Ciaphas Cain - Service History: Throughout his service in the Officio Prefectus Commissariat, Cain seems to have served predominantly with regiments raised from the Ice World of Valhalla. He picked up a number of their habits and slang terms, although he never became enamoured of the cold they enjoyed, or their habit of taking showers in ice water.His loyal aide Ferik Jurgen was a Valhallan Guardsman who happened to be a psychic Blank, and served Cain faithfully for many standard years. Also with him was future General Jenit Sulla, early in her career. She was a lieutenant in most of the published extracts from the "Cain Archive," later promoted to captain.Cain began his service as a commissar with the Valhallan 12th Field Artillery in 919.M41, apparently as a commissar attached to the command battery, but soon took up duties over the entire regiment.His first taste of battle came in 919.M41 was on the world of Desolatia, where the regiment had been defending against an assault by Orks, but soon they were faced with a Tyranid splinter hive fleet, which they held out against until an Imperial Navy fleet arrived to pick up the Imperial forces remaining on the planet. During the Tyranid landing, Cain attempted outright desertion in a commandeered Salamander, only to run directly into a previously unnoticed flanking force, including a Hive Tyrant. His panicked contact report and desperate retreat back to the lines were misinterpreted, according to his own account, as a heroically successful scouting mission and baiting maneuver, painting the first strokes of his grand reputation.Cain, and his regiment's next destination was the planet of Keffia, where he spent a restful few years of the decade of the 920s M41, and the only major battle he participated in was assisting the local Enforcers (calling themselves Custodes, though the title is unrelated to the Adeptus Custodes of the same name) in revealing a Genestealer infestation in the sector and assisting in the defence of the Custodes' headquarters.From Keffia, Cain went in 924.M41 to the world of Perlia, where he was first earmarked for greater things. After a space battle, he and his adjutant Jurgen were left isolated on the ground of Perlia, presumed dead after their escape pod crashed behind Ork lines.From there, he raised an army of freed slaves and PDF survivors and, in what became known as the March of the Liberator, successfully fought his way through the Orks to the Imperial front line, killing the Ork Warlord personally. The Imperial forces took the opportunity to attack the remaining Ork forces, who were in disarray.On the world of Slawkenberg, Cain and three Guardsmen were nearly seduced by a Chaos sorceress whilst accompanying scouts, but managed to destroy the enemy position with artillery.From there, Cain was assigned to Commissariat Command for a few years, which was at first a simple desk job, but his reputation meant that he was sent on risky missions. These included a trip in 928.M41 to Interitus Prime, a Necron Tomb World, Viridia and Viridia Secundus, the cleansing of a space hulk, campaigns against the Craftworld Aeldari, the cleansing of the world of Sanguia, and the campaign to reclaim Archipelaga.He survived these campaigns purely by being able to keep his head down, and commonly being the only survivor. Before long, he requested transfer back to a full regiment since it seemed to be less dangerous work.Of these experiences, Cain notes that his encounter with the Necrons was the most horrific, and left the most lasting impression on him.Currently the majority of extracts available from the Cain Archive tell of his time serving with the 597th Valhallan Regiment. While serving with that regiment Cain appears to have been very close to the troopers, particularly with the senior officers with which he had a personal friendship.This bond is only natural; Cain himself can be said to be responsible for founding the regiment in 931.M41, which was comprised of the combined remains of the 301st and 296th Valhallan Regiments. One was an all-male, frontline assault regiment, and the other was an all-female, rear-echelon garrison regiment. Designated the 296th/301st Valhallan Regiment, they had a deep and bitter resentment of each other, which escalated into a cafeteria riot which left a few regiment members and a few transport voidship's crewmen dead.Cain took steps and petitioned the Administratum to allow the regiment to be renamed the 597th Valhallan Regiment -- which was the sum of 296 + 301, a name symbolic of their origins while also enforcing the unity of the combined regiment. He insisted on mixing troopers from both regiments in every squad, and instituted a few rewards for good behaviour and performance, practices which turned it into an unified and disciplined force, and remained traditional even after he moved on from the regiment.Cain was present with the 597th Valhallan Regiment of the Astra Militarum for their first action during the Gravalax Incident of 931.M41, where he was awarded the Order of Merit of Gravalax, Second Class, for his part in preventing the T'au Empire's annexation of the planet Gravalax on the Eastern Fringes of the Imperium. Cain was to joke in later years that if he had allowed the T'au to kill Governor Grice, the grateful populace would have given him the First Class decoration!In truth, the planet had been infested by a Genestealer Cult that had been trying to spark off a meaningless war over a backwater planet between the T'au and the Imperium in order to distract them both from the approach of a Tyranid hive fleet.It was during this affair that Cain first encountered Inquisitor Amberley Vail, and also discovered that his aide Jurgen was in fact a psychic Blank: a trait which saved Cain's life as he duelled the Genestealer Patriarch.The campaign concluded with the death of Governor Grice, revealed to be a member of the cult, at the hands of Inquisitor Vail and the withdrawal of T'au military assets from Gravalax.A year later, in 932.M41, Cain served on the world of Simia Orichalcae, defending a refinery against Ork predations and an awakening Necron threat beneath the ice.Shortly after this in 933.M41, he was sent to the planet Periremunda in the wake of a civil uprising. It was discovered that Genestealers were behind the uprising, and had already attracted the attention of a Tyranid splinter fleet. After many hard-fought battles, the infection was finally cleansed, and a rogue Inquisitor neutralised in the bargain.After fighting the xenos Hrud on Skekwi and Orks on Kastafore, Cain arrived at Adumbria in 937.M41, where he assisted in uncovering a Chaos ritual and defending against landing Chaos forces. His actions defeated a Daemon Prince and prevented the transformation of the planet into a Daemon World.He was later court-martialed, an action initiated by Commissar Tomas Beije, for leaving the front line on Adumbria to attack the site of the Daemon Prince's summoning, but Cain was cleared of all wrongdoing, and Beije was charged himself for obstructing Cain's activities. Beije was later acquitted after Cain testified that Beije was incompetent but did mean well and was attempting to perform his duties as he believed them to be.The Valhallan 597th was called on in 938.M41 to help with the pacification of Lentonia. They arrived as the battle took a new and sinister form; a strange plague was sweeping through the Astra Militarum and locals alike, and those killed by it would rise from their graves to attack the still-living.Attempts to create a vaccine worked in laboratory settings, but failed when used on the infected. Cain happened to notice that a cut Jurgen had suffered from one revenant had healed completely, when less-severe wounds inflicted by their claws festered in others. Cain realised that there was both a physical and Warp factor to the unnatural plague, and that Jurgen's Blank nature had blocked the second factor, allowing him to heal normally.At Cain's suggestion, some vaccine was blessed by a hierophant of the Ecclesiarchy, and then proved fully effective. While carrying blessed vaccine to be placed in artillery shells for use against the revenants, Cain and Jurgen encountered the Nurglite Chaos Cult controlling the revenants and destroyed them.In 942.M41 Cain and the Valhallan 597th were tasked with suppressing an Ork outbreak on Nusquam Fundumentibus, a remote Ice World outside of major Warp routes, where Cain had been on a mission two solar decades earlier. While pursuing the action against the Orks, Cain discovered the presence of a Tyranid swarm that had been hibernating for millennia (likely since pre-Imperial times, certainly long before the arrival of Hive Fleet Behemoth) in the planet's permafrost, carried over by a crashed Hive Ship. The swarm was partially awakened by the action on the planet, but the Hive Mind was destroyed before it could become fully operational, largely due to Cain's efforts.In the mid 900s.M41, Cain left regimental service to become the Commissarial Liaison Officer on Lord General Zyvan's staff. As with his earlier command posting, it wasn't quite the routine desk job he was hoping for.In 990.M41, T'au sympathisers in the Deepwater System would have destroyed Zyvan's flagship (with the lord general on board) had Cain not intervened.In 991.M41, Cain accompanied reinforcements to Quadravidia, then under attack by the T'au, and was present when the T'au requested a truce to deal with Hive Fleet Kraken. Cain then accompanied Zyvan and a T'au emissary to Fecundia to coordinate that world's defences.An undated fragment from the "Cain Archive" may fall in this time period as well, or may be from one of the occasions when he was pulled out of retirement during the Tyrannic Wars.Cain was forced into a temporary alliance with a Drukhari Succubus when a Tyranid force attacked the world both were on. The Succubus attempted to capture Cain to boost her own standing in her cult, but he outwitted her in the resulting duel and slew her. He then ordered an airstrike to destroy the Webway portal the Wych Cult had used to reach the planet.