#pre-heresy

Horus Heresy: The Overlanders – 303rd is the first in a series chronicling the lives of soldiers from the 303rd Regiment of the Khymerian Overlanders. Focused primarily on 3rd Company and A-Platoon, the story follows the men and women of 1st Battalion, 3rd Company of the 201st Brigade—“The Overlanders”—as they undergo harsh training and prepare to join the Great Crusade under the banner of the Imperial Army.

Set a few years before the Istvaan III betrayal, during the twilight years of the Crusade, this story explores the overlooked human element of the Imperium’s conquests—before the galaxy burned. The events take place around the same time as the early chapters of False Gods, shortly after the Triumph at Ullanor and the elevation of Horus to Warmaster, but before the full onset of the Heresy.

As the series progresses, its focus may shift across companies, campaigns, or even entire regiments—following wherever the war leads.

Chapter 1: Ready and willing

I.

“…When compliance came to Khymeria, it was at the hands of the Legiones Astartes, the Solar Auxillia, and the Imperial Army. They brought our planet—swamps and ice an all—into the fold of the greater Imperium of Mankind. And, like all new Imperial worlds, there was the requirement to supply new armed forces to the join the crusade that sought to unify us under one banner.

There were the levies—drawn from conscript lotteries, prison blocks, and the planetary militia—men and women press-ganged or forced into services.

Then there was us—the volunteers.

We put our hands up to join the Imperial Army. We received better training, better equipment, slept in cots instead of mud, and had the benefit of a weekend off…if the Discipline Masters didn’t award us an infraction…”

—Harlan Dockryn

Extract from Khymeria’s Finest, 187.M31

II.

003005.M31 — Camp Halvar, Khymeria Proxima Secundus.

The field of Camp Halvar was alive with activity. Heavy boots thudded against frost-hardened gravel. Cargo-8’s hissed and growled as they reversed and navigated between the township of crates that had slowly begun to form. The air smelled of gun oil, ozone, and the sharp tang of burning promethium. The kind of smell that caught in the back of the throat and lingered for days behind the teeth. Like you’d swallowed a live charge and couldn’t spit it out.

Thousands of personnel—Khymerian-born and Crusade-Assigned—moved with purpose toward departure of the 201st, the Khymerian Overlanders, and their sister brigades. It was the kind of orderly chaos that only a military force of this size could manage, maintain and control: highly trained bodies moving like cogs in a machine just fast enough not to seize. Not fast enough to break. Not slow enough to fall behind.

But— Beneath the orderly movements, a quiet but palpable tension ran like a current. The shoulders of troopers hunched just a little tighter. Friendly chatter came clipped and brief. Eyes flicked skyward—toward the light of the voidships. Or more importantly: Home.

Khymeria hung on the horizon. A swirling marble of colour in a pale sky. It dwarfed the camp, the transports, The people. And Some of them couldn’t stop looking at it, like it would vanish if they blinked. Most of them would never see it again. Let alone set foot on it.

Aside from their transfer to Camp Halvar, most of the Overlanders had never left their home districts—never even crossed a province. And here they were marching into the sky. Into war.

Even in the way they marched—backs bowed under regulation packs, grav-chute rigs, and lasrifles clattering against flak—there was an unmistakable current. Not fear. Readiness. A pressure, hot and low, waiting to be released.

Some were repacking, redocumenting—double- and triple-checking laid out personnel equipment against kit lists. It had been drilled into them, and reinforced by the logistico officers just this morning:

“It is your responsibility to ensure you have everything you need before embarking on a transport. Replacement times for lost and forgotten equipment may vary”.

Disciplinarians and nerves had even the calmest troopers fidgeting with buckles and ammo pouches. Even the old hands. And especially the new ones.

Those not checking kit were trying to grab something else—a moment of calm, a sliver of normal. A trooper sat cross legged on a crate, shaving the scalp of another with slow, deliberate care. The blade gleamed in the morning light. A testament to both its edge—and the trust between comrades.

Another stood theatrically in the middle of a knot of troopers from a neighbouring battalion, spinning a clearly embellished story about a weekend pass that ended in a brothel and a bar brawl. All of them laughing harder than the story deserved. All of them trying to bank a moments joy, just in case.

Others slept where they could. Helmets tipped forward. Bedrolls under heads. Rifles clutched like children’s toys.

III.

Corporal Dnwickor—short and stocky, second-in-command of the Second Squad—had swapped his personal gear for armfuls of parcels and letters. He weaved—mostly successfully—through the scatter of kit piles and loitering squads.

“Larfinel!” he barked. “Anyone seen Roan Larfinel?”

“Here, Fen,” said a wiry trooper, stepping out from a nearby tangle crates. “What’ve you got for me?”

Dnwickor handed over a box, which Larfinel snatched with a grunt that served as thanks. Without another word, he turned and stepped back towards his gear. 

“What you got there, Ro?” asked Trooper Varnel, one of a knot of suddenly curious onlookers gathering like scav-dogs to a dropped ration tin. 

Larfinel opened the envelope first. “It’s from my old man,” he muttered, brow furrowing in concentration. He mouthed the words once before speaking them aloud, lips dry. 

“Lad, hope this keeps you safe on your great adventure,” 

He passed the letter to nearby squadmate, already reaching for the box. 

The lid popped open with a dry creak—and inside, nestled in cloth, was a cleaning nickel-plated stubpistol.

He laughed, loud and startled, as he pulled it free. Squadmates leaned in, hooting and jostling him, boots scuffing against gravel and crates thumping as they circled like kids at a campfire.

“Lucky being the son of a weaponsmith…eh, fellas?” Larfinel grinned, raising the pistol and sighting down the barrel. The others leaned in closer—moths to the warmth of a brief, impossible fire. It wasn’t about the pistol It was proof someone remembered. Proof someone cared.

IV.

Sergeant Brant Vyricen half-walked, half-marched along the edge of the apron, sidestepping Cargo-8’s and supply lifts that roared by like beasts of burden. A militia veteran and pushing the wrong side of his thirties, he was no stranger to the machinations of logistical maneuvers—the kind that had purloined what was once their drill square and turned it into a freight highway.

He moved with the gait of a man who had never left his boots long enough to remember comfort. Like the ground beneath him trembled not by passing trucks, but in deference. He carried the same quiet defiance that made him volunteer when his number didn’t come up in the conscription lottery. Unattached. Unremarkable on paper. Yet—still out pacing men a decade younger in the line. Still putting in the work. 

His dark-stained Khymerian Pattern IV ‘Line rifle’ hung over his shoulder—a slab-sided, wood-laminated lasrifle, a beast born of native soil. Long-barreled. Straight-backed. Unwieldy at first glance.

But troopers swore by it. It’s iron sights felt alive. The weight? Perfect. A rifle that taught you how to shoot. 

The Munitorum called it a provincial indulgence. Khymerians called it loyal. 

The Mark IV was the forth iteration of a long line of rifles, used in one form or another since the first settlers tamed Khymeria’s swamps. So they said. Vyricen’s own was dulled by years of use. The sling worn smooth as bone. Faint scorch marks near the muzzle whispered of uncounted firing drills gone both right and wrong. He trusted it more than most people. 

“A-Platoon, Second Squad!” Vyricen’s voice cracked out with the ease of long habit. “Head over to Medicate Mapstone for your shots. That means you too, Wattelson.”

Each trooper was receiving a cocktail of antivirals and anti-ague injectants—a standard issue jab, and hakk’n large enough to make your teeth itch. Side-effects included dizziness, nausea, and, for some, a quiet nap under medicae supervision. C-Platoon had dubbed it “The Woozies.”

Better that than the fevers that followed void travel. Most believed it. Vyricen wasn’t convinced. His nose hadn’t stopped running since they first landed. 

Worse was the medicae tent itself. It was your standard command pavilion—but instead of chart tables and vox rigs, it was antiseptic scrub, bone saws, and the faint maddening jungle of metal trays and sterillised instruments. The kind of sound that promised blood, even when there wasn't any.

No one liked it. Vyricens least of all. 

But one by one, they lined up. Swore. Winced. Rubbed their arms—and got on with it. 

V.

Lieutenant Harlan Dockryn sighed as he tucked the dispatch sheet into one of the stretched leather pouches of his jerkin, making the strained seams seem to groan just a little louder. We’re it a living thing, it’d be asking for hazard pay. 

The jerkin—like every trooper in the brigade, officers included—was dark groxhide, reinforced with plasteel mesh. Its surface was scuffed, salt-stained, and sweat-worn. The pockets bulged with scribbled orders, ration wrappers, and a half-eaten nutrient bar…somewhere.

It was a traditional Khymerian garment. Modernised. Armoured. Worn only by volunteers. Lightweight. Flexible. Iconic. 

And more importantly, it had pockets. Pockets filled with food, orders, and dirt. 

Though the dispatch sheet he’d just received—he counted that as dirt too. It wasn’t the content that irked him. It was the timing. There was a subtle art to building tension in a formation. To fire up a regiment, then to pull them back from the brink? That was like trying to cork a running fire hose with a tea-strainer.

Dockryn pushed himself off the side of the staff car and looked out across the field. 

Activity rolled around him in practised rhythm. Too eager, he through. To sharp at the edges. You could smell the waiting. It clung to the air like cold grease to a fryer wall, refusing to burn off

No real noise to it. Just a sense—tight shoulders, busy hands, voices that didnt quite match their words. 

An already long day was about to get longer. He pulled up his left sleeve, checked his battered chrono, then let it slide back down again. The dispatch sat in his pocket like an anchor. 

His hands fell to his belt, fingers tapping—a reflex, not a thought. “I need to talk to a Discipline Master,” he muttered. His tone wasnt annoyed, or tired. Just flat. Resigned. The ound of someone bracing for a fresh round of shuffling pieces.

Another glance at the half-crumpled dispatch in his pocket. He didn’t want to read it again. Didn’t need too.

VI.

“Sir,” Vyricen said with the crunch of boots and a crisp, professional salute. Dockryn returned it—though not nearly as sharp. His mind was still wrapped around the wafer-thin dispatch.

He tilted his head skyward, just slightly—as if seeing the voidships might somehow change the brewing situation for the better. Nothing. Just faint engine trails and a sky that refused to darken. 

His fingers twitched at his belt, again. Like most of the Three-oh-third, Dockryn was thinking about what came next. The difference was, he had to think about all of them—and was cursed with knowing just a little bit more, a little earlier. 

“How’s the mood? Dockryn asked. 

Vyricen unslung his rifle and leaned it carefully against the staff car. A slow, deliberate motion. It was a pause as if to say Give me a moment. But…Do i need to say it? 

The Platoon Sergeant was capable of conveying so much in the shift of his shoulder. Quiet gravity, without the need for weighty words.

“Eager. Nervous. Excited. Just wanting to get over it.” he said as he folded his arms. His breath fogged between them. “And wanting to not be constantly reminded that home is right there.”

He gestured towards the swollen sky. Khymeria hung above them, serene and uncaring. Watchful.

Dockryn nodded slowly. He chewed the inside of his lip. That distant look again—like if he stared hard enough, the orbitals might blink first. 

Then—

“Well Bran, a tough day is about to become a tough few days.”

“Sir?”

Dockryn didn’t answer. He checked his chrono again and then nodded to an officer now standing atop a nearby cargo lifter.  

“Third Company! Listen up!”

The voice cracked across the field like a mortar shell. Movement stopped. Conversations froze mid-word. Troopers turned. The air itself seemed to still. 

The hum of engines, the clatter of boots—even the bark of orders—dimmed. 

“Warp activity and a refueling incident at High Anchor have delayed our departure by two days. You are on stand-down until further notice. Platoon officer—get your men squared away.”

No one spoke. But disappointment spread like rot.

Shoulder sagged. A trooper sat down hard on a crate. Others dropped their packs or started to wander in a daze—as if looking for someone to give them meaning.

“Shit…” Vyricen breathed.

“Yep.”

Dockryn slung his lasrifle across his back, “A-Platoon—squad sergeants on me!”

VI.

  “...There are few things that any soldier, of any stripe, hates more than waiting. Except, perhaps, those in the Legiones Astartes—though they are no mere mortals, and there are no words I could use to come close to describe those beings.

But the wait…that’s the real curse.

In training, one of the first things you’re taught is that your life will be ninety-five percent waiting, and five percent sheer, unadulterated terror. The problem is—you spend ninety-five percent of the time thinking about that last five. 

The Munitorum—and the wider Imperial Army—offer, and indeed condone, distractions. Certain kinds of alcohol. Pict-films. And a whole class of followers and traders—family members, hangers-on, chancers and vendors—who turn towntime into a thriving grey- and black-market economy. 

That presented two problems for the Overlanders. 

One—we weren’t yet used to that kind of downtime freedom. Not really. Not after nearly two solid years of drills, regs, and Discipline Masters counting your heartbeats

And two—we didn’t have any sort of camp following yet. Not even a trader. We hadn’t even left our founding grounds…”

—Harlan Dockryn 

Extract from Khymeria’s Finest, 187.M31

VII.

         That evening—if it could be called that—settled over Camp Halvar and Khymeria Proxima Secundus. A fragile calm, taut as a tripwire, stretched across the parade fields. Thousands of men and women clung to routine like lifelines. Or at least—thousands of Khymerian men and women. The veterans of the Great Crusade carried on as if this was nothing out of the ordinary. Whether that was something to strive towards, or feel sorry for was open to debate. By someone else. Dockryn didn’t have the luxury of time for such debates.

Lieutenant Dockryn stepped out from the officer’s mess, the warmth already fading from his hands. He slung his lasrifle, balanced a tin mug of caffeine on a crate, and pulled on his gloves. 

Evening on the moon wasn’t like evening on Khymeria. Night never truly came—not here. It wasn’t so much a curtain. It was a suggestion. Always eclipsed by the presence of the homeworld. He’d long since stopped trying to adjust to it. Sleep had become a negotiation, not a schedule.

Dockryn wondered—more than once in the near-year he’d been stationed here—just how many worlds would feel like this. Hung between night and day. Life and death. Enemy and compliance. On how many would he feel suspended—half a man in half a light—before he saw real war? Someone could do the maths on that. Base it on life expectancy. Travel time. Dwelling on it wasn’t something he tended to do—except in these brief moments where he was entirely by himself. Allowed a breath of reflection. A glimpse of his place in a galaxy that, until recently, had felt smaller. Safer. 

  Khymeria shone above—vast and luminous—casting a light like no sun ever had—at least not in his experience. It was wrapped in a gossamer planetary ring that, depending on where you looked, was either blue, green, or iridescent mother-of-pearl. The ring traced the path of Khymneria Proxima Secundus, and, if you followed it long enough, the more distant Khymeria Proxima. In any normal model of a planetary system, Khymeria and Secundus would orbit a shared barycentre. But Proxima’s mass and almost mathematical precision made it act as a gravitational cantilever to Proxima Secundus. 

Dockryn had learned all this, like most homeworlders, in school or lecture hall. Right now, however—on the eve of something, no matter how long delayed—it looked holy. And he hated that. Hated that it felt sacred when nothing about what came next would be. He didn’t know why it unsettled him. Only that it did. 

Perhaps, he thought, it’s just the romance of seeing home one last time. He picked up his mug and started walking—aimless. One more loop. One more patrol. One more moment to pretend the galaxy wasn’t already shifting beneath his feet. One more breath of quiet. 

Short-lived.

Footsteps approached behind him. Familiar cadence. He turned—and sure enough, lit by the planetary glow, came two figures.

Lieutenant Calder Brannick—long-time friend, logistics officer, and conjurer of miracles. A man who could find rations in an empty crate and rewrite a cargo manifest with one hand while eating with the other. Swagger incarnate, competent to a fault, and utterly incapable of making a uniform look worn rather than survived. Dockryn had once told him, when he’d been written up for his state of dress, that he looked like a supply closet had thrown up on him. Brannick took it as a compliment. 

And beside him—Discipline Master Jorrick Vyrenal. Clad in a high—collared coat with a little too much starch, smelling faintly of dried root-bark. A man who never quite shook the sense that soldiers were inmates with weapons. Though, in fairness, the distinction was often academic. But in the past twenty-two months, Vyrenal had learned to wield nuance alongside his goad.

“Gentlemen,” Dockryn greeted them between sips of caffeine. They walked a few more paces before peeling off beside a stack of supply crates—unspoken habit dictating the pause. 

“Any word, Cal?” Dockryn asked. Brannick fished out a tobac-stick, slid it between his lips, and struck a light with the flick of steel. He leaned back against a crate inconspicuously marked flammable and exhaled a plume of blue-grey smoke into the strange not-night. 

He shook his head. “Nope. Just the usual. Prepare to stand by.”

A pause. The glow of the stick flared as he inhaled again. He exhaled slowly, this time through his nose. Then, with a grin.

“Our friend here,” he said, gesturing with his chin, “had a little excitement.”

“Oh?” Dockryn arched a brow.

Vyrenal cleared his throat. Dockryn realised, belatedly, that he’d been unusually quiet—not a word. 

“Uh, well,” he said, clearing his throat again. Dockryn thought he saw a flicker of embarrassment—but there wasn’t time to be sure. 

 “A few troopers from Second and Third Companies were gambling.” His tone neutral. Names conspicuously absent.

Dockryn’s brow climbed his forehead. “We’re relaxed tonight, but gambling’s still a charge. Is it not?” He gave Brannick a look, which received a subtle nod of affirmation.

“Yes, well…” Vyrenal scratched at his cheek stubble—the universal gesture of buy me a moment.

“Go on,” Brannick prompted, grinning like a groxhound that smelled weakness. Almost wolfish.

“I gave them a choice: Latrine duty for a week…or—”

“Or?” Brannick prompted quickly.

“They could beat me in a hand, and I’d let it slide.”

Dockryn opened his mouth—then let his teeth click shut. He poked his tongue along the inside of his cheek and lips. Trying to tease out the right words. If, a little choked.

“And, how’d that go?” he asked tightly. The grin was already forming—he had a fair idea. Another pause. Then a long, wounded sigh.  “They cleared out a month’s worth of pay.” Brannick chuckled, smoke curling from his nose. Dockryn let the smile come.

“Not very disciplinarian of you,” Brannick said through the tail end of a laugh. 

“Now sir,” Vyrenal cleared his throat—part solemn, part protesting, and maybe just a little bti wounded at having his expertise called into question. “Morale is just as important as regimental discipline.” He sounded like he was quoting from a primer, even as he rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. Dockryn made a mental note to never forget this moment. Discipline Masters, in his experience, didn’t usually squirm. 

“Knowing when to apply the goad,” Vyrenal added, “is just as important as knowing when not to.”

A long silence followed. “Two years to get here,” Brannick finally said, his voice quieter now. More reflective. 

“And this next day and a half is going to feel like a decade.” Dockryn nodded slowly. His eyes lifted toward the glowing world above. 

"They strike swift and true leaving no room for their enemies to recover or realize they have been set upon. Their art is furious and deadly and so I name them as such." - The Phoenician

Chapter Structure:

Hadrah (Lord Commander) - Xurok Malek

Anusiya (Consuls) - Javid Akemè, Aphra Safavi, Enayat Mahdavi, Adrian Malek, Negin Abdi

Spahbad (Equerries) - Ergo Reid, Samira Pakdel, Akhtar Sehat, Gohar Yekta