The Acaysha emerged from the warp in the Bladen system's Mandeville point continuing its course towards the hive-world.
Elleden and Morgaine entered the inquisitor's office greeting him, both were not in power armour, yet they carried their weapons at the belt.
Elleden styled her hairs, as usual, into a double braid which started from her forehead and joined in the back of her head into a single one.
Azeal stood up from his desk and went to a small panel on the wall which begun displaying various maps and graphics at his touch.
"We know too little about this cult to charge right in. My plan is to fake a simple resupply in the city port. While the ship is docked we'll leave without anyone inside the port noticing, from there we'll start an investigation in disguise. Should we encounter problems or once we discovered enough information we'll signal the ship which will begin a targeted deep strike".
While explaining the plan he was indicating various diagrams on the screen.
"Obviously nothing ever goes as planned that's why we'll have a second team planet-side ready to intervene should the need arise. Any questions?".
Azeal gazed at the sisters with a satisfied smile.
"How many people would the teams be made of, and who would be in each of them?" asked Elleden.
" The main team would be me, you, one of the battle-sisters and a soldier from the Acaysha. The second would be led by Morgaine and would include another sister and two soldiers".
Morgaine was about to protest when an officer entered the room panting "Sir, they denied us landing permission".
Azeal gazed perplexed at the man: "How could they deny landing to an inquisitorial transport?".
"It looks like inquisitor Seglorn ordered not to let any ship land, no matter the circumstances" replied the officer.
Morgaine, upon hearing that name, stood up, shocked, after gazing into the void for a second she put a hand on her forehead
"sorry, I'm not feeling very well"
she left the room in a hurry bumping into another soldier who was about to enter the room.
After giving a quick salute to both the sisters and the inquisitor, the soldier turned to the officer:
"A drop-ship from Bladen requested permission to land in the hangar. They say it's the port overseer who came to speak personally with inquisitor Azeal".
"Grant it, I'll be in the hangar in a few minutes, but don't let your guard down no matter what"
Azeal had an uneasy look in its face.
After the two soldier left, he turned to Elleden:
"Something is not right. Go find Morgaine, equip yourselves and keep ready for combat, just in case."
"Leave it to me".
Elleden went out of the door and saw a soldier who was guarding the door:
"Where did she go?"
"if you mean the sister who left a while ago, from the look of it I guess she was heading to the observation point near the hangar."
without saying a word Elleden ran through the corridor leading to the stairs which would bring her to the lower decks. Halfway through the stairs she heard gun shots. Instinctively she drew her rapier and started running even faster.
Once she turned the corner, which led to the hub between the hangar bay and the observation ports, she saw a massive armoured man, at first she thought it was a space marine, but there were none on the ship, and, besides, she didn't knew of any chapter which mounted horns on their helmet or had a pink-and-black colour scheme.
Suddenly she realized, but it was too late: the chaos marine already noticed her presence and was about to discharge his bolter upon her with an horrendous laughter.
Morgaine appeared from the corridor on the right, holding her chain-sword from both ends, with a war cry she pushed the marine against the wall, the chain-sword eating at his flesh.
Amidst the screams of both Morgaine and the marine, whose body was about to be cut in half, Elleden returned to reality decapitating the man with a quick slice of her weapon.
Morgaine was panting, her hairs were soaked in blood, as well as everything else in a two meters radius.
Elleden saw a cut in her clothes stretching from the beginning of the left thigh to below the armpit.
"Are you injured?"
with a worried look on her face, she took a closer look to the cut.
"You're bleeding I need to treat your wound now otherwise you'll soon bleed out".
"Let's go back into the observation point if we override the blast-door's control we'll be safe, at least for a while" replied Morgaine
They went inside the corridor, just besides the door there was the heavily mutilated corpse of a chaos marine. Elleden, after closing the blast-doors, took the medical kit hanging from the wall and started tending to Morgaine's wound.
"It all started too damn fast, I needed to think for a bit so I came here"
She grunted as Elleden cauterized her wound
"suddenly I heard the hangar doors opening and soon the shots followed. I tried to came back to warn you but one of them intercepted me and gave me this nice souvenir.
At least now that bastard has become wall-paint".
"We need to find Azeal before they do. I'll give you some painkillers to keep you going, but you need to be careful this is not a wound to be taken lightly".
After Elleden helped Morgaine on her feet she saw out of one of the windows
"Oh shit, there are more transports incoming we need to warn the weapons deck before they get here".
Elleden flung herself on the intercom, after a few frenetic tries to contact the deck, she punched the device "Damn, they jammed our communications, we need to get there as soon as possible".
"We may try to use the ventilation shafts, without our armours we don't stand a chance against those damned heretics".
Elleden thought about it for a second "Yes, it might work. If we reach the maintenance room of this deck there should be a ladder communicating with the decks above".
They removed the panel of the shaft and climbed in. After several minutes crawling in those tight tunnels, with the fear that a stray bullet could hit them, the shaft begun to widen as it was converging to the ship's main shaft, where the maintenance room was located. From there they took the ladder and climbed until they saw a sign painted on the wall which said "Weapons deck". Elleden, carefully, opened the door connecting the maintenance room to the deck.
There was silence which, in a situation like that, is not a good sign.
She gestured Morgaine to stay silent and follow her.
As they ventured through the hallway they heard a soft groan coming from behind a door, it wasn't the typical noise you would expect from a feared chaos marine, they opened the door and, behind it, badly hidden behind a desk, found one of the ship's crew-members.
"Thanks the Emperor it was you, I feared they had found me. Soon after everything started I was sent to inform the captain of this disaster, because our communications were jammed. Then I saw them coming. The fight hadalready spread to the stairs leading here so I hid myself in here".
"Shut up, they might be still around. Can you restore the internal defences?" whispered Elleden
"Yes but if they found us we're dead. I'm not gonna go out there".
"The Emperor needs us, soldier, do your part and we'll cover you"
after saying this Elleden thought about how stupid it sounded, but it gave its results. The man reluctantly nodded.
Upon entering the deck's control room they saw blood everywhere, many of the consoles were torn to pieces, along with their users. Morgaine, seeing, the visible shock upon the man's face, put a hand on his back:
"come on the Emperor is watching. It's not the time to mourn the dead".
"Yes, you're right I shall do it but be prepared once I reactivate the automatic turrets it's likely they'll come to get us".
"Don't worry about that, start working on it and we'll guard the door"
Elleden asked Morgaine for help in barricading the gutted door.
The sound of turret's fire as well as the thunderous roar of the automatic cannons on the outside, communicated the completion of the task.
Sadly it wasn't the only sound they heard: numerous heavy footsteps heralded the incoming marines.
