I love all the positive feedback, thank you guys.
There was a mention of the action not being as clear as it could be, I really hope this chapter is better in that regard.
I also didn't think I really had much of a style, but apparently I do, hehe. Thanks for the compliment.
Chapter 7
Sachiel followed the small taskforce inside the utilitarian rockcrete building. Only a fraction of it was visible above ground, of course, because digging deep into the rocky crust of the planet was a much easier and cheaper way to fortify it against a frontal assault. A Dreadnought would not fit inside the hallways of a normal building, but any facility that worked with titans was abnormal by definition. Huge parts are often moved through the massive halls, making them often larger than necessary for even Sachiel's large bulk. The halls were even larger than those she had seen on the strike cruiser Blade of Justice from which she had deployed. Instead, it was the scouts who remained outside to alert the taskforce of any uninvited guests.
Zeruel marched in the middle of the group, tactically the safest position. This was in part because he was the only one who could work with the advanced machines they were no doubt going to encounter, and the other reason was that he carried the wounded sergeant on his back with his enormous servo-arms. The sergeant steadied himself with one hand, and perpetually swept the hallways with the bolter in his other hand, its dark leather sling wrapped around his wrist.
In front of the group walked the two tactical marines, side by side, each keeping an eye on the other's side of the hall. Whenever the two encountered a room, the one on the room's side would open the door without exposing himself, while the other had his bolter ready to engage anything inside. Most rooms were completely empty, some had been for years, others were freshly cleared. A few rooms contained inactive cogitators, ancient technology that pained Zeruel when he saw half of it was broken.
While this was a thirteenth room they had encountered like that, Space Marines are known for their vigilance, and it was thus opened as carefully as the first. There is a reason for that, simply because you never know what could happen. This room proved that theory; two fire warriors had heard the footsteps coming closer. If not the marines' armored feet, then Sachiel's would have given them away. The fire warriors had thrown a plasteel equipment table on its side in front of the door for cover and to rest their weapons on, preparing to open fire as it swung open.
They managed to fire a shot each before automatic bolter fire perforated the thin sheet metal of the table. One missed and the other grazed the marine who, at the same time, pressed the firing stud on his waiting boltgun. The mass-reactive warheads exploded within the two aliens and what was left of the table was covered in blood of a color that reminded Sachiel of the beams her lascannons produced.
The marines entered the room encountering no more hostiles. Instead, they found a small group of facility personnel in a corner of the room who cheered loudly when they saw who had come to their aid. They wore the robes of the Mechanicus, and had varied levels of augmetics enhancing their otherwise frail human bodies. The one who seemed to be the highest ranked by virtue of being the most augmented of the robed figures, spoke knowingly. "So the God-Emperor has sent his Angels of Death. That means the xeno invasion was successful, was it not?" Before the marines could answer, shooting started back in the hallway and they quickly turned around to assist.
A volley of plasma blasts impacted on Sachiel's rear armor, leaving deep craters and gouges of molten ceramite, but was incapable of penetrating the thick plates. Despite the respectable cyclic rate of Tau pulse rifles, Zeruel and sergeant Jukar returned fire before the second volley. Instead of firing, the blue-skinned aliens ducked for cover. Jukar, being a veteran of many battles, felt there was something wrong and told the marines who emerged from the room's doors to cover their backs instead of assisting.
Had the sergeant called out to them a moment sooner, the volley of fire from the far end of the hall would perhaps have missed, but as it was, the first marine to step onto the rockcrete walled battlefield was hit in the back by half a squad's worth of pulse rifle fire and died before he even hit the ground.
The other Astartes threw a frag grenade into the fire warriors as he shouted a vengeful battle cry and charged the Tau. "You will die for this cowardly act!" Immediately after he witnessed the blast of shrapnel take out a handful of enemy fighters, he emptied the magazine of his bolter into them, as much to suppress as to try and kill a few more before dropping his smoking weapons and engaging in hand-to-hand combat. As he ran, the hostile squad returned fire hastily, with shots grazing the marine and covering his armor in burns. They even hit the enraged superhuman in his side where the bolt of plasma penetrated the ceramite and burned its way through flesh, but they could just as well have been throwing marshmallows at him.
Sachiel was hesitant to fire missiles in close quarters again, and endured a few more hits on her frontal armor, acting as cover for Zeruel and Jukar whose bolters poked out alongside and over her respectively. A small message window opened in the corner of her vision, showing a graph of the audio-only vox-channel Zeruel had opened.
"Brother." He started to remind her of the situation she was in. "If you can get them out of cover, it would be much appreciated." Zeruel continued with a tone implying urgency. Her hesitation disappeared like snow before the sun; she had a debt to pay back.
The walls reflected the deafening sound of the large frag missile, and for a few moments the fire warriors were covered in a cloud of fine, dark grey dust. Because of that, there was no way to tell whether they had died or simply gone to ground to hide in the dust cloud. To be sure, she fired another missile into the hallway, directly into the ground.
More shrapnel and rockcrete debris flew through the hall and while he still had the advantage of cover provided by this, Zeruel advanced on the xeno squad. Halting a few steps before the increasingly large cloud, he expelled burning promethium from his flamer-mechadendrite and covered the hallway's floor and walls in flames. By the time the dust had settled, all that was left were a few burnt corpses and blackened pools of alien blood.
Zeruel turned around and advanced to the other marine's position, where he found him standing in the middle of a pile of greyish blue body parts and a large pool of the xenos' purplish blue blood. "Brother..." Zeruel began.
The marine turned around in response, realizing the situation. He bent down to pick up his discarded firearm and performed the rite of reloading. "Brother Mehiel and I have been together since we were recruited. There is nothing you can say to me now and make me feel better. He deserved a better death." His bolter made a satisfying metallic sound as he released the charging handle and a fresh round was pushed into the barrel. "He will be avenged." The bone-white Astartes turned to his fallen comrade. "I'll have to leave you here for now, but I'll be back to pick you up."
Sachiel looked upon the scene with mixed feelings. Space Marines never showed much emotion, but this marine had proved to her that they were not emotionless killers either. It put her at ease, because it meant she did not have to become one either. At the same time, she knew how the marine felt, how it was to lose those precious people close to oneself, yet she did not know what to say.
"Gentlemen." Zeruel spoke to the facility staff. "You have the chance to show your worth to the Emperor. As I heard one of you point out, the aliens have succeeded in their invasion, and while our main force is currently fighting the enemy's largest concentration in the capital hive of this world, we have been sent to acquire the weapon that is supposed to be in storage here. Your guidance would speed up this process considerably."
The same tech-priest who had deduced the situation stepped forward. "I will show her to you."
"Her?"
"We refer to titans by the gender of their princeps, since they, for all intents and purposes, are the titan. However, this is one of the biggest problems of a titan. As time goes by, the princeps will succumb to the bloodlust of the machine spirit, and will have to sacrifice their sanity in order to remain in control. Every so often we have to replace them entirely. This particular princeps has not quite reached that point yet, but there is not much left of her former self and instead speaks the desire of the machine. For this, I need to warn you. She has been entirely uncooperative for the past dozen years or so, claiming that none is worthy to replace Magos Viklar after he was called back to Mars for promotion and other duties, not even when I inherited his previous rank."
Zeruel nodded. "Bring me to her then."
A simply gigantic cylindrical chamber housed the equally massive titan, a Warlord class named Ruina Rabidus. Its bulky angular hull was painted a complex pattern of digital camouflage that blended together in such a way it looked like a more traditional pattern of camouflage from a larger distance. The main colors were various shades of grey with a few specks of white and black as only the large hive cities had cover huge enough for the titan to hide behind and pretend it was a building. Power cables and data-feeds ran from its back to a distribution box mounted to the facility wall behind it and a promethium fuel feed was connected to it a few floors lower. These floors surrounded the walking fortress at many levels like rockcrete rings, drawbridges leading to entry ports on its hull.
Zeruel wasted no time admiring the view, as much as he had wanted to. He immediately noticed none of the entry points were large enough to accept a Dreadnought, as he expected. There was no place to transport other units because a Warlord class titan consisted almost entirely of guns and their necessary systems. "Magos, what kind of air-defense systems do you employ on this base?"
"Hydra AA turrets on static emplacements. Why?"
"By my calculations Sachiel nearly ran out of missiles, and lascannons are not well suited for the expected engagement. Dismount the weapons systems from their housings and replace them with the autocannons. We've had great success with the long-barreled type in the past. Be sure to mount a large ammunition supply, we're going to need every last round we can carry." With those words he disappeared into the god-machine.
Magos Vantarn was surprised to recieve orders from a techmarine, even if they had not sounded as such, but as a friendly recommendation. Techmarines were completely outside the Mechanicus' chain of command, but it seemed as if Zeruel knew what he was doing so Vantarn shrugged and had his subordinates bring him the necessary parts on the double. He himself led Sachiel to his workshop, where he built and maintained internal components of Ruina's systems.
Finding the cannons was easy enough, any Imperial military facility has spares to replace those that have been destroyed and with the Tau occupation of the structure, they had yet to be replaced. The hard part was rigging them to Sachiel's weapon arms that were built for different weapons. They used similar data-feeds and control code, but the sockets would not line up properly without modification and the armor plates were formed to protect a differently shaped system. With a raised plasma-cutter mechadendrite, not unlike Zeruel's, he approached the girl. "This will hurt only a little." He joked. He had been fascinated by the biological effects of humor on people with varying amounts of augmetics.
"Who dares enter this sacred machine?" Vox-casters all around Zeruel spoke with a digitalized voice at high volume.
"Techmarine Zeruel of the Adeptus Astartes, the Angels of Doom, on a mission for and assigned to the Angels of Absolution. I have come to take you into battle, princeps." He kept moving through the hull towards the bridge, the head of the god-machine.
"You? Take me into battle? Hah, not in a million years will I dishonor myself like that. You Space Marines are barely allies, you don't even belong in our chain of command and I will not even consider you as a subordinate."
"Aliens have taken over this world, we have a good shot at a counter attack now that their forces are concentrated in the capital hive. Now, maybe my audio sensor-array malfunctioned, but I could have sworn you implied that you would rather let them live than fight them with me. I don't particularly enjoy implications of heresy." He kept on walking without stopping even once. The magos had sent one of the tech-priests to observe any progress Zeruel might make and he followed hesitantly.
"Threatening me now? Interesting."
Zeruel stopped a few steps before a glass tube filled with a slightly yellowish thick liquid. In the liquid floated the princeps' extensively augmented body. Her hands and feet had been replaced with data-feeds and a metal band was where her eyes once were, covering more feeds and most of the MIU that linked her mind to that of the huge walker. The parts of her body that still showed her wrinkly old skin, rapidly aged by the stresses of controlling the incredible machine, were covered for the most part by synskin, a body glove made from an inert material as to not dissolve in the fluid throughout the years, with the same camouflage pattern as the titan itself, scaled to her size.
Zeruel leveled his flamer mechadendrite at the tube. "Heresy begets retribution." He stated simply.
"What do you think you're doing!" Shouted the tech-priest that had followed Zeruel. "You can't just do that!"
"Stand down Hartios, he's bluffing. Nobody would be so foolish."
Zeruel lit the pilot light on his flamer without speaking. The Mechanicus priest was at a loss for words, and even if he had been armed, there was nothing he could hope to accomplish against an Astartes. Without warning, Zeruel shot a short stream of promethium towards the tube, ignited by the pilot light. Short enough to be completely harmless, but it still raised the temperature of the liquid by a few degrees.
"How dare you!"
"I need not listen to the words of a heretic. Show me that you are not, or perish." The princeps remained silent, contemplating, deciding between the perceived dishonor of taking orders from the techmarine, or from being killed by him. "You have three seconds to decide, and mind you, that's a lot compared to the time I usually give heretics to repent."
"One..."
"Two..."
"... Fine. But I don't guarantee that the next time we meet I won't accidentally hit you instead of my intended target."
Zeruel turned to the semi-mechanical man behind him. "Tell the rest we're ready to move out as soon as they made sure Ruina is too." Incapable of processing what just happened, he did as he was told and ran out of the Warlord titan.
"Doesn't look half bad." Magos Vantarn said to himself. Using flexible data-feeds he connected the unaligned sockets of the guns to the weapon mounts, and cut the armor away where the large ammo drums connected to the autocannons by a linked belt feed, using the cut-out pieces and spare armor plates to cover the drums as best he could. There was no time to paint Sachiel in her previous colors, so to prevent corrosion he quickly sprayed on a thick layer of the anti-corrosive primer that gave most Mechanicus machines their distinctive brownish red color.
"Feels nearly the same as the ones I'm used to. Impressive." She commented.
"I'm not a magos for show, you know." Vantarn deadpanned. He put down his tools and scuttled over to the large doors of his workshop. One of his subordinates had called for him, but he had told the tech-priest he was busy and did not want to be disturbed. The robed man was still waiting at the door when the Magos opened it. "So, what was it?"
"Ruina Rabidus is ready to go." He chose not to mention how Zeruel had gotten her to that point because she had already agreed and the last thing they could use now was fighting amongst themselves, especially a fight they could not win. Finally, he did not dare to badmouth Sachiel's battle-brother in front of her.
Steam escaped from vents in the walls of the large cylindrical chamber that housed the Warlord. The Mechanicus staff and the taskforce including the scouts had gathered and moved onboard Ruina Rabidus, all except Sachiel, who was told to go all the way to the bottom of the facility and position herself behind one of the massive ceramite feet.
Drawbridges were pulled back as an alarm rang throughout the entire building. A thin strip of light was cast diagonally on the curved rockcrete walls, increasing in width as the ceiling split in two and the two halves continued to move apart. A few seconds after the process started, the alarm rang again and more steam exited the vents with a loud hiss and white clouds and the platform Sachiel had been standing on next to Ruina ever so slowly started to rise and equally slowly gaining in speed as the gigantic elevator struggled with the titan's incredible weight.
Sunlight hit the head of the war machine and the crew inside was temporarily blinded save the space marines who were specifically made resistant to this as a counter-measure against flashes from explosions and flash-bangs. Sachiel was struck with awe at the sheer size and power of the machinery that would be needed to pull this off and looked around her to see the facility slowly drop down around her for the full 12 minutes it took.
A bone-white thunderhawk drop ship was waiting on the surface, and it was at this point that Zeruel instructed Sachiel to assist in its task. "Sachiel, there's obviously no way you can keep up with us, so they agreed to move you to our final position after you help them find their fallen brothers."
She led the apothecaries from the thunderhawk to the location from which they assaulted the complex, and where the first marine fell. Arriving at the scene, she saw Mebahiah with the second casualty. "Where did you go, Brother?" She asked him, unable to remember when she last saw him.
"Securing the casualties, making sure the progenoid glands would not be damaged, and guarding them. Orders from the sergeant, remember? Oh, of course, your systems were knocked out at that time."
"Glad to see you're fine. I've brought you Chapter's medical unit with me. We are to pick up the casualties and drop me off outside the capital, you may have noticed Ruina leave already."
"That's its name? Impressive machine, don't see them often. How is the sergeant, by the way?"
"Her name, apparently. Turns out they are referred to by their pilot's gender. Brother sergeant Jukar is fine, he says, despite his leg."
Mebehiah laughed. "Well that's just like him, wouldn't pass the opportunity to play with any of the larger weapons, he might just ask the Grand Master to keep it, like it's a stray dog. In any case let's get these guys loaded up and drop you off at your destination."
Thunderhawks are not particularly slow craft, in fact they are quite fast, which is a testament to the sheer size of the titan's steps given the fact she and her crew were waiting for Sachiel's arrival two clicks from the hive's walls, albeit not for very long. Not two seconds after Sachiel stepped from the transport's assault ramp she was voxed by sergeant Jukar. "Glad you could join us, brother. We have no time to lose, our main force is pinned down in an Administratum building, which, frankly, doesn't look much like one anymore. Even from here, they are well within range of our weapons, but an enemy counter-attack would leave us vulnerable without support on the ground. This is where you come in, and it makes your task quite simple. Don't let any of those filthy grey-skins get anywhere near us."
"There won't be any support, will there?"
Misunderstanding Sachiel's words, the sergeant answered. "Nope, so feel free to engage without target identification. Friendlies from the hive won't get too close either." She decided it would be wiser to leave the matter for what it was and hope for the best.
Closing the vox-link, silence returned to Sachiel, but not for long. A Warlord titan is equipped with weapons that are second in size only to those of Imperator-class titans and space ships, and with several hard-points, a Warlord can be equipped for a variety of situations. On top of each of the bulky ceramite bunkers that made up Ruina Rabidus' shoulders sat what Sachiel's digital librarium called Apocalypse missile launchers, the missiles each capable of laying waste to the largest of tanks and even smaller titans as well as being fired in a devastating barrage. Mounted on her left arm hung a Gatling blaster. Firing the same size shells as a tank, it has the firepower of an entire battalion.
These weren't the weapons that produces the almost inaudibly low and increasingly loud hum that made Sachiel feel just as rapidly increasingly nervous, nor were their looks as menacing and their power as destructive as the right-arm weapon. Five huge barrels were arranged in five sixth of a circle and supported by a well-armored girder from which hung a banner stretching from one end to the other depicting Ruina's heraldry, symbols representing the many battles the ancient war machine has fought. The hellstorm cannon was a weapon worthy even of Imperator class titans, and commonly fitted to those as well.
As the cannon's hum rose in volume and pitch, shimmering air also rose from the muzzles of the large gun. If Sachiel still had her old body, it would have sent a shiver down her spine when the gun stopped humming abruptly. The half-second of pure silence seemed to last an eternity, because she knew what was coming. During that time, she wondered why, because there was no enemy in sight.
A quintuple lance of ionized air marked the path of each of the five directed energy blasts, leading into a rockcrete structure that dwarfed even the titan, and out the other side. The ionized air alone produced such an amount of heat that the hole in the building grew much wider than the beams that passed through it with molten rockcrete flowing from it like blood from an open wound.
As the traces of the blast finally dimmed down, it became clear to Sachiel what the target was. Behind the building stood another one, similar and size and shape. Hit in its foundations, it collapsed and Tau units equipped with jet-packs could be seen jumping from the windows its dust cloud passed through the hole of a hab-spire in front, the grey dust of wind being enough to snap it in half at its gaping wound. It crushed the city wall where its top half fell down.
Ruina did not pause to admire the results, and launched a missile from each of the pods on her shoulders. They flew straight ahead over the rubble where once two large hab-spires had stood, and then dived down into the occupied streets below. Glass shattered everywhere in a half-kilometer radius and rained down on troops both hostile and friendly alike, harmlessly bouncing off any of them that wore a decent suit of armor with a helmet and creating potential new scars on those who did not. From Sachiel's position it looked like glittering dust, a moment of wonder in an age of war.
She remained on the look-out for enemies closing in, for "even a moment of laxity can spawn a lifetime of heresy", Zeruel had taught her. Not long after the shards had all hit the ground and shattered into many smaller pieces, the xenos started coming over the wall where it was crushed with floating tanks and jet-assisted jumping suits of armor. Colored runes and boxes adorned each of the targets, indicating type, size and threat-level.
A deafening roar accompanied shell casings the size of a Space Marine's armored leg dropping around Sachiel, but most of the xeno suits and tanks were too fast to be caught in the barrage; only the two hammerheads in the back of the squadron cursed their luck as shells rained down upon them and ripped the tanks to shreds.
Her massive ammo-drums rattled as their internals rotated rapidly in attempt to keep up with the demand of 40mm shells Sachiel poured out the front ends of her guns and soon she would be standing in a pile of her own casings.
DAKKADAKKA DAKKADAKKA
A battlesuit crashed into the ground and exploded, trailed by thick black smoke after the girl scored two hits on it.
DAKKADAKKA DAKKADAKKA DAKKADAKKA DAKKADAKKA
A hammerhead and another suit were hit. The hover tank was immobilized when its systems momentarily failed and it crashed into the ground, but otherwise remained unharmed. The XV-81 Crisis battlesuit came out worse; an explosion in mid-air marked its end.
In the titan's head, Zeruel kept track of Sachiel on the HUD of his helmet. While not achieving the same hit-ratio of a trained marine would after being entombed in a Dreadnought, she nonetheless did not disappoint and seemed to fight instinctively.
"Reload Sachiel after the next burst." Zeruel voxed to sergeant Phatiel. He and his scouts traveled along in one of the tight hallways within Ruina's bulky hull where they kept the extra drums of 40mm ammunition to resupply Sachiel after she would inevitably run dry.
The Gatling blaster roared again and within the single second it fired, 50 more empty casings fell all around Sachiel. The tanks she pinned down with her continuous fire, destroying their hover mechanisms or otherwise slowing them down, were caught in another barrage of shells that meant their quick, painless, and brutally devastating end where the ground was turned into a field of craters.
Due to the short range of their weapons, the battlesuits were not designated as high priority targets before, but in the meanwhile they had closed most of the gap so that they could bring their devastating melta-like weapons to bear.
Three XV-9 Hazard suits approached her fast, and a rapid burst of shells managed to take out two of them, but at that point Sachiel's luck, and ammunition, ran out. There was nothing she could do as the third suit fired its fusion weapons and melted right through two of her cannon barrels. The suit passed by in a typical Tau hit-and-run style attack, preparing to turn around for another shot.
"Now! Move!"
Behind Sachiel stood four scouts, each carrying one of the large ammo drums. As soon as she saw them, she ejected the empty ones and two of the scouts dropped theirs to assist the others in loading the two still functioning guns. Once loaded, she too turned around in the hope to engage the last battlesuit, but it was already close enough to fire and the Fusion guns started to glow with white hot energy just before one of them exploded. The xeno still fired, but their shots just missed due to the explosion throwing the other guns off target. The singing heat melted the surface of Sachiel's leg-armor as the superheated beam struck one of the scouts instead.
Without speaking, the remaining three scouts picked up the remains of their brother, and carried it back up the rope ladder from which they descended, at the top of which sat Phatiel with his sniper rifle still smoking. As Sachiel saw this, she realized she owed it to the scouts, and their Chapter in general, to win this, so his death would not be in vain.
Even with just one arm left, the girl kept firing and hit the offending Hazard suit as it turned around to finish what he started. It spun around its vertical axis for little over a full rotation as one of its jets caught fire and exploded. At the same time, explosions all around her indicated the impacts of more of Ruina Rabidus' missiles barely far enough to be safe, but most of the suits danced around them with their high agility.
When Sachiel's guns fell silent again and the empty drums hit the ground, she learned that quantity is a quality of its own. Multiple smart missiles impacted on her front armor and she was blown back against Ruina's large foot.
The foot lifted, and landed again a few meters before Sachiel, protecting her from more a second volley. No doubt it was Zeruel who convinced Ruina that she had to defend the girl, or she probably would not even have noticed, or cared for that matter.
While her systems restored quickly, there was still little she could do against the incoming xeno force. The few remaining suits started to circle around the house-sized leg and a targeting lock caused Sachiel's alarms to go off. One suit shot through her leg, and another's guns were charging as well. She fell onto her side. Two more hits struck her other weapon arm, and for a moment she was reminded of the very beginning of her travels with Zeruel, the end of the Ork invasion of her homeworld. She saw Zeruel lift her from the machine that robbed her from her limbs, and by extension, her humanity. She wished he could save her again. At least this body felt no pain.
Over the wall of the hive city, more tanks appeared, and bright purplish blue light extended from their cannons. They pierced the battlesuits that were circling around Sachiel in two salvos. The green boxes indicated they were friendly. "Land raider" her HUD said, three of them total.
Zeruel climbed down the rope ladder the scouts had used. "What a mess." He commented as he stared at Sachiel. The land raider tanks pulled over just besides him, and from each stepped a squad of Terminators, their suits of armor scarred and scorched almost entirely. They left their storm shields and thunder hammers inside the tanks as they gathered around Sachiel and knelt. Following them, Grand Master Achaiah also put down his weapons and walked over besides his subordinates.
"I am... No, we are sorry we could not be here sooner. I realize this is a great blow to your Chapter's fighting power, even if just temporary."
"No, sir." She replied. "You were just on time. I was afraid the Emperor was calling me to His side."
"Regardless, you held up your end of the bargain, and I'll hold up mine. I've discussed the matter with brother Mebehiah already, and he agreed. In addition, please use our facilities to make your repairs." He directed that last part at Zeruel who bowed and thanked Achaiah.
With the help and equipment of the Angels of Absolution's techmarines, Sachiel was made almost like new again. Sachiel's armor was inscribed with the date and location of the battle, along with the personal words of gratitude of the Grand Master.
Their farewell was short, as the Angels of Absolution were called upon by their Founding Chapter, the Dark Angels themselves, for mysterious reasons.
"Let us battle together again, when your Chapter is back to full strength." Achaiah told Zeruel.
"Anytime, Grand Master."
"Brother would be fine, are you not Grand Master now too?"
"I guess you are right... brother. Farewell."
"Farewell, brother Zeruel, brother Sachiel."
Sachiel bowed as well as any Dreadnought could. "Farewell, Grand Master." He had told her the same he told Zeruel, but she insisted to keep referring to him like she did, because she felt responsible for the death of one of his scouts.
Mebehiah bowed before his lord. "It was an Honor being an Angel of Absolution."
"And no doubt it will be an honor to resurrect one of our brother Chapters. Bear that honor with pride."
"Yes my lord. Farewell."
Sachiel, Zeruel and Mebehiah boarded their shuttle, and drifted off into the void, headed back to the Heritage of Zestra III.