Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies

– From which it’s safe to assume she’s describing Wraithlords. Interestingly enough, Cain also refers to these engines of destruction as ‘Dreadnoughts’, despite having encountered them frequently enough over the course of his chequered career to be aware of the distinction. But then he also uses the same name for t’au battlesuits several times in the course of his memoirs.

– Or, more likely, concerned for her own position now that her mismanagement of the situation had been noticed by the Administratum.

– Which, coming from a man who once jumped blind through a necron warp portal, is saying quite a lot.

– Which is hardly surprising. The Valhallan beverage, which Cain had developed a taste for over the course of his long association with regiments from that world, has a flavour best described as ‘acquired,’ although a number of other adjectives also spring to mind.

– After Action Reports: summaries of the incidents compiled by the unit commanders concerned, for later evaluation.

– Something of an oversimplification, but as the ranking Imperial Guard officer in the system, her discretionary powers would be wide – not to mention being backed up by a large number of people with guns, which generally inclines civilians to listen.

– Typically a few lightly armed non warp-capable vessels maintained by the local authorities, in the same way that the planetary defence force takes care of the worlds themselves. In practice, their main function seems to be keeping an invasion force occupied with target practice until the Navy arrives.

– The Commissarial symbol of office.

– Slate of Organisation and Equipment; not actually a physical data-slate, but a concise summary of the various subunits making up the regiment, their relationship to one another, and their assets.

– A curious saying, presumably common in whatever underhive he was native to judging by the context in which he uses it – although, since extensive research by my savant Mott has failed to find any trace of the phrase in everyday usage, the world and hive of his birth remain obscure.

– Presumably a humorously expressed refusal rather than an actual intention, since there were no orks on Drechia at the time, and anyone planning to tackle one would need more than that in the way of protection.

– Presumably so the ore being mined could be moved to the processing plants on the surface by truck.