It didn’t fail me. It never has in thirty years of service. The few brains the ork possessed sprayed against the wall. The headless body toppled over, limbs still twitching, the chainsword still roaring and starting to slither across the bloody floor till it came to a stop, the teeth grinding against the metal leg of a bunk.

More orks raced down the plascrete stairs into this chamber, chanting their bestial battle cries. Some of them shot their guns into the air with wild enthusiasm. Others waved outsized, crudely serrated blades and axes, roaring with obscene joy in the knowledge they would get to use them soon.

I pulled the trigger of the shotgun again and sent the leading ork toppling backwards into its brethren. That slowed them down enough for me to ready a grenade and lob it into their midst. I dived, putting myself behind an overturned mess table as the wave of concussion rippled through the chamber. I looked at the rest of my squad. They were mostly just raw recruits, little older than I had been when I joined the Imperial Guard. This was what the proud legions that had followed Macharius across the galaxy had been reduced to. It was a sad thought.

I shouted at them to get ready. It was pointless telling them to fix bayonets – there was no way this sorry lot would survive any sort of close combat encounter with orks. The ones with any gumption were already doing so anyway. The rest were fumbling with their guns. One or two were struggling to put on their helmets and rebreathers. Andropov was trying to put his boots back on.

‘Get those bloody lasguns ready!’ I shouted as I stood up. I made sure my shotgun was pointing in their direction. ‘At least die on your feet like men. Hell! Shoot well enough, you might not even die today at all!’

Most of the Guardsmen raised their weapons as if they at least knew what they were supposed to do with them. One or two of them looked completely stunned. It was probably the first time they’d ever got this close to an ork, which is not something calculated to reassure even the bravest. If they did not start doing something soon it would almost certainly be the last.

‘You’re supposed to be soldiers of the Emperor,’ I bellowed. There might even have been some foam flecking the corners of my lips. They were starting to look scared of me now, which was good; better of me than the orks. ‘Shoot the bastards!’

One of the greenskins was still alive even though one of its arms was only holding on by a thin thread of flesh – bloody hard things to kill, orks. It reared up onto its legs and roared something in a language that none of us would ever understand.