O for a voice like thunder, and a tongue to drown the throat of war! When the senses are shaken, and the soul is driven to madness, who can stand? -William Blake
Private Erlantz Abaroa only just barely managed to raise the visor of his helmet above his mouth before he threw up noisily on the steel floor of the ship. The stench of his own vomit, the cold copper smell of drying blood and the unmistakable smell of human feces filled the air before him, and he quite nearly heaved again. Normally his comrades might have mocked or chided him for his weak stomach. But not here, not now. The dark halls of the battlecruiser, Sword of Righteousness stretched on before them, the terminus hidden in deep shadow. They were not afraid of the dark, normally. When the halls were decorated with the shredded flesh and scraps of armor of dozens of guardsmen and naval ratings, they could be forgiven for a bit of uneasiness. Erlantz straightened slowly and pulled his visor back down as his Sergeant clapped him on the shoulder. Not a word was spoken, none wanted to break the ghastly silence, as though it would attract the attention of whatever monstrous force had torn its way through the crew.
Finally the Sergeant spoke, his voice hoarse over the vox, "Come on. We've got a job to do, sooner we get started the sooner we can leave." He didn't sound eager to begin searching this abattoir of a ship, but it wasn't as though they had much choice in the matter. Erlantz took comfort in the thought that at least they weren't alone, there were about a dozen other squads working their way through the ship from various other access points. He wondered if their reception had been just as gruesome.
The further they moved into the ship the worse it got, blood, now half dried and tacky, smeared the walls. They had found many corpses, but not a single one intact. It was like their enemy had attacked in a rage so fierce, it had not been satisfied with merely killing them, but had torn them into a thousand pieces, delighting in the carnage. More disturbingly, as far as they could tell, there were no enemy dead. Erlantz heard his squadmates begin to whisper of ghosts and daemons. Superstitious nonsense of course, but still there was something about walking through the carnage filling this dark and broken craft that filled him with a creeping dread of the unknown, a fear more acute than even the priests' speeches of the horrors of chaos or the Commissar's ever present bolt pistol could ever hope to inspire. He was sweating profusely beneath his void suit and he felt chilled. If his hands had been bare he would have dropped his shotgun by now.
Erlantz stiffened, cocking his head forward, a sound, something besides the clunk of their mag-boots on the floor of the ship and the occasional squish as they stepped in something that had once been human. It was faint, on the edge of hearing, a high pitched wail, like the cries of the damned. He saw the others stand straighter, they had heard it too, Erlantz felt a wave of relief, it wasn't just his imagination. The wail went on and on, longer than he would have believed any human capable of, then trailed off into a hysterical sound halfway between laugh and scream. He felt all warmth drain from his face followed by a wave of icy sweat, he looked at the others, through the transparent slits of their visors, they looked as pale as he was sure he was.
The man beside him, a gaunt Corporal whose name Erlantz could never remember, spoke up in a shrill voice. "Probably just a compartment depressurizing. The metal makes weird noises, no point in investigating that right?" The Sergeant shook his head and began to move forward again, the remainder of the squad following in his wake, "Better not let the Commissar hear you talking like that Ibarra, 'less you're itching for a bolt to the back of the head." Erlantz kept his peace as Corporal Ibarra grumbled and cursed under his breath, but he couldn't help but think that a Commissar's bolt pistol was far less painful looking than what these poor sods had gone through.
As they continued on and on, the wailing and laughter at times grew louder or quieter, sometimes it sounded as though it were mere meters in front of them. The bizarre layout of the corridors and the echoes they created were playing tricks on their senses, that much Erlantz knew, but it still frayed his nerves. It was enough for him to understand why the other men in his squad were whispering of ghosts. It certainly sounded like a ghost, if he had been less rational, less well educated he might have believed it as well. Then almost by accident, they stumbled upon what looked like a briefing room of some sort. A table with a holo-tank embedded in the center dominated the room. The holograph, some planet or other, flickered fitfully, the light stained red by spattered blood. The light cast by their lamp-packs skittered across the floor and walls, picking out more corpses, the room was practically choked with them. The wailing sounded like it was almost on top of them. Then as Erlantz looked toward what he guessed must be the northern (by ship standards anyway) entrance to the room, he spotted movement. He was so twitchy he nearly filled the corridor with buckshot, but a moment later he was glad he didn't. "I found a survivor Sarge!" He called, forgetting for a moment that he was on vox and had probably just deafened his squad. He didn't much care, the sight of a survivor, any survivor was such a relief.
It was a woman, sitting on the floor in a puddle of gore, knees drawn up to her chest as she rocked back and forth weeping and laughing hysterically. Erlantz made his way toward her, picking his way through the bodies in his path, he heard the Sergeant shout something, but he didn't care. By the Emperor they would save one person from this wreck. He noted almost absently that she was no guardswoman. She was dressed in dull grey carapace armor, scarred and worn from use, not a single mark of rank visible on it, clutched in her right hand, was the hilt of a broken power sword. He crouched in front of her and placed a hand on her shoulder, abruptly she stopped weeping and her head snapped up, a bloody gash marred her face from the right side of her forehead down between her eyes all the way to the left side of her jaw. She barely seemed to notice, her green eyes stared wildly at him, Erlantz was suddenly sure that the woman had gone completely mad. With all this who could blame her?
"Do you believe in monsters?" The question startled him, and for a moment he wasn't sure where the almost childish voice had come from. The woman stared at him earnestly. Yeah, she had lost it, aliens sure some of them could be pretty monstrous. Honest to the Emperor monsters though? Children's stories. But for some reason he found himself shying away from meeting her gaze, as though he might see whatever it was that had slaughtered an entire battlecruiser's crew and driven her mad shining out from her eyes. His gaze wandered down and then snapped to her belt. He did a double take, for the third time that day he felt the blood drain from his face. His Sergeant was still shouting at him, picking his way across the room, he felt a hand slam down on his shoulder and jerk him away from the madwoman, he didn't resist, only pointed mutely. The Sergeant stopped berating him abruptly and followed his finger. He felt his Sergeant grow tense, stiffening almost, then the man whispered, "Get her back to the ship, report this to the Colonel." He reached down to her belt and tore the offending item off to stuff it in one of the pockets of his webbing, "Do not speak to anyone but the Colonel of this. She's a mercenary. Got it?"
Erlantz nodded quickly and hauled the woman to her feet, she was light and she did not resist him, he wasn't terribly pleased to be assigned to her, but at least she wasn't screaming. He felt a hand prod his arm, he looked down to find her staring up at him again. "Dancers in the dark," She whispered, her voice thick with terror. Erlantz frowned, the hell did that mean? He put a hand on her shoulder, trying to both reassure the woman and keep her moving, "No dancers here miss, just us." The assurance didn't seem to satisfy her, but she still allowed herself to be led away. Behind them the Sergeant looked for a long moment at a sword blade, bereft of its hilt, plunged deep into the wall, something black and sticky dripped from it. The man turned away and quickly made his way back up the hall toward the safety of the transport they had come in. He left the broken sword where it was, some things were best left undisturbed.
At the thirteenth hour of the following day, twelve cruisers closed in on the Sword of Righteousness. Lances flared as the ship was quickly and methodically cut to pieces. Explosions quickly consumed what remained of the once proud vessel. Somewhere far away in the dusty halls of the Adeptus Administratum, a scribe drew an unbroken red line through the words Sword of Righteousness, beside the legend was written '3-426-712.M41 Warp drive malfunction. No survivors.' Thus were the deaths of 107,000 men and women noted, and immediately forgotten.