Warmaster
Within the Ultima Segmentum, in the Ultramar region, lay the Veridian System, which was not governed by the Ultramarines.
Calth.
Veridian's beautiful blue-white star hung high in the sky like a pearl, its gentle light spilling across the land.
The fusion reactor on the Nered River supplied power to Numinus City and Caucas Fortress, newly built by the Shadow of Order.
River water drawn up by the reactor's turbine blades washed away the carbon grime clinging to them.
The splashing water struck the river mouth, covering the land in thick layers of black silt and making the entire valley the most fertile land on all of Calth.
Retired soldier Ollanius Persson owned a plot of land here: twenty mu of rich black alluvial soil.
Ollanius had retired after the end of the Battle of Kriso-Var twelve standard years ago. He had received his certification papers and honor ribbons.
At the same time, he had exchanged his military merits for land proportional to his years of service.
Naturally, the amount of land he received had been rounded down.
Ollanius was no stranger to the Imperium's policies, nor to this sort of life.
Over the past several centuries, he had repeated the life of "Soldier Person" again and again: serving in different Imperial armies, fighting, accumulating honors, retiring, "dying"...
This time, Ollanius had decided to rest a little longer.
When he saw the brochure's slogan, "A New World, a New Calth," and its depictions of "Soldiers, Lord Nimrod welcomes you to Calth to build your new life" and "In your new homeland, you will share the future with the Shadow of Order," he had scoffed.
Since when had a beautiful new world belonged to soldiers?
When he boarded the seed transport ship, he began to sense that this journey was different.