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Killbox – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Killbox

Dan Abnett

It was coming for him. It was coming to finish him.

‘You do not stand a chance,’ the warrior had told him. ‘I mean, you are skilled. For a human. But in this, you do not stand a chance in hell.’

The warrior had laughed to punctuate this statement. It wasn’t a very human laugh, and it wasn’t pleasant to hear.

Mkoll didn’t take kindly to being told what his chances were. He listened to orders, he accepted tactical advice, but when it came to outcome assessments, he tended to switch off. He’d been a scout and a soldier for a long time. That fact alone demonstrated his ability to beat the odds. A soldier who had survived for a decent career had either been lucky, or had learned how to look risk right in the eyes and spit in its face.

If Mkoll had listened – if he’d ever listened – to outcome assessments and risk evaluation, the back-of-the-briefing-packet crap that the Tactical Division always supplied, then he would have been dead long ago. At Fortis Binary, at Vervunhive, at Cirenholm, on Gereon… feth, right at the start on Tanith. He certainly would never have made it through the shit-storm of Salvation’s Reach. Outcome assessments sapped the will and they punctured confidence. They told you, matter of fact, in the pale blue type that chattered out of the Tactical Division’s cogitators, that you were going to fail. Sometimes they even told you when, where and how badly you were going to fail.

That kind of crap cut a man’s heart out before he’d even begun. If a soldier went into a fight believing he was going to lose because some rear echelon expert fether had told him so, then he was already dead.

So Mkoll never listened. He never read that part of the packet. He zoned out when the Tactical Division adjuncts stood up in briefings and began to drone on.

There was always a chance.

There was a long chamber behind Engine House Two – some kind of machine shop – which he’d labelled ‘Killbox one’. There were two routes from there to a relay room aft. He’d named that relay room ‘Killbox two’. Below that, a ladder-well led down two deck levels to a venting station: a large, ducted compartment with an oddly sloping roof. The venting station was ‘Killbox three’. Near to that, along a transit tunnel, was a slender walk-bridge spanning the chasm of the ship’s main heat sink, a canyon of machined steel cliffs that dropped away so far that you couldn’t see the bottom. The walk-bridge, that was ‘Last Fething Chance.’

Mkoll hadn’t made a map. Not a paper one anybody could see, at least. The map was in his head. They’d been on the Highness Ser Armaduke for weeks, first for the long haul out to Salvation’s Reach, and now for the slow drag back to Imperial territory. The bloody raid was three weeks behind them. To stay fit, to stay sharp, Mkoll had taken to patrolling the massive old warship, measuring it out, learning its nooks and crannies.

Where possible, he did that with every location he found himself stationed in. He made time to learn the lie of the land, to know it front and back, to navigate it in his mind, and in his sleep, and with his eyes closed. He found out every secret place, every hidden corner, every rat-run, every air-shaft, every crawlway, every concealed hatch. That kind of information could keep you alive, no matter your chances.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in The Warmaster (Limited Edition) in Great Britain in 2017.
This eBook edition published in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

Killbox © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2017. Killbox, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78572-831-0

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

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