Sorry for the delay in updating, should have another chapter ready pretty soon. Family crisis and all that... anyway, enjoy!

'There's a message coming in from the Praetorian expedition you sent out this morning, sir.'

Lord General Chaffed lay flopped in his command throne like a beached whale. He was little more than a cripple with mechadendrite probes inserted into cranial plugs or protruding from his spinal column. Fluid drips lined the back of his throne, shining wetly in greens and blues, feeding nutrients and anti-necrosis compounds into his ancient, debilitated frame. He was surrounded by data-slates on multi-jointed metal arms, displaying the day's logistics for his review.

He could have been asleep for his physical activity.

'Expedition, what expedition?' he burst into macabre movement, like a marionette suspended on invisible wires, jerky and inhuman.

'The mission to secure the fuel depot, sir.'

'Are they still out there?' he gasped, fixing the orderly with a milky eye. 'I thought they'd been recalled.'

'No, sir. Your orders were for them to continue against all odds.'

Chaffed settled back a little, suddenly exhausted.

'Very well, put it on the speaker.'

The tactical orderly punched a few buttons on his master vox. The command centre's speakers fizzled to life.

'Command this is Sergeant Valint, acting commander of the 9th Corps, 3rd Platoon. We have secured the perimeter of the target location and are awaiting engineers to disarm explosive devices located on the canopy supports. We've still to secure the plant and admin block but the enemy have been contained for the moment.'

'Put me on, Lieutenant,' Chaffed gesticulated, indicating that a link be established for him to speak through.

'Sergeant this is the Lord General. Engineers are en route, you say?'

'Yes sir, the Orrax 567th has been kind enough to send a detachment from their forward command post.'

'The 567th, eh? Most irregular, but if it gets the job done… Well, carry on sergeant, don't let us keep you. There is a war to be won, you know?'

'Sir, we'll have the depot secured within the hour. I would like to formally request reinforcements in case of a counter attack. Casualties have been heavy.'

'I'll pass your request down to your battalion HQ, sergeant. The decision lies with them.'

The orderly cut the connection.

'Plucky little chap, eh? How do you suppose he did it?'

For all his physical infirmities, the Lord General was still acrobatic in his mind, even if his methods were long outdated. He'd known it was a fools mission when he signed the order. Major Breton stepped forward and indicated an as yet unread data-slate awaiting the Lord General's attention.

'These are the reports we have received regarding the progress made by the Praetorians, my lord. It appears they may have had help.

'Unauthorised help, by the looks of things. You suspect the 567th?'

'I do. It is not necessarily a bad thing, my lord, as you said, the job is getting done…'

'Disobedience is always a bad thing, Major. Do these people have a disciplinarian?'

'A Commissar Vaughn, sir.'

'Invite him to dinner, would you? I would like to speak with him about the state of his regiment.'

Breton backed away, an expression of fear on his features. He hadn't meant to drop the Orrax into the frying pan, but the Lord General was extremely stiff on matters of discipline whilst being simultaneously completely severed from the concept of morale. It didn't matter to him that in this instance contravention of orders had won the demoralised Praetorians an important victory. All that mattered was that Chaffed had not been obeyed. Such blinkered leadership…

xxx

He woke to pitch darkness and silence. He was bound cross-wise to a wall, his arms secured out to the side and his legs wound in thick ropes. There was a ringing in his ears and as he shook his head to get rid of it an ocean of pain filled his skull. On top of this his mouth tasted like a sewer and his sinuses were clogged with grit and dust.

'Where the hell am I?' Corgan croaked, parched and dehydrated.

'Please, do not struggle,' came a thickly accented reply, a deep-chested voice that lisped ever so slightly as though the speaker struggled to say the low gothic words. 'We do not wish you harm.'

'So that's why you clocked me over the head is it?' Corgan drawled. 'Well aren't you the bloody peacemaker! If we had more people like you in the galaxy I'm sure it'd be a much better place.'

The speaker turned aside and muttered something. In the pure inky blackness it was impossible to tell how many people occupied the room with him. From the timbre of their voices Corgan guessed it wasn't many and that the room was close and cramped.

'Ah, I see. My envoy informs me that this is kind of human wit; sarcasm. He also informs me that it is considered to be the lowest form. Perhaps I misjudged your value to us.'

'Well what do you expect!' Corgan replied. 'Should I thank you for cracking my skull? If I'm a low wit then you must just be plain stupid!'

'Such venom,' the speaker replied, curiously. 'I have no doubt of your spirit, but you have still to prove your intelligence to me. I will return.'

Footsteps shuffled out of the room. Iron screamed as a door was pushed closed. Metal clanked a s a key was turned.

Corgan briefly considered shouting some abuse after him, but he knew it was futile. A sneaking suspicion had been planted in his mind and it unnerved him. A memory of the fight, the way his assailant had moved, was reminiscent of something he had seen before. When the speaker had referred to sarcasm as being a human trait, it had all clicked into place. He knew who he was dealing with, now. What he didn't know was how he was going to get out of the situation he was in.

xxx

The wind felt good in Corporal Heffron's face as the city-scape of Trachiad City rushed by on either side. The powerful bikes mechanical grunt sent reassuring tremors through his body. The thick, metal-studded tyres tore a ragged groove in the asphalt and the large-bore exhausts spewed thick, acrid fumes in his wake.

Behind him three more bikers churned up the road and on each perched a single passenger heavily laden with bomb disposal equipment. Alreich was one of these. The surly convict had worked in demolitions in a former life. Now he was part of an ad-hoc bomb disposal unit formed to make the fuel depot safe.

There was no traffic in this part of town. The firefight that had raged through the neighbourhood had put paid to that. They weaved their way between burnt out wrecks and rubble, the occasional shell-hole left over from the early days of the war when artillery had still been the Imperium's mainstay.

The depot materialised out of a column of smoke. Some of the fuel lines had been damaged and the fires were just barely being kept under control by the local volunteer fire brigade. The flash and crack of lasguns still raged around the two-storey admin block at the opposite end of the compound.

Arines welcomed them in through a heavily armed cordon. There hadn't been a counter attack yet but the Captain was leaving nothing to chance. Heffron's pillion passenger hopped down and went about detaching the cycle's saddlebags that held all his equipment.

'Over there, boys.' Arines indicated the nearest canopy support strut as Heffron parked up. 'They've found three devices so far. We can't move too many men in unless we want to get the bloody canopy on our heads.'

Geiger, the bomb-disposal team leader, nodded his affirmation. 'We'll see to it, Captain. You might want to get your men to cover.'

'No fear, corporal. We can't move out without the risk of losing the place. We'll run that race alongside you.'

'Okay,' Geiger shrugged. 'It's your funeral!'

Arines grinned and turned to address Heffron.

'You didn't hang around did you?'

'No, sir. Would've been nice to be able to wait for the weapons systems they're planning to fit but you needed us more.'

'How's that going?'

'They kept back a couple of the hogs in order to put fifty-cal stubbers into the sidecars. We took the rest. Biggs wants each of these to have a couple of linked autoguns fitted to each, but it'll keep.'

'What about the new guys, how they panning out?'

'As well as you might expect, I suppose. They'll get into the spirit of things eventually. It's got to be better than the penitentiary, right?'

Arines laughed. Some of his irascible humour was genuine, the rest was put on to keep morale up in Corgan's absence.

'Sometimes, Heff, I'm not so sure!'

xxx

The visitors came and went. Sometimes they spoke to each other in melodious, alien syllables, other times they asked him nonsensical questions. Occasionally there was a chirruping like the birdman that had attacked him. He answered their questions with subtle insults and sarcasm, unwilling to lay his cards on the table.

They offered him food and water, but they wouldn't unbind him and he refused to be fed. Besides his pride, he was wary of drugs that would make him more open to suggestion. He supposed they could easily inject him with them, but they were unwilling to turn on the lights until they got what they wanted out of him and that made such tactics impossible.

Corgan was still forming his strategy. He was vulnerable, but that didn't mean he couldn't take the initiative. Obviously they thought he was valuable to them and his response to their questioning gave them only enough to keep that suspicion alive. He had no doubt that should they decide they were wrong his remaining lifespan would be measured in minutes.

He waited for an edge of impatience to manifest itself in his interrogator's tone before executing his strategy.

'You're a long way from home!' he said.

'Oh? And how would you know where home is?'

'Why don't we start with you turning the lights on.'

'I think not, yet.'

'Look, buddy, we can keep playing these games for as long as you like. I've got all the time in the world and to be quite honest, I'm enjoying the rest.' That wasn't strictly true. His arms and legs were cramping up and it was hard to get a full lungful of air in his position. 'I just get the feeling that you're a little nervous and I don't blame you. It won't be long before the Inquisition gets wind of your presence and sends the Deathwatch in.'

'Deathwatch?'

'Oh, come on, you can't be that ignorant. Even the lowliest officers of the Imperial Guard have heard of the Deathwatch.'

There was a long, drawn out pause. His interrogator was most definitely on the back-foot now. His defences were crumbling around him. The darkness had not been disguise enough. It was time for phase two of Corgan's strategy.

xxx

The last of the surviving mercenaries that had been holed up in the admin block were led into the back of a white-armoured Chimera. Their wounded were being tended to in a field triage station in the first floor along with the wounded Praetorians and a couple of Orrax men.

Valint's twelve remaining able-bodied men had taken up positions around the perimeter, setting up mortars and excavating the hard points. The Orrax Captain was keeping his distance still, but more of his men were evident moving into the surrounding neighbourhood. He was arguing intensely with a large, muscular woman while a squad of his men finished up removing the explosive devices the mercs had been unable or unwilling to detonate.

The fact that they hadn't blown the place sky high spoke of a need to keep hold of the fuel reserves located beneath his feet in massive underground reservoirs. There was going to be a counter attack, the only question was when.

Valint sat on a high kerb, leaning back against the body of a fuel pump while he checked his ammo reserves. They'd claimed a fair few weapons from the mercs, mostly reliable but cheap weapons mass-produced in the factories of Korsch, AR-12's and a few 14's. Sidearms ranged from semi-automatic P12's to the slightly more expensive and sector-renowned Korsch 50, the staple weapon of the hive gangs. Stockpiles of grenades had also been seized, along with a couple of fifty-cal machine-stubbers that still worked. It wasn't the same kind of kit they'd been finding this morning, but it was all solid stuff.

Garrath stepped into his light, casting a long shadow across the forecourt.

'Sarge, we've got reinforcements moving in. It's Captain Woltz.'

'Aw, krud!' Valint swore, tipping his head back against the pump. 'That's all we need…'

Woltz's company drove up in a convoy of seven-ton trucks, led by the Captain's own command Salamander. The company deployed in regimental fashion, their uniforms well turned out and their buttons gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. Woltz himself sauntered over towards Valint with his riding crop under his arm. He wore the black jodhpurs of a cavalryman and fixed a monacle into his left eye socket as he carried himself towards the battle-worn soldiers of Hale's platoon.

'What's all this, sergeant?' he asked in clipped tones. 'Sitting down on the job? You will report to the quartermaster for punishment detail the minute you return to barracks. Am I understood?'

Valint got slowly to his feet, wiping at an imaginary blemish on the body of his lasgun with his sleeve. Woltz's face went purple with rage. To him, a soldier's uniform was all the identity he had. Such blatant sacrilege was a cardinal sin. Valint knew exactly what his reaction would be. He raised his riding crop in preparation to deliver a stinging blow across the sergeant's face.

Valint's reaction was deliberate and instinctive at the same time. He'd come to a point in his military career where he was ready to make a stand against the injustices of the Praetorian regimen.

He raised his lasrifle. The muzzle hovered less than an inch from the tip of Woltz's aristocratic nose.

It was a standoff. A deadly hush fell across the forecourt. The Praetorians of Woltz's command stood immobile, their jaws hanging slack and their eyes wide. The men of Valint's command watched with bitterness. Many of the latter sneered with malevolence, willing Valint to pull the trigger. The Orrax stood around grinning like fools. Even Captain Arines had an expression of great amusement on his bearded features.

'Lower your weapon, sergeant, and surrender yourself into my custody,' said Woltz, in a quiet, even and much more respectful tone. 'I will not only ensure that you are given a fair courts martial, but I will see that the stresses of this day are taken fully into account. You might even come out of this with your skin in tact.'

'Begging your pardon, sir, but frak you!'

'Do not take it by my tone that this is a request, sergeant, I'm ordering you to lower your weapon…'

'I took this depot, sir. Some of my men died taking it, others took bullets in their bellies and might not see another dawn. This victory is ours and no poxy stiff-rod like you is gonna take that away from them.'

'Sergeant, this is your last warning…'

'What's my name?'

'What?'

'What's my frakking name, Captain?'

'I…'

'Tell me you know my name. Tell me you bothered to check…'

'…'

'If I could just interrupt,' the bearded Captain had approached quietly. 'But we have had reports of enemy troops on the move in this direction. Perhaps we should look to the defences?'

'Who the hell are you?' Woltz raged, his temper boiling over and overriding his reason. He turned away from Valint, bearing down on Arines despite the fact that the man was bigger and heavier than he was. The riding crop came up again. 'I'll not tolerate such insolence from the likes of you…'

Valint's rifle-butt connected solidly with the back of the Praetorian officer's head and he folded to the ground. The sergeant then rounded on the fresh-faced men of Woltz's company. Even the junior officers were frozen into inactivity.

'Anyone else want to argue the toss? No!? Then fall in, you bunch of soft-bellied grunts. Man the defences, keep your heads down and your weapons loaded and above all, swallow your bloody pride and listen to the men who were here before you. They know what they're doing!'

The Praetorian mind-set was primed to obey the voice of authority. Valint had that now. A lowly first sergeant had asserted his authority over commissioned officers, his own peers and the men that reported to them. And all that after clubbing their senior officer over the head.

Valint shook his head over the absurdity of it all.

xxx

'Where the hell did they get artillery?' Valint bellowed, hunkering down behind the blasted remains of a rockrete barricade.

Arines shrugged. They hadn't seen any pieces yet but the amount of firepower the mercs were bringing to bear spoke of some kind of artillery battery, at least two or three of the buggers. Rocket batteries, he was guessing. What he didn't know was how they were managing to bring them down so accurately. Most rocket batteries he'd seen were even less accurate than basilisks firing at their maximum range, but these were coming down on the perimeter of the depot and with very little deviation.

It was giving him a headache.

'Paddy!' he bellowed. 'Any word from Lita yet?'

The vox-man shook his head from his own hiding place.

'Infantry moving in!' someone cried, barely audible over the hubbub of warhead detonations.

'Give 'em hell!' Valint roared. Arines had noticed a certain gung ho fearlessness about his fighting since he'd given old Woltz a clobbering. He liked it. It was just what these Praetorians needed. He was even starting to think the man's superiors would have a hard time trying to mete out military justice against him… at least for as long as the Commissariat was kept well clear. He hoped so. It would be a shame to see him put down like an animal.

Arines peeked over the barricade, laying down a random burst of solid slugs from his scavenged weapon. Through the drifting smoke and flickering flames he could barely make out the enemy moving forward in long, almost impossible strides.

'What the hell? he swore. Their enemies were tall and long limbed, scantily dressed in skins and furs and with a multitude of spines springing from the backs of long, oblate skulls. They certainly were not human. They raised long rifles to lay down covering fire, the muzzles of which boasted spikes and blades that would make them effective close combat weapons.

'I've heard of these… things…' Valint cried, not hesitating to lay another low with a pin-point lasrifle blast.

'Kroot!' Arines blurted. 'The flotsam scum of the universe. Mercenaries to the core. I've fought them before. Don't let the bastards get any closer and if we're overrun just remember one thing… best not to leave anyone behind, eh!? These bastards have a nasty habit of eating their vanquished foes!'

Valint's finger relaxed on the trigger as he took this in. Then his fury returned with a vengeance.

Arines laughed as he stood and fired from the hip, laying down a sheet of fire from the hip. It was a wild, primal sound that rang out across the urban battlefield just as the howling of a wolf carries across the empty steppe. The Orrax responded in kind, yelling obscenities and curses in a hundred cants from every obscure corner of the sector.

The Praetorians fought with numb efficiency, slightly perturbed by the wildness of their erstwhile compatriots, but determined nonetheless.

A wave of xenos mercenaries filled the streets around them, their own warbling war-cries emitted from jagged beaks.