He spoke as though recanting a passage from a field manual, so it took me a moment to realise the significance of his words. There were five Scions seated in the transport bay, just as when we had departed. But that was before we took an additional passenger.

We were missing a soldier.

Harkins. That must have been his name. Perhaps he carried the prayer beads, for there was no sign of them now. I had not seen him fall; a wild shot from the orks must have found its mark. I felt very foolish all of a sudden, pining for a relic whilst these soldiers mourned their comrade. And they would soon lose another.

My cheeks reddened. I looked away, gaze falling upon Taton’s missing arm, sheared off below the shoulder. His good hand clasped that strange device the submerged Scion had guarded with his life. It was covered by a cloth, as though for modesty’s sake, but it had fallen away, revealing a lump of scrap pressed into a vague sphere. It was bonded with rivets the size of my thumb, and did not look forged by human hands. But there was a curious familiarity to the parts. It was the same with the ork airboats. Each was a crude, ugly thing, cobbled from scraps and with only a rudimentary resemblance to its sister vessels. But the similarity between the Valkyrie’s turbofans and the airboats’ propulsion system was stark.

I sat back, recalling the battle between the greenskins and Scions. It would have been easier with Mizar present, but I could perfectly picture images of the savage creatures. They were huge, terrifying beasts, nothing like the skinny, spear-brandishing greenskin from the poorly spliced pict. Could that bow-legged beast truly be the ancestor of the orks we faced today? I did not know when that pict had been commissioned, and the image of the ork could be taken from an even earlier source. Still, how many generations had passed for the spear-wielding primitive to evolve into the monsters we had faced? Centuries? Decades?

Their own rapid biological development was alarming enough. But the fact they could repurpose Imperial technology? Debase it and turn it against its masters?

That was terrifying.

No lavish reception awaited our return. Instead, a fresh squad of Scions stood to attention at the dropsite. They had arrived too late to undertake the retrieval mission, but their dour presence dampened any enthusiasm the ground crew might have felt for our return. The common soldiery were not privy to the nature of our mission, or the dangers we faced. All they knew was a squad of Scions had smashed a Valkyrie into their headquarters, requisitioned a replacement, and jetted off on yet another classified assignment, leaving the lower ranks to unpick the chaos left in their wake.