Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies

– There are apparently no fewer than thirty-eight thousand vessels named Indestructible in service across the Imperium as a whole, several of them assigned to the Damocles Gulf and adjacent sectors, so despite Cain’s obvious and pessimistic conclusion, the name of this particular example doesn’t necessarily imply the existence of three predecessors which failed to live up to it.

– Actually a highly unusual occurrence: a body that size, capable of radiating its own heat and surrounded by moons which, in a few instances, were comparable in size to minor planets, would normally be found much closer to the system’s primary than its fringe of cometary debris. Whether this was due to gravitational perturbation early in the system’s formation flinging it outwards, or some interference with the natural order by means now unimaginable during the Dark Age of Technology is a matter of fierce debate (mixed, I suspect, with a great deal of wishful thinking) among the Adeptus Mechanicus acolytes of the region.

– Not to mention the fact that diverting significant numbers of ships to transport military assets to the fringes of the system would adversely affect their own economic output, lower their tithing revenue, and attract the unwelcome attention of the Administratum at a subsector level. Something few planetary governors would be prepared to contemplate in order to help out a regional rival, even without their own jobs on the line.

– At this point in her career recently promoted to major, though remaining in command of the 597th’s First Company.

– Whether from atmospheric refraction or its own internal processes Sekara seems either unaware or indifferent.

– Kilometre: one of the Valhallan colloquialisms he picked up over the course of his long association with regiments from that world.

– Not to mention several others, but as usual Cain seems less interested in those.

– Presumably because the local defence force lacked the training or morale to respond aggressively to an attack of this nature.

– See my previous comment about his lack of awareness of the distinction between the civilised eldar and their Chaos-tainted kin.

– Although Cain was an exceptional marksman, who I saw hitting targets most people would have considered far out of range or too fast moving on more than one occasion. Typically, when complimented on the feat, he would ascribe it simply to blind luck.