u/lobster556mm

Looking at getting back in after a few years out because the leaving plan went to hell. Considering my options and saw some roles like RAF WSOp give direct entry at Sgt level with all the joy that entails.

Im cant see any other roles that do that aside from obvious ones perhaps like medical/law qualified bods. My question is does anyone know of any other roles with direct entry at higher rank?

Happy for any of the 3 services, just prefer Army as its where I was before

IMO this book deserves all the recognition it can get and I fully recommend it. It really gave some great characters for the shattered legions, before this book Ill be honest I had zero interest in any of them but that's fully changed now. A great look also at one of the biggest events in 30k.

This excerpt is pretty grim, the IH legionary fought bravely and to end up like this is just tragic. I know that's the nature of the whole situation, but his tale really stood out to me.

MAJOR Spoilers for the ending, although we all know essentially how the massacre goes for the Loyalists, this is more of a spoiler for this character in particular and what happens to him.

Context spoiler:
Context: Iron Hands tank commander Castrmen Orth is badly wounded and trapped in his tank turret after a long and vicious battle. The Emperors Children are sweeping the battlefield for spoils of war/prisoners and find him there.

>

Castrmen Orth is amongst the living. Half crushed in the hull of Cold Iron, he cannot move. His hearts refuse to release him to death. He is still conscious when the hatch above him opens. A face looks down at him. It has crystal bubbles fused over its lidless eyes. A pipe vanishes into a socket where its mouth should be. It is wearing a robe of thick plastek. Blood marks both its face and robes. The eyes stare at Orth. He tries to spit back. He cannot. His jaw is broken along with half his skull. He shifts, squirms. He feels no pain. His body has shut that possibility down.

>The figure tilts its head. Orth hears something click behind its mouth pipe. It reaches into the wreckage. Its limb is an augmetic hook. It finds purchase inside Orth’s armour collar. It strains. Bones crack. Connection sockets linking Orth to the dead tank tear free. The figure jiggles him, like a tooth still holding on to a rotting gum. Then Orth comes free. Bits of him remain with the tank. Still he feels no pain. His sight is blurring at the edges, fuzzing to grey. He is dragged across the ground. There are more figures with robes of bloody plastek. Some are carrying or dragging remains of Raven Guard, Iron Hands and Salamanders.

>The hook pulling Orth slackens its hold. A face appears, looking down at him. Crusted crimson spots the gaunt features and lank white hair. It is an Apothecary, marked by the helix. For an instant, a part of Orth’s misfiring mind thinks this might be one of his own Legion.

>‘Alive,’ says the Apothecary. ‘Gene-seed in neck and chest intact. A veteran. Significant augmentation. Ah…’ The Apothecary is looking into Orth’s remaining eye. ‘Still conscious. A considerably higher than normal tolerance to damage. Yes, this one will be a useful specimen.’ The Apothecary gestures. Figures hurry forwards. Needles and tubes are punched into Orth’s flesh. He feels a jolt as the fog at the edge of his sight clears. Pain comes too. The Apothecary is still looking at him when Orth hears a new voice. It cuts through the noise and the pain. It is like a note carried by struck crystal.

>‘Fabius…’

>The Apothecary turns, and as he does, Orth sees who spoke. It is Fulgrim. He has a sword in his hand. Its hangs loose in his grasp. There is blood on its curve, and red drops shake from its point. And in his other hand…

>Black. Sudden black. Edge to edge. The feeling of falling without the promise of the ground to end it. On and on, down and down… into the null of thought.

>Orth’s mind has shut down at the point where it needed to process what he sees… There… hanging in Fulgrim’s hand, staring back at Orth with chrome eyes.

>A jolt and the world comes back, too bright and too clear. He can taste bloody foam in his mouth. He must have tried to scream. The Apothecary is staring at him, looking between Orth and the head in Fulgrim’s hand.

>‘Fascinating… A gene-keyed response perhaps? Intended by design, or a factor that was never accounted for in the original design?’

>‘Fabius…’ says Fulgrim again. He is smiling. He looks both more vital than anything alive and as waxen as a painted cadaver. ‘I have a gift for you.’

>Fulgrim steps aside as warriors in blood-daubed purple pull a corpse into view. It is the rest of Ferrus Manus.

>Orth is falling inside his skull. All data is null. All meaning ended.

>The body is grey with the dust of the plateau. The silver hands are dull, the fingers slack. It is so still.

>Orth falls and falls and falls. No input. No logic to unmake this.

>Fulgrim gestures at the corpse. ‘You will find this of much interest, I am sure.’

>Fabius kneels. He closes his eyes. There is a wild tremor in his movements.

>‘Thank you, my lord,’ he says, the words breathless, as though he is a child who has been given all he has hungered for and more. Fulgrim’s vulpine smile twitches to show ivory. Then he turns away. Fabius looks up, the glee in his eyes now a gleam of gluttony. ‘The head, my lord?’

>Fulgrim turns back. He looks down at the head in his hand. There is another look in his eyes then, just for an instant, a flash of panic, a silent scream that can never be given voice. Then the kin-killer smiles wide and there is only malice in the blood-flecked face.

>‘This?’ He holds the head up. The casualness of the movement is an obscenity. ‘This is for someone else, my son.’ He gestures with it towards the distance. ‘Come with me and see.’