The garrison of the 48th Colchis Auxiliary Army was like an iron plate baked by a star.
Outside the tents, the air warped in the heat haze, and everything in sight trembled faintly in the scorching temperatures.
Grit rolled in the hot wind, making faint, irritating rustling sounds.
Major Doram lay bare-chested on his camp bed, sweat running down his sturdy chest and soaking dark patches into the canvas sheet.
He stared at a thin patch in the tent roof where sunlight pierced through. The light was almost painfully tangible, but he could not be bothered to look away.
After being rejected from the Interstellar Space Marine training camp a year earlier, the young man from Colchis had joined the Word Bearers' auxiliary army.
His memory of that day remained clear. The instructor had patted his shoulder and said:
"Your will is like steel, but unfortunately, your judgment failed you this time."
Doram remembered merely nodding before turning away to pack his belongings.
There had been no anger, no resentment, only a strange sense of relief.
At last, he no longer had to struggle to become some kind of superhuman. He could simply be Doram.
And now, he was Major Doram.
From private to major in just one year—such a rapid promotion was rare in the Imperial Army.
His mouse-gray uniform hung in a corner of the tent, the major's insignia on its shoulder boards gleaming faintly in the gloom.
He expected to make colonel before long, provided he earned enough merit, and provided he lived that long.
"Hot as an oven..." he muttered, his voice sounding hollow in the stifling tent.
Footsteps approached outside.
Doram sat up just in time to see his orderly, Sergeant Nagins, pass the gap in the tent flaps with a Dataslate in hand.
"Nagins!"