added in with is smile still plastered on his face. Cameron missed planets touch under his feet so much, he also missed the night and day periods not the always on lights of this cruiser or the random changes in gravity. In all he hated any sort of space travel, he didn't like it when his life was out of his hands.

"is that all captain?" asked Cameron in an annoyed tone.

"unfortunately yes we are on a small recon duty and it will be boring work I believe, but not all the emperors work can be fun and exciting now can it?" Cameron nodded to this and shuffled back to the bulk head door his armored boots heavy and making clanging noises.

"We have 1 week left of transit sir." Said the captain over Cameron's shoulder as if an after thought. Cameron didn't like the idea of a week of space travel but hey at least he could get some more sleep and food in him before planet fall.

On his way back to his stuffy little room Cameron took a detour into the kitchens and back into a cupboard, he waved off questioning looks as he knew what he was looking for. After about a minute of shifting and searching he found them, a nice big bag of yellow sweets. And with that he went back to his room.

He had a wall to stare at.