Several hours pass by, still and silent as the grave. His own breathing barely perceptible to even his enhanced senses, Sevatar goes over his predicted attack again and again, adapting it for minuscule differences. A different arrangement, different reaction speeds of his gaolers, a different amount of trigger weight to the bolter, or a difference in experience of the wielder.

He stands slowly, and eases into stretching, warming his muscles. Normally his power armour would remove such a need, but in the cold air, some physical preparations could go a long way.

Eventually, he feels her spirit return to his, watching. Not speaking, watching, until...

"They're coming Jago."

He reacts instantly.

"How far out?"

"A hundred metres perhaps."

"Check your surroundings. When I say go, you get yourself out of there immediately and find a place to hide. Nothing else matters, got it."

"I understand. Fifty metres."

"You'll be alright." He says, in a sudden drive for compassion. "Just stay quiet and hidden, and wait for me."

"I understand Jago."

He can hear them now. They passed into his senses long ago, but now he hears their bootsteps, and the tremor of their footfalls.

'Illuminaton.' The same droning voice says, as he shuts his eyes against the glare, hearing the barrier start to fizzle and power down.

"Good luck Jago."

"Cousins! How nice to see you again!" He greets them in the same way as every time before, with a big blind grin on his face. Utterly disingenuous, and perfectly unlovely.

"It is not reprociated, I..."

In a blur of motion, Sevatar pounces, his coiled body, aided by the sum of his talents, vaulting off the floor like a spring. He cannot see them, but he does not need to see them.

He can feel them reacting, their hearts speeding their pulse into a hyperactive battle-state, but to him, they may as well be moving through treacle.

He weaves away from the gun of the closest, and rams his fingers in between the chest plate and helmet of the Dark Angel, punching through the weaker gorget by force of weight, and puncturing both throats.

His hand still inside the Dark Angels neck, Sevatar shifts his weight and twists, throwing the marine into his battle brothers, only now just beginning to turn to him, as his hand plucks the pistol from the dying marine's hip.

The body sends the both of them stumbling, but as soon as it drops, he sends a bullet into the middle ones skull, and before it even hits, another one into the furthest marine, through the eye lens.

And a third, into the first. No sense letting him live any longer. Unnecessary risk, and all that, he supposed.

The three bodies fall to the ground almost perfectly together, a heap of several tones of ceramite, plasteel and adamantium. All three are missing a good portion of their heads. He has to work fast. With centuries of experience, Jago Sevatar strips the bodies for valuables. Identification chips in the armour of the middle, a chainsword on the back of one, a full magazine of bolt rounds. Never know when three bolts might come in handy. He didn't have room for more.

He doesn't pause. Even with his advanced abilities, he had no time to spare.

"Now little one!" He yelled. He hoped her exodus would come more easily. He supposed she was able to help herself. She was a Beta-Majoris, after all. She should be exponentially more powerful then those in her immediate surroundings, and considering her ranking as second voice, he knew that no one could challenge her for power there.

She'd be fine. It was himself he needed to worry about.

Moving at a dead sprint, as he was, he estimated perhaps five, maybe six seconds had passed since he felled the first marine. If he was lucky, whoever was monitoring the group was a slow hand, and tried to contact the dead bodies, before realising something was wrong, and sounding an alarm. Maybe ten seconds to sound one. Another five to see who had escaped, and maybe another ten to give orders. He had used about seven so far.

He supposed it was possible that no one had been monitoring those marines, but he knew it was bad to bank on that level of luck. He knew better then that.

It had taken him nearly an hour to cross from his cell to near the hanger deck. The travel to the armoury was not nearly so far, due to them being on closer layers of the ship, to prevent easy access by boarding parties, and he was moving a lot faster.

At his current pace. He estimated he'd arrive in under five minutes.

Nine seconds. Hand at the alarm bell. Fifteen seconds if he was lucky, then a sizeable chunk of a legion would be hunting him down.

Fun times.

He almost made it all the way to the armoury without encountering resistance. There had been several crew members, but they were so slow, he was past them before they became aware enough to act. But of course, the armoury was guarded by Astartes.

Two of them, and two servitor controlled weapon emplacements. Heavy Stubbers. Normally nothing of note, but in his raw state, something to note.

Regardless, he aimed for the Dark angels first, sprinting as he went.

It was down a long corridor, with nothing to hide behind. No sense in just standing around to be shot.

He could feel a heady trickle from his nose, one that failed to clot over, as he pushed himself faster.

The first died to a series of bolts impacting into his upper torso and throat. Before he could shift, he felt the stubber emplacements shift, chambers cycling. It would be impossible to remove those with his stolen chainsword.

With the last two bolts, he passed a shot past the shield of each, through the targeting sights, and into the fleshy control system.

The pistol now useless, he threw it to the side.

The final marine was ready now, and bolt rounds spat from the barrel in a bloom of expanding gasses.

Sevatar had never appreciated the beauty of it. He had reacted to them easily enough before, but now he could see it move slowly enough to take it in.

The sword came up, as he shifted down, and batted the deadly projectile away. The bolt, seemingly incensed at this, detonated against the cladding of the sword, and Sevatar felt the weapon judder in his hand, mechanics ruined by the force applied.

No matter. Anything could be a weapon if moved fast enough really.

Another bolt passed over his head, and he kicked himself onto the left wall, then the right, and thundered down, slamming the now useless bludgeon against the armoured face of the Dark Angel. His feet left the ground as his back slammed into it, head rolling back. Sevatar pounced, and with force, dragged the tungsten teeth of the blade across the Marines throat. Blood pulsed from the deep gouge, and Sevatar spun for the dropped boltgun, raised it, and fired two shots into the face of the marine.

He would have stayed around to gloat, but there were others already searching for him, and in a few seconds, they would know where he was.

He sprinted past the doors to the armoury, slammed the big red lockdown button by the door, and fired a round into the control panel, and then into the locking mechanisms of the heavy bulkhead. They wouldn't be enough to separate them, but the single bolt would deform them, and make them much harder to open again.

Finally, he turned to the room, and with mechanical precision, blew apart any optical device he saw.

Only then, did he allow his breath to seep out, and his talent to fade from his body.

His nose was pulsing hot blood again, but he wiped at it, and it stopped.

His voice was hesitant, but he called out, "Altani."

A moment of worry, but then, "I'm here Jago."

"Still alive, little one?"

"Yes. Still here." She sounded near distraught, but that could simply be because she was afraid.

"Are you safe? Where are you?" He said, pushing into the storage room.

"I'm safe, for the time being. I'm hiding in a big empty tank, the liquid kind. I found it connecting from a vent. Looks as isolated as anything really."

"Good to hear, I was worried you might get nervous and freeze." He said. He confessed he wasn't good with humans like that.

"I managed. I'm so tired. Why am I so tired, I just woke up?"

"Don't go to sleep now Altani." He said, as she yawned. "You aren't used to the stresses of combat, to your heart pounding and emotions flying. Since you've slowed down, your body is telling you to rest, now that you are safe. But until I can get to you, and we can both hide somewhere deeper, we aren't safe."

It couldn't be of any benefit having spent most of her time sleeping either.

"It's cold in here."

"Focus on me child, and keep moving. You need to keep warm and awake and aware."

"A little bit hard to do without being able to walk Jago." She reminded him, in a voice caught between misery and terseness.

"Roll your shoulders, swing your arms and your waist, rub your legs. Keep the blood moving. In fact, roll onto your stomach."

He peered past a crate and saw it, his armour.

"And now what?" She asked.

"How many pushups can you do?" He said, before spitting on the lock to the winch that held his armour up in the air like a hanging corpse.

"Are you serious Jago?"

"Very, Altani. Keep yourself warm, and focus your mind. Do I need to count for you, or do you want to do that yourself?"

The mechanism snapped, and the chain thundered as his armour slammed to the ground in an unceremonious heap.

"I can count myself, thank you." She said, before a sharp inhale.

"Down and up." He said, and he chuckled as he felt her unvoiced irritation. It had taken her mind off the situation, and kept her warm.

"One." she said, accompanied by a light exhale.

"Twwooo." A louder, more throaty exhale now. For his part, Sevatar just chuckled as he started donning his armour.

"Thhhhrrre-ahh."

He laughed out loud again, and heard it echo loudly in the dark room like a gunshot.

"We need to work on your endurance, little one."

She only smouldered in hate. That petty, burning hate that only the young and innocent could know.

It took him a few more minutes to don his armour, and by that point, he could hear the hammering at the door. He clipped his spear to his back, and walked to one of the larger boxes labeled in big block letters 'FRAGMENTATION GRENADES', and kicked it open, fiddled with one, and placed it back inside the crate.

As a final action, he tuned his helmet speaker to a very particular frequency, and let out an electronic squeal. No true Night Lord didn't know that frequency. It was the frequency at which lumen globes shattered.

The room plunged into darkness, and Jago Sevatarion melted into it, as the door slammed open.

Sergeant Delios, Terran-born, was first into the room, pistol following his eyes. The room was pitch black, and his helmet flitted between setting in less then a heartbeat, before settling on infrared. His squad, and that of Loris', fanned out behind him.

A vox click, and they pushed forwards, armour thrumming quietly. The door, pushed by the false wind, slammed shut behind them.

"I AM JUSTICE!" A voice rang out, and they stopped, panning their bolters up. The room echoed unhelpfully. The sound was almost as if it came from everywhere at once.

"I AM JUDGEMENT!" A wave forward, a disturbed pallet.

"I AM PUNISHMENT!" They reached the pallet, but nothing behind it. He spun, his vision flashing around, seeking to spot the sneak attack.

There was none.

He waited for the next line, but seconds ticked by, and nothing stirred, and he suppressed a snort.

He could see what was labeled on the side. Frag grenades.

Checking for tripwires, he opened the box. If the escapee had taken any of them, he needed to know. Any one of them could risk his entire squad. He needed a count.

In an instant, he could see one was missing from the neat pattern they were stored in.

In another, he could see the offending one was simply resting on top.

In a third instant, he wondered why he would put something back, after going to the trouble to get it out.

In the fourth, he realised why.

In the fifth, he saw the counter was ticking down.

He grabbed the deadly explosive and thrust it against his abdomen, turning away from the box and yelling at his squad to get down. They had been played, and if his body wasn't enough, they would all die.

He didn't even have time to throw himself to the floor.

In his last moments, Sergeant Delios felt himself overcome with an overwhelming rush of mind-blowing irritation at how easi..."

Jago felt the ship shudder, as a rush of air hit him from behind, and grinned that same grin, Like that of one of Nostramo's eyeless white sharks, after catching a sizeable prey.

The ship should hold. It was a minor armoury, and it was reenforced to all hells and back. But hopefully, his hunters had not fared so well. And now, they should have no idea where he had gone from there.

But time was wasting, and he needed to find the small Astropath first. Before either he was found and intercepted, or she fell asleep.

Frail things, humans.