******************* Purity *******************
Sister Magdalena dislodged her sword from the chest of the alien creature, and wiped its filthy blood off on the thing's own clothing. The remainder of her squad was pursuing the last of the aliens, who were now in full retreat. The angered hiss of Sister Rakel's meltagun blended with the thunder of bolter-fire from somewhere beyond the impact crater where Magdalena stood.
These aliens were deadly at long range, but once the sisters managed to bring their full power to bear up close, their blasphemous technology was useless and their slender, lithe bodies too weak. Magdalena's squad had gone through these creatures like dreadnoughts.
An Immolator rumbled by, crushing alien bodies underneath its tracks, on its way to annihilate the last remnants of the monstrosities. Magdalena watched it go by, and then looked down at the creatures around her. From inside a broken helmet a dead, fish-like eye stared back at her.
Magdalena wanted to scream and rage at them, even in death. Why are you here?! Can't you smell your own filth?! How can any sentient being be so blind as to defile mankind's domain like this?! Why didn't your ancestors realise the wrongness of their own existence, and crawl back into the slime from which they were spawned?! How could you do this to humans?! She wanted to howl at them.
Magdalena knew it was futile, though. Aliens were so far removed from the Emperor's light that they did not see their own evil. But, so much blood it took to wash away their sins. So much blood. And the humans, the humans these aliens had corrupted to do their bidding. Generations would have to be put to the pyre for the seed of heresy the aliens had planted inside the minds of these misled people. So much blood to wash away what the aliens had done here today.
It was a small price to pay for the purity of this world, she knew that. Better ten dead faithful than one living heretic, as the saying went. But how could there even be heretics? How could a mind that walked on two legs and spoke with a mouth be so alien that it was able to choose wrong over right? How could these things choose to live, knowing what they were? How could humans choose to follow them? How?
There was only the Emperor, and a life without His holy presence was unthinkable. What disease of the mind made the living death that was the alternative seem like an option? It was enough to make her weep in fury and frustration. Why didn't these aliens turn their weapons on themselves in despair over their meaningless lives.
Glaring at the broken bodies around her in rage and contempt, Magdalena pulled an incendiary grenade from her belt, flicking away the pin with her thumb. As she climbed out of the crater she tossed it behind her angrily, and almost immediately a burning white flame consumed the blasphemies behind her.
There. She felt a little cleaner, and silently sent a prayer to the Emperor thanking him for giving them phosphor and flame enough to purify this world.