Few things are as bleakly heroic as a desperate stand against overwhelming odds, and in his Warhammer 40,000 short story Duty Unto Death Marc Collins ramps the concept up to eleven with a tale of the Adeptus Custodes standing against the ravening tyranid hordes. Stranded on the burning surface of a volcanic death world, a handful of Custodians make what preparations they can before the numberless swarms of alien monstrosities crash down upon them. As they stand their ground, determined to protect their precious cargo, the battlefield comes to represent the distant fortress the Custodes were engineered to defend.
Adapted from a brief snippet of background text in a recent 40k Codex, this is a short and action-packed story which really plays up the ‘one man army’ aspect of the Custodes as they battle wave after wave of increasingly deadly xenos creatures. There’s more to it than just fighting though, as Collins takes an almost allegorical approach to the story – what matters is less whether six Custodians could really take on an entire tyranid swarm, but rather the sacrifices they make and the defiance they represent. It’s a smart representation of these unusual 40k characters – heroic, but perhaps futile, as even if they survive what can they truly hope to achieve? – and as a standalone story it’s evocative and entertaining despite its brevity.
Duty Unto Death is currently only available in the Nexus & Other Stories anthology from Black Library.
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