The great ship floats through the blackness of space on wraithbone wings, a serene testament to the nobility of the aeldari and the well-oiled machine of craftworld society. Every member of the crew walks their own path. Crew tends their stations, warriors train in the gyms, and the diplomatic envoy that forms the core of their mission sits in a conference room near the helm discussing the agenda at their next stop.
In one small cabin, however, the atmosphere is anything but peaceful. Jian paces nervously, eyes constantly drifting back to the clock on the wall. Only five more minutes…
For the third time that afternoon, she returns to the mirror on the wall, running her fingers through her long silver hair and touching up a stray spot of unblended eyeshadow. She hasn't spoken to Reena in nearly three months, and it could be much longer before the opportunity arises again. Her time waiting in the que to access the thoughtportals when they were unneeded for more important things will mean nothing if she is unable to reach her.
She's late. Where is she? Has she forgotten? Had she- no, there it is.
Jian scrambles to the desk and presses a button on the small device that sits there, heart jumping into her throat. "Hello?"
"Jian!"
Her lover's voice sends a surge of relief through her. She's OK. A part of Jian has known this, but in the vastness of the galaxy, anything could happen and she would never find out until it was too late… "Reena! How are you?"
A blurry image flickers into the air before her, little more than a flesh-toned smudge that slowly resolves itself into the round face and upturned nose of a young aeldari girl with sparkling golden-brown eyes. Reena, her darling. She looks a bit tired- she's probably just finished a shift in the infirmary. She wears a soft, flowing white dress and her the golden rings bound around her braid pick up the color of her eyes and the highlights in her red hair. "Nothing much to report, really. You know how it is. Nothing ever happens here. How about you? How's the galactic traveler?"
"Gods, I'm bored. Since we stopped on Biel-tan three weeks ago, the most exciting thing has been changes in the canteen menu." She pauses. "It's been nice to spend time with Mother, though."
Reena nods. "Is it everything you hoped it would be?"
"It is." She smiles wistfully. "It's different, you know, spending time with her as a grown woman, than it was when I was younger."
"Of course it is. Although," Reena's voice takes on an amused tone. "I'm not sure who the grown woman is supposed to be."
"Hey! That's not- "
Reena cuts her off laughing. "Seriously, though. I'm really happy you're having a good time. Just… hurry back, OK? I worry."
"Of course. I'm sure we'll be at the shrine for a while before they send us out again. I miss you too." She falls silent for a moment, considering, before a wicked grin spreads across her face. "Would it help if I described all the things I'll let you do to me when I get back?"
Reena matches the smile with one of her own. "Well… since you mention it… It's been way too long since I've seen your tits."
"Oh? Is that what you want? I could be persuaded…" Jian sneaks a glance around the cabin. Her bunkmate isn't supposed to be back for nearly an hour, but it would be amazingly awkward if someone walked in right now.
"Come on. Your shirt, off with it."
She takes hold of the edge of the fabric, rolling it slowly up her body, making sure Reena can catch every last detail of her body as it's revealed. Her girlfriend sighs appreciatively as Jian reaches back to unhook her bra.
"Unggghhh, those look good. Give them a nice squeeze for me." She hears Reena shifting position to get ready for what comes next.
"Hang on a second, let me lock the door before-"
A loud, shrieking, mechanical noise cuts her off. Jian's heart jumps into her mouth. "Shit, that's the alarm. I have to leave."
"What's wrong?" Reena asks quickly.
"I don't know. It's probably nothing, just a rough patch in one of the warp corridors coming up or something. I'll call back as soon as I can."
"Promise?" Jian can still hear the worry in her voice.
"I promise. I love you." She blows a kiss to the screen and switches it off, already shifting mindsets. She has a duty now.
Her armor is a work of art, nearly as easy to put on as normal clothing. Particularly when she's only half-dressed already. Less than two minutes later, she's jogging down the corridors of the ship in the fitted bodysuit and bone-white plates that already feel like a second skin. As she runs, she places her Banshee's mask over her face, and with it, the last of her jovial mood from a few moments prior falls away.
Despite what she said to reassure Reena, she isn't sure what kind of threat the alarm that still blares is warning of. It could be nothing- but it could be an attack by the orks or the mon'keigh or even-
She slows to a walk as she enters the bridge, keeping a watchful eye for any indications of what might be wrong. Her path quickly becomes clear as she spots her exarch, Verynia, standing next to her mother at the far end of the large room.
As she approaches, her heart sinks. Her mother stares at the bay of projected images that show every detail of the ship and the warp surrounding them, face white and eyes distant.
"What is it?"
Her mother starts and turns to look at her, straightening her grey and orange captain's robes as she does so. Jian has always thought they make her look regal, and today is no exception, as she carries a presence even as she wipes the worry from her face. Her voice is perfectly calm despite the tightness in her posture. "The ship is under attack by drukhari raiders. Too many to fend off with the troops we have. We will have to evacuate."
No. How can she say that so calmly?
"What are we going to do?" Her voice comes out squeaky, like a small child's. The drukhari are nightmare creatures, the threat in the dark too frightening even for horror stories.
Verynia steps forward, tossing loose, thick red hair behind her shoulder. Unlike Jian's mother, not a single sign of worry breaks through her air of command. "You are going to join your squad and escort our civilian officers to our escape ships, do you understand?"
"Yes, ma'am." Jian runs towards her sisters, but can't help looking back one more time. Her mother and Verynia, the two women who form the foundations of her life, stand next to each other, deep in conversation, paying her no more heed.
The quintet of her armor-clad Banshee sisters acknowledges her approach with a nod before Kayna, the eldest in both years and experience, gestures to a cluster of aeldari that stand nearby to follow them. Dehina and Elreth cover the sides and the twins, Aya and Lethe, bring up the rear.
Jian recognizes the civilians as part of the ship's diplomatic envoy. They all look as terrified as she feels. A stab of pain shoots up her arm and she realizes she's been gripping the hilt of her sword hard enough that it's begun to cramp.
It seems as though the ship itself has changed as she makes her way towards the nearest escape ship. Hallways that seemed plain and boring only hours ago now have long shadows and too many corners. Yet even still, she finds herself growing less and less afraid as she herds the diplomats along, her own nerves nearly forgotten in the intensity of her focus. With her armor donned hastily and no time for ritual, her warmask evades her, but the mindset is not far. It seems almost like no time at all before the emergency hanger comes into sight.
One of the diplomats breathes an audible sigh of relief, but it's short lived. A half dozen kabalite warriors step into view, armored in crimson and white. They raise their splinter rifles towards the group.
The last of Jian's fear evaporates as she launches forward, drawing a shuriken pistol from her waist and firing towards the enemy in rapid succession. Her first two shots go wild, but the last two connect, striking the nearest drukahri in the shoulder and the side. She doesn't hesitate, drawing her power sword for a follow-up strike.
The warrior's shot slices through the air where she was a second ago and she steps forward into a wide swing that cuts him in half. Blood spatters her, the same color as the armor that failed to protect him. A smile spreads across her face.
Spinning, she rounds on the next assailant, striking low at the legs to avoid his rifle shot. He, too, crumples to the ground, leg sliced cleanly off. More blood flows onto the deck plating and howls of pain join the shrieks from her sisters' masks in a cacophony of sound that forms the music of her death-dance.
Before long, the remaining drukhari lay dead on the ground.
She tosses her hair behind her shoulders and picks her way through the body parts to return to the diplomats and the twins that remained behind to guard them. The former group looks a bit shell-shocked.
"Jian," Kayna orders sharply, gesturing to a blond man who stares blankly at the carnage.
Picking up on her meaning, Jian extends her hand towards him and he takes it without protest. Half-leading, half dragging, she escorts him through the gory hallway and to the hanger, where he seems to regain his wits and hurries onto the escape ship under his own power.
Her relief is short-lived, though. They still have two more groups to escort before the ship can be considered evacuated.
The six Howling Banshees take an instant to regroup before they begin their trip back to the bridge. There's no holding back this time, no pacing themselves for the benefit of civilians. Every moment they waste means more souls lost to She Who Thirsts.
They arrive back on the bridge and skid to a halt. The raiders have already arrived. Giant, twisted hulks of flesh and metal swipe at her kin with rusted blades and hooked claws. With horror, Jian realizes that these, too, were once eldar, tortured and altered to unbelievable degrees. One of the things strikes a woman with the tip of a claw. It's only a scratch, but she stumbles backwards, shrieking in pain and a moment later she lies on the ground, twitching and moaning.
Frantically, she searches the melee for her mother as she readies her sword. She's here, she has to be-
"JIAN!" Verynia shouts. "You have your orders and you fucking follow them; do you hear me?"
Her head snaps around just in time to catch sight of the exarch before she disappears behind a particularly large creature. She moves in a blur, her glaive striking over and over again and bringing death with it each time. "Yes, m'am!" she yells in response, although she's not sure if Verynia can hear her.
The second phase of their evacuation is a team of engineers. After a few moments of anxious searching, Jian hears a call from one of her sisters. "Over here!"
She and Kayna rush to the source of the shout and find Lethe standing over the five aeldari who've huddled under a console. As she begins helping them to her feet, Kayna waves off the trio of rangers who've been guarding the hiding place. Their job here is done for the moment.
The engineers prove more physically capable than the diplomats, and the second phase of the evacuation is going even more quickly than the first.
A single level down, however, Kayna skids to a halt at the head of the group. Jian picks up on it too a moment later. Something is wrong.
Before they have time to react, the wall just in front of them caves in with a horrendous shriek of twisting metal and clouds of foul-smelling smoke. The impact knocks one of the engineers from his feet and he careens into Jian, throwing her off balance. With horror, she realizes blood is pooling onto his robes from a hole burned in his chest. She looks up.
Almost serenely, a Talos pain engine floats into the hallway, scorpion tail ready to fire its weapons at the group once again.
Jian dives out of the way of the spray of black energy, rolling back to her feet and charging forward. A woman screams behind her as a shot must find its home- one of the engineers? Aya? Dehina?
Keyna and Elreth have darted under the Talos' rounded body to carve at its underbelly, so she charges straight for the strange head. It reaches out with crab-like claws, but she leaps out of the way, using the momentum to run up the bare flesh of its arm and onto its back. If she can damage its ranged weaponry, that will buy them time to deal with it without as much risk of civilian casualties.
Her feet slide on the smooth metal armor and for a moment, she fears she will fall, but she manages to right herself in time to slash at the tip of the Talos' tail with her power sword. It shudders and raises again, a hint more slowly, to turn towards her. She strikes again, and again, and again, giving the guns no chance to aim at her until the entire end of the tail falls to the floor in a burst of sickly greenish liquid.
Instinct tells her to dive out of the way and she throws herself to the ground. An instant later, the entire left side of her body, shoulder to knee, is on fire and she stumbles forward, pawing at the paneling of her armor and gasping for breath. By the time the pain stops increasing and becomes a steady throb of heat, her sisters have reduced the Talos to a smoldering heap of flesh and armor.
Jian straightens up and takes a deep breath as Aya lets out a wail of grief. Her blood-sister, Lethe, lies on the ground, blood seeping from a trio of holes in her stomach and a steaming yellow fluid leaking from the glassy eye visible through her shattered mask. Her body still twitches.
Sidestepping yet another body, which she realizes belongs to Dehina, Jian moves to help the four remaining engineers forward as Elreth collects the waystones of the dead. The loss of two of her sisters doesn't register the way it should. One of Khaine's blessings, she's learned, is to save grief and sorrow for another day. For now, fury is unchecked. The three kabalite warriors that attempt to bar their way further on present no more than a momentary delay.
It's only as she watches the last of the engineers make their way up the ramp onto the escape ship that Jian has time to look down at her wounds. The acid has worn through both the wraithbone plating and the underlying bodysuit, and the skin beneath is red and dotted with blisters.
She does her best to push down the pain, but now that battle no longer roars in her ears, she finds it harder to ignore. She lags behind the other three as they begin the final stage of evacuation. We're going to retrieve my mother, she reminds herself. The thought gives her strength and although the pain does not lessen, she finds herself able to push it once again to the back of her mind as they approach the bridge.
As soon as the Banshees arrive, Jian's wounds are instantly forgotten. The tide of the battle has turned while they were gone, and the aeldari are hard-pressed. The bodies of her kin litter the floor as dozens of drukhari warriors roam through the carnage. Jian even spots several incubi, clad in flanged and spiked black armor and wielding massive hooked klaves. Where is Verynia?
What remains of the squad moves forward, cutting down their foes in a desperate bid to reach the survivors. Through an instant's break in the chaos that arounds her, Jian sees her mother, a pair of guardians at her side, wraithbone saber striking at any who come too close. Her face is entirely free of distraction as she fights for her life.
If she's going to rescue her, it has to be now. There's no way she can hold out much longer. Jian charges forward, sword in hand.
Something wraps around her legs and she falls, the impact of the deck plating stunning her momentarily as a massive weight settles onto her back. Through her peripheral vision, she can see at least half a dozen giant, serpentine creatures approaching her. Keyna's body falls in front of her, headless.
No. I have to keep fighting. Her sword is no longer in her hand and she scrambles around on the floor for it. One of the creatures moves in front of her and she screams her frustration through her mask. It, too falls, bleeding from its eyes and mouth.
Jian's flash of triumph is short-lived. A second creature stands behind the first, a sword clenched in two of its four muscular arms. It strikes at her head and her mask falls to the floor, split in two. The weight on her back shifts forward, forcing her shoulders against the floor.
"JIAN!" Her mother's scream rises above the noise of battle and Jian sees her turn in her direction… providing just enough distraction that a shot of dark energy strikes her in the gut. She falls to the floor.
"MOTHER!" Jian shrieks, before realizing her mistake and clamping her mouth shut.
The drukhari that have been closing in part and a woman steps through the space they form. She wears no helmet, her skin a sickly pale and her unkempt hair a brilliant red. Blue-grey tattoos mark her face. Jian doesn't need to be told that she must be the archon of whatever kabal this is. The pride of her bearing, the intricacy of her armor, and the deference shown even by the incubi are evidence enough. Her rifle pulses with the same dark energy that brought Jian's mother to the ground.
Her mother pulls herself to her knees and raises a shuriken pistol. The pain and effort it takes is written plain on her face. Almost casually, the archon raises her rifle and fires two shots, blowing both arms off at the elbows.
Jian keeps struggling. She won't give up, she can't.
Twitching, her mother falls to the ground once again. The archon steps over to her and grabs a fistful of hair, hauling her back to her knees. A wicked smile spreads across the drukhari's face. "What do we have here, huh?"
Jian watches in horror as her mother is dragged across the deck plating, convulsing, eyes rolled back in her head with pain. She can't breathe, she can't move, she can't-
The archon stops in front of her. "Did I hear right? Is this pathetic carcass what's left of your mother?" Jian feels a pull at her own hair, forcing her head back to look up into that cruel face. "Were you too slow and weak to save her?"
"Let. Her. Go," Jian spits out. It's less than nothing, but if she gives up, admits that it's over-
The archon laughs. "No. I have plans for her."
Shifting her grip to keep ahold of Jian's mother, the drukhari pulls a strange dagger from her belt. The blade seems almost to be made of a pitted, stained bone, shot through with channels of dirty yellow liquid. Without hesitation, she plunges it into the other woman's chest.
Her mother screams in a way Jian has never heard before, in a way she never thought any living thing could scream. Her spasms increase and the sound grows more and more strained until it suddenly turns to a rough, guttural roar and blood dribbles from her mouth. Still the noise continues.
Jian can only watch in silent horror, transfixed, unable even to continue struggling. Everything in her wants nothing more than to shut out what's going on, but she can't look away as her mother's body shrivels and twists and eventually stills, turning into a pale, dried husk that barely resembles the woman it once held.
The archon pulls something else from her belt, a small pyramid of polished black stone. Jian has never walked the Path of the Seer, but even she can feel the unwholesome energy radiating from it. Tapping the side, the archon raises it to the waystone at her mother's chest and watches as the gem, too, turns to an ashen white shadow of itself. The pyramid begins to glow an eerie purple.
Jian screams, matching the echoes of her mother's cries that still reverberate through the room, putting all her pain and rage into the sound to form a banshee's wail of her own. Smiling even wider, the archon squats down and blows a kiss at Jian in mocking gesture of farewell.
The forceful exhalation is too much for her mother's corpse and it disintegrates into a cloud of ash. Jian's scream cuts off as the powder rolls over her, coating her face and her armor and BY KHAINE IT'S IN HER MOUTH. She coughs and spits and chokes, writhing in her captors' grip as she tries to get it off her, get it off, get it off, getitoffgetitoff-
Once again, the archon laughs as she stands up, brushing ash from her armor. "And just think: None of this would have happened if you'd been a real warrior. How pathetic."
Jian's eyes blur with tears. Each word falls on her like a blow. Please, Isha, just let me die now.
"But don't worry. I'm sure we'll be able to find you a new home, one where you'll never bring suffering and death to your loved ones again. Who knows? Perhaps you'll even manage to be useful to someone."
The words echo through Jian's mind as the archon turns her back and walks away. One of the incubi steps forward and aims an armored boot at Jian's head. The world goes black.
The young Howling Banshee sags in the sslyth's grip, unconscious. As the archon moves to inspect the rest of her prizes, her crew swarms the girl, stripping her of everything that could be dangerous or valuable and binding her hand and foot. Their work finished, they move on to the next captive, leaving her lying helpless and insensate in a pile of white ash.