Contents

Cover

Reborn – Extract

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

Reborn

Nicholas Wolf

I

He’s dead.

He’s dead, and I killed him.

I slowly back away from the convulsing, gasping form of my commissar, my serrated bayonet sliding from his chest. I lock eyes with him, truly meeting them for the first time. He’s angry, yes, but beneath the pious rage, I finally, after years of watching him shoot men in the back for cowardice, see human fear.

He knows his life is over, and all that’s left is to die.

As soon as my blade rips free of his heart his knees buckle and he slumps to the ground, splashing face first into the gore-soaked mud. In my moment of clarity I’ve transformed Commissar First Class Vasili Grudenov from a vicious, pitiless executioner to a banal hunk of flesh, no more righteous or terrifying than a slab of grox meat.

‘I’m not dying here,’ I growl to the corpse. ‘None of us are.’

My lasgun falls from my hands, joining the body at my feet. My fingers are shaking, not with fear or rage, although I feel both beating hot through my veins like combat-stimms. No, they’re shaking, coursing, with…

…hope.

I’m no longer Acting-Captain Andrik Petrov of the 224th Kelbran Janissaries, insignificant cog of the Astra Militarum, abandoned to die by an uncaring Imperium on this forsaken battlefield. I’m something greater.

‘You saved my life.’

I reluctantly tear my eyes away from the body at my feet. Private Nikyta Povich, who a moment before had been staring down the barrel of Grudenov’s bolt pistol, slowly opens his eyes. Urine trickles down his leg. Despite the horrors of war he still looks not a day older than sixteen. He may not be.

I can’t think of anything to say. I hadn’t been thinking of Nikyta. Not really. I’d been thinking of myself, because I knew it would’ve only been a matter of time before I was the target. I nod and make a face that I hope looks hard and stoic, like Captain Luvchenko made. I probably just look tired.

The silence in the bunker stretches on, punctuated only by the drumming boom of artillery and the chatter of gunfire, both growing closer.

‘You killed a commissar,’ someone says, stating the obvious.

‘You heard what Grudenov said – the war for Tarshish is over. The heretics broke our lines, we aren’t getting reinforcements, and we aren’t getting evacuated,’ I say quietly, feeling rage aching in my chest even as I say it. ‘The Imperium left us to die, and he was here to make sure we bought enough time for them to evacuate the more important assets off-world.’

‘Yeah, but–’

I round on the speaker. He’s young, just a little younger than me. His ill-fitting blue jacket says ‘corporal’ but I’m guessing he took it off a corpse. ‘Do you have anyone back on Kelbra, soldier?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Do you have anyone back on Kelbra?’ I ask. ‘Anyone waiting for you?’

He looks confused, like I’d just asked him to recite the Uplifting Primer from memory. ‘Of course.’

‘You, Aleksandr, you’ve got a wife and three children,’ I say, pointing to the men of my old squad. ‘Sava, how many more years do you think your old father can work in the factorums so your mother doesn’t go hungry? Do you even know if he’s still alive?’

I let my words sink in, watching as familiar face after familiar face nods in solemn understanding. ‘Who else has family waiting for them?’

A hundred ragged, bloody hands rise.

I caress the swollen curvature of Misha’s belly, so warm even in the pre-dawn chill of our hab. Little Nicolai is already awake, kicking and squirming. I wonder if, somehow, he knows what’s happening.

Why did he have to be late?

I stop. The boy I’d been when I left Kelbra would’ve cried, but that part of me died long ago. I still feel my throat closing though, my eyes stinging. ‘I have a son waiting for me who I’ve never met. No one, not even a commissar, is going to stop me from getting back home to him.’

I see realisation slowly dawning in their eyes, an awakening. I think all of us at some point stopped truly believing we were ever going to see home again. How had I envisioned it, all those years ago?

It’s been so long I don’t even remember.

‘So… what do we do now?’ someone else asks, breaking the silence.

‘I…’ I stumble, grasping for words that just aren’t there. ‘I don’t know.’

I hear an ominous hum behind me.

‘I know what we do.’

I slowly turn, staring down the barrel of a lasgun.

Sergeant Mikhail Velkov, grizzled face set in a lopsided snarl, glares at me. ‘We shoot this traitor right now.’

I glance at my own lasgun at my feet. I’d never make it. ‘Stand down, soldier.’

‘You’re not my captain,’ he growls back from the vox-caster built into his throat. ‘You’re only wearing that rank because Captain Luvchenko is dead.’

‘I said stand down,’ I repeat, firmly. I keep my hands visible though. He’s standing too far away for me to grab his weapon.

He spits at my boots. ‘You just killed your commissar. You’re nothing to me now.’

‘This war is over, Mikhail, you heard it from Grudenov himself! He was going to make sure you died, right here in this damned bunker, because General Volsk decided our lives weren’t as important as munitions and tanks!’

He blinks. Slowly. ‘I swore an oath to the Emperor, boy.’

Something breaks inside me, a brittle dam overflowing with hate. ‘And where was the Emperor, Mikhail?’ I scream. ‘Where was the Emperor when the heretics bombed Forward Command? Where was the Emperor when those… things massacred the eastern front? Where was the Emperor when Tarshish Hive went mad? Seventy million people slaughtering each other, Mikhail! Where was the Emperor when the commander we spent the last four years fighting for sent a commissar to make sure we didn’t run when we figured out we’d been left to die? Where? Where, Mikhail?’

I see him wavering. ‘I… it’s not that simple. The Emperor protects.’

‘No He doesn’t, Mikhail,’ I shake my head angrily. ‘You can die for the Emperor, but I won’t. Put the gun down.’

The barrel drops. Slightly. I can see his hate melting away.

‘Think about your family, Mikhail,’ I say softly. ‘Don’t leave your children orphans. Not for them. Not for this. The Imperium doesn’t deserve our blood.’

‘We… we can still rejoin the rest of the battle group before they leave Tarshish. Say you shot Grudenov and we shot you. Volsk would take us back.’

I take a slow step towards him, still keeping my hands up. ‘Volsk was perfectly content to let us die here. He’d cull the 224th to make an example, just like Grudenov would’ve done to Nikyta.’

‘You don’t know that!’ he yells, vox-caster cracking. ‘We can… we can try… we have to…’

I take another step towards Mikhail. He’s almost close enough for me to grab his gun. He’s no longer pointing it at me. He’s not even looking at me. ‘Put the gun down, Mikhail. Let’s go home.’

‘You’re insane…’

Bzzrt.

Mikhail Velkov stays standing for just a moment before he notices the hole burned through his face. My gorge rises at the scorched-bone reek. The betrayal in his eyes is too much. I can’t look. His gun brushes my fingers as it slips from his hands. His legs crumple. He’s dead before he hits the ground.

Click here to buy Reborn.

A Black Library Publication

This eBook edition published in 2019 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by John Michelbach.

Reborn © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2019. Reborn, 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: 978-1-78999-682-1

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.

See Black Library on the internet at
blacklibrary.com

Find out more about Games Workshop’s world of Warhammer and the Warhammer 40,000 universe at
games-workshop.com

eBook license

This license is made between:

Games Workshop Limited t/a Black Library, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, United Kingdom (“Black Library”); and

(2) the purchaser of an e-book product from Black Library website (“You/you/Your/your”)

(jointly, “the parties”)

These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase an e-book (“e-book”) from Black Library. The parties agree that in consideration of the fee paid by you, Black Library grants you a license to use the e-book on the following terms:

* 1. Black Library grants to you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the e-book in the following ways:

o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;

o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic device and/or through any appropriate storage media; and

* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.

* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:

o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.4 you attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.

* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.