The great truck rolled up along the dusty grey road between the urban canyon that cut through the ruined buildings of Urbanis 1. Orkish graffiti stared down at the monstrous vehicle as its rusty iron treads came to a grinding halt. A fresh puff of charcoal smoke coughed out from its tailpipes, Its foremost lights were the eyes of a fierce beast. Its hull was painted with glyphs that suggested alien teeth. Its body was armoured with such an armoured plating that Osprey doubted any of his men could dent it. He held his breath as the huge beast of a vehicle churned to a stop.

Crouching in the ruins of a bombed-out hab stack, Osprey brought the crosshairs of his rifle to bear on the head of the driver, who clambered out. The light green ork was unarmed and wore no helmet or hat. Osprey saw its mouth move as it shouted to the gretchen that crawled from the vehicle's body like maggots from meat. One of them ran to a trap door and opened it, while a team of the aliens drew a rubbery fuel hose from beneath it. Osprey did not shoot: that ork was not worth it.

"Water Dog Five ready," whispered the vox-bead in his ear. Osprey knew unit 5 was hiding opposite the street he himself was watching. "Water Dog Four ready." "Water Dog Three ready." In total, five squads of six men watched the great truck refuel. They waited for their target to show.

Osprey knew the ork on first sight. He trudged out of a large orkified ruin, a retinue of thuggish brutes stomping after him on iron boots. Through his scope, he could see the scabs of orange rust on their weapons. He could see the target, the fat orkish engineer, heft a stolen Mechanicus axe, who's gear-shaped blade had been refitted with a grinning ork icon to over the Mechanicus insignia. Osprey could see those eyes, those machine-eyes with their bulky mechanisms, surveying the huge metal beast that was guzzling its fill of oil.

"One, two, three…and…" Osprey brought his crosshair over the engineer's head. "Go." He fired.

With the abrupt force of a lightning strike, the ruins lit up with autogun fire. The surprised orks were caught in a ruthless crossfire that shredded the small gretchen and dropped a number of the engineer's bodyguards to the floor.

The engineer himself had weathered Osprey's bullet to the head. Its brains dribbled down its skull, but it walked strongly and calmly, returning shots up at the humans from a contraption that was welded to his arm. It looked like a microscope and a motor, but fired white streaks of heated energy that could melt rockrete.

"Die," Osprey whispered, firing again. The orks had scattered, but this engineer was not dropping or running. As more autogun shots hit him, the ork still stood, crouching behind his metal beast and firing. "Die!" Osprey didn't shout a lot anymore, but he did so as he sent another round into the ork's head. They had come all this way to have victory cheated from them by an invincible enemy? Osprey saw the ork hide behind his truck to shield himself from the other side of the street, but remain open to Osprey and the squads that hid on his side of the road.

"Fall down and die!" Osprey shouted in frustration, shooting once more. This shot claimed the ork at last. One of its augmetic eyes broke, its lens shattered like an eggshell. The truck's bright red paint behind the ork grew dark with blood. The engineer collapsed at last, all its strength and endurance vanishing with that precise hit.

As orks poured into the street, attracted by the sound of a fight, Osprey gave the order to flee. As quickly as they had come, they were gone. The orks searched the buildings they had been in but would find only empty rooms and spent autogun casings.

…

SLOSH SLOSH. The water came up to his heels, but it splashed with every footfall and gave Osprey something to listen to on this journey home.

Stupid people notched their rifles when they made a kill. Osprey was not one to vandalize his precious rifle like that. He didn't keep a tally of aliens he had slain in defense of his precious Essendrav. Such figures were a nuisance to keep track of. He wasn't here to make spot of his fighting, he was here to defend this city.

Osprey walked quietly through the glow-bulb lit sewers, along the route he had chosen beforehand. His autopistol was raised, but he had never found an ork in these narrow sewers. Every time he was down here though, he wondered it would be the day. He came to a fork and walked down the left path. He still had a half hour of underground hiking before he could return to his group's underground lair. He hoped the five squads, who were all taking different routes, would find their way back.

Along the way, he passed three ragged riflemen from another resistance group. In the orange dimness of the poorly-maintained lights, he could see their tattooed faces. Gangers. Osprey wordlessly tensed, preparing to shoot if they tried to rob him. They did nothing and walked past him, off to some unknown task. Orks were not down here, sure, but starving bandits and the desperate fighters from other groups of their sad resistance were almost as big a danger.

'Not this day,' Osprey thought as he loosened once the three men were gone. 'My only enemy today is orks.' Since the war began, Osprey had shot two humans: thugs who had tried to rob one of his autogunners when they noticed he was carrying food. That was the one tally he kept track of.

The rest of the trip through the brickwork tunnels passed by, with only the splash of the water to keep the lonely warrior company.

If it wasn't for these deep sewers, there could be no resistance groups. This underground maze of tunnels and chambers was almost a city unto itself. There were groundwater reserves to drink and grow food with and the glow-bulbs gave their crops some sun to grow with. In some parts of the sewer, including this one, there were even underground hab-quarters for long-dead maintenance workers who once prowled this underground world.

Osprey was the first one back. He found the secret door upon the tunnel wall and knocked on it. The wall shifted open as improvised gears yawned it apart. What looked like a solid wall was actually a few centimeters of brick that concealed the opening to the familiar cave that served as the first line of defense for the Water Dogs and their hideout.

Osprey stood in front of three heavybolter nests and a wall of sandbags. Walking in, he stepped over the sandbags and came up on the holes in the wall that led to the Water Dog's armoury, barracks, living quarters, mess hall and the tunnel that led to the hab units.

"How'd it go?" shouted Yueka, a snappy blonde. She was needlessly rude, perhaps thinking it might make her as tough or tougher than her male counterparts.

"Got him," Osprey replied to her and the six other Water Dogs who watched the sandbag line. There was no cheering, no celebration and no happiness. Osprey walked past them, heading towards the tunnel to the hab units. When he entered the hole, the unworked rock walls were abruptly replaced by beautifully smooth surfaces of rockrete. The rounded walls grew square and the dim glow-bulb's orange light became white and sharp from high-quality light strips. He walked down the narrow rockrete hall, passing closed doors.

One open gate he passed led into their groundwater supply. Through it, he could see a rockrete-walled cavern, with a small underground pond nestled against the far wall. A few young women were washing clothes in metal basins by it. A moment later, Osprey passed by an open door that led into Kyjenman's room. He could see the man, always dressed in his flak vest, sitting on the floor and playing with his three young children. The oldest, a girl of four, was offering her father a straw doll. Osprey would have stopped to say hello, but he had other things to do.

"Anyone die?" asked Angelwing as he passed Osprey in the hall. When the temple that Angelwing had been a devoted member of was burned down by orks, he took it upon himself to exact a slow and terrible revenge on the orks. He was the closest thing the Water Dogs had to a priest.

"Don't know. And how many times do I have to ask you to stop asking me?" asked Osprey. Angelwing gave him his characteristic stupid look.

"Why couldn't I go?" Angelwing asked.

'Because your marksmanship sucks,' Osprey thought. "Because we need you here," he said aloud. He hurried past the inferior fighter and came to the end of the last smooth rockrete corridor. Osprey looked at the door that had his name scratched into it in spray-paint and pushed it open. He closed it carefully and turned inward. His personal quarters were small and simple. Let the men with big families keep the large rooms, Osprey only had himself and the occasional guest to occupy this small place that had little room for more than a desk, a footlocker and two bunks.

"What do you want?" Osprey asked as he sat down on his bunk. On the bunk opposite him, sat Mhal, still in his stormtrooper garb. One of his squad mates stood at the back of the room, masked, with his gun up. "I don't like getting calls from home when I'm out killing."

"I'm sorry I had to contact you in the middle of a mission, but it was important and so it could not wait," Mhal replied. "I have a number of new recruits to bring. They have special skills that you could definitely use next time out." That knowing look in Mhal's eye.

"Skullkicker?" asked Osprey. "I'm need a lot of men if I wanted to knock out Skullkicker. It took three lucky shots to kill the engineer we killed today, and he's probably what? One fifth the size of those big breeds?"

"Skullkicker is the head of this invasion. I don't understand your illogical lack of initiative or motivation. That ork may knock the whole invasion into disarray." Mhal was a full fifteen years younger than Osprey, still somewhat boy-faced and tamely handsome. Osprey, on the other hand, was hairy, bigger and looked much older than he was. His experience had molded him into a natural warrior-thug. By the laws of nature, it should have been Osprey giving the demands in this room, but Mhal had an unspoken authority here, which did not come from his uniform. "You should go after Skullkicker. You may not get the chance."

"Maybe," Osprey conceded. "Maybe, if the opportunity presents itself. Fine. Now, what's this about new recruits?" Mhal told the story.

"No," Osprey said at the end of it. "I can't take in two companies of Imperial Guard. I don't have enough food for them…"

"On the contrary," snapped Mhal, "you have all the food you need. They can be fed well and still not burn into your emergency rations. No, you can take them and I order you to do so. Their fighting skills are of the highest quality, with the regulars at least. The PDF are not as adequate. You will have much help from their skills."

"Their commander will come looking for them…"

"Their commander will think they have all died." Osprey frowned.

"If this is just an enticement to attack Skullkicker when the time comes…why don't you just tell me what you're really up to?" he looked at the other stormtrooper, then back at Mhal, who was as cold as a stone. However, Osprey's stare made him crack.

"If you prefer to keep your mind out of business where it does not belong, just tell your men they are here to help when the time comes to ambush Skullkicker. But if my men or I need them, send them to me."

"This doesn't involve your problems with the other resistance groups, does it? Like I said before, other groups are just getting violent towards other humans because of problems with starvation," snapped Osprey almost at once. He got only a cold stare. He suddenly felt very small, knowing he was not only confronting Mhal, but the whole of his masked squad. "Forget it. Thank you for hijacking a whole company for my use," he huffed sarcastically. He stood up. "So, where the hell are they?"

…

"How long do you think we'll be here?" whispered Tigerson to Cav as he sat at the table with the rest of the 89th. The PDF sat apart from the 112th, who were huddled closely around the other table in this great underground hall. Lystartro was whispering orders to his men. The only adult with the 89th was Kins, who stood over them like a shepherd.

"Hush," Cav whispered back. He looked uneasily at the stormtroopers who guarded them. They stood at attention by the only door out of the room, guns held across their chests. They didn't speak, not even to each other and were as still as paintings. Was this what it was like to be assigned to a new theatre of war by special orders? It felt more like prison.

When the door opened, Lystartro was the only man who jumped to his feet. He and Kins approached the door as Mhal and a middle-aged man in a weathered Arbites uniform strode through. Lystartro beckoned to Cav, who saluted and stood up. He appeared by their sides just as Lystartro finished introducing them.

"Osprey Shahaugh," the newcomer said. "I have no formal rank, but I run the Water Dogs. So that could make me a colonel."

"What is your rank in the Arbites?" asked Kins.

"I took this off a dead man…"

"Then it is not yours," Kins blunted his tone. "I assume there is something important you need from us, Shahaugh."

"Osprey, please," replied the man. "There…" he looked oddly at Mhal. "In a few days, I was thinking of going after the ork warlord Skullkicker, who is visiting Urbanis 1. I need your help with his assassination. My men are hard, but you have the proper training."

"Very well," Lystartro seemed remarkably accepting. "Do you have connections with command in Urbanis 5?"

"No."

"Then how will my colonel…"

"There are countless thousands of men with the defenders," Mhal replied. "Your handful will not be missed." He looked at Kins. "Commissar Kins, is there an issue you have that you would like to talk about?" Kins nodded at Mhal's helmet.

"The 5178th Company. I had friends who served with a number of you during the uprising," Kins said stiffly. Mhal nodded slowly and knowingly.

"No one in my squad spent more than a few hours in service during the war with Halivor," Mhal answered. Cav looked at Kins. He knew that look: it was the look Kins often gave him. It was hate and suspicion kept under restraint.

"Not a lot of you walked away from that war, as I recall," Kins said carefully, as though to avoid offense.

"Is there something you'd like to tell the sergeant, commissar?" asked Lystartro. Kins shrugged, as if unsure, but then shook his head.

"No, not at all."

The last thing Cav noticed before Mhal went was the sergeant's eyes. They fluttered idly to Cav's tattoo and shifted in either surprise or fear. When Cav looked closer, Mhal's eyes were looking back at Lystartro.

"You two may sort out command structure. I am needed elsewhere," Mhal snapped his fingers and his squad followed him out. Cav ignored them, focusing on Osprey and Lystartro. Soon, Mhal was all but forgotten.

…

"I didn't think there were hill tribesmen in the PDF or the guard," Mhal whispered to his squad.

"A few of them, not doubt," replied the trooper beside him from behind his mask as they stalked out of Water Dog territory and into the vast complexity of the underground maze.

"Do you think we made a mistake? Do you think he is them?" Mhal asked.

"No Mhal, not all hill tribesmen are Halivorians. Just as not all humans are Imperials," answered the trooper. "It is an unimportant cultural bauble one of the PDF happens to have."