Featuring the first appearance of fan-favourite Talon Squad, Steve Parker’s short story Headhunted is a pacy, action-packed story of the Deathwatch doing what they do best. Under instructions from the shadowy inquisitor known only as Sigma, Codicier Lyandro Karras of the Death Spectres leads his squad through the bowels of an ork spaceship in a race against time to complete their mission and fight their way back out again. Facing countless thousands of orks to fight through, the five members of the squad must work together as a seamless unit if they are to succeed, and survive.
A great Deathwatch story is a simple pleasure, and here Parker assembles a team of instantly-interesting characters and sends them right into the thick of the action – exactly what you want. There’s nothing too clever, and interestingly no great exploration of any of the Marines’ backstories either. There’s just five cool characters from a varied mixture of Chapters (with no obvious character clashes) whose actions and familiarities demonstrate a sense of shared history. Parker keeps them all quite human, which along with the ticking-clock plot lends this the feel of a classic, tense commando story. It’s not the darkest 40k story, but it’s hugely satisfying.
Click here to buy Headhunted as part of Deathwatch: The Omnibus