S.I.

As the Great Rift unfolds in the night sky above Terra and daemons walk upon the birth world of mankind, the Primarch Roboute Guilliman returns, heralding a dark new age. During the breaking storm, Cypher and his band of Fallen escape from the most secure prison in the Imperium. Now loose in the Imperial Palace, they are hunted by warriors of the Dark Angels, forces of the Adeptus Custodes, and Imperial Assassins. But what are Cypher’s intentions? Can anything or anyone be trusted?

War heroes aren't usually called out of semi-retirement and sent to the far reaches of the galaxy for a routine investigation. So when Colonel Carl Butler answers the call from an old and powerful friend, he knows it's something big - and he's not being told the whole story. A high councilor's son has gone MIA out of Cappa Base, the space station orbiting a battle-ravaged planet. The young lieutenant had been wounded and evacuated - but there's no record of him having ever arrived at hospital command.

While the crew of the starship Flying Dutchman have been trying to assure that hostile aliens do not have access to Earth, the UN Expeditionary Force has been stranded on the planet they nicknamed "Paradise". The Flying Dutchman is headed back out on another mission, and the UN wants the ship to find out the status of the humans on Paradise. But Colonel Joe Bishop warns that they might not like what they find, and they can't do anything about it without endangering Earth.

The colonists of the planet Montana are accustomed to being ignored. Situated in the buffer zone between two rival human empires, their world is a backwater: remote, provincial, independently minded. Even as a provisional member of the Republic of Aligned Worlds, Montana merits little consideration - until it becomes the flashpoint in an impending interstellar war. When pirate raids threaten to destabilize the region, the RAW deploys its mechanized armored infantry to deal with the situation.