The world of Herodian IV is doomed when the nightmarish tyranid hive fleet descends from the depths of space, intent on devouring every living thing there. In the vital hours before the planet is entirely lost, Inquisitor Kalypsia and her team of Deathwatch Space Marines are sent on a mission to investigate a mysterious research outpost on the planet's surface. The terrible secret that they uncover could affect the integrity of the team, the fate of the planet, and the future of the Imperium itself ... but only if the Deathwatch can escape to safety before they are torn apart by the ravenous alien hordes.

(2005)

(cover art: Philip Sibering)

Reviews:

4.5 Stars! I want more!, August 4, 2006

Reviewer: Detra Fitch (USA); Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews

When one is seconded into the Deathwatch it is a high honor. The members remain true to their individual Charters, but temporarily leave when called upon for a Deathwatch mission to assemble with the other chosen for the kill-team. If they survive the mission, they return to their original Charters, but can be called upon for another Deathwatch kill-team at any time during their life span.

Captain Quirion Octavious, a veteran captain of the Imperial Fists, and his current kill-team members are diverted from their rendezvous point and sent to the world of Herodian IV in response to a call for aide from the Mantis Warriors. The Mantis Marines is a Charter that fell from grace, but has been given a chance to redeem itself. They currently fight a tyranid swarm that is somehow much more intelligent than any before. These are riddled with psyker zoanthropes.

Leading Octavious's kill-team is Inquisitor Kalypsia. Kalypsia may be young, but she has the same healthy paranoia of her brethren. Octavious may have to answer to Kalypsia, but he does not have to fully trust her. It is obvious that she is not revealing all she knows about this mission.

***** There is a certain lithe assassin named Slyrian that only shows up two or three times in this novel, yet I quickly became enthralled by her. I was disappointed when she abruptly disappeared from the story after killing her last few marks. When the one she works for is taken out of the story, she is simply never mentioned again. Slyrian, and one other character, are major loose threads. They are not mentioned in the second book either, as I hoped they would be. I feel cheated.

The Mantis Warriors have a sub-plot running in this tale that has to do with their Charter's history. W40K fans learn what happens when a Marine Charter is involved in treachery, even if unintentional. As usual, the book starts in battle and readers will have little room to breathe until the entire novel has been read. Excellent fantasy reading! *****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

5 STARS! Putting the human back in superhuman, November 9, 2005

Reviewer: Dawn Legless (NYC)

What is really special about this book, for a WH40K book, is the characterisation. Goto makes Space Marines into real people with real characters. The Deathwatch is supposed to be made up of the best marines from all the different chapters, and Goto uses this as an opportunity to contrast the characteristics of the chapters and to show how they might complement or clash with each other. The result is an extremely effective novel in which the Deathwatch not only have to contend with the menace of the alien tyranids (with guns suitably blazing), but they also have to contend with each other in much more subtle ways. This is a great book to remind fans of space marines that they may be superhuman warriors, but they are still human underneath all that armour.
Nice one Goto. Let's have some more!

5STARS! Mantis Warriors rock!, November 3, 2005

Reviewer: Astartes

Although this is dressed up as a Deathwatch book, and although the stuff with the Deathwatch is cool, this is really a book about the long lost chapter of space marines called the Mantis Warriors. Goto resurects them from nowhere and makes them into one of the most interesting and mysterious chapters in the 40K universe. I'm not kidding -- everyone I've spoken to is really excited about the Mantis Warriors. We're starting a movement to get Games Workshop to release them as a fully developed chapter. Goto is our saviour!

Extract:

From pp.121-123:

Octavius studied the faces of the Mantis Warrior Marines lined up before him. They were fierce, noble, and scarred with years of constant battle. Each had a long cascade of black hair and sparkling green eyes. Their skin was dark and inscribed with cursive and barbed tattoos that curled and flowed across their faces and necks, like heavy shadows cut into their upper bodies. Octavius understood that these were ritual markings, etched into the skin of the finest warriors of the Chapter – those charged with hunting down the cursed Astral Claws. These were the marks of the Praying Mantidae, a cadre created nearly a century before, following the fall of the Mantis Warriors in the Badab Wars – its warriors had all stood side by side with the renegades, and they all had more to prove than any Marine that Octavius had come across before. The Deathwatch captain could see the passion and the pride burning in their eyes. There was almost a desperation hidden in those fiery depths, something that Octavius had rarely seen in the eyes of a Space Marine.

Behind the three Mantis Warriors were the rest of the Deathwatch team, arrayed in their immaculately polished black armour, but with their helmets off so that their eyes glinted with life in the half light of the ceremonial chamber in the Perfect Incision. The right shoulder plate of each Marine shone with particular splendour, as though the insignia of their home Chapters that were inscribed there had been ritually purified. Their left shoulders bore the mark of the Deathwatch: a skull set against the Inquisitorial ‘I,’ one eye studded with a faintly glowing red gem.

The Deathwatch line was broken, punctuated by spaces where Marines should be standing. The two Crimson Fists that fell during the expedition to the surface of Herodian IV were missing, as was Kulac, the heroic Space Wolf. Each had been a great hero in his own right. Each carried the pride of their ancient Chapter and the glory of the Deathwatch into the afterlife ...

And then there were these Mantis Warriors, their emerald green armour polished and shimmering to the point of perfection, not sullied by a single imperfection or darkened with even a touch of black. Before the Badab Wars, the Mantis Warriors were second only to the Crimson Fists in the number of Marines that were seconded to the Deathwatch, but not a single Marine from this Chapter had ritually blackened his armour in the service of this elite force in nearly a century.

(copyright Games Workshop ltd, 2005 -- CS Goto)