Fuck yeah! Thoroughly enjoyed both of those stories especially the concept of the Machinae Sacra Culleus. Never actually read a good grim account of where servitors etc. come from and nailed it regarding the futile dark lives of crims in 40k. Thanks heaps for the read! Really good to see a (finally) good game for 40k and the addition of lore attributed solely to it. Keep up the good work!

Pros of the first part:

1. Great description of penal guardsmen, what they are without their collars and why they are in penal legion.

2. Perfect capture of war-torn planet.

3. Wild guesses who is who - who is bad, who is good.

4. Extreme levels of gore and cruelty. 

Cons:

1. Somehow clunky first chapters about inquisitor in the ship - hard to understand all the things going on, I had to stop and re-read whole segments to clear for myself whats going on. 

2. New W40k readers wount understand anything about whats going on inside the ship - too many fancy terms of 40k.

3. I find new trend in W40k novels - authors started to include something positive in their writings, even grim dark and dark grim sometimes have to have some spark of light (we can take newest "The Magos" novel as a perfect example) - "Burden", on the other hand, is extremely negative story and if this inquisitor in the end is a "good" guy, he already have done too many bad things to be allowed to live - Eisonehorn or Covenant would have him executed :)  

All in all great start, I hope the author is involved in story writing within "Martyr".