I never wanted to be a psyker.
It's not the kind of thing a little girl asks for. It's certainly not the kind of thing a little girl wants to have to grow up with. I mean, most little girls I know --well, that I knew-- wanted horsies or boyfriends or something.
But then, I wasn't like most girls.
Because the only thing I ever really wanted was fire.
You know, that sounds weird. To want fire. It was the one thing I knew that couldn't be controlled. No matter how much I thought about it, no matter how many of my thoughts shot out and bounced around in someone's head like boltgun fire in a dropship, I couldn't control the fire. But it sure could control me.
It's weird, now that I think about it, but when I was growing up --I'm from Soltris II, by the way, it's out in the Segmentum Ocularis-- we didn't have much time for anything but control.
The funny thing was, everyone else was so keen on controlling me, when they didn't realize that I knew exactly what was going through their heads.
There's different types of psykers. There's ones who can call down warp-storms on your face. There's ones that can pick things up like they're wearing Terminator armour and juggle them around. There's ones that can plant suggestions in other people's heads, fake them out, or something.
And then there's ones like me, who hear the voices in other peoples' heads but can never do anything but listen.
One time, my mother tried to get me to help her knit. And she was like, "why not? It's fun!" To which I said, "you hated it when your mother taught you, and if I didn't need a new dress for the Dawn of the Empire festivities, you'd never bother." Which was precisely what she was thinking at the time. I didn't help myself any by saying, "what's a festivities?" right afterwards. Small wonder I got to be an only child.
I grew up Perdita Shentrayo, we were poor and I had no chance of ever holding any kind of position that mattered in the local government. My parents realized this early --I could sense as much-- and saw how uncontrolled I seemed to be. Of course, they didn't realize that I was reading everyone else's mind. But then, I can't blame them for suspecting the worst.
My mother tried to talk me into serving with the Imperial Guard on Soltris, but the prospect of being a comfort woman for the Guards was no more appealing than the prospect of growing up a prostitute on the streets of Soltris II. I guess it was her strong ideals of how she wanted me to have the chances she never did, how she wanted me to be the only pure thing still left on the industrially scarred face of Soltris, that led me to believe what I did.
Of course, joining Adepta Sororitas --becoming a Sister of Battle-- was a relatively simple process.
All I needed to do was follow the voices.
And aim my flamers carefully.
It took a while --and a lot of my mother pulling strings at the local Cathedralis Imperiatum with the zealous types there-- for me to actually get a chance. Faith was easy for me. All I had to do was lean on other people's thoughts.
Of course, at any Cathedralis, you've got a thousand people singing in High Gothic, with a Preacher or High Priest chanting at you repeatedly to "repent and be saved, repent and be saved". It became a matter of some considerable fun for me to point out to my mother, well after the fact, what those repeated chants brought out in the people around me.
I trusted my mother completely. She knew I was a psyker. She was the only one. I saw what happened because I shared my secret. And I won't share it again.
When I was about fourteen, after my mother had first started leaning on the Ministorium types for a bit of faithful attention to her only child, she and I would sit around after church and talk about what was on other people's minds --literally. This got her in a bit of trouble, and for my sins against the Emperor, I was brought to repentance.
The local Imperial Commander had brought his entire force to the Cathedralis to hear the Mass. We were expecting an invasion by one damnable alien or another, and talk of heresy and treason abounded. Everyone looked at each other shiftily, wondering if they were having their minds read, wondering who was working for the other side, wondering, watching... worrying.
My mother was worried, too. Not of betrayals from within --though I know those now to be the worst kind-- but of what was coming ahead. I told her what the Imperial Commander thought about all this: that Soltris was doomed if the Space Marines were late in coming. Because our paltry Guard defenses would hold up against an entire Chaos invasion for all of ten minutes. Something had summoned the forces of Chaos to Soltris. It was a matter of time before the Inquisition followed.
A week elapsed, and the forces of Chaos didn't show their ghastly visages. But another certainly did. He was an Inquisitor, sent to Soltris to weed out heretics, traitors, both, neither, whatever got in the way of the Emperor's light, like a weed unto good growth, had to be removed and exterminated. Using some hideously powerful device, he traced psyker emanations to our flat, where he falsely presumed my mother was responsible. And he led her away to the Adeptus Arbites precinct for questioning.
As a child, we all learn the filtering process. We are born with ears, we learn to filter our the voices around us. We are born with eyes, we learn to see what is both there and what is soon to come. I was born with a psyker sense, and I learned relatively young how to tune out certain voices and focus on others. The constants of rage and self-loathing and sadness, bitter, depraved sadness, permeating my every thought ---most especially at night, when the conscious mind's filters are offline for rest--- induced such a terror in me, the likes of which I would not know until I first saw death before me, as a shoplifter was summarily executed by the Arbites on a street corner.
That shoplifter's voice, his mind, slowly fading to nothing, though I could see his form, I could not feel his thoughts-- the feeling of that led me to sadness and curiosity for the five years that followed. Even when my mother was taken from me, I thought of his face, gripped in the throes of death as the laspistol round annihilated his skull, of his thoughts, of the pain which threw me also to the ground as his life was no more.
But I tell you truly that the filtering process worked against me that night. I knew what my mother knew, I heard the every question, and I was silenced by the space between us as the Inquisitor slowly and deliberately agonized her for eight long hours, until she finally succumbed to the torture, never once breathing a word of my secret.
That Inquisitor's name was Reichmann. His, I would learn, was one of the more benevolent means of the Emperor's retribution.
And his, I would also learn, was the initiative that led me to become a ward of the Imperium at fourteen, and enrolled by the Ecclesiarchy to join the Adepta Sororitas.
None of the girls I joined up with were psykers. I checked them all. Many of them were less than virgins. Most of them were bionically re-educated --"born again vestals", as the Sisters Superior used to call them. I adopted the name Soltricia, after my home planet, after I was installed in rank. I was given over to the Order of the Valourous Heart, to be trained in the ways of the Battle Sisters, at the age of fifteen. A year had passed, in which I mostly robbed the answers to the Questions of the Faithful from the heads of the priests and monks around me. It was hard not to; all I could think of was how harsh a lesson indeed would await me if I slipped up.
The same lesson my mother had sat in on for me.
I learned the tactics and strategies of the Sisters of Battle. I learned our history. After the Age of Strife in the thirty-sixth millennium, the High Lords of Holy Terra had decreed that the Ecclesiarchy, or Ministorium in High Gothic, would never again be allowed to raise armed men for any reason. This did not prevent them from assembling women, however, and thanks to a typical Administratium loophole, Chaos indeed lurked in the details.
We were equipped with the most powerful weapons the Ministorium could find. But above all other weapons, we held the righteous purity of flame. Meltaguns --concentrated heat beams designed to penetrate armour. Jetpack-mounted Seraphim, capable of using hand-held bolt pistols and hand-held flamers to give to the Emperor a fervent sacrifice of His enemies. Retributor squadrons mounted in their Immolator tanks, to which were mounted twin heavy flamethrowers for giving unto the heretic, the traitor, and the alien alike, solid proof through the conflagration that the power of the Imperium was absolute-- and supreme.
I also did a lot of praying. Most of it was just repeating the words our Celestian Superior gave us. It wasn't hard. All I did was use her words, in her mind, and repeated as necessary. I hoped the Emperor didn't mind. After all, He probably had better things to do.
It amazed me how many people bought into the idea of an Emperor. Part of me wondered if there even was such a thing. That part of me felt like it was indeed possible that the entire idea of a single planet, on which a single massive building-device through which a single man's life-essence --even if it was the life-essence of a man who was allegedly the most powerful psyker ever known-- was channelled across His universe. The Emperor, on his Golden Throne, with his Astropaths, guiding His Navy's ships through the warp, guiding His servants to His worlds, to do His will, in His stead.
The whole thing just kind of bugged me. Something I'd learned from my mother was never to trust any man. Men were fine in real small doses, my mother used to say, but too much and you'd drown. I could see why, though her thoughts. Her father was an Imperial Guard trooper, who had served to preserve Soltris from a raiding band of Eldar pirates. His unit broke in combat; he had watched helplessly as a Commissar put two of his best friends to summary death in order to rally the squad. He was only then a young man, one who as an old man had never recovered from the shock and the fear of that moment in time. I felt as though, like the Blood Angels, the memory of those deaths had been forever etched upon my genetic makeup. And I felt that I lived them with every moment my mother was alive. He had been hard on her; she had rebelled, and for this insurrection was cursed with a child. It was why she named me Perdita in the first place. It was why she had feared the invasion. She had seen what it had done to her father. She feared what it would do to me. And when she died, she had felt the hands of her father upon her in the searing pain with which the Inquisitor demanded of her the secret to which she so desperately clung.
Many times, when I would pray to the Emperor, I'd ask Him why He sent His Inquisitor to take my mother. Other times, I would pray to Him for her soul to be at peace.
But more often than not, when I prayed, it wasn't me praying at all.
It was me hoping that, someday, I'd get to demand a few answers of my own from a certain Inquisitor.
I rose quickly in the ranks of the Adepta Sororitas. The Order's Canoness had her eye on me, I'm sure of it.
Basically, from the moment you get your power corset to the moment you're buried because it failed you, you serve the Emperor above all others. The order is pretty simple. At first, you stand out in a field and shoot at things in a standard squad. If they think you can handle it, you get a slightly better set of weapons --a flamer, a meltagun, something. Girls who have what it takes with their hands join a Dominion squad. Those squads specialize in having meltaguns and flamers in them. We only really take meltaguns and flamers --other weapons like lasguns and plasma weapons, or any kind of projectile launchers, just don't have the same effect. Sure, they're more effective on our enemies sometimes. But the fact is, it just doesn't have the same inspirational effect on the girls. Nothing makes you as faithful as watching heretics burn. Nothing inspires faith in the Emperor like the saving grace of watching enemy boltgun fire ricochet off your armour, while your fiery death either pierces through theirs or broils them to death within it.
Most squads have armoured carriers, but I usually get sick in them. The only thing worse than tossing in a Rhino is dealing with the Emperor's curse once a month. They say that of all the Imperium's citizens who, as the Emperor received His near-fatal wounds slaying Horus during the Great Heresy, bled with Him, the compassion of women cursed them to forever share their bodies with His, and thus, once a month, have to succumb once again to the ordeal of His Glorious Combat. After you serve in the same Cathedralis for a while, all the girls you serve with begin to enjoin with you, and when His curse is visited upon you, the squad takes their wounds as a whole, and no armour can save them.
Since I usually got sick in Rhinos, my Sister Superior at the time suggested that I look into joining the Seraphim. I wasn't that keen on the Seraphim at first. I mean, if I got sick in a Rhino, how would strapping a jetpack on improve my stomach any?
Short answer was, it made killing things a lot easier.
It's hard to explain my bloodlust on a battlefield to people without mentioning what I feel when my enemies die. When the heretics burn, I touch their minds. I can feel the repentance as their skin chars and their blood boils. I know the Emperor's cause is righteous --at least, part of me does. The other part of me wonders about this worriedly sometimes, in a voice I can only explain as being like my mother's, but not nearly as supportive. It haunts me sometimes --I can't filter it out like other voices, and I don't know from whence it comes. But I hear it, I feel it, as strong as if my mother lived on, if only within me.
But the part of me that knows the glory of serving Him knows also the power that is mine with a flamethrower in my hands. We only saw combat twice: the rest was training and live-fire maneuvers, tactical experience and so on. The first time, we faced off against a rogue Imperial Commander on Cingith. I was in a Dominion squad at the time, we were Onyx Squad. (Just to clarify-- in the Order of the Valourous Heart, Diamond Squads are the command unit, Gold, Silver, and other metallically-named Squads form the heavy support weaponry, and all other gems --Ruby, Amethyst, Jade, Sapphire, Turquoise, Opal, Pearl, Amber, and so on-- form the remainder.) My squad was made up of five girls, all in our late-teens to mid-twenties. I didn't know many of them that well; mostly, I stayed to myself and pretended to pore over the Ecclesiarchy's tomes while watching with my mind all the others interact around me. Half the fun was finding out what they thought of me, if they did at all. Our Sister Superior was a real hard mother; she was always pressing us to move faster, fight harder, aim truer, and always, always invoking the Emperor's name. I never heard so much swearing on a battlefield.
I remember we were in the streets of Cingith's main starport city. Diamond, Gold and Amber squads held the starport itself, we had moved out on the flank --as had Ruby Squad, a Seraphim squad of nine women-- and were to purge any resistance we found with righteous pyre. We were fortunate: usually Guardsmen only wear flak armour or some chitinous plastic at best. Ruby Squad popped up over a fence at one end of an alleyway where an anti-tank squadron with a lascannon had mounted themselves. They didn't see the mortar team in the rubble across the way --three girls bought it hard. We were in the street between the collapsed building where the mortar team was, set up to pincers around the anti-tank squadron. It didn't work with a mortar team right there. So, our Sister Superior ordered us to charge the mortar team. It wasn't necessary-- my flamethrower swept across their ranks and killed four of them in the debris. As a ring of fire swept upwards, the Guardsmen rolled desperately on the ground --I could feel the repentance, more strongly than I could feel the faith of some of my bionically re-conditioned Sisters. For they were forced by design to know His will: these future corpses were feeling it with their every nerve ending. While I hesitated, though, the lascannon Guardsmen was turning their guns on our squad, but the remaining Seraphim were already on top of them; twin bolt guns piercing armour and flesh alike, they decimated the lascannon crew faster than I had. Though I felt the writhing agony of the mortar crew, the stunned silence of the minds of those in the lascannon crew --ten of them gone in a heartbeat-- led me to believe that for me, the higher calling meant I'd need a pair of wings.
The day after we cleaned up Cingith, I went to my Sister Superior and asked to be considered for Seraphim training. She looked at me half-amused, half-proud, and said, "You can't even keep your composure in a Rhino." I nodded, but I could see that she had been impressed with my purification of the mortar squad down below. So I stayed quiet long enough for her to add, "but you sure kept your composure under fire. That was some good work, Sister. You gave His enemies retribution for their heresies. But I will personally see to your retribution if you fail me after I recommend you."
It took another cycle of the Emperor's curse before she came around. I was transferred to the Cathedralis Imperiatum on the planet Chiros. Which meant another trip through the warp.
I don't like warp travel. The idea of cutting into another dimension, where strange malevolent creatures that prey on unwitting psykers and weak-minded fools consider themselves to be at home, the dimension from which the so-called Gods of Chaos and the disloyal, heretic Chaos Space Marines hail is bad enough, but the passage on an Imperial Navy cruiser is worse. To start with, the room you're given with which to make your passage is smaller than the pews of Soltris' Cathedralis. Well, it's not that bad, but it sure feels like it when it's well past lights-out and you can feel the thoughts of a thousand sexually frustrated space-sailors around you. Men don't intimidate me. I don't trust them, but I can usually manipulate them fairly easily. Being a Battle Sister, I don't like giving the Order a bad name by giving into my lower impulses, but then, it's so easy to extract a secret from the mind of any man I wanted and hold it as a sort of poor psyker's extortion in exchange for his silence regarding our brief liaison. Plus, it'd be easy to do the same thing to anyone who might have happened to witness it. But in exchange for that, they'd know I was a psyker. And I didn't want to invite Inquisition on myself. I might not have feared men, but I rightly feared the Inquisition.
The warp itself is a bizarre phenomenon to behold. I never directly witnessed it, but I sure felt it. Being a psyker in a void chock-full of malevolent psyker creatures was bad enough, but being in the hold of a starship full of panicky humans was far worse. I wasn't afraid much of the psyker-creature stuff. At least, not until I got to see how scared of it everyone else was. The moment we left the warp, I felt a wave of panic rush through the whole ship. Of course, I didn't tell anyone this. It was just one of those things. The warp brought anxiety. But it also brought me to Chiros.
Chiros was an interesting place. The whole planet was rewritten by the Adeptus Mechanicus to be entirely agricultural in nature, except for the area around its two main starports, one on either side of the planet, and around the Cathedralis, which was located on the southernmost continent of the planet, as part of the local Ministorium efforts. Chiros was pronounced kai-ros for some reason no one bothered to explain to me. Of course, that wasn't what worried me.
What did worry me was that the local Ministorium efforts also included an Inquisition on Chiros and its neighbouring planet, Dalvos. I didn't want to get caught. Rogue psykers are sacrificed agonizingly by the thousands, daily, their life-energy given over to the Emperor to sustain His Holy Presence and the Galactis Imperius around him. I used to toy with my brain, asking myself, how would I rather die? To be given to the Emperor? Or to use my dying moments to sense the joy of the one who murdered me? Either way, I wasn't really looking forward to dying. Then again, I never really imagined how that could turn out.
One of those things about faith I find most irksome is that there's a certain arrogance to it. I mean, even the notion of an afterlife has attached to it the very self-centered notion that the universe around you simply can't exist without you in it after you've been created. The universe created you --more properly, the Emperor gave you life, and the Emperor can take it away. "Serve the Emperor well today," they used to tell us, "for you may not live tomorrow." And were they ever serious about that.
When I arrived at the Cathedralis, after a short trip in a dropship, I was greeted by Kryla, my Sister Superior in the Seraphim. She was really sweet, she had never lived a day in her life where her mind was tainted by anything even remotely damnable, for she had been bred from birth, an orphan, for the Sisters of Battle. In fact, the only remotely negative thoughts I could sense in her mind were the usual doubts about faith that I usually amplified within myself, ever the omnipresent observer of everyone else's worst doubts and fears, and that of the potential for failure. Never in my life had I known such a faithful individual. I was fortunate to know her --and a bit envious of her, as well. Her sheer ignorance, for which she never apologized, of the things about her in the universe, things which could surely reach out and smite her inadvertently, was both to be admired and chastised. And so, I merely followed what had become my standard operating procedure: let the voices of others lead, and let myself follow.
But where I had always chronicled the fears of others, I soon found myself wishing that there was no other capable of chronicling mine.
Kryla informed me that the local population was taking to the faith very well, that they paid their tithe and they served their Emperor, and that the Inquisition was proceeding smoothly, with little to report. "In fact, Inquisitor Reichmann has informed us that we most likely won't be needed on Dalvos for two more years, which gives us plenty of time to prepare for anything."
The mention of the name Reichmann sent a chill down my spine, as though it had been placed there by another's psychic suggestion. I felt my power corset come to a stop, as I had apparently halted in my passage towards my quarters. I picked up my step, and Sister Superior Kryla never really noticed. She had been detailing the other members of my squad --Amethyst Squad of Chiros Cathedralis, of the Order of the Valourous Heart-- although I could've picked up on their stories just as easily if given a few hours' time in silence.
So, he was here. And so, I would meet the murderer of my mother at last.
I knew I had one advantage on Reichmann. He wasn't a psyker. Had he been, he would have required no device to narrow his search. Most all Inquisitors are psykers; a rare few --mostly promoted due to sudden losses of Inquisitors abroad-- are not. I was fortunate that I had the benefit of my psyker power on my side to face him.
But against me and my mere force of revenge was arrayed the entire force of retribution that was the Ministorium.
I sought in vain for an upper hand, for a means by which to defeat him. I hoped so desperately to find a way to give to him what he had forced my mother through.
Little did I know at the time that I would indeed get my wish.
And the price of its coming true would be more than I could bear.
We started basic training on the jetpack and the twin hand flamers the same day. By the end of it, I was so tired I could barely stand up. Jetpacks aren't so bad as I thought they'd be. All you need to remember is to keep your shoulders square and to vary your speed very carefully. The speed is controlled by a small switch attached in the boots. All you do is straighten your foot to go slowly, and flatten it to stop. Sister Superior Kryla told me they used to install it in a bite-down switch, but it made it impossible for the Sister Superior to communicate. "They weren't psykers or something --you know how the Ministorium is about mutant aliens." I'm betting to her the two words were interchangeable.
She also taught me how to use the jetpack to my full advantage. "When you move, you move on the fly. But never use your jetpack to charge into an enemy. It'll hurt you more than it'll hurt them. Even if you get one of these." She tapped the sheath strapped to her left leg, in which was a massive power-sword. Power-swords were designed to do one thing: slice through anything. They had a massive blade, almost as long as Kryla's leg, and I would've loved to get a chance to hold one close enough to Reichmann to take a swing. But I doubt I would've had enough energy to do that.
She also showed me how the hand flamers worked. Since my job was going to be to purify His enemies with righteous fire, I might as well learn how to purify on the fly. That was one of Kryla's rhyming couplet things. She loved to "purify on the fly", as she called it. Kryla liked to fancy herself a hymn writer, but she was practically tone-deaf.
At the end of the day, she introduced me to the three other women in the squad. Velana and Sidra were the other two bolt-pistol girls, and my fellow hand-flamer Sister was Carina. Velana and Sidra were really close friends; I could tell that before I knew their names, but Carina was the grounded one. She was very different from the others, I couldn't get a read on her at all. We were five women in total, at least for now; Kryla was our Sister Superior, but she was different from the other Sisters Superior I'd served the Emperor's cause with, because she actually was human, to some extent. Despite their strict codes on keeping out genetic mutations, the humans the Ecclesiarchy actually lets in really don't bear much resemblance to my idea of what humanity should be--- but then, so long as the Emperor of Man sits on his Golden Throne, my ideas wouldn't matter much, would they?
I had no idea how much they actually did.
That night, as I lay resting, I heard a voice calling me by name. Not by the name of Soltrisia (though Velara and Sidra had dubbed me "sister Sol") but by the name my mother gave me. Perdita... it called. Perdita...
I awoke, because I didn't hear it, I felt it. Yes? I slowly responded.
Awake, my child, and know the power that is yours.
Who--- who are you? Seemed as good a question as any at that point.
I am the Keeper of Secrets. I am the one the Eldar race calls Slaanesh. I have watched you grow for these last twenty-five Imperial years, and I believe you are ready to know your destiny.
No one had ever talked to me of destiny before. I had always thought of destiny in terms of how it'd end. I had no idea that there was actually something that was supposed to go in the middle. So, as panicked as I was, I simply said, oh.
I know your dark secret, that you are psionically gifted, that you can feel the thoughts of others as true and as clear as if they were your own. I have watched you as you serve the False Emperor of Man, I have witnessed your power, and I am willing to help you with your quest for revenge if you will help me with mine.
The name Reichmann flashed through my head and betrayed me.
Yes... said the voice of Slaanesh. I tried to think --totally panicked, I froze. My power corset was hanging on its mount, but nothing short of a psychic hood could save me from this voice. I didn't want to cry out --to betray this Slaanesh character was to betray myself as well. But I tried to think of where I had heard the name of Slaanesh before. And my memory betrayed me.
You are trying to remember from whence you have heard my name before, it said. I just nodded. Could it see me? I didn't know. That matters not. I have long sought an aide within the Adepta Sororitas to assist me in my pursuit of the death of the False Emperor. You will assist me, and in exchange, I will deliver to you the one you call Reichmann. This Slaanesh knew my every thought. I couldn't hide from him. He was too well-shielded; almost as well-shielded as Carina. I thought it over for a moment.
Do I need to tell you right now? Can I think about it? I needed time. I didn't know what I was up against-- but I bet that, if Slaanesh had found me, surely he (she?) could've found his way through to whoever I tried to contact to learn more about him --and again, asking questions were signs of independent thought. Thought begets heresy, and heresy begets retribution. The retribution of the Inquisition. And I wasn't ready for that-- not by a long shot. Perhaps this Slaanesh would be the determinant I needed to destroy Reichmann. But was it worth it? I didn't have the slightest clue.
Very well. On the morrow, I shall contact you again. Should you speak to anyone of this, I shall know. Therefore, remain silent or my retribution will make Reichmann's look simple. Are we clear? Again, through force of habit, I nodded. I was used to the vows of silence and so on, so nodding had become a separate form of communication for me. But then, so had being a psyker. And look what it got me. The voice disappeared, though I lay awake wondering what I had gotten myself into, and what it would cost me.
I thought about it long and hard at the next morning's Dawn Service. They celebrated at dawn just in case someone attacked, or so the legend went. Since everyone was up in faith at dawn, then everyone was ready to attack. There was some legend. Maybe it was historically accurate, I don't know.
What I didn't realize was that it was a High Dawn Service. We do those once a week. The whole planet's Ministorium comes together under the Cathedralis and enjoys a three-hour service in High Gothic. Half the Sisters there don't speak High Gothic. Usually the prayers themselves are only in Common Gothic. The difference, you ask? The latter is easier to read, easier to pronounce, easier, period. I'm used to Common Gothic-- coming from Soltris gave me a few head starts. But High Gothic puts me to sleep.
I sat silently watching Reichmann, studying his mind, when he turned suddenly. I don't know if it was the young woman's eyes burning two holes like twin meltaguns into the back of his head, or some latent psyker power of his own sprung to life all of a sudden, but he turned--- just a half turn, thank the Emperor, but a subtle hint that he knew I was there. I panicked and quickly looked away, over to Carina. Through the darkened clouds of incense burning all over the place and the limited sunlight in the room (symbolic, I was taught, of how little from the outside must enter one's mind if they are to serve Him --a closed mind being a clean one), I saw something in her eyes I'd never seen before.
It was a glint of red, subtle, but red nonetheless, within the iris of her eye.
I smiled at her and looked forward, wishing for a moment that I had been placed within the Officio Assassinorium instead. How I wished, just for a moment, that I was an Assassin of the Vindicare temple, trained snipers, how I wished I had secreted myself away on the top of the grand Imperium ikon mounted on the far walls of the Cathedralis, overlooking the ceremony below, so that I could crush Reichmann's skull with a single shot. How I wished I was an Eversor assassin, a grotesque killing machine injected with untold levels of psychopathy-inducing drugs, manipulated into a one-person executioner of untold levels, capable of sustaining attack until death-- and even then, exploding in a venomous cloud upon death. Or a Callidus assassin, a shapeshifter with a psychic shredder, that I might creep up on Reichmann as a simple aide, and re-shape myself, tearing his neural impulses apart with a solid beam of agony before finishing him with my knife. If only I had Kryla's power sword --for I stood in full power corset, jetpack and all, save the hand flamers-- I could finish it now, without Slaanesh's assistance.
But I guessed to myself that even if I had the chance, I had not the courage to act upon it. And even if I did, my life would not be long thereafter.
I barely paid attention to the service, but then, neither did anyone else. Most of them just showed up because it was a High Dawn Service. There were at least a hundred people, checkered throughout the Cathedralis, that were asleep in their powered armour. But Reichmann stood bolt-firm at the front of the pews, as rigid in countenance and posture as he had been in practice with my mother.
It was in that very moment that I became just as firmly resolved to seek assistance from Slaanesh. No matter the consequences-- my mother's soul could not rest.
And neither could mine.
The day was long after Dawn. I barely paid attention to Kryla's instruction, and she reprimanded me heavily for it, forcing me to clean and polished the entire Order's boltguns. It was almost lights-out by the time I was buffing up the last of them. Sitting in a power corset all day really gave me a sore back. I was glad to be able to make it back to my quarters for a night's rest.
But, of course, I didn't get it.
Perdita... it soon began.
Hello. I figured it paid to be cordial to a daemon. If Slaanesh was a daemon at all. All I knew was what the Ecclesiarchy taught me. If it talks to you, it's one of the Emperor's servants. If it doesn't, it's either an alien, a meal, or both. If it speaks against Him, it's a heretic. If it shoots first, it's either an enemy or a traitor. You purge all but the first in the Adepta Sororitas.
Have you considered my offer?
The thought of Reichmann at High Dawn Service burned in my memory like a heretic being crucified. I have, I thought, I have indeed. And I accept.
Very well. You shall have your way. And I shall have mine. May your choice lead you to consequences you can accept.
I had no idea what he meant, but I lay awake half the night thinking it over.
The next morning came quickly. But so did something else.
Sister Superior Kryla awoke me before dawn, pounding on my door like it was the end of the Galactis. I opened the door and peeked out at her. Her face was white --even for her, it was white.
"Get armed and get to the Cathedralis. A Chaos battle force has materialized on the far side of the planet, and Inquisitor Reichmann himself will be leading us into battle. Emperor be praised, we will have the chance to purge His Holy Realm of more of these heretics." Her voice was quivering. It wasn't the only thing that was, either. I could feel her panicking. She felt doomed.
"A--- Chaos force?" I asked, hesitantly.
"Yes," Kryla said, "our scouting reports indicate it's a Slaaneshi battalion advancing on the Cathedralis."
This was the second time in my life that Kryla had dropped a name which brought a shiver to my frame. The first had been Reichmann. The second had been Slaanesh.
After I sealed the door to prepare myself for battle, the shiver the name of the latter had produced within me became a full-out panic attack. I wondered to myself if there was some kind of coincidence at work. But I told myself that, regardless of what I had chosen, the Emperor needed us to be strong --all of us.
Even the traitorous among us.
I forced the obvious links in my mind as far from it as I could. Slaanesh had sought me out. Reichmann was the target of my hate. But Reichmann had been summoned to Soltris because there were fears of Chaos tainting minds there too-- was my mother's death my fault, then? Had the panic over forces of Chaos been caused by me? Had Slaanesh's observation of me stretched so far back as to include--
I tried to keep my mind off it. But here we were, poised to fight a Slaaneshi force, in a battle led by Inquisitor Reichmann. I had a terrible feeling about this. But I told myself anything I could to silence my mind. I even found myself humming some of the hymns from the High Dawn Service the day before, just to try to keep my thoughts from ruling my actions.
I could hear Kryla, as we headed towards the field of battle in the dropship, invoking the Opening Rites of Purification of Heretics. "Oh great and powerful Immortal Emperor of Man, we worship and praise you. Like the many who have come before, and those who will forever march to your Most Holy Orders, we seek your guidance in the battle to come. Sweet and Merciful God of All Humanity, protect us from the thoughts and weapons of the heretic, as we crush him and purify him in your name." She was reading it in Common Gothic, which made me worried. But then I realized that Carina had joined just before I had, and her Gothic was probably as bad as mine. I looked at Velara, who was trying to get my attention, and nodded.
"Hey, sister Sol, what's on your mind?"
I shushed her and nodded towards Sister Superior Kryla, even as Sidra leaned forward to hear my response to Velara. So, I guess I shushed 'em both.
Carina, on my other side, just sat bolt upright. For a new girl, like we were to the Seraphim, she looked as comfortable as they come, almost like she was a natural to this dropship business. I looked at her, but she didn't look back, just focussed on Kryla. Wish I could've done the same.
I could barely meet Kryla's gaze when we launched ahead of the rest from the dropship. The Rhinos and Immolators would roll out several klicks from the battlefield, then deploy one by one. But we never went in APCs since we were more mobile airborne, and our jetpacks had enough fuel to last us for three hours' roaming at a reasonable height off the ground. So, we didn't go on foot, but we didn't go by road, either. We were the only troops on the field who could make that claim.
Ahead of me, I could see four massive Chaos Land Raiders, intensely powerful tanks three times the size of a Rhino. Hordes of Terminator armoured Chaos Space Marines awaited us, brandishing hideously mutated boltguns and all forms of spikes and other weapons from their bodies --some of which appeared to be almost growing from within their armour.
Kryla piped in over the communications system wired into my power corset. "Okay, girls. Light up and lock on!" I reached over and lit my twin hand flamers. The Rhinos rumbled beneath us, the Immolators firing their multimeltas. The air below us shivered as boltgun fire was traded across the distance between the two opposing armies. Kryla guided us upwards, and no one really fired at us --they were too intently focussed on the main force of Rhinos and Immolators. I couldn't blame them --a bunch of fancy girls in the air were nothing compared to a whole flock of them on the move. One of the Rhinos drove towards a squad of Terminators, intending to ram them, and they moved out of the way. One stood his ground, wielding a thunder hammer, an intensely strong power weapon capable of cracking tank armour without a thought, with the intent of slamming it into the hull of the Rhino. The Rhino's dozer blade caught his hand and tripped him. His forward momentum tripped him, he let go of the thunder hammer, and while it danced harmlessly across the front of the Rhino, he was crushed under the treads of its forward progress. The remainder of the squad of Terminators fired their bolters at the Rhino, with little effect. It was Jade Squad's Rhino: they sprang out like hidden panthers and charged into close-combat with the Terminators. It was practically in vain: there was precious little a regular girl could do against Terminator armour, and they all had power fists. One by one, girls were just tossed aside by power fist upon power fist, while they slammed their boltguns repeatedly on the shells of the Terminators. Two of them managed to put a dent in the Terminators, and the Sister Superior called for them to fall back after she'd taken down two others. The Rhino was finished; it was literally split in half by a lascannon round from one of the Land Raiders. Though the Terminators had lost half their number, they kept firing at the four surviving and fleeing members of Jade Squad; one of them took a round through the head and fell flat.
Kryla pointed to the remaining Terminators and we dove into close-combat with them. I hit the ground running and my flamer fire was deadly accurate, but didn't do anything to one of the Terminators caught in it. The other one raised his power fist to cover his eyes, glowing a hideously bright blue colour. I slammed my hands together on either side of his head when he pulled his power fist back to swing at me, and surprisingly, it worked. Kryla cut down one of the others, and we hit them and jetted off into the air and behind the cover of a wrecked building.
It was the only building around. We were lucky to be in it. Kryla looked around and counted. "Okay. We can barely hold our own against the Terminators, there's six squads of five, and... two Land Raiders-- we can't do anything against them, though they might be holding a squad of Terminators inside, each."
Sidra spoke up. "We have to do something!"
Velana nodded agreement. "They don't see us up here. We should ambush them."
"With what?" I asked. "Our weapons are useless against their armour! We have to wait for the Retributor squads to deploy!"
Which they just had. Kryla looked as Gold Squad, made up entirely of multimeltas, cut swaths through the hull of the first Land Raider, then while their flanking gunners took casualties, sliced up the remains of the Terminator squad we had just engaged. Velara and Sidra let out a cheer, but I did not. How many girls would die today? And was it my fault?
Kryla pointed to a five-man Terminator squad, all spiky and lethal, mounting assault cannons --the most powerful bolter weapon known to humanity-- and aiming right for Diamond Squad. She took off, and we followed in a rough echelon formation, coming down just close enough to take off into the squad and tie up the assault cannon. Fending off attacks with one hand meant the Terminator couldn't fire with the other. We bought the Inquisitor and his bodyguard time enough to join us in close-combat. Meanwhile, Silver Squad's Immolator was penetrated and exploded with a lascannon round from the side sponson of the remaining Land Raider. Three girls --one with heavy flamers, one with a multimelta, the other the Sister Superior-- bailed out in time. The heavy flamer girl looked badly wounded from where I was standing, but I didn't have time to worry about her --my own flamers demanded retribution. I opened fire and knocked the Terminators back a bit. We caught them on their heels. Kryla unsheathed her power-sword and cut a broad swath through them, felling three without effort. Sidra and myself teamed up on the fourth, while Velara went after the fifth. Sidra put her bolt pistol to the Terminator's eye and fired, point-blank, through the ocular implant. The power fist he swung at us with missed as we both jetted upwards, and back to engage the last one standing. Kryla caught him first, barely missing Velara as she decapitated him with her power-sword. We jetted upwards, again, as Diamond Squad consolidated on our position. I could see one set of Terminator armour in our ranks: it was Inquisitor Reichmann in his battle command suit. I just looked at him, and smiled, before I blasted off. Soon, he would be mine.
The one thing I didn't really notice --though I desperately tried to see it-- was that something was missing. These Terminators had no minds with which to feel anything. They were totally given over to the Dark Gods of Chaos. There was nothing left --no soul, no mind, just a body-- to feel. It was our job to ensure the righteous fury would be felt, all right.
But still, I was left to wonder what my place in all this would be, and how my destiny would follow from it.
One of those things you learn in battle is that while you must be prepared, you always need to be prepared to act without preparing.
That was what we were left with. The collapsed building around which Chaos' forces had made its stand was nearly destroyed. But all along one side lay the remains of Terminators which had been slain either by one group or the other. We put ourselves aloft --not too high, but not within range of getting snagged by ground debris, either-- to see what we could see about how things were going on the other side.
Jade Squad had regrouped, and was currently being crushed by a third squad of Terminators. A fourth and fifth had engaged Amber Squad and Sapphire Squad, the latter of which was a Dominion squad. Amethyst Squad, a fellow Seraphim squad, had joined the fight against the fifth squad, while the sixth squad and the Land Raider were tangling with Gold Squad's multimeltas. Three remained: all three fired on the Land Raider, and though they hit it, could not penetrate its thick hull.
Diamond Squad had moved to cover Silver Squad, and together with Inquisitor Reichmann, were moving into good firing position around the side of the building. We knew what we had to do next. At least, I did, because I could tell what Kryla thought.
"All right, Ruby Squad! Let's tie up those units up in front of that Land Raider!"
It was a considerable risk. Not only could they totally destroy us without effort --and I'd be lying if I said we hadn't been incredibly lucky so far not to take a single casualty-- but there was also the risk that we could be hit by friendly fire from the multimeltas. We were putting ourselves in harm's way. Neither Gold Squad nor the Land Raider would dare fire through a melee. We knew that --and it was the only chance we had. Silver Squad and Diamond Squad needed time to get into firing position; we were the only squad free to do just that.
We dove in fast and hit the ground hard. Kryla was first off the line, as usual, and the power fist of one Terminator was removed --along with the rest of its arm-- as her power-sword sliced through it, as well as a second Terminator. The Chaos forces appeared ready to break, but when I looked behind me, I saw a set of power corset armour, with a jetpack, lying on the ground.
But I smelt no burning flesh.
I looked above me and saw the shape of a Callidus assassin, her eyes glowing a bright red, her nimble figure showing through black carapace armour, her hair tied back and flowing in the wind as she demonstrated her acrobatic skill. I was stunned --but not for long, as the one we once called Carina revealed her true colours, decimating a third Terminator and somersaulting into close-combat with a fourth. Both she and Kryla had power-weapons, and both put them to good use, felling the remains of the squad. We jetted away free, short a unit without taking a casualty.
Of course, it was far from over.
But we sure wished it were.
We didn't really plan what came next.
No one could've. I'm convinced.
The Land Raider behind us had caught onto our little trick, diving in and jumping out. The Callidus assassin we once called Carina had moved out to help free up Sapphire Squad, in the hopes that --I guessed-- if we could get those meltaguns in the Dominion squad freed up, we could get somewhere.
The appearance of an Imperial Assassin on the battlefield didn't surprise me. Really, it didn't. We were trained to expect help from above. Space Marines, assassins, Imperial Guard --a Sister of Battle never fights alone. No Imperial soldier does.
Problem was, I felt like the loneliest soldier on that battlefield. My twin loyalties --to the pact for Reichmann's life, and to the Imperium-- were throwing themselves around in my head. Those two flamers got heavier and heavier on my arms. But I kept fighting, because I didn't know what else to do.
Of course, I had no sooner realized how lonely I was that someone else laid a much worse example for me.
That Land Raider down there was trouble. We knew that. We tried to get clear of it. Gold Squad targeted it and, again, barely scratched the surface. Even the Diamond and Silver Squad remnants had no luck. Jade Squad was done, wiped out, leaving two Terminators remaining standing. Sapphire Squad was free, and the Callidus assassin tumbled her way into the two Terminators. There was one squad left, and it was kicking Amber Squad pretty bad. Amber Squad retreated, and fortunately for them, the Terminator armour was too heavy to pursue them. The Terminators turned and charged towards Diamond Squad, who had begun charging towards them a moment before. Diamond Squad and Reichmann hit first, but the initial results, I never really saw.
One sponson of the Land Raider had fired on Silver Squad, cutting its multimelta to pieces. But the other had targeted our squad, just as we turned in mid-air to see where we were to engage next.
And Sidra was the target.
I saw the look on Velana's face --she had turned first and looked right down the barrel of the lascannon. I felt a wave of panic rush over her immediately, but somehow --somehow-- I felt her summon faith. At a moment like that--- faith! Why? It made no sense to me. It didn't follow. Totally irrational. But I watched her as she dove towards the lascannon which was tracking her best friend. A flash from its barrel and she was consumed in a hideous red glow. I saw the look on Sidra's face as Velana's death throes caused me to convulse. Her whole body took the brunt of it, vapourized instantly. Sidra screamed as she watched Velara disintegrate, but Kryla threw her aside in time to avoid any residual energy continue in her direction. I followed Kryla down to the surface as Amethyst Squad finally maneuvered into range to fix meltabombs to the sides of the Land Raider. Meltabombs were an option Kryla didn't like to implement. They were too clunky and too hard to deploy. But when deployed properly, they could penetrate through any tank. Even a Land Raider.
One of the girls affixed her bomb too late --there were only two members of Amethyst Squad remaining after that. But the Land Raider was no more. And the last of the Terminators were falling to Reichmann's charge before we knew they were gone.
Sidra was beside herself. Kryla consoled her, but the Inquisitor did not look favourably on her conduct. She wasn't summarily executed --how I wished it would be quick and painless for her-- because Reichmann had bigger problems. He ordered the remnants of Amethyst Squad to merge with us and sweep the countryside for more Slaaneshi forces.
I didn't go.
The Amethyst Squad Sister Superior put her power-sword on the ground, and picked up one of the boltguns that had belonged to Carina instead. The power-sword just lay there for a moment. I remember thinking to myself, jet, grab it, jet, and do it.
But the Inquisitor turned and looked at me, his Terminator armour helmet removed. And the Sisters broke out in a hymn of praise for victory and for the Emperor.
I kneeled before Inquisitor Reichmann, as the hymns flowed to the heavens and beyond, perhaps to Holy Terra itself, and asked him to forgive me. I then placed myself in his custody for my sins, and confessed all.
What can I say? I was overcome by the faith. Velana died to save her fellow Sister, and I had betrayed them both by my actions. I knew I was a traitor. I knew I was a heretic. I knew I had betrayed my Sisters, betrayed the Imperium, all for the pursuit of... what? Hollow revenge against one man?
My mistakes were numerous, but my first mistake was to believe that I am in any way powerful. There is only one power in this universe, and it emanates from His Holiness on the Golden Throne.
I have asked to make this statement in order to implore future generations of psykers and others to realize that, no matter what your scheme, the Emperor will always thwart it. No daemons of Chaos, no forces of evil, no allies of darkness will ever be powerful enough to crush the Imperium and its Immortal Emperor.
I thank Inquisitor Reichmann for his leniency in allowing me both to make this statement and for allowing me a quick death for my sins.
My repentance, and my destiny, are complete. May the Almighty Emperor forgive me.