‘Stay close, Bolus,’ he said to the man beside him. ‘Don’t wander off.’

Bolus, an older man with rough salt-and-pepper stubble, stared ahead with the eyes of the profoundly disturbed.

The medicae came out of the chemical fog, shoving the exhausted troopers into a line. Varens was too weak to resist as rubber-gloved hands grabbed him. He growled out a challenge as his wounded back was roughly pawed.

‘Careful,’ he said. The medicae manhandling him went on to the next man without comment. Varens shuffled along with the queue of men. He turned when he realised Bolus wasn’t following him, but was still standing confused where the ramp of the departed ship had deposited him. Sighing, Varens went back to Bolus’ side.

‘Come on, Bolus,’ he whispered. He took his friend by the elbow.

Bolus had never been the same since the last assault at Konor’s Reach. Once voluble and confident, he now went meekly where Varens led.

‘Weapons in a pile in the red circle. Armour and webbing in the green,’ a medicae barked through voxmitters set into his thick armourglass visor. He pointed at painted circles offset from the entrance to the bubble-tent complex. ‘Uniforms in the blue.’

‘Everything?’ said one of the other soldiers. He was stupid with exhaustion. One of the medicae waved his burbling medical auspex up and down his body.

‘Everything,’ the medicae said.

Wearily, the auxiliaries stripped. Emaciated bodies shivered in the cool evening.

Varens reached for Bolus’ gun. His own lasrifle slipped on a shoulder gone scrawny from months of poor rations, rubbing his injury. The gun felt like it weighed as much as a heavy bolter, but he gritted his teeth against the pain, unslung it and took hold of Bolus’ weapon as well, gently unhooking the strap from his friend’s limp fingers.

‘Best get undressed,’ he said to Bolus.

Bolus looked at him wildly. ‘Fifteen! Fifteen!’ he said. He jabbed a finger on his good hand at one of the other troopers, a man by the name of Gideon.

Gideon was one of the few others Varens knew in the group. He was a braggart. Varens did not think much of him.

‘Fifteen!’ Bolus said, urgently gesturing at Gideon.

‘Hey! Hey!’ Varens snapped his fingers before Bolus’ face. The older man quieted and stared at the weapons in Varens’ hands with red-rimmed eyes, as if they affronted him.

‘What, the guns?’ said Varens. ‘I’ll deal with those. Get undressed, old man, I’ll pile everything up for you. Don’t draw attention to yourself. You got that?’

Bolus nodded. Varens squeezed his shoulder. Reluctantly he left him alone and trudged to the coloured circles. Guns and equipment made fragile-sounding clatters as they were tossed into piles on the rockcrete by the troopers.