Alan Dean Foster is the uncredited ghostwriter for Lucas novelization of Star Wars Splinter of the Mind's Eye was the second novel to be used as a basis for a low-budget sequel to Star Wars in case the film was not successful but Read more
best described as "Dirty Dozen" set in the 40K universe 4 books Amazon doesn't have the things correctly archived here the order and links book1 book2 book3 book4

The Skinner is the first book in Neal Asher’s Spatterjay series set in a lethal waterworld.
To the remote planet Spatterjay come three travellers with very different missions. Janer is directed there by the hornet Hive-mind; Erlin comes to find the sea captain who can teach her to live; and Keech – dead for seven hundred years – has unfinished business with a notorious criminal.
Spatterjay is a watery world where the human population inhabits the safety of the Dome and only the quasi-immortal hoopers are safe outside amidst a fearful range of voracious life-forms. Somewhere out there is Spatterjay Hoop himself, and monitor Keech cannot rest until he can bring this legendary renegade to justice for atrocious crimes committed centuries ago during the Prador Wars.
Keech does not realize that Hoop’s body is running free on an island wilderness, while his living head is confined in a box on an Old Captain’s ships. Nor does he know that the most brutal Prador of all is about to pay a visit, intent on wiping out all evidence of his wartime atrocities. Which means major hell is about to erupt in this chaotic waterscape.