In the immense city of Varangantua, life is cheap, but mistakes are expensive. When Probator Agusto Zidarov of the city’s enforcers is charged with locating the missing scion of a wealthy family, he knows full well that the chances of finding him alive are slight. The people demanding answers, though, are powerful and ruthless, and he is soon immersed in a world of criminal cartels and corporate warfare where even an enforcer’s survival is far from guaranteed.

For Ianthe, war is all too familiar. A former soldier in the Astra Militarum, she now serves Inquisitor Covenant as an agent of the Throne. Her first mission sees her investigating a cult called the Children of Eternity. Falling foul of the local Enforcers, Ianthe soon learns that war in the shadows is seldom straightforward and that the local, angry law-keepers are the least of her troubles.

Legend tells of a foolhardy expedition, led by the radical Magos Telok, that ventured out into the unknown space beyond the Halo Worlds in search of the 'Breath of the Gods' - an arcane device with the power to unmake and reshape the very stars themselves. Thousands of years later, the ambitious Lexell Kotov musters his Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator fleet and sets out to follow in mad old Telok's footsteps.

Belisarius Cawl, Archmagos Dominus of the Adeptus Mechanicus, is the most brilliant mind alive. For 10,000 years he has furthered the cause of mankind, working under the aegis of the Emperor and Lord Commander Roboute Guilliman to prevent the inexorable march of the alien and the traitor. Many call him heretic, but all must recognise the magnitude of his achievements, for who else but he was entrusted to create a new generation of Space Marines?

This audiobook brings together 13 uproarious short stories and one novella, focused on Ciaphas Cain, Hero of the Imperium. His stories are celebrated as heroic propaganda pieces, but he’s simply trying to stay alive in a hostile galaxy.

Baggit is the fast-talking ratling with an eye for the big score. Clodde is the ogryn with a heart of gold and a head full of dreams. These abhuman deserters-turned-criminals operating in the city of Varangantua have crossed the wrong man for the last time—and now they’re on the run. At least, that is, until Baggit learns of a score that could pay their debts and save their skins—the Wraithbone Phoenix, a fabled treasure rumoured to be hidden aboard a voidship recently scheduled for decommission. But Baggit and Clodde aren’t the only ones with eyes on the prize.

On the forge world of Morod, the machines never stop and the work never ends. The population toils in the mines and factoria to protect humanity from the monsters in the void, while the Adeptus Mechanicus enjoy lives of palatial comfort. Genetor Gammat Triskellian seeks to end this stagnant corruption. When he learns of a twisted congregation operating within the shadows, one which believes that the tech-priests are keeping people from their true salvation, he sees in them an opportunity to bring down Morod's masters and reclaim the world in the name of progress.

Before the being called the Emperor revealed himself, before the rise of the aeldari, before the necrontyr traded their flesh for immortal metal, the world was born in violence. Even when they inhabited bodies of flesh, Trazyn the Infinite and Orikan the Diviner were polar opposites. Trazyn, a collector of historical oddities, presides over a gallery full of the most dangerous artefacts - and people - of the galactic past. Orikan, a chronomancer without peer, draws zodiacs that predict and manipulate the future.

After seven years of bitter war, the end has come at last for the conflict known infamously as the Horus Heresy. Terra now lies within the Warmaster’s sights, the Throneworld and the seat of his father’s rule. Horus’ desire is nothing less than the death of the Emperor of Mankind and the utter subjugation of the Imperium. He has become the ascendant vessel of Chaos and amassed a terrible army with which to enact his will and vengeance. But the way to the Throne will be hard as the primarch Rogal Dorn, the Praetorian and protector of Terra, marshals the defences.

For a thousand years, the Sabbat Worlds have been lost to the Imperium, claimed by the dread powers of Chaos. Now, a mighty crusade seeks to return the sector to Imperial rule. And at the forefront of that crusade are Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt and the Tanith First and Only - better known as Gaunt’s Ghosts. Trapped in the grinding trench warfare of Fortis Binary, the Ghosts find themselves drawn into a conspiracy to assassinate the crusade’s leader, Warmaster Macaroth.

In the hellish sprawl of Imperial Terra, Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor Erasmus Crowl serves as a stalwart protector, for even the Throneworld is not immune to the predations of its enemies. In the course of his duty, Crowl becomes embroiled in a dark conspiracy, one that leads all the way to the halls of the Imperial Palace. As he plunges deeper into the shadowy underbelly of the many palace districts, his investigation attracts the attention of hidden forces, and soon he and his acolyte Spinoza are being hunted.

The skitarii are the soldiers of the Machine God, the tireless legions of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Holy warriors, they carry the word of the Omnissiah across the galaxy, destroying impure machines and spearheading the Quest for Knowledge. A discovery of ancient technology sends a skitarii legion into battle on a forge world overrun by Chaos. When a cataclysm cuts him off from his tech-priest overseers, Stroika must rally his forces and battle both corrupt machines and Chaos Space Marines.

Since the halcyon days of the Great Crusade, these noble rogue trader dynasties have plied the void in the Emperor’s name, answering to whomsoever sits as the king of the Davamir Compact. There has been profit and adventure and abundance in these times… Yet now the galaxy is changed, divided by the birth of the Great Rift. As plans are drawn up for the most immense crusade imaginable, the Emperor’s reborn son demands that the Compact seek a way across the Rift.

When Malus Darkblade learns the location of a powerful relic, he decides he wants it for himself. Malus leads an expedition into the dangerous Chaos Wastes in search of this great weapon but finds far more than he had bargained for. Possessed by a powerful daemon, he must undertake an epic quest to save his very soul.

Opal is a gleaming shrine world of saints and soldiers, beloved of the Emperor Himself. Sent to retrieve the skull of the revered Saint Veres, Sister Superior Augusta of the Order of the Bloody Rose and her squad find themselves in the midst of the capital’s holiest festival, a time of reverence and celebration. But all is not well – despite what its planetary leaders would have Augusta believe, political danger bubbles under the surface, and rebel attacks gnaw away at the city’s outskirts. The greatest threat, however, is yet to come.