Segmentum Solar

Europa

Northern Hemisphere

82nd Harakoni Warhawk Camp

41st Millennium

Thandarius looked at Xandero as the Marine went over to Rebecca or 'Newt' as she was called otherwise. Newt, yes a fitting name; Thandarius thought, a fitting name for a coward!

"Newt?" Xandero gently asked the young girl, "Where is everyone else?" she averted her gaze as a look of sadness came over her. Xandero removed his helmet and put one hand under her chin, "Rebecca, Newt? Newt look at me please." She looked at him and took in his face; dark brown hair, blue-green eyes and white skin and shook her head.

Gesturing to Selanus, Xandero said, "Is she injured in any way?" The Apothecary left the acid burned body of Brekken, shaking his head sadly; his gene-seed was beyond recovery. He took out his medical auspex and scanned her, withdrawing and shaking his head replied, "Physically speaking she's fine. I doubt that I can say the same for her psychologically."

"Thank you Brother." Xandero looked back at Newt and rephrased his previous question, "Newt? I need you to answer me; the others? Where are they? Are any still ali…"

"They're all dead okay!?" Newt suddenly interrupted him with an extremely distressed voice. She huddled up to Xavier and started crying going with a mantra: all dead, their all dead.

Xandero looked at her sadly; she needed help, but she was also a born survivor. "Selanus. Check her for gene-seed compatibility." Selanus walked up to the girl once more; removing his helmet said to her, "Newt; I'm going to check if you are compatible with any of our gene-seed. It will hurt a bit so be ready for it. Here goes." Newt screwed her eyes shut and gasped in pain as a needle from the auspex pierced her skin and took a sample.

Taking the needle out and reading the results of the test out loud he said, "Blood Raven's compatibility: Fifty four percent. Imperial Fist's: Thirty two. Space Wolf's: Sixty nine and Ultramarine's…oh, oh my!" he halted as he read the last result, Helgadottir looked over his shoulder and started snickering as she read it out loud for him,

"Ultramarine's compatibility: Ninety three percent! Oh Selanus! You might just be looking at a future Ultramarine aspirant." The rest of the surviving Marines started chuckling as well; at the look on the startled Apothecary's face.

"Too bad she won't live to see it!" Thandarius's ice cold voice stopped the humour dead. Everyone turned to see that the Inquisitor was aiming his laspistol at Newt; the eight year old leapt out of Xavier's arms and started running away from Thandarius. Xandero ran at the Inquisitor yelling, "Thandarius! NO DON'T SHOOT! NEWT LOOK OUT!" Time itself seemed to slow down as Thandarius discharged the laspistol; shooting Newt in the back as she ran. She twisted as she fell; as she fell, she eyeballed the surviving Marines with a look that would haunt them for the rest of their long lives. Every one of the Marines was affected in ways that could never be cured; and for years afterwards the survivors of the mission would at times wake up at night breathing and sweating heavily; the sounds of a laspistol discharging and a young girl's pained cry; those fifteen seconds were to stay with them to the grave.

She hit the ground and time sped back up. The Marines rushed to the girl's side as she lay there; coughing up blood from a damaged lung; ruined by the heat of the laspistol shot. She gasped attempting to say something but was silenced by Selanus, "Newt. Newt! Stay with us! Don't you dare die on us now!" he rummaged around in his medical supplies attempting to try and find something to save the girl's life. She gagged yet again and issuing a strangled sound; passed away. As soon as she went quiet Selanus looked up and saw that she had stopped moving, "Newt," He shook her, "Newt? Newt! She… she's gone." He reached forwards and gently closed her lifeless brown eyes.

Selanus balled his hands into fists and gritted his teeth in anger and hatred as he looked at the 'noble' Inquisitor. Thandarius's body language was pleased as he said, "Such is the fate of all traitors and cowards." The Inquisitor was standing behind a light; which cast a dramatic figure with the light shining off his golden armour; but all the Marines could see was a murderer and the stink of ozone just made it worse. Thallius's back straightened his back while slowly bringing his heavy bolter coming to bear on the Inquisitor. Glaring at him Selanus spat venomously, "You bastard! You murderous bastard!" Selanus's clear blue eyes flashed with a dangerous rage; not a berserker rage but a cold steel rage; one that enabled a person to kill someone without any regret whatsoever.

Selanus stood up and stormed up to the Inquisitor; and just as the Inquisitor was about to act; Selanus's armoured fist thundered into Thandarius's faceplate. The force of the blow caused the Inquisitor to reel and tumble to the ground; Thandarius reached for his fallen powersword. Selanus however never gave him the chance; drawing his mono-molecular combat knife he violently slashed the Inquisitor in the throat just at the right angle to sever the jugular and trachea; causing instant death. With a vicious snarl Selanus tore off Thandarius's golden helmet. The Inquisitor's head was bald and weathered. His face was sharp, scarred…and lifeless.

Selanus stood up from the Inquisitor's corpse and snarled at the squad, "He deserved to die for what he did and you all know it!" Xavier stepped forwards and spoke gently, "None of us are disagreeing with you Selanus." The rest of the squad just nodded their heads. She removed her helmet and gently placed her hand on Selanus's back. As soon as she knelt down to his level; she looked him in the eyes and smiled at him gently. He smiled back at her; his clear blue eyes free of all hostility and now thankful instead.

Helgadottir sniffed the air and smiled to herself and she nudged Xandero and whispered, "I had a feeling this might happen."

"What might happen?" she pointed at Selanus and Xavier and as her smile grew she flashed her enlarged canines,

"Those two getting together. Not sure the Inquisition will like this; but I don't really care what they think." Thallius walked up to Xandero and muttered,

"Other members of our Chapters may disagree but I think that they would make a nice couple. Never thought that I'd see the day that an Astartes let alone Selanus would fall in love though."

Xandero smiled and said to the two Marines, "All right you two. Let's move!"

"Just let me remove anything that we could use from the Inquisitor's corpse, sir."

Before they left Selanus knelt down at the Inquisitor's corpse and quickly removed his grenades, medical supplies, auspex and anything else that could be used by the Astartes. And lurking in the shadows was another three xenos, but unlike the ones who had so recently attacked the Marines; they were about six foot tall, muscular, reptilian like skin and wearing armour that did not really cover all that much. One of them looked at the others and spoke in its language to the other two.

One of the Marines, the one with a pale blue shoulder pad looked up and glanced around. She snarled: they were being followed. By the time she had alerted the Marines and they had turned around to face the unknown threat, the contacts were long gone.