Death or Glory, page 29
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FOOTNOTES
[1] I assume he means the years 920-929 here, since, due to his somewhat obscure origins, he had only an approximate idea of his chronological age. Not to mention the fact that his innumerable journeys through the warp confused the matter even further. Time spent in that peculiar realm having, at best, only a tangential relationship to its passage in the galaxy at large.
[2] The officers concerned were actually local law enforcers rather than Arbites personnel, but like many seasoned travellers Cain often uses ‘Arbites’ as a generic term for all such functionaries. Given the number of worlds he visited, and the bewildering variety of local nomenclature encountered throughout the galaxy, he can hardly be blamed for this, although he tends to be more precise about the distinction in the instances where he had contact with actual members of the Arbites itself.
[3] I had been delayed longer than expected dealing with the space hulk Dolorous Tidings, which had more than lived up to its name.
[4] It was to take another year or so before the infestation was completely cleansed, but by this point the problem had diminished to a level where a large-scale Guard presence was no longer required, particularly with an ork Waaargh gaining momentum elsewhere in the sector.
[5] Sergeant Phu, one of the local law enforcers present at Cain’s encounter with the genestealers. His account of the incident in question, elsewhere in the archive, makes it abundantly clear that her relationship with him was far more than merely professional.
[6] The 12th, being an artillery regiment, was split into batteries, each roughly equivalent in administrative terms to a company in a line unit. Cain is typically vague about their disposition, but each appears to have consisted of around half a dozen Earthshakers, together with the support vehicles and personnel required for their proper functioning. The regiment also possessed a number of Hydras for air defence, but whether they formed a battery in their own right or were distributed among the others isn’t clear from his account, and to be honest I can’t be bothered to look it up in the official records. Cain seems to have been assigned specifically to the command battery rather than at regimental level, at least initially, but to have assumed overall commissarial authority for the regiment as a whole soon after his arrival. Presumably any other commissars attached to the 12th had failed to survive the tyranid onslaught on Desolatia.
[7] I realised almost at once that Jurgen was a blank, one of those incredibly rare individuals with the innate ability to disrupt psychic or warp spawned sorcery. Or, to be more accurate, my psyker Rakel did, making the fact immediately obvious by becoming even more incoherent than usual and passing out on the spot.
[8] When a particularly able or charismatic leader emerges among the greenskins, a Waaargh is the inevitable result. It’s hard to translate the orkish term precisely, since it has a number of connotations, but the main ones are essentially a combination of migration and a destructive rampage, both of which seem instinctive activities among the species.
[9] A remote system apparently named by a very bored explorator some time in M23.
[10] The 12th, along with a couple of other Valhallan regiments, had been engaged in mopping up an ork raiding party when Cain first joined them, although by the time he did so the operation was all but over.
[11] Ever since their homeworld was invaded by orks, with a conspicuous lack of success it must be said, the Valhallans have detested the greenskins more than any other of the Emperor’s enemies.
[12] Technically their liaison wasn’t against regulations, as the Navy has its own commissars assigned to it, but if it had become known, both their careers would undoubtedly have received something of a setback. That Cain was prepared to take such a risk is another pointer to his relative youth and inexperience. By the time I made his acquaintance he was considerably more circumspect.
[13] This is one of many allusions to his early life, which he apparently spent on a hiveworld somewhere; although which one, and the circumstances in which he left it for the schola progenium, remain obscure.
[14] From which we can infer that Cain’s new friend was either of surprisingly high rank for her apparent age, or knew the ship well enough to be able to circumvent its security systems. Given that she, and apparently her parents, were born and brought up aboard it, the latter seems the most likely.
[15] A torrent of liquid dropping from the upper levels of a hive, sometimes for several kilometres.
[16] Something of a diplomatic simplification, I feel, having had personal dealings with witch hunters myself on a couple of occasions, but we’ll let that pass…
[17] Cain is clearly writing with hindsight here, since there would be no indication at the time of how the damage had been inflicted.
[18] Contrary to the more lurid examples of popular drama, the human body can survive exposure to hard vacuum for several minutes before unconsciousness, followed shortly by brain damage and death from oxygen starvation, sets in. It helps if the blood has been well oxygenated by hyperventilation beforehand, of course, which given the state of panic Cain was apparently in at the time seems more than likely. Indeed, many naval veterans claim to have survived decompression during combat more than once, and I’ve experienced a similar situation myself on a couple of occasions, albeit assisted by augmetic enhancements.
[19] Since escape pods, by their very nature, are inclined to violent acceleration, this is generally left for the occupants to do manually once they’ve orientated themselves. From his later remarks we can infer that Cain discovered how to activate this system shortly afterwards, although he doesn’t specifically mention having done so.
[20] A species of animal found in the upper atmosphere of Blease’s World. It metabolises hydrogen to remain aloft, where it browses on the innumerable plant spores flung out by the thick carpet of vegetation on the equatorial mountain ranges. The natives domesticated several strains millennia ago, harnessing gondolas to these vast, placid creatures, and using them as living dirigibles.
[21] In all likelihood, none of the enemy vessels had weapons capable of engaging so small a target in any case, orkish ordnance not exactly being noted for its accuracy, and their fighter pilots would have been far more interested in engaging the starships or their opposite numbers from whichever imperial squadrons had managed to scramble before their carrying vessels were hit.
[22] A popular holodrama of the 930s, about a squadron of fighter pilots in the Gothic War.
[23] Indeed, the Brute-class vessel referred to earlier is built (‘designed’ being perhaps too alien a concept for the ork mindset) with precisely this form of attack in mind.
[24] The ork Ravager Ardenuff, according to the final report of the commission previously cited. The name, incidentally, is an ork term most closely translated as ‘battleready.’
[25] Cain was, I can attest from my own acquaintance with him, an exceptional swordsman; much of that skill undoubtedly came from the sort of combat experience no amount of practice can emulate, but despite the impression he gives here, he was extremely diligent in this regard anyway.
[26] Most of the Imperial Guard transmissions on the surface would, of course, have been too weak for the relatively unsophisticated equipment aboard the pod to pick up, leaving Cain with little to monitor other than the chatter between the ships in orbit and the few remaining orbital defence platforms.
[27] Presumably because Korbul had run out of weirdboyz.
[28] A common term for the cloud of comet debris marking the nominal boundary of a stellar system.
[29] Three freighters and two escorting Sword-class frigates.
[30] More than likely. Orks aren’t exactly noted for the length of their attention span.
[31] Presumably he means the pod bounced a few times, and gouged out a furrow as it slowed. As so often in the task of editing these anecdotes, I’ve elected to let his original wording stand, in the interest of preserving their flavour, despite the ambiguity (and in some cases lack of comprehensibility) also being preserved.
[32] Cain is exaggerating here. Even a fully-grown warboss (by definition the biggest and most aggressive type of ork) would be incapable of eating an adult human without reducing them first to bite-sized chunks. This, admittedly, wouldn’t take it very long under most circumstances.
[33] Presumably the sun was striking down through the open hatch. It would hardly have been able to make much impression on a hull insulated against the heat of re-entry.
[34] In the light of current understanding of ork biology this seems remarkably prescient of Jurgen, although it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that, over generations of warfare with the greenskins, the Valhallans had noticed that re-infestation rates were significantly lower where ork cadavers were disposed of in this manner and had adopted the practice without fully understanding why this should be the case.
[35] A mildly disparaging nickname for tech-priests and enginFseers common among the Imperial Guard.
[36] Which, since it was almost certainly carved by flash flooding during the infrequent heavy rains common to desert regions on most worlds, is hardly surprising.
[37] It’s an article of faith among greenskins that vehicles painted red are inherently faster and more manoeuvrable than others. Where insufficient paint is available to cover one completely, many ork drivers resort to this peculiar striping in an attempt to replicate the effect.
[38] Or, to be more accurate, pictograms, concepts as sophisticated as writing per se being well beyond the grasp of the average greenskin.
[39] From which we can infer that, despite his usual reluctance to immerse himself in the minutiae of the briefing materials provided by the munitorium, he had at least picked up an overview of the planet’s geography.
[40] A kind of tea made from the leaves of a plant native to the ice caverns of Valhalla. Cain spent most of his active service attached to regiments from that world, and acquired a taste for the stuff which was to last for the rest of his life. He only persuaded me to sample it once; the flavour is best described as ‘distinctive.’
[41] Given the speed with which Jurgen was able to dispatch the ork that fell into the pod we can reasonably infer that the weapons were already loaded, which, assuming a dozen powercells per box, would mean a total of six per gun.
[42] Hardly surprising, as commbeads are intended for short-range use only, typically between the members of an Imperial Guard squad. The ability to send or receive over greater distances depends on being able to access a wider communications network, such as that of a company or regiment, in order to relay the transmission.
[43] Kilometres, a common Valhallan colloquialism.
[44] Highly unlikely in my experience, although the only thing you can say with any certainty about the species is that you’ll always find a surprising exception to any general rule.
[45] See the previous footnote about the distinction between local law enforcers and the Arbites itself. Here Cain is clearly referring to one of the former.
[46] One of the smaller greenskins Cain referred to a few lines ago, a subspecies used by the larger, more powerful orks as a combination of slave labour, cannon fodder and emergency rations. Whether he learned the orkish term for these creatures from his subsequent encounters with them or the Valhallans he served with we can only conjecture, although he did have a basic working knowledge of the greenskin tongue by the time I made his acquaintance, enough of it to swear fluently, at any rate.
[47] Highly unlikely: the average greenskin simply answers the call of nature wherever they happen to be, the notion of a specific place being set aside for such activities being too subtle a concept for them to grasp. As, indeed, is the notion of hygiene in general. If Cain is right about the use the building was put to, it was undoubtedly meant as a deliberate insult to His Divine Majesty.
[48] Probably a battlewagon of some kind. Since the orkish names for most of their vehicles appear to be Gothic loan words mangled sufficiently for their debased larynxes to pronounce, such as ‘trukk’ for ‘truck,’ I’ve elected to let Cain’s original wording stand rather than correct the terminology. Interestingly, according to the sisters of the Ordo Dialogus, this also holds true for much of their technical vocabulary, including most of their weaponry.
[49] A world covered for the most part in dense tropical growth, most noted for its exports of timber and pharmaceuticals. Rainstorms are frequent, sudden, and sufficiently heavy to stun an unprotected man out in the open. The joke common on other worlds in the subsector, that the natives are secretly mutants with gills, is merely a piece of heavy-handed humour and utterly without foundation. The Ordo Malleus has, I’m reliably informed, checked.
[50] Cain’s apparent familiarity with mysteries generally reserved for the acolytes of the omnissiah may seem a little odd here; but my readers should bear in mind that the equipment he was working with was intended for everyday domestic use by common artisans, and would be both robust and simple as a consequence. Since we can also infer from a number of allusions throughout the archive that he was given to perpetrating practical jokes against the more strait-laced of his fellow commissar cadets at the schola progenium, he may simply have been adapting the lessons learned during these earlier pieces of mischief to rather more serious ends.
[51] As ever, Cain tends to understate his abilities. Though the laspistol, like all handguns, is intended for use at relatively close quarters, I saw him take out an enemy well beyond its nominal effective range on more than one occasion.
[52] Not entirely true, as the Commissariat has overall responsibility for maintaining morale and proper discipline among all branches of the Imperial military, (with the obvious exceptions of the Astartes, the Adepta Sororitas, and the forces maintained directly by the Adeptus Mechanicus). Typically the PDF of a densely populated system, where the number of troopers under arms exceeds twenty or thirty million, will have a single commissar assigned to oversee it, while in most cases the luckless individual in question will have theoretical responsibility for overseeing the PDF assets of an entire subsector. It goes without saying that the majority of these commissars have been selected for the job as a result of disciplinary action, infirmity, or both, and that for the most part the troopers nominally under their jurisdiction can be forgiven for remaining blissfully unaware of their existence.
[53] From which we can infer that one of Tayber’s squad failed to survive the ork ambush back at the hydro station.
[54] Probably not. Greenskin night vision seems to be superior to that of humans. In all likelihood it was simply a cooking fire that had got out of hand, or an act of wanton destruction perpetrated purely for its own sake.
[55] Another Gothic loan word; the closest these debased creatures can come to pronouncing ‘humans.’
[56] As ever, Jurgen’s presence appears to have been overlooked by most subsequent historians; probably because, with the best will in the galaxy, he was hardly the sort of figure you want cluttering up a heroic legend.
[57] A fact, which to his credit, Cain found hilarious.
[58] Local slang for people who lived or worked away from the townships scattered throughout the Perlian deserts, some of whom had perfected the art of survival in that desolate environment.
