Look to your battle-gear and it will protect you
We guard it with our lives
Your armour is your soul, and your soul's dedication its armour
The soul of the warrior is the protector of humanity
Honour the craft of death
Only the emperor is higher in our devotion
Honour the battle gear of the dead
We ask only to serve

-Warrior's Catechism of Worship

CHAPTER ONE

Commissar Varin roamed the deck of the 492nd Rebel fleet ship, The Leviathan. It seemed empty. Whether it was due to the fact that the ship was empty, or to the fact that so many of his men had just been slaughtered, he knew not.

The Commissar entered the bridge to see that he was not the only one on the ship. The Captain, who went by the name of Jones, had remained on board. When he noticed his commanding officer, he stood straight and saluted.

"Commissar, Sir!" He said.

Varin grimaced at the use of the imperial rank designation. He had long ago abandoned his position in the corrupt Empire.

"At ease." The Commissar said through clenched teeth. "What are you still doing on board son?"

Jones relaxed and sat back in his chair. He sighed, "Oh, just finishing a few things up. And enjoying the solitude."

Varin pulled sat himself in a bridge chair and propped his feet up, a major sin if he were still part of the Empire. Luckily though, he had long since abandoned his faith to an imaginary Emperor.

"I'm curious, Captain." The Commissar said. "What do you think I did wrong back there?"

Jones thought intensely for a moment. "What did you do wrong, sir?"

The Commissar nodded.

"Permission to speak freely?" The private had to be careful not to be court-martialed for his next words.



"Go ahead." The Commissar listened curiously.

"Well, sir. In my opinion, you did almost everything wrong." Jones looked away from the Commissar.

"Please, continue." Varin persisted.

"Well to begin with, I don't think any other of your rank could have done any better. The Tyranids are the smartest foes we've faced. For them to spontaneously arrive like they did… I'm just surprised any of us made it out alive." Jones turned back to face the Commissar. "I think we could have had a better defense though, sir. Sure we didn't have much time, but we had five basilisk tanks, two squadrons of hellhounds, and four squadrons of Birds with us. What do we have now?" He counted on his fingers. "One Basilisk made it out, only a quarter of the hellhounds made it out, and we lost all but three of our birds."

"Yes, I'm aware of our losses, Captain. But what could I have done differently?" The Commissar was not being sarcastic in any way. He was genuinely curious as to what the Captain had to say.

"Well, sir, the first thing you did wrong was the order for all of our vehicular weapons teams to stay behind and man the tanks and birds. I think it was a panicked, rushed order on your part, and I think you know it. The better thing to do would have been to keep the Basilisks with our retreating men, and using the birds and hellhounds to create a diversion while we made it to The Leviathan. There would have been plenty of time for the hellhounds and birds to make it back also, as they are much faster than most of the Tyranids."

The Commissar nodded. He had considered all of this after the fact, pressure never dealt well with Varin.

"Keeping everyone behind to actually fight the Tyranid swarm was foolish, sir. With all due respect of course." Jones watched the Commissar carefully to see his reaction to his last comment.

"I know it was, son. I know. And we have paid dearly for my mistake." The Commissar pulled papers out of his back pocket and unfolded them. "I just received the casualty count." He handed them to Jones.

The Captain read them, and he silently handed them back to Varin. "It was worse than I thought. More than half of the 492nd have been lost. Another quarter of them are still wounded? That only leaves us…" The Captain did the math in his head. "About five hundred battle-ready men."

The Commissar nodded grimly and turned his back to Jones. "Let's hope that those battle ready men are our best, because we will need them soon."

Jones stood up abruptly. "What do you mean, sir?"



Varin leaned against a wall and sighed. "We're running out of fuel for The Leviathan. This station we've docked with, they have no fuel for us. They are hesitant to even allow us to dock with them. With that said, the closest place we can get fuel is the imperial planet, Emperor's Light. And I'm pretty sure a rebel fleet ship won't receive a very warm welcome from an imperial planet, if you catch my drift."

Jones stared skeptically. "Sir, you're planning on taking on a whole planet full of guardsmen with only five hundred men? Permission to speak freely sir?"

"Yeah, go ahead."

"Have you lost your damn mind?"

"Maybe so, Captain, but it's either risk the chance of losing all of our men and maybe get the fuel we need, or die in space when we get stranded."

Jones sighed, acquiescing. "I guess you're right sir, as bat shit crazy as it sounds. When are you going to inform the men?"

The Commissar headed towards the door. "Early tomorrow, we'll begin our departure."