Imperial veterans were not uncommon in the Imperium of Man. Even with warfare of an intensity beyond the natives' imagination, countless warriors still survived battlefields that resembled the end of days.
Before launching the Great Crusade, the Imperium of Man had already forged many illustrious veteran regiments through blood and fire during the Unification Wars on Terra. These warriors, who could no longer undergo genetic augmentation, were no less formidable than the Space Marine Legions led by the Primarchs. They possessed unyielding spirits and the courage to face death. Some officers could even rely on their mortal bodies to fight Space Marines in close combat, driving their sabers into the gaps of Space Marine power armor and taking their lives.
The veterans Angron was about to meet were such men. They had rendered outstanding service in the Unification Wars, then advanced alongside the Emperor's fleet and, by his command, remained behind in this reasonably hospitable otherworld to continue serving.
Yet these veterans were no longer merely soldiers. They had become bureaucrats of the Imperial territory, responsible for managing the entire region for Angron and more efficiently mobilizing the otherworld's natives to support the front lines... even if that support was, overall, somewhat insignificant.
The transition from frontline officers and soldiers to logistical bureaucrats was undoubtedly a reward the Imperium of Man granted its veterans. Once this otherworld had been fully incorporated into the Imperium of Man's rule, the veterans would naturally become the administrators of this land and pass their duties down through the generations.
But for now, these veterans were unwilling to bury their youth in endless paperwork. Most of them were over a hundred years old, but to the Imperium of Man, where biochemical genetic technology was so advanced, a hundred years was merely the beginning of one's