3

By Riff's estimate, the transport shuttle exited the Warp after about a month. Of course this was an extremely rough estimate. Time didn't seem to move right in that hellish dimension. However, one thing Riff was certain of, by the time the shuttle did exit the warp every criminal aboard had had the fear of the Emperor stricken in them. In some cases, quite literally. Every low-rank guardsman aboard was itching to prove themselves, this of course resulted in quite a few unprovoked beatings with their truncheons. Riff swore on his life more than a few times that he'd seen guardsmen trip themselves up, only to turn around and crack their glorified beating sticks against the skull of some unlucky prisoner. The victim was usually left where he'd fallen, no medical attention was sought out. The body would be picked up later by the maintenance crew.

These beatings usually occurred when it was time for the criminals to be fed. Riff jumped out of his cot the first time food was mentioned, which was a decent number of hours after the warp jump and what could be called a decent night's sleep. The word "night" being a relative term seeing as how the maelstrom that was the Warp didn't have a proper day and night cycle. Again they were herded through the twisting corridors of the ship, poked and prodded along by some guardsmen of course, into a massive room filled with milling prisoners. After that you just had to hope you got a ration bar before the distributor decided he'd given out enough. Riff had been lucky enough to elbow his way to the front of the mob surrounding one of the distributing stations with little difficulty. The soon to be familiar white bar of stuff was shoved into his hands and he quickly sought out the least crowded area. Apparently the Guard didn't think prisoners needed sitting space as no such thing was provided. Nothing but the cold ceramite floor to sit on. So Riff sat down where there seemed to be the fewest prisoners, which seemed to be the exact spot where an unpleasantly large red stain graced the floor.

Most of the other prisoners seemed to be establishing their little gangs already. It was at that point that a familiar head of scrubby brown hair detached itself from the growing crowd of prisoners around the last distributing station. Shem looked around for a moment before his eyes settled on Riff and for one terrifying moment he thought the stupid juvie was going to call out to him. Instead Shem wandered over and deposited himself beside him. Apparently the kid had failed in getting a ration bar as he was empty handed.

"Where's yours?" Riff asked after a minute or two of them just sitting and staring at the mobs of prisoners.

"Don't have one. Some guy threatened to tear my head off so I just thought I'd give them their space." Riff saw where this was going already, and he hadn't lived so long in the kill-or-be-killed world of the underhive by sharing.

Riff let the silence stretch on between them for a while. He caught Shem staring at his uneaten ration bar every few moments before the kid returned his gaze to the prisoners. It was then that Riff came to a decision. Picking up the ration bar he broke it into two evenly sized chunks and extended one of them over to Shem. Shem eyed his hand uncertainly for a moment, looking between Riff and the proffered chunk of food, before taking the piece and shoving it greedily into his mouth. It was here that Riff took the juvie under his wing.

Basic combat training started a few days later. Riff found he had been correct in his assumption that the criminals that made up their company did indeed double as their quarter mates. Groups of eight-hundred prisoners were herded into rooms that were much smaller than the massive cafeteria room but big nonetheless. They were split into eight groups of one-hundred each, each prisoner was put in a group with their fellow quarter mates and so Riff got to see the stranger with the augmetic hand once again. By then each group had been shoved into what could just pass for an ordered rank. Shem had made sure to make his way to Riff's side. The stranger with the augmetic hand, by sheer coincidence, stood in rank just ahead of Riff. He stood ramrod straight, facing the front of the ranks where some high-ranking guardsmen stood before each company. As soon as each prisoner had been bullied into line he spoke.

"You have all committed some sort of crime to end up here; that's obvious enough. And before you ask, no you will not be receiving weapons. I'm not about to arm eight-hundred criminals." The guardsmen around the room forced a laugh before he continued. "You've been given a chance to repent for your sins against mankind. You should all consider yourself lucky to have the opportunity. You are not soldiers and I doubt any of you will earn that title. However, it is my holy duty to prepare you scum for the battlefields you will fight on. So watch and learn, the lucky ones who survive might just have the chance to put these skills to use."

The guardsman, who later introduced himself as the "holy and seasoned warrior" Lemuel, was true to his word as no weapons were even let near the criminals. Combat training was done through demonstrations by Lemuel and his guardsmen suck-ups, who were more than happy to demonstrate the lasrifles effectiveness on a few rowdy prisoners. It was during these training sessions that Riff got his first look at a true mutant.

Shem had pointed out a specimen who stood at the very back of one of the company ranks. The others in its line gave it a wide berth. The mutant rippled with muscle. It had no shirt so Riff was given a full view of the dozens of scars that covered its bare torso. The mutant had a thick brow line beneath which two hazy red eyes peered out. Jagged teeth sprouted in all different directions from its hideously misshapen mouth. Riff wondered how he'd never seen the monster before, it had to be about the size of an ork, before coming to the conclusion that he'd been too busy trying to look like he was paying attention in case he was singled out for a demonstration.

Riff turned away from the horrid mockery of the human form to make sure he wasn't caught and nudged Shem, who was absolutely gawking at the thing, to face forward. Not that he was paying attention either way. He'd been in plenty of fights in the hive; of course than he'd been using a stubber pistol to get the work done. Looking at the way they were taught to hold laspistols it didn't seem any different.

After weapons training, Lemuel proceeded to educate them on all of the imperium's enemies. Shem particularly loved this part and Riff found he had a particularly hard time shutting him up afterwards when Shem began schooling him on the different ways in which Tyranid bio-forms can disembowel a man. They were given knowledge of every xenos race, more importantly they were taught how to kill them. Tau, Eldar, Tyranids, Orks, and even the Great Enemy itself. So they wiled away the time like this. Every day Shem found his way to Riffs side and Riff found himself staring at the back of the stranger with the augmetic hand. Riff and Shem stuck together when it was feeding time, always avoiding the larger concentrations of criminals as this was where fights tended to break out that usually ended in every combatant being beaten to death.

Two weeks into their travel aboard The Abyssal Spear the mutants began to gather in one of the far corners of the massive feeding room. Riff couldn't help but stare sometimes at the sheer variety of mutations the mob had. Some of the mutations were obvious, a few extra appendages here and there, but some were much more subtle. Riff tried push away his morbid fascination with the mutants for the remainder of the trip aboard the shuttle, lest he find himself becoming a little too comfortable with their horrifically distorted forms. He just prayed he wouldn't be fighting alongside any of them. However, word spread that some prisoner had glimpsed the hulking form of an Ogryn and serving alongside mutants suddenly seemed inevitable.

When they finally exited the Warp, two and a half months had passed in real space. Riff learned that the speed of their travel was apparently above average, and he was terrified to learn that some shuttles remained in the Warp for a year before entering real space to find that a decade had passed. Riffs fear intensified when he realized that he was now one step closer to the grave now that they had arrived at their destination. He was careful not to let his fear show in front of Shem, he needed the kid's confidence now more than ever. Shem apparently needed his own confidence to. Now that they were so close to the conclusion of their journey and their training had ended it was only a matter of time before they were dispatched against some enemy and died in battle. The pressure was visibly weighing down on Shem, and as Riff was about to find out, the pressure was apparently weighing down on the others to.

Riff had never bothered with his collar after it had ben clapped around his neck, it had just become a part of life. But now he saw its purpose in full grisly detail. One man broke for the door of their company's quarters, pushing and shoving any criminals who got in his way. As he passed the threshold a light on top of the door began to beep wildly, syncing with the rapid beeping on the criminal's collar. In a flash of light the runner's head was vaporized. The explosion shredded his upper torso sending a shower of gore cascading across the floor. The runner's legs kept working for a moment before falling into the pulped remains of his upper torso where they ceased to move. Riff heard the telltale sounds of vomiting as some of the other criminals, Shem included, upchucked their ration bars onto the floor. Riff unconsciously began to scratching at the collar around his neck.

The unloading of all the prisoners went about the same as the loading did. They were led out in lines, chained to one another, and onto the docking bay of Hell's reach. Riff noted how this space port had none of the grandeur the hive world space port had. Everything was dingy and flecked with rust. Riff only needed a basic knowledge of the complexity of machine spirits to know these ones had been severely neglected by their techpriests. The station had apparently been built into an asteroid orbiting an unnamed gas giant. Riff knew this because the massive docking bay had been carved out of the rock, quite roughly by the look of it. They had also gone through an extensive depressurization process that began when the massive docking bay doors sealed off the chamber from the vacuum outside.

The lines of prisoners were led from the loading bay to the cargo bay by more guardsmen and eventually they made it into the station itself. It was expected of penal legion soldiers to die on their first assignment, which is why Riff was surprised to hear they were replenishing the ranks. It was only then he noticed the large number of onlookers as they were marched through the station and into what would be their new, and most likely final, home. The onlookers were no different from them, criminals dressed in filthy clothes. They were different in one aspect however, each individual had a number and a design tattooed onto their foreheads. Each and every onlooker was also shaved bald. Some had the same numbers and designs as others. Riff realized the onlookers must be soldiers from the different units who just so happened to make it out of their last assignment alive.

They were marched further and further into the guts of the station. The rumble of unseen machines could be heard through the walls and it had gotten so hot that Riff needed to constantly dab away the sweat from his forehead. Finally their march seemed to have come to an end when they were herded into a chamber that reminded him uncomfortably of the court room at the hive, just bigger. At the front of the room on raised section of the floor stood Commissar Abelard, having apparently disembarked ahead of the prisoners. Riff scoffed, what was it with these idiots and needing to stand a little higher than everyone else. Riff came to the conclusion that the commissar was likely compensating for something. A tingle of unease ran up his spine as Abelard looked around at the prisoners with an almost jovial smile on his face. There was big news, Riff knew that, and if it made a commissar smile it wasn't good. The commissar cleared his throat and began to speak as the last lines of prisoners were shoved into the room.

"Welcome to the last home you will ever know." Commissar Abelard's smile disappeared. "When you go beyond these walls you will know no freedom, only service to the Emperor. When you go beyond these walls you will be marching to your execution. Outside these walls the battlefield is your new home, and the mud will be your tomb." A ghost of a smile crept its way onto the commissar's face. Riff knew what was coming.

"So quickly your time has come to be blooded in battle. Hell's Reach lies on the border of the Catis Umbra system which has so recently been attacked by the Great Devourer." A wave of horror rippled through Riff. "The main Tyranid fleet was crushed by the Emperor's chosen, but the threat lingers." The commissar stopped and looked over each and every prisoner.

"Today you will be assigned to your unit and company. Tomorrow you will depart for the Catis Umbra system. In a week you will make planet fall and you will begin cleansing the Tyranid threat. After two weeks…all of you will likely be dead." The commissar let his words sink in before adding a final note.

"The Emperor protects those who are worthy. Expect nothing from him."