effect; even at maximum acceleration, the Thunderhawk would have taken several hours, or possibly longer, to reach Viridia from the Revenant's closest viable point of re-entry to the materium.
10
Clearly an exaggeration, as the Thunderhawk would have been past far too quickly, and at too great an altitude, to be able to make out facial expressions on the ground.
11
The Imperial Guard term for their equivalent of a Space Marine combat squad.
12
Though Cain doesn't say so explicitly, no doubt expecting his readers to be sufficiently au fait with matters military to recognise it, this is almost certainly some form of urban camouflage pattern suited to operations in Fidelis.
13
Quite understandably, as most of Cain's colleagues would at least have had the man arrested, pending an investigation, and many would simply have shot him on the spot without even the formality of an enquiry.
14
Apparently in an underhive, although on which world remains a mystery.
15
Which means he must have drawn his laspistol, although he doesn't bother to mention the fact.
16
Non-commissioned officers.
17
The artillery unit he was assigned to at the outset of his career.
18
Conventional practice would be for Terminators to be deployed in dedicated squads, equipped with either ranged or close-combat weaponry. It's unclear from what Cain says here whether this is in fact the case, and two full squads were sent in, or whether the Reclaimers had combined elements of both in a single unit, as they also appear to do later in his account. If the latter, this would be extremely unusual.
19
Which of his own weapons he stowed to do this we can only speculate.
20
Many of the hybrids probably had the ability to do this as well, but by now the brood mind had evidently concluded that Cain would be less easy meat than the PDF troopers, and deployed the most formidable of its assets accordingly.
21
I suspect a little exaggeration may be creeping in here, as close combat against a creature as formidable as a purestrain genestealer is hardly likely to leave enough time for defiant speeches.
1 Imperial Guard regulations are firm on this point, prescribing execution as the penalty for losing a weapon, unless it was an unavoidable consequence of action in the field. Which probably accounts for most Guard troopers' tendency to carry theirs everywhere when on duty, even to the latrines.
22
Cain might well have encountered purestrains on Keffia, although the short account of his activities there only mentions hybrids. He may also have seen them in one of the sporadic cleansing actions against the tyranid splinter fleets in which he was involved prior to this juncture.
