Dido turned her face away. He could see tears starting to well in her eyes. As they began to fall he made as if to speak but she waved him away.

Just go, her gesture told him.

Eight

EIGHT

Colour Sergeant Tyson was on his morning rounds as he stood to watch a flight of Marauder destroyers returning from a raid. It was four days since they’d been evacuated from Tor Kharybdis, but the sight of the magma, fountaining red, was still mesmerising.

It reminded him of a warzone he had experienced his first real battles on, years before. They’d all been kitted out in hazard suits as they hunted for xenos. He’d never seen any, but he’d seen a number of his comrades consumed by the lava. It was a good lesson, he’d thought at the time.

Listen to instructions. All those who had died had failed to do so.

Tyson sniffed. The Marauders had clearly suffered a pummelling. A number of them were trailing smoke, the ragged holes in the squadron formations giving them the look of shredded cloth. A long way back he could make out a lone Marauder, white smoke billowing from the right wing, limping back. It looked like only one engine was still functioning.

They’re not going to make it, Tyson thought.

True enough, the high-pitched whine of flagging engines cut through the drone of the others. The bomber was losing height rapidly, its white pennant of smoke following it down. It plunged, and hit the water far out, past the old bridge supports.

He felt the explosion – a distant tremble in the air.

He drew in a deep breath and remembered where he was going. The signals office was in the central square of the camp, a half-buried bunker reinforced with sandbag walls and sunken stairwell.

Tyson walked quietly wherever he went. He never wanted to be expected. Always wanted to find misbehaviour. Always wanted his appearance to be a shock.

It kept the troops honest because none of them wanted to cross Colour Sergeant Tyson.

He was a little disappointed to find that inside the dark, monitor-lit interior of the signals depot, everyone seemed to be hard at work. They all had their headsets on and were staring intently into their monitor screens. Tyson looked about. There was a servitor desk in the corner, eye sockets and mouth each plugged with neural inputs. At its waist was a roll of parchment. The remaining arm had been replaced with a steel quill. It remained stationary as it waited for input. Every few minutes it scratched and the parchment unrolled.

Kallio, the officer on duty, took a look at the parchment, ­before finally noticing Tyson’s arrival.

‘Sir!’ he said.

Kallio was a thin man with a narrow neck, round face and a pair of wire-rimmed round spectacles balanced halfway down his nose. He was quiet and thoughtful, unlike the typical Cadian.