The black volcanic sand glittered in the night. Black cliffs rose up around them like an amphitheatre, the low rockcrete bastion of Second Redoubt glowering from the clifftop. All about him the transports were disgorging their troops.

The quickest were already clambering up the cliffs. They were horribly exposed. If this attack was to succeed, every moment counted.

As Colonel Baytov stormed the headlands above their objectives, the first waves of Fourth, Fifth and Sixth companies landed on the wide bay of Creed Beach.

The traitor forces there were led by Colonel Skall of the Swabian Fusiliers. Alerted by the las-fire around the island, he hurried from trench to trench, galvanising his troops by sheer force of personality.

The Cadians faced a broad, gently sloping beach ringed on both sides by rocky outcrops and low headlands pock-marked with pillboxes and razor wire. But worst of all, they faced a determined opposition.

The beach was covered with tank traps that made any advance with the Chimeras almost impossible. To make matters worse, the lead Cadian Chimeras ploughed straight into a recently laid minefield that set four of the vehicles ablaze immediately.

Arcs of interlocking fire made the assault up the beach a murderous venture. Hard rounds ricocheted off tank traps, while missile silos returned fire at the approaching fleet of Gorgons. Wayward bullets sprayed the ground, kicking up sand into the faces of the advancing Cadians, as stray las-bolts fused sections of the beach into lumps of dirty glass.

One flamer-trooper led the assault, gouts of flame hissing out up the beach. He got as far as the first dune before a round hit his gas canister. The resulting explosion catapulted him a hundred yards back down the beach, his burning remains coming to rest near the surf.

The gunners on the landing craft did their best to support the ground teams. They tried to return fire, but their ships’ thin hulls were no match for the beach’s defences. Within minutes most of them were reduced to burning husks, the disembarked troopers now trapped between a sea of flames at their backs and a wall of las-fire before them.

The burning craft had also blocked others from reaching the shore. Panicked crews ordered the tanks to disembark too far out. Leman Russes rolled off the barges, hit the water and sank straight to the bottom. Chimeras struggled. Some sank, while others were hit by missiles that lit the water a vivid red.

All were conscious of what had happened to their forebears on the swamp world of Taqiri eight hundred years before. They had become pinned down and they had been slaughtered.

There was no choice. The Cadians pushed forward in tight bands, throwing themselves behind any scrap of cover they could, hitting the enemy so hard the survivors reeled back in stunned confusion.

The second wave landed on Creed Beach before the first had barely made it off the beach.