'Any sign of our reinforcements?' he shouted.

'Not yet,' returned Caphen. 'We're supposed to be getting extra squads from the First and Third, but nothing so far.'

Solomon ducked as a rocket skidded from the knotted pile of metal he sheltered behind, with a deafening clang, and ricocheted straight up, before detonating in a shower of flame and smoke. Burning shrapnel fell in a patter of scorching scads of metal.

'Don't worry!' cried Solomon. 'Julius and Marius won't let us down.'

At least they better not, he thought grimly, as he bleakly considered the possibility of being overrun. With the unexpected counter-attack by the aliens, he and his warriors would be trapped on the flight deck unless they could fight their way through hundreds of shouting enemy warriors. Solomon wouldn't have given the matter a second thought against any other foe, but the greenskin warriors were monstrous brutes whose strength was very nearly the equal of an Astartes warrior. Their central nervous systems were so primitive that they took a great deal of punishment before they lay down and stopped fighting.

A greenskin warrior was not the equal of an Astartes by any means, but they had enough raw aggression to make up for it, and they had numbers on their side.

The Callinedes system was an Imperial collection of worlds under threat from the greenskins, and to begin the liberation of those worlds that had already fallen, the defence orbitals had to be won back.

This was the first stage in the Imperial relief of Callinedes, and would see the reuniting of the Emperor's Children and the Iron Hands as they assaulted the enemy strongholds on Callinedes IV.

Solomon risked a quick glance over the lip of the smoking metal, as he heard a strident bellow sounding from behind the spars of metal and wreckage that the greenskins were using for cover. Solomon had no knowledge of the greenskin language (or even if they had anything that could be described as language), but the warrior in him recognised the barbaric cadences of a war speech. Whatever passed for greenskin leadership was clearly readying their warriors for an attack. Tribal fetishes and glyph poles hung with grisly trophies bobbed behind the rusted metal and Solomon knew they were in the fight of their lives.

'Come on, damn you,' he whispered. Without support from Julius or Marius, he would need to order a retreat to the assault craft and concede defeat, a prospect that had little appeal to his warrior code. 'Any word yet?'

'Nothing yet,' hissed Caphen. 'They're not coming are they?'

'They'll come,' promised Solomon as the chanting bellows from ahead suddenly swelled in volume and the crash of metal and iron-shod boots erupted from beyond.

Gaius Caphen and Solomon shared a moment of perfect understanding, and rose to their feet with their bolters at the ready.

'Looks like they're going up the centre!' shouted Caphen.

'Bastards!' yelled Solomon. 'That's my plan! Second, open fire!'

A torrent of bolter fire reached out to the greenskins, and the front line was scythed down by rippling series of explosions. Sharp, hard detonations echoed from the metal walls of the flight deck as the Astartes fired volley after volley into the charging enemy, but no matter how many fell, it only seemed to spur the survivors to a greater frenzy.

The aliens came in a tide of green flesh, rusted armour and battered leather. Red eyes like furnace coals glittered with feral intelligence, and they bellowed their uncouth war cries like wild beasts. They fired noisy, blazing weapons from the hip or brandished mighty, toothed blades with smoke belching motors. Some wore armour attached with thick leather straps, or simply nailed to their thick hides, while others wore great, horned helmets fringed with thick furs.

A huge brute in wheezing, mechanical exo-armour led the charge, bolter shells sparking and ricocheting from his protective suit. Solomon could see the rippling heat haze of a protective energy field sheathing the monstrous chieftain, though how such a primitive race could manufacture or maintain such technology baffled him.

The bolters of the Second wreaked fearful havoc amongst the aliens, blasting sprays of stinking red blood from great, bloodied craters in green flesh, or blowing limbs clean off in explosions of gore.

'Ready swords!' shouted Solomon as he saw that no matter how great the carnage worked upon the charge, it wouldn't be nearly enough.

He put aside his bolter and drew his sword and pistol as the first greenskin warrior smashed its way through the rusted girders, not even bothering to go around. Solomon swayed aside from a blow that would have hacked him in two, and swung his sword in a double-handed grip for his opponent's neck. His sword bit the full breadth of his hand into the greenskin's neck, but instead of dropping dead, the greenskin bellowed and savagely clubbed him to the ground.

Solomon rolled to avoid a stamping foot that would surely have crushed his skull, and lashed out once more. This time, his blade hacked through the beast's ankle, and it collapsed in a thrashing pile of limbs. Still it tried to kill him, but Solomon quickly picked himself up and stomped his boot down on the greenskin's throat, before putting a pair of bolt shells through its skull.

Gaius Caphen struggled with a greenskin a head taller than him, its great, motorised axe slashing for his head with every stroke. Solomon shot it in the face and ducked as yet another greenskin came at him. All shape to the battle was lost as each warrior fought his own private war, all skill reduced to survival and killing.

It couldn't end this way. A lifetime of glory and honour couldn't end at the hands of the greenskins. He had fought side by side with some of the Imperium's greatest heroes, and there was no way he was going to die fighting a foe as inglorious as these brutes.

Unfortunately, he thought wryly, they didn't seem to know that.

Where in the name of Terra were Julius and Marius?

He saw a pair of his warriors borne to the deck by a pack of howling greenskins, a roaring axe hacking their Mark IV plate to splintered ruins. Another was ripped almost in two by a close range burst from a monstrous rotary cannon that was carried by a greenskin as though it weighed no more than a pistol.

Even as he watched these tragedies play out, a rusted cleaver smote him in the chest and hurled him backwards. His armour split under the impact and he coughed blood, looking up into the snarling, fanged gorge of the greenskin leader. The hissing, wheezing armour enlarged its burly physique, its muscles powered by mighty pistons and roaring bellows.

Solomon rolled aside as the cleaver arced towards him, crying out as splintered ends of bone ground together in his chest. Momentary pain paralysed him, but even as he awaited another attack, he heard the sound of massed bolter fire and the high-pitched whine of a hundred chainswords.

The greenskin before him looked up in response to the sound, and Solomon did not waste his opportunity, unloading his weapon full in its face, pulping its thickly-boned skull in a torrent of explosive shells.

Its metal exo-skeleton kept it on its feet, but suddenly the greenskin force was in disarray as newly arrived Emperor's Children tore into the battle, delivering point blank shots from bolt pistols, or cutting limbs and heads from bodies with precisely aimed sword blows.

In moments, the fighting was done as the last pockets of greenskin warriors were isolated into smaller and smaller knots of resistance, and were mercilessly gunned down by the new arrivals. Solomon watched the extermination with cold admiration, for the killings were achieved with a perfection he had not seen in some time.

Gaius Caphen, bloodied and battered, but alive, helped him to his feet, and Solomon smiled despite the pain in his cracked ribs.