Chapter 1: An image of faith
For a moment, silence. Just the glow from the warning light. Complete focus, burdened by fear, countered by courage, and then...The drop! Shear terror grips, the her mind shakes, praying to the emperor that the pod holds strong. Impact, a jarring shudder as the steel trap makes contact. A moment of muffled gunfire and battle cries and the pod doors open, and three sisters poor out into the mayhem of battle...one remains. She stands in the pod, uncertain of what fate has in store for her, knowing only that her sisters cannot fight alone. She gathers her courage and with a mighty cry "In the emperor's name!" charges out to meet her sisters, slashing and burning all enemies who dare raise arm against the imperium.
Strewn across the field; corpses of guardsmen, chaos cultists and the occasional ork. A fierce skirmish wages between the imperium of man, the newly formed chaos cultists of Slaanesh and a few rogue ork war parties. Steel pods continued to rain across the battlefield as sisters wielding flamers turned the enemy battle lines into an inferno. A guardsmen called into his Vox "Artillery, focus all guns towards the center front, punch a hole right through the bastards!" Shells from the guards artillery division rain with divine wrath upon cultist and ork alike as a tide of fire swept through their lines. The sight of the raging fire and their comrades set ablaze set the enemies of the emperor in full retreat. "We have them on the ropes now men, run them down!" the commissar ordered "HUAAAAA!" a roar rose from the guardsmen as they charged the retreating enemy. "Sister's, the day is ours!" Cried out the canoness. "Emperor be praised," The sisters boomed in unison. Respice removed her helmet, allowing her scarlet hair to flow to her shoulders. "M'lady" a voice from behind her posed. Respice turned around to find four guardsmen kneeling before her. "Thank you my lady, thank the emperor that you came when you did," Respice was taken aback by this, she had not yet had dealings with guardsmen, or any other branch of the imperial military for that matter. "Rise guardsmen," a voice beside Respice responded, "This victory belongs to all the emperors children upon this field today," Respice turned to see the cannoness standing next to her. The guardsmen rose. "Return to your commissar" "Yes m'lady," they all responded in unison before jogging off. "Your first deployment," the cannoness stated. She turned to Respice "How do you feel?" "I feel well canoness to be fighting in the emperor's name," the canoness showed a faint smile "You may still call me Maria, Respice," "Yes canoness Maria," The canoness chuckled. "It seems like only yesterday that I first brought you into the ecclesiarchy, you were so small then. But look at you now," Respice smiled, glad that she had made Sister Maria proud. "Come sister, we must make our way to base camp, we have been blessed with victory this day but many more battles, far fiercer than this one, lay ahead of us," "Yes can….sister Maria".
The sisters of battle returned to their recently established base of operations, a few leagues from the guardsman's headquarters. Respice removed her starch white power armor, stained with blood and filth from the prior engagement of arms. She cleaned the heretic and ork blood from her armor, taking special care to clean the symbol of the argent shroud of all blemishes. "Sister Respice," Respice's battle sister approached her. "Sister," Respice addressed "You fought well today sister," "As did you sister Inutila," "We were beginning to fear that you would not be able to make your way out of our drop pod at the beginning of our battle," "I was merely saying a brief prayer" Respice lied "There was plenty of time to do such before hand" Inutila laughed "Excess in piety, sister, is not a sin," Respice mused. Inutila rolled her eyes and walked off. Respice continued to clean her armor with gusto until it shined brightly. "Sister Respice," Respice whipped around. "Yes sister superior!" Respice addressed standing at attention. "Why do you cleanse your armor? We have servitors for such purposes," "I merely enjoy showing my appreciation for all that the emperor has blessed me with sister superior," Respice answered, "You are quite odd you know that Sister Respice," "I have been told so, sister superior," The sister superior chuckled "But oddity in the name of the emperor I suppose is to be admired more than condemned, carry on," "Thank you sister superior," Respice saluted as the sister superior strolled on.
After she had cleaned her armor, Respice joined her sisters in their debriefing/sermon. After the sermon, she said her prayers before laying down for sleep in the barracks. "Respice, Sister of battle, Daughter of the emperor, child of the corpse emperor, spawn of the dead" Respice heard a whispering voice or rather,many voices whispering to her in tandem. "Over here, come forward, this is your path, the path you should travel, the path to be traveled" She wandered in darkness searching for the source of the voices yet regardless of the direction she tread, the voices drew no nearer. Suddenly the voices stopped. A light began to shine behind her, first just a dim glow, yet brighter it grew. She turned to see the emperor, just as depicted in the old texts, in all his glory and majesty, standing before an alter. "Father emperor," Respice knelt and averted her eyes in humility. "Come, step forth my child," The emperors warm voice invited her. Respice felt a sweeping sensation of joy and safety wash over her. She began to step forward but another moved first. A woman, a bride, dressed in the old traditional marital garb, a white shroud over her eyes. The bride glew in a similar yet somewhat more feint manner than the emperor. Her groom stood before the emperor too, tall and strong...yet his face was obscured by the emperors radiance. The bride turned to her groom, and the groom to his bride...but when the groom turned his face, it revealed a hideous birdlike creature.
Respice jolted upwards, her chest heaved with heavy breaths, her forehead began to perspire; what was that hideous creature? she wondered frantically. She had seen it before. How could it have stood in the presence of the emperor without his protest? Why was she presented with such a dream...or perhaps...vision? Respice was frightened. She felt cold...as if the shadows themselves were attempting to grip her. "Perhaps this is simply the chill of the night?" she thought, trying to distract herself from her nightmare. "The nights on this moon were said to be terribly cold during this time of rotation," Too frightened to fall asleep, Respice spent the last 2 hours of the night laying in bed praying fervorously. When day broke she breathed a sigh of relief. A new mission was set before her and her battle sisters during their morning briefing/sermon; the guard had come across an entrenched chaos position in a cliffside fortress, heavily fortified and heavily armed, there was even a report of a sonic cannon wielding squad of chaos space marines, reeking havoc upon the imperial guard. They were to deploy immediately to the battle zone.
Respice dawned her power armor along with her other sisters. She attempted to keep her mind off of the previous night and focus it on the day set before her. She, her battle sisters and other platoons of adeptas sororitas loaded up into their sacred rhino transports and were carried off to battle. There was little conversation inside the transport, the sisters sat in silence, each left to her own thoughts. Respice couldn't help but ponder about her dream, she wasn't sure if she should distract herself from the dream with thoughts of the oncoming battle or visa versa. before she could sort through the mess in her head, the rhino stopped and a voice rang over the vehicles vox "Destination reached, deploy into battle, emperor protect," Respice could her the muffled sounds of battle from inside. She readied her bolter and when the door of the rhino opened, jogged out alongside her sisters, no hesitation this time. When she emerged from the mechanical shell, she saw the cliffside fortress, heavily armed with artillery. The fortress was so thick that even the guards basilisks were having a difficult time penetrating it. Between her and the fortress was about 2 miles of wartorn trenches; shelled, burnt, littered with corpses and the occasional shattered building structure. There were other rhinos deploying battle sisters across the combat zone, "Guardsman!" Inutila boomed. The guardsmen she addressed stood at attention "Yes m'lady!" "Where is your commanding officer," "Over there m'lady" the guardsman gestured towards a camouflaged field command. "As you were," Inutila ordered. "To the command sisters," Respice and her three sisters jogged over to the field command where they were directed to the tactical commissar of the regiment. "Adeptas Sororitas reporting," "Excellent, not a moment too soon, we are preparing to charge, we need every soldier available," Inutila nodded and the sisters jogged towards the front.
As they marched double time through the trenches, the guardsmen cheered for their ecclesiarchal reinforcements. "Sister, the heretics position is still heavily armed and fortified, would a charge not be a foolish?" Respice asked "Silence sister," Inutila hissed "The emperor calls and we answer, his orders we obey without question," "Yes, sister" Respice still felt very unsure about this strategy. A tactical genius or a veteran she was not, but it did not take the brightest mind nor the most seasoned soldier to see the unnecessary risk in this plan. Respice shut out all further questions in her head, all other doubts. "Doubt not the emperor Respice," She muttered to herself "To question to sin, to be doubtful is to be weak, the emperor's love will protect," They reached the front where all along the trench, rows of guardsmen were prepared to mount the fortification and charge the entrenched enemies 200 yards from their position. Respice could spy the peuce power armor of the heretical sound marines one of which lay straight in front of her securing the cliffside flank. They were to be most feared as they could shatter the will of the guardsmen in an instant. Respice noticed a guardsman knelt down next to her. He was very young, he couldn't have been more than 18 standard years old. He was trembling profusely, clearly terrified at the thought of charging such a well fortified position. Respice sympathised with him "Guardsman," she asked. The boy looked up at her shaking from head to toe. "Stay close buy me" she suggested "I'll keep you safe," The guardsman nodded, feeling slightly better about the situation. "Why did I tell him that?" Respice thought to herself, how could she guarantee his survival. Shells continued to rain upon their and their enemies positions. Suddenly the shelling from the guard stopped. The commissars voice rang out of the vox, "This is it men, fix bayonets!" The sound of over a hundred guardsmen unsheathing their blades and attaching them to the end of their lasguns filled the air.
"CHAAAARGE!" he commissar roared over vox. "In the emperor's name!" Inutila roared. The forces of the emperor charged towards the enemy's position. The enemies fired volly after volly upon the guard and sororitas. Many guardsmen were cut down, few sisters fell however as their armor withstood the chaotic lasgun barrage. Respice took cover in a trench 10 yards from the noise marine. She took aim with her bolter and let fly half a dozen rounds. Four of the rounds penetrated the marines armor but not critically. The marine turned his noise cannon on Respice. The cannon emitted a horrible shrieking cacophony. Had Respice not been kneeling, she would have fell down. Her balance was gone, she could barely focus, she tried to aim her bolter but to no avail. Just when her vision started going dark she say a krak grenade fly through the air towards the noise marine. The grenade landed only a few feet in front of the marine and detonated with impressive force. The marines front armor was peppered with shrapnel and he was stunned. Respsice, still dazed by the noise canon recovered her footing and charged him. With bolter in one hand and power sword in the other she stumbled towards her target, the marine went to re arm his cannon but his power armors arm was jammed with shrapnel. Respice's stumbled turned into a bound as she regained her footing. She fired off another half dozen rounds at the marine, forcing him to shield himself with his cannon. When he lowered his gun again Respice was already within 6 yards. He went to draw his blade. She lunged through the air and, with all her might, plunged the power blade into the chaos marines chest. The armor resisted the blade so it only sunk in a couple inches. She stepped in, moving her foot behind the marines and drove him back, forcing him onto the ground and her blade in deeper. The marine let out an inhuman roar as the blade penetrated his flesh. He unsheathed his blade and attempted to stab Respice. The blade glanced off her power armor.
Respice let her bolter drop by her side, looped her arm around his and pulled, bending the mechanisms beneath the power armor enough to weaken his grasp on the knife. She disarmed him with her sword arm and stabbed the blade into his neck just beneath his helmet. A lasgun fire pierced the left of Respices armor, she spun around on top of the marine, pinning his left arm beneath her leg and ignited the lasgun wielding chaos troops with her flamer. Two were set ablaze instantly while the others fell to cover or pulled back. She spun around again and, with both hands, drove her power blade deep into the marines torso, moving it up and down to maximize damage. Only then did the marine cease his struggle.
As Respice with drew her sword from the corpse of the noise marine a crazed chaos cultist lept onto her back. Respice could hear the loud beeping of a bomb on her back, she flailed about attempting to remove the cultist from her back but the kamikaze would not budge. Then she heard a roar from her right side and a guardsman tackled the cultist off of her back. Respice tripped and fell to the ground. The guardsman grabbed the bomb and hurled it as hard as he could towards the enemy ranks where it detonated. The cultist rose, blade in hand, intending to stab his assailant. But Respice jumped to her feet and grabbed the cultist in a headlock. Two more who had taken cover from her flamer earlier rose from the trenches and fired upon her. Their lasguns damaged but did not penetrate her armor. The Guardsmen charged them with his lasgun, shooting one of them three times in the chest and running the other through with his bayonet over and over. The knife wielding cultist stabbed wildly at Respice but she grabbed his wrist and snapped it like a twig. The cultist shrieked in pain with slight enjoyment. Respice then easily broke his neck. Respice recovered her sword and turned towards her guardsman comrade who was none other than the guardsman she had assured before the charge. She nodded to him, he returned the gesture. Suddenly, a cultist manning grenade launcher turret aimed at the guardsmen. Acting quickly, Respice lunged forward shoving the guardsman out of the way. A grenade struck Respice center mass propelling her back and over the edge of the cliff with great force.
She fell, hitting jutting rocks as she fell. once, twice she crashed into the rocks, her right arm piece fell as it had been weakened by lasgun fire. three times four, her arm crunched against the rocky outcrop. With the fifth and final crash bringing her to the bottom of a vast valley. Respice cried out in pain at her broken arm. She was dazed in pain and breathless from that fall, but still alive. She crawled over to a rock to try and regain her composer. Respice' arm was clearly broken in multiple places, she knew better than to try and use it. She stumbled around locating and gathering her scattered memorabilia. When she finally found her power gauntlet she was ambushed by chaos cultists. They set upon her before she could draw a weapon. They knocked her to the ground. Once again she landed on her right arm causing her to shriek in pain. "Oh my, what blessing has been granted us by the prince of pleasure today?" One of the cultists, clearly the leader by his superior armor, jeered. "A fine creature to submit to our violations," he salivated as he looked her over. "Remove her armor!" He ordered his men. They all attempted to on clasp Respice's armor. She kicked the shin of one of them, shattering it. The cultist let out a wail. The leader laughed "Yet more gifts from slaanesh, truly we are blessed," the leader knelt down and licked her cheek. Respice wrenched her good arm free, seized the leader by the throat and began to crush his windpipe. One of his subordinates struck Respice repeatedly in the head with the butt of his lasgun. "Don't kill her you fool! To do so would be to squander this wondrous gift," the leader choked. The cultist unclasped and wrenched off Respice's leg armor, she began to black out. The leader stood above her grinning. The last thing Respice saw before she passed out was a red flash and a blue and gold blur appeared behind the cultists, and then darkness.
