Almost before his eyes, the Sword of Lycurgas was coming back together. Crewmen briskly walked between stations, welders, auspexes and a hundred different instruments and tools grasped in their hands. From his seat on the bridge, Haruman watched the transformation. Consoles were repaired, dents were beaten out. Bloodstains wiped off. Bodies dragged away. His ship was healing itself. Wiping away the sores and injuries of Emperor-knows how long spent in the warp's tumultuous grip. Men couldn't be replaced so easily, but the ship had a very large redundancy in personnel, so that would not be a problem for some time to come. The loss itself was hard to bear, although bear it he would, as was His will.

It was commonly thought that marines had no conscience. Some might not. Some people are just built that way. But it was no more true of space marines than anyone else. They would do as the Emperor required. Didn't mean that it wouldn't be hard, or that there wouldn't be nightmares. But it was a space marine's lot in life. Loss was part of service, and it was better to die for the Emperor than live for yourself.

Things were better. They were going to be ok. They might be lost, and unable to navigate, with barely functioning engines even if they could. But they'd be ok. His charges were ok. The burden of responsibility could be a heavy one… and Haruman was still man enough to be glad when that burden was lessened with the knowledge that his efforts weren't in vain.

Mark Ramsey was awake. And Emperor it hurt. His arms, his legs, his chest, bloody hell, even breathing felt like his lungs were on fire. His anguished gasp echoed through the darkened room of… wherever he was… Apothecary Dyalan's face was quick to materialise above him, though, and the smile on his face would have been reassuring if Ramsey wasn't all but screaming in agony. He wasn't screaming because his lungs hurt too much.

Dyalan was smiling. Smiling because Ramsey's return to consciousness assured the apothecary that the injuries he had sustained were not going to kill him. It may have cost him his left arm, and his left leg, and his left eye to boot. But they could all be replaced, so that wasn't a big deal. The big deal had been the lung damage, and the cracked skull, both of which had been repaired, mostly anyway. His lungs probably still hurt.

Looking at Ramsey's eyes, he could answer his question without taking any other readings. Dyalan winced to himself. The apothecary was used to treating space marines. Not humans. Same treatment… infinitely smaller margin for error on people. In this case, this patient needed a lot more painkillers. He reached over to adjust a dial. Morphine. 38,000 years of human development since its discovery and it was still the basis of pain relief throughout the galaxy. And a strange quirk of morphine was that patients in great pain could take doses of the drug that would kill a healthy person, and suffer no ill effects.
A quirk that Dyalan was happy to use now. Comfortable, relaxed people healed much faster. Dyalan trebled the morphine dose. If Ramsey's heart stopped, they could always start it again…

His other important charge was the still-critical Bondsman-Lieutenant Commander Lucretius. To say he was in dire straits would have been putting it mildly. The man's face was barely recognisable. He would need major, major reconstructive surgery. And that was not something that a space marine apothecary had in his repertoire. More problematic was the serious muscular and skeletal damage that the intense heat had caused. And the nervous damage that the electrocution had left. And the tissue damage. And the very real possibility that Lucretius had literally cooked his brain inside his skull.

But at least the man wasn't dead, and wasn't visibly getting worse. And, for that reason, Dyalan had given thanks to the Emperor, and had personally, and privately, celebrated his own skills. Dyalan knew that pride was a sin. Knew it. Tried to avoid it. Failed.

But he also knew his own worth, and knew that the Emperor would forgive him for that slight transgression, as he leant down, and worked on peeling back another charcoal black part of what once was called Lucretius's face, humming to himself as he did so, absently pleased that he'd had the foresight to leave the man unconscious. Aside from the physical damage, there'd be little to no psychological torture for the hideous pain. Thank the Emperor for small mercies. The whole "missing most of his face" part could be fixed later. At least his mouth was still recognisable.

The injured marines had left the infirmary. Space Marines healed at astronomical rates. The worst injury had been one of the brother-lieutenants, who had been impaled on a 6 foot pole that had snapped out from a guard rail above the chapel-barracks. It had speared through his robes (he hadn't been on duty), pierced his reinforced, solid rib cage, driven through the left side of his chest, lungs and heart, back out the armoured ribcage, and then 4 feet beyond. When he'd come to, he'd spent 25 minutes working at the pole to get it loose from the floor, then walked to the infirmary, his body functioning on one lung, and one heart. And about two-thirds the default blood supply. But he'd been fine, once the infirmary was up and functioning again.

The crew were far and away the biggest concern, and there were hundreds still hanging on by willpower alone. Dyalan knew he'd lose some more. It was practically guaranteed. That didn't mean he had to like it. In fact, he didn't. It was an affront to his professionalism. But it was fact. He moved down to the next patient on his round, and moved his medi-gauntlet down to administer another dose of dicalcium-monosulfate solution to hyperstimulate bone regrowth, when his comm-net came to life.

"Haruman to Dyalan, status check. What have you got?"

Dyalan's response was crisp, cold and efficient. And hid nothing of the pain he felt from a man who had known him for two hundred years.

"Two hundred and fifty three. We discharged eight last night. Twenty eight are still critical, but all are stable, at least for the moment. I don't think they're all going to make it, brother-captain."
Haruman's response was a little slow in coming, but clear.

"Thank you, brother-apothecary. The fallen will always be remembered, as the Emperor's finest."

Dyalan couldn't help bit feel very bitter. And a streak of unbecoming scepticism, and a sudden wave of disgust, rolled through him, despite the correct and formal nature of the phrase that Haruman used. Two hundred and fifty three patients. Men were going to die. And the Chapter would "remember them". Fat lot of good it was going to do the dying, wasn't it.

It wasn't the man's fault. Haruman would do anything in his power to help. But he couldn't. And, for the first time in two hundred plus years of service, the traditional marine salutation for the wounded and dying rang so hollow.

'The fallen shouldn't have had to, in the first place'.

Techmarine Varrel was hunched over a central control panel, torch-cutter in hand, eye-guards jammed over his face. Shenyavin watched him discretely knowing that the man was absorbed in his work, and not wanting to disturb him. Sparks flew again, and Varrel twitched. Shenyavin raised an eyebrow. The man was working with live circuitry. He shook his head…techmarines.

The techmarine twitched again, and Shenyavin shuddered slightly when he realised that each twitch was several thousand volts. He admired the man's nerve. Haruman had asked for a much speed in repair as could be mustered. Varrel was taking him seriously.

As the brother-sergeant continued to watch, one of the techmarine's servo arms reached out and picked up a tool from the pile two metres from where the man was working. It brought it over to the techmarine, who reached back and pulled it out of the clawed arm's grasp, and started using it on the panel ahead. Shenyavin was about to turn around, when Varrel finished whatever he was doing, and snapped the console cover shut, then stood up, and made the sign of the great engine, before pressing a prominent blue button on the grey panel.

Lights in the room flickered, flared, died, then caught and held, a steady, if slightly dim light providing real illumination in this area for the first time in days. Shenyavin chuckled to himself.
"Care to join me while I inform the bridge that we have short range communications back up to specification, brother-sergeant?"

While slightly taken aback, Shenyavin was less so than might immediately have been thought.

Techmarines. Weird bunch.

4 hours later, another major system had been fully repaired.

"External sensors online, sir."

Haruman allowed himself a small smile. They could see.

"Good to hear. Run a sensor sweep. Lets have a look at what's going on around us."

A battlebarge's sensor suite was highly sensitive, in no small part due to necessity. Marines fought anywhere, even in space itself. Battlebarges took them there, and some of the places they went had very high levels of interference. By not being fast, a battlebarge had to see what was coming from a long way off.

This time though, it didn't need to.

"Sir, there are three vessels in our immediate surrounds. Their shields and weapons are both unpowered. Class and race are unknown."

Haruman's reply was immediate, and as per doctrine. He was no space combat expert, but he'd watched Ramsey enough to know the basics.

"Active scan. Full power."

The Sword's ancient and battered sensor array focused its attentions on the three flies floating in visual range. At that range, the Sword could detect single molecules, let alone whole ships.

"Report, bondsman-lieutenant…"

"The two smaller vessels are crew by a wide number of races, of which 28 percent are human. The larger of the three is entirely crewed by xenos of an unknown species. That unknown species shares 98 percent commonality with one of the races found on both smaller ships. The larger ship's design is markedly different. I think we are dealing with two separate factions, brother-captain."

Haruman's first response was one of disgust. Humans alongside alien filth. Tarnishing the divinity of humanity. Then he tempered his own response with reason. Deathbringer doctrine was more pragmatic than that of most marine chapters. Aliens were less than human. Humans were to rule the galaxy, in His name. But there was no reason why aliens could not serve under humanity's banner. It was perfectly understandable that humanity, here, wherever and whenever 'here' was, would think likewise, and use alien serfs to crew their vessels. Yes, he was sure that the Deathbringers could cope with that.

As for the alien vessel, well, that was another story. It was the biggest of the three, and was quite possibly intimidating the human vessels. The Sword might not have been a piece of salvage, but, given the size difference, it was easy to see how these ships could think of the battlebarge in an equivalent fashion to the way in which the marines saw a hulk. Big, dangerous, but quite possibly very lucrative. And possibly carrying lost-tech from the Dark Age of Technology or Age of Strife.

Then he chuckled to himself. The three ships were tiny. And that sensor sweep would have scared the life out of them. The hulk was functional.

Haruman activated his power armour's integral commlink.

"How are the weapon repairs coming along, Techmarine Varrel?"

The pause was just long enough for Haruman to picture Varrel putting down whatever implement he was working on to better focus his attention on the conversation.

"Be a while yet, brother-captain. At least four hours, and that's only if the Emperor is willing to lend us a hand."

"And the void shields?"

"Uncertain. Wait out…"

Minutes passed. Haruman was unsure whether the man was checking a diagnostic, communicating with one of his fellows, prostrating himself before the divine machine spirit and asking for its guidance, or just taking a dramatic pause.

"Void shields should be online within a couple of minutes."

The brother-captain's right eyebrow went up. He'd thought that the shields were one of the most heavily damaged of the ship's subsystems.

"Praise be to the Emperor. Why the sudden change in schedule?"

"The circuitry was not fused all the way along, sir. Just in two widely separated sections, and that prevented the internal sensors from analysing the area properly. Instead of replacing 18 sections of wiring, we only needed to do two. So, yes, praise be to the Emperor."

Haruman nodded, although he knew the man couldn't hear him.

A voice pierced his reverie.

"Brother-Captain, we are being hailed."