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Kasrkin – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Chapter 1

‘Looks big.’

‘Bigger than you think.’

‘Suppose it’s hot too?’

‘Hot enough to fry a grox steak on the cowling of a Leman Russ.’

‘So why not send a squadron of them in then?’

‘Heard they tried – didn’t get more than a mile before they started sinking.’ Sergeant Shaan Malick adjusted his helmet. He wasn’t wearing it; he was sitting on it. Beside him, Trooper Torgut Gunsur stared out from the relative cool of the precious shade under the stubby wings of the Valkyrie, his eyes squinting against the glare.

‘It’s all yellow.’

Sergeant Malick laughed. ‘It’s the Great Sand Sea. There’s a clue in the name.’

Trooper Gunsur unclipped his rebreather and spat, the phlegm arcing out from the precious shade and landing on the sand. It sizzled.

Malick shook his head. ‘Keep your spit – you’re going to need it.’

‘I don’t start no mission without spitting on the ground I’ll be treading.’

Malick looked at Gunsur. ‘Why?’

‘’Cause it ain’t Cadia, and I spit on ground I fight on that ain’t home.’

Malick looked away, staring out into the heat haze but not seeing it.

Trooper Gunsur glanced at his sergeant. ‘Not so stupid, is it?’

But Sergeant Malick did not look back at him. His fingers strayed to the little plasteel vial hanging from a chain around his neck. The plasteel had been finger-burnished bright by the Cadian rubbing it between thumb and forefinger. The two men were sitting in the jet-blown bowl of sand beneath the wing of a Valkyrie, one of three that had brought the squad of Kasrkin here.

Malick pointed out in front of them. ‘It’s not all yellow. Some of it is brown and I reckon it goes white in the distance.’

‘You mean, where the heat haze hides the horizon?’

Sergeant Malick laughed, then coughed. ‘Throne. Wish I hadn’t done that. Even the air is hot.’

‘Everything’s hot on this damned planet.’

Malick turned and stared at Gunsur. ‘You saying you don’t want to be here, trooper? That’s treason.’

Gunsur shook his head, suddenly unsure. ‘You playing me, Sergeant Malick?’

Before Malick could answer, another voice spoke.

‘Yes, are you playing him, Sergeant Malick?’

The two Cadians scrambled to their feet, the sand beneath their boots crunching.

Sergeant Malick looked at the man standing in front of them. He was wearing fatigues that gave no indication of rank. He was even barefoot. But everything else about him suggested ‘officer’. Malick decided to play it safe.

‘Yes, I was playing him. Sir.’

The man nodded. ‘Good. I rather hoped you were. It would mean that you might have the wit to lead this team.’

Malick blinked. ‘Sir?’

‘Assemble the rest of the squad.’

Malick stared at the man. ‘Who are you? Sir.’

‘Bharath Obeysekera.’ The man regarded Malick through sun-slit eyes. ‘Captain Bharath Obeysekera. For your sins, you have been given into my command. Now call the troopers.’

‘Yes, sir.’ With a definite order to carry out, Malick made the aquila and spun off to see it done. ‘Fall in!’ he roared, in his best sergeant’s voice, the sound of it filling the dead, empty desert air.

It was a voice that had Captain Obeysekera putting his hand on Sergeant Malick’s shoulder and saying so that only he could hear: ‘Use the squad vox-channel. This will be a mission of silence. Best you start getting used to being quiet, Sergeant Malick.’

‘Yes…’ Malick cut off the second half of his barked reply. ‘Sir,’ he finished.

‘Good man,’ said Obeysekera. ‘Assemble the squad in the shade – we will all have had enough sun soon. Colonel Aruna will address you first, then I will fill in the details.’

Captain Obeysekera turned away, his bare feet quiet on the sand, and slipped away into the deeper, darker shadows of the interior of the Valkyrie.

Sergeant Malick picked up his helmet and keyed the squad vox-channel, sending alerts to the other seven troopers in the unit. He saw on the auspex integrated into his helmet that they had all acknowledged. Tracer runes showed them all moving to the location he had marked on the auspex, the outlying troops converging from the sentry positions Malick had ordered them to after the Valkyries had landed.

Gunsur leaned over towards Malick. ‘The only time I ever saw a captain dressed like that, he’d been stripped and had his ribs opened out by those Gallows Cluster traitors. You sure he is a real captain?’

‘Didn’t you see?’

‘See what?’

‘When he went back inside. He’s proper ’kin, all right – he’s got the eagle on his neck. Besides, I reckon I’ve heard of him.’

‘Yeah? Where?’

‘The Sando retreat. He sent his ’kin squad to hold up the ’nids while he marshalled the civvies onto exfiltration vehicles.’

Gunsur looked at his sergeant. ‘Yeah? So?’

‘None of them got out, but he did.’

Gunsur nodded. ‘One of those officers.’

Malick shook his head. ‘Don’t know. But I’m keeping this beauty to hand.’ The sergeant picked up the hellgun that was leaning against the ticking plasteel of the Valkyrie. He ran his hand over the use-polished stock of the hellgun, its paluwood the colour of aged honey. ‘This beauty will put a hotshot through the eye of any xenos at a mile.’

Gunsur gestured towards the desert. ‘You reckon we’ll meet any bluies out there, sarge? Don’t look like the sort of place they’d be interested in.’

‘They’re xenos scum,’ said Malick. ‘Who knows what they’re interested in. Besides, from what I hear, there’s plenty on this planet to draw the attention of the bluies.’

‘Yeah, sand,’ said Gunsur. ‘Lots and lots of sand.’

Malick cuffed Gunsur on the shoulder. ‘There’s stuff under the sand’s worth more’n most subsectors. That’s probably why we’re here on…’ The sergeant paused and gestured out from the shadow under the wing to the vast dry world that surrounded them.

‘It is called Dasht i-Kevar.’

Sergeant Malick and Trooper Gunsur turned around to see Captain Obeysekera, now dressed in the grey and tan of the Kasrkin, standing at the top of the rear ramp of the Valkyrie holding, of all things, his dress cap in one hand.

‘Colonel Aruna will brief you on your deployment here and the strategic objective. I will cover the tactical situation.’ Captain Obeysekera pointed over to the next Valkyrie, standing stark and outlined in the sun. ‘You don’t want to keep the colonel waiting, do you?’

‘No, sir,’ said Malick. The sergeant glanced at the auspex; the other squad members were drawing in towards the mark.

The three men stepped out of the shade under the Valkyrie’s wing. The sun hit them with the weight of lead, pressing down upon their heads.

Captain Obeysekera put his dress cap on his head. ‘Only time this has been any use.’ He looked at Malick and Gunsur. ‘Here, helmets are barely better than bare heads – you want a cap and scarf.’

Malick shook his head. He pointed at various gouges and scratches on his helmet. ‘I wouldn’t be here without this. Besides, we might need the rebreather.’

‘We might need lots of things, but none of them will matter if we can’t get to where we need to go.’ Obeysekera looked at Malick. ‘You’re from Kasr Vasan. Hear it had the best logistics on Cadia. You’re used to having the right weapon on hand when you need it. I grew up in Kasr Gesh. We were lucky if we had a power pack to go in our lasrifles, let alone a spare. On this mission, we will be on our own. We carry in everything we need, and when we run out we make do with what we’ve got left over, and when we run out of that we’ll use our hands. I expect every man to be able to adapt. If you can’t, I’ll get someone who can. Understand?’

Malick stared back at the officer. Obeysekera regarded him mildly but steadily.

‘I have never failed on a mission.’

‘Which is why I asked for you, sergeant. Your record suggests a soldier who is willing to use his brain and think. Is that true?’

Malick paused, staring at Captain Obeysekera, and then, slowly, he began to smile.

‘Yes, sir, it is true.’ He pointed at Gunsur. ‘Not so sure about Gunsur, though.’

‘That’s all right, sergeant. We can’t have troopers thinking, can we?’

Obeysekera set off over the hot sand, his feet, now booted, sinking small pits into the ground as he went, with Malick and Gunsur following, heading towards the command Valkyrie. Reaching the bowl of sand blown out by the Valkyrie’s turbofans when it landed, they crested the rim and started down towards the machine squatting in the middle of the wide crater. The sand slid away under their boots, slipping like liquid so that they all but skied down the inside of the bowl. Fifty yards away, the command Valkyrie stood, its lower half hidden by the sand bowl. Other men were centring in on the Valkyrie, some from the third craft that made the other base of the landing triangle, the rest from the perimeter positions that Malick had assigned to them.

The Valkyries themselves were not sitting silently on the sand. Their turbofans rotated gently, pushing air through the vents to placate machine-spirits grinding sand between their plasteel teeth. The pilots sat ready in the cockpits, eyes hidden behind black goggles, while the heavy bolters mounted on the Valkyries continued to track over the landscape, empty though it was. But the heat haze, rising all around them, reduced visibility: anything over half a mile away dissolved into rising columns of heated air, twisting slowly under the sun.

It was a strangely flat landscape, unrelieved by shade, even though the sand rose in static waves to their east as it stretched into the Great Sand Sea. To the west, the land was rock and salt-flat, studded with shallow outcrops and basalt columns.

‘There’re no shadows,’ said Malick. He pointed down at his feet. ‘Where has it gone?’

Obeysekera laughed, the harsh sound cut short by the dry heat. He pointed straight overhead. ‘Up there.’

Malick squinted up, cricking his neck back and back, the flare guards in his goggles activating. Above him, the sun that squatted over Dasht i-Kevar rode, a white eye sitting on top of the sky arch.

Malick looked back to Captain Obeysekera. ‘I don’t understand.’

The captain grimaced. ‘Don’t worry, it won’t last.’ Obeysekera looked up into the sky too, his eyes becoming slits as he did so. ‘Thankfully.’ He glanced back to Malick. ‘With no shadows it’s impossible to judge distance. Speaking of distance, let’s not keep the colonel waiting.’

The Kasrkin sergeant saw the sweat pricking through Obeysekera’s skin, only for it to evaporate as it appeared.

‘This is hotter than Prosan,’ he said.

Captain Obeysekera looked back at the sergeant. ‘It’s about the same in terms of climate. But there are other things…’ His voice trailed away as his eyes, squinting against the overwhelming light, took in the Great Sand Sea. ‘Let us hope we do not meet them.’

As they neared the command Valkyrie, Malick saw the rest of the squad assembling in the shade under the wings: some squatting, others sitting on their helmets, hands resting upon their treasured weapons, the hotshot lasguns they nicknamed ‘hellguns’. The last of the perimeter troopers were walking in, hellguns cradled on forearms. Malick glanced at his auspex: they were all here.

Just as he was about to look away from the display, he saw movement traces and, glancing up, he saw a man in a high-ranking officer’s uniform emerge from the Valkyrie.

Aruna. The colonel’s reputation had spread sector-wide. He had led the defence of Krack des Chavel against an insurrection of Chaos cultists, woken to frenzy by the great purple bruise that split the night sky. He had planned and led the assault on the ork warband led by Grashbash the Grabbler that had laid waste to three systems. And the word among the Guard was that Colonel Aruna was the brains behind the unusually subtle attempts to retake the Imperial worlds in the subsector that had succumbed to the blandishments, diplomatic and militant, of the T’au Empire.

In Malick’s previous experience, whenever the Guard had retaken Imperial worlds that had been lost to the enemy, be that Chaos or xenos, it had been necessary to repopulate the planet after the victory. Aruna had managed to retain a viable population on two of the planets he had wrested back from the t’au.

Colonel Aruna came down the ramp and stood on the sand among the squad of Kasrkin. The ’kin regarded the colonel with battle-hardened eyes, then, slowly, one by one, stood and saluted him. The troops, looking upon the colonel, measuring him, saw him as one of their own: a soldier who had stood in the midst of battle without flinching, a man who had faced death on as many occasions as they had and not let fear prevent him from doing his duty to the Emperor.

As the Kasrkin acknowledged the colonel as their equal, the colonel returned the salute. Seeing Captain Obeysekera, he nodded to him then turned to the waiting, silent ’kin.

‘We have lost a general. You are going to find him and bring him back.’

The Kasrkin greeted the news in silence, but it was a silence that held a wealth of unanswered questions relating to the conduct of the mission and the chance of carrying it out successfully.

‘General Mato Itoyesa, commanding officer eastern sector, was returning to headquarters when his Valkyrie was attacked by t’au Barracudas. Attempting to evade the xenos, the general’s pilot flew into a sandstorm.’

Colonel Aruna paused as he said that, looking around the watching Kasrkin. They said nothing but Malick saw, from the tightening of muscles, that they all knew what such an action meant: arriving on Dasht i-Kevar, it was drummed into every combatant, be they ordinary soldier, Kasrkin or Imperial Navy, never to deliberately enter one of the planet’s sandstorms. Such was the violence of the storms that an unprotected soldier would be flayed in a few minutes. Aircraft such as Valkyries had their engines clogged, their machine-spirits choking on vast quantities of sand, while even the normally indomitable Leman Russ would grind to a stop as the corrosive grains insinuated themselves into gears and bearings.

‘Transmissions indicated that the general’s aircraft managed to land successfully, but we have only very approximate indications of its location. No further transmissions have been received, despite our efforts to raise General Itoyesa. As the commanding officer of the eastern sector, I do not have to tell you how important it is that the general does not fall into xenos hands.’ The colonel paused and looked around the watching, silent Kasrkin. ‘It is your job to ensure that he does not. Questions?’

Malick looked at the surrounding troops. There were many questions that could be asked, but they were ’kin: they did the jobs no one else could do. He expected no reply.

But a voice spoke.

‘That is what I don’t understand. Why did the general’s pilot fly into the sandstorm? It was strictly against the orders of the lord militant.’

The questioner stepped forward out of the deep shadows of the loading bay and into the softer shade under the Valkyrie’s wings. He was a young man, with all the leanness of youth, but his leanness was sheathed, despite the heat, in the long drapes of the coat of a commissar of the Officio Prefectus.

Colonel Aruna turned towards the young man and shook his head. ‘It is a question we shall put to the pilot should he be recovered in a state to answer. I am sure your father will be as keen to learn the answer as you are.’

‘I am sure he will. Lord Militant Roshant is… concerned that one of his key generals has disappeared.’

‘As are we all, Commissar Roshant,’ said Colonel Aruna.

At the name, all the men listening stiffened slightly. Commissar Roshant gave no obvious indication that he was aware of their regard, but Malick saw the halo of self-regard that clung about one of the appointed of the Imperial elite, as invisible and as impenetrable as a refractor field. The Kasrkin sergeant squinted. There was a subtle phase effect around Commissar Roshant that suggested he might actually be employing a refractor field.

‘That is also why my father, the lord militant, has ordered me to accompany your men on their mission.’ The young commissar paused slightly as he said this. The Kasrkin, no strangers to the ways of Imperial commissars, knew well that he had paused so that he might assess their reaction to this news. What physical reaction they gave was minimal: some tightening of the eyes, quick glances, nothing more.

For his part, Malick looked to Captain Obeysekera, seeking to judge if he had had any warning that the lord militant’s son would be accompanying them on their mission. But at the news, the captain’s expression remained as blank as the desert on the day after a storm, when the windblown sand had scoured all tracks from its face.

Commissar Roshant, evidently satisfied with what he saw in the faces of the watching Kasrkin, turned back to Colonel Aruna.

‘Should we find the general alive, it will be imperative to assess immediately whether he has been compromised. Should we find the general dead, the same question will arise. And should we fail to find the general, the question will become even more urgent. My father has given me the task of answering these questions.’

Colonel Aruna nodded. ‘Very well, commissar. But, unless you have received new orders from the lord militant, operational command of this mission remains with Captain Obeysekera.’ Colonel Aruna paused, making sure that all the men present were listening and would be able to hear the answer.

‘Yes, that is correct.’ The words sounded forced, as if Commissar Roshant said them against his will. Malick, face impassive, smiled inwardly at imagining the son pleading to his father for command of the mission and that permission being denied.

Colonel Aruna nodded. ‘Thank you, commissar. So that there might be no misunderstanding, you will be attached to the mission as its commissar, with responsibility for the political and religious welfare of the men, but answerable to the mission commander, Captain Obeysekera. Is that clear?’

Commissar Roshant stared at Colonel Aruna, then glanced at Captain Obeysekera. ‘Yes, it is clear,’ he said through narrowed lips.

‘Very well,’ said Colonel Aruna. ‘I am glad we have cleared that up before the mission begins.’ The colonel began to turn away, but before he could do so, Roshant spoke again.

‘While it is true that Captain Obeysekera has operational command of the mission, it is also true that Lord Militant Roshant has asked me to write a full report on this operation. I will of course note any instances where Captain Obeysekera fails to adhere to my advice – the advice of a commissar of the God-Emperor’s Imperium.’ Roshant looked from Aruna to Obeysekera. ‘Is that clear, too?’

The colonel looked at the commissar. ‘Perfectly clear.’

Roshant turned to Obeysekera. ‘Captain?’

Sergeant Malick saw the danger light in the captain’s eyes, a glint even in the deep shadow under the Valkyrie’s wing.

‘I understand, Commissar Roshant,’ said Captain Obeysekera. His eyes broadened and he smiled. ‘For my part, I am grateful that you will be writing a full report of the mission as that will save me the labour of filing my own account.’ Obeysekera turned to the colonel. ‘Now that is settled, shall I start the mission briefing, sir?’

‘Yes, please do so.’

Captain Obeysekera paused and looked at each of the watching soldiers. His glance caught on something on Gunsur’s uniform.

‘Take off your campaign medals and kasr tags. That you fought in the Haetes Second Star campaign or which kasr you hail from is of no interest to me. For what it’s worth, you are now part of First Squad, One Hundred and Fifty-Fifth. But I don’t really care about that either.’ Obeysekera looked round the waiting soldiers. ‘All that matters is the mission.’

He waited.

Slowly, first in ones or twos, then followed by the rest, the Kasrkin removed their campaign medals, stowing them in pockets, and tucked their kasr tags away out of sight.

When they were all simply Kasrkin with no other identifying marks, Obeysekera nodded.

‘Thank you. Uwais. Ha. Prater. Ensor. Chame. Quert. Lerin.’

Malick glanced at Lerin as her name was spoken. He had heard of her reputation with heavy weapons.

‘Gunsur. Malick.’

As the captain called out each name, Malick realised that Obeysekera already knew who each soldier in the squad was.

‘Sir,’ he said.

Obeysekera paused, drawing the listening troopers in closer. ‘This mission will test even the very best. For we will not only be facing the enemy, we will be fighting a planet.’ Obeysekera gestured outwards, his arm taking in all the unseen expanses of Dasht i-Kevar. ‘This world kills. All of it is deadly, but we will be going into the most dangerous area of Dasht i-Kevar, the Sand Sea. It kills with heat and exhaustion, it kills by blinding and wearing down, it kills the stupid with ease and the clever with indifference. Our survival on this mission, and its successful accomplishment, will rely upon exact attention to detail and an ability to maintain concentration under the most difficult conditions that you have ever known.’

Captain Obeysekera stepped forward. He looked at his squad, the Kasrkin gathered around him in the shade below the wing of the Valkyrie, and he smiled.

‘I’ve got something to show you,’ he said.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2022.
This eBook edition published in 2022 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Represented by: Games Workshop Limited – Irish branch, Unit 3, Lower Liffey Street, Dublin 1, D01 K199, Ireland.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Marc Lee.

Kasrkin © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2022. Kasrkin, 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.
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ISBN: 978-1-80026-780-0

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