Author's note: Minor update for a continuity error. The perils of continuing a story from several years previously, ladies and gentlemen...
The inner doors were hauled shut, and the base pressurised automatically.
No immediate sign of activity, thought Tzarine. A sudden feeling of dread and anticipation flooded through her, with no apparent cause, and she frowned. It subsided as rapidly as it appeared, and she shook it off. Setting her vox to short-range, she spoke up. "Remember, we'll be on the same frequencies as any Sisters still here. Cycle your channels regularly, but maintain vox silence unless necessarily. I want to find them before they find us. It's also possible that any enemy forces will be scanning for Sororitas channels. Stay alert. We don't know what we're going into. Helga? Problem?"
Helga had been twitching her head violently. "Helmet's been unreliable since Korgar smashed it back on Senaav, Sister," she grunted. "I'd lose the thing if it weren't for the need for life support."
"Don't take any chances. Remember, you're in the reserve." Tzarine watched for a moment. Helga didn't look happy about this, but tight corridors were not a Seraphim's strong point. If they descended into the mineshafts, the boosters would be useful, but for now, the assault squad would have to stay behind, and she knew it. "Morgana, cover us. Zekka, we've got point. Move out."
Lights flickered gently in the grey, featureless corridors, speaking of power failures. Here and there were carved aquilas and other devotions, but the outer sections of the Mission were still more or less the original mining base. Her fingers twitched slightly, adjusting her grip on the bolt pistol.
She was nervous, she realised. She'd been scared before. Facing down Word Bearer assault troops on Senaav had been a cause for fear, and she'd even had to go toe-to-toe with one armed with nothing but her fists and fury, but that had been different. Visceral, a primal kind of fear, one that you could use if you knew how. This was anxiety, something she'd not truly experienced since her novice years.
What was she doing here?
She tried to focus on her surroundings. Second-guessing was the worst enemy on the frontline. She could question her motivations at a later time. For now, this was a warzone. Zekka's broad form, the big power axe held at the ready, bobbed in and out of cover ahead of her. Not that there was much cover to be had in this kind of environment. Shipboard combat was a nightmare, and a base like this was little better.
The anxiety was not fading. She gritted her teeth, signalled one her squadmates to take her position and fell back towards the middle of the column. If she couldn't banish her distractions, she could at least move from a place where they might cause problems. There were a couple of glances, but none commented.
She idly cycled her vox. Adjusting the standard frequencies was time consuming, and there was a good chance that it had yet to be done here – assuming that the paper pushers who knew of her defection thought to institute such a change. Unlikely.
Nothing yet. A pause ahead at a large set of doors, these rather more ornate than most of the featureless ones so far. This marked the beginning of the Mission proper. Zekka glanced at her questioningly, and she signalled to proceed, readying her bolt pistol.
The room beyond had once been an ore processing centre. When the Adepta Sororitas had arrived, it had been converted into a grand assembly hall. Statues of saints lined the walls, solemnly looking down at any who passed through. A towering aquila loomed over the far side, doorways nestled under its wings.
Or at least, that was how Tzarine remembered it. Her breath caught for a moment.
The mighty statues had been defaced. The faces had been shredded, leaving featureless torn metal in their place. Every symbol of faith in the chamber had been violently destroyed, and the aquila was drenched in blood. Blood that had clearly come from the dozen or so bodies nailed to it.
They had clearly once been Sororitas. Remnants of broken and destroyed power armour still hung from their butchered forms. Their bodies had been flayed and mutilated, the skins draped over the raw flesh in a mockery of their natural state.
There was dead silence as the Sisters filed into the chamber, and looked at the carnage.
Tzarine forced herself to approach the remains of her former kin, taking in the details. Horror and revulsion tried to make her turn away, but she kept looking. Fuelling the hate inside into a blazing inferno. Trying to identify the bodies.
It was useless. There was too much damage to know who they had been. She finally let herself look away - and stopped. That armour...
The shoulder pad of one of the bodies was different. Not the solid red that was the standard of the Bloody Rose, but the solid black of Our Martyred Lady. Yet the rest of the torn armour was definitely red.
Then she remembered. Callisine had originally been of Our Martyred Lady, and been transferred, keeping one shoulder pad in memory of her old Order. She'd never had a chance to find out why. Now she never would.
She looked over the body, at the twisted expression barely visible on what remained of the face, at the violent rending of the armour. Remembered her dream.
"It's her, isn't it," murmured Morgana by her side.
Tzarine nodded tightly. "Just as in my dream."
"Who would do something like this?" demanded Zekka loudly, breaking the silence. Tzarine looked around. The entire group was helmeted, but she could feel the simmering rage. No matter their beliefs, this still felt like an abomination, an affront to their very souls.
"Chaos," one Sister growled. "Who else would desecrate the symbols of faith, and show such deranged brutality to their victims?"
"I'm not so sure," Morgana remarked thoughtfully. "There are no symbols or offerings. This is an act of hate, not of faith."
Tzarine nodded. They'd been exposed to enough Chaos on Senaav to know how that operated. And she remembered her dream, remembered 'Malice'. There was no fanaticism in that monster, just pure, violent loathing. "Whatever did this, we're not going to suffer the same fate. Stay alert. We're prepared, we're equipped, and we've already been through hell. This is a footnote."
The only response was a slight shifting, and a tightening of fingers on triggers. Tzarine smiled coldly. Pure, undiluted fury was a beautiful, terrible thing to behold in the Sororitas. Moments like this, she felt at her closest to her purpose.
A righteous agent of cleansing and purification.
"This wasn't the site of the battle," Morgana said. There was a subtle fire in her voice that rarely appeared, and Tzarine's smile widened. "You can see the old blood trails."
"Split up," Tzarine growled. "Zekka, we'll track the blood trail, looks like it heads for the training areas. Morgana, you've got the armoury and living quarters. Move out. Second team, advance to the entrance hall."
Lights flashed to indicate confirmations. She cycled her comms channels again, but nothing showed up.
"Vulture Three reports nothing of value on target seven, Captain. Moving on to target nine."
Syndragar nodded idly, waving a hand to indicate that he had heard. His attention remained upon the strategic display, attempting to dissect the battle. To completely destroy a starship was no mean feat. They were simply too large to be utterly annihilated, regardless of the indescribable forces hurled at them, short of the odd catastrophic chain reaction or warp drive overload. For both sides to have been so thoroughly torn apart, with neither pulling out, the battle must have been terrifyingly fast. No matter how fanatical or devoted to their cause, no Tau commander or Imperial admiral would just feed their ships into the grinder if the battle was clearly lost. Neither of the two empires had the resources to burn, and anyone with the authority to command this kind of force would know it.
That, or another element was at work here. What that might be eluded him.
There was, of course, the wild card of the Iron Warriors. They must have ships if they were operating in the area, although how they'd managed to avoid detection entirely by the Imperial forces until now was a good question. Then again, the Tau had held absolute superiority in space until this catastrophe of a battle, so perhaps quiet insertions by drop pod or similar while the Imperium was unable to monitor orbit was the answer there. Still, it left questions unanswered. The Sisters were right about one thing – this was very out of character for any Chaos forces, let alone one with the brutal and direct reputation of the Iron Warriors.
But even assuming Iron Warrior involvement, a third fleet of sufficient power and speed to engage and destroy both sides would have left traces – not to mention still be present and pressing their advantage. And if such were the case, why would the Ethereal lie about the Chaos forces still being allied and of minor presence? No, that did not seem plausible. Too many holes.
Support from ground emplacements? Surface-to-orbit lance and torpedo strikes could be devastating, and it was possible that the military commanders on Shondar had kept the weapons in reserve for this engagement. StO batteries were notoriously short ranged due to the limitations of gravity and atmospheric interference, though, and there was plenty of debris outside of planetary assault range. Still, it was not an impossible explanation. If the navy reinforcements were overwhelmed but held on to try and contain the Tau fleet while surface emplacements did their work… it felt a little off.
There was an answer here, he could feel it. He also suspected he would dislike that answer.
"Query Vulture flight on their analysis of the battle damage," he said suddenly. "I want confirmation that it matches Tau and Imperial weaponry."
The command was relayed, and he brooded over the hololith. It was a long shot. While there were a lot of different ways of slicing, melting, smashing and exploding a starship, the end results were often rather similar. Particularly once chain reactions were taken into account. Only a few weapons left truly distinctive marks, and the owners of all of them were best avoided at all costs.
"Vulture flight reports nothing unusual on the wreckage scanned so far, Captain. Standard signs of plasma, explosives and hyper-velocity kinetics with a scattering of laser scorching. Wait."
Syndragar's attention snapped to the man, waiting.
"Vulture two is reporting a ghost. Something moving through the debris, but nothing showing up on the auspex."
The Captain's lip curled. That could only mean one thing.
Eldar.
The answer, it seemed, had only produced more questions. Which he would answer when he was sure that the pointy-eared freaks weren't about to turn his beloved ship into a drifting wreck.
She'd never seen the Mission so quiet.
It had never exactly been noisy. The halls of a Sororitas outpost were traditionally quiet, hallowed affairs, the sounds of training, the gentle hum of conversation and the echoing of prayer all that broke the silence. She knew that some found it oppressive, intimidating, but to her it had been welcoming. Homely.
This was different. The silence of death, not the quiet of life. She kept expecting to find another grisly scene around every corner.
"If these were your soldiers, they must be capable," said Zekka suddenly. "There will be survivors. I'm sure of it."
Tzarine glanced at the big woman. There seemed to be nothing she could think of to say, though, so she remained silent.
"That assumes that Zophia didn't make them soft," said Rhia after a time. There were a few dark chuckles, and even Tzarine couldn't resist a snort of morbid amusement. Even though most of her Sisters had never dealt with her replacement, enough stories had been shared about Palatine Zophia, the Ecclesiarchy's lap dog.
She cycled the channels again. Static…
"…intruders, I'm sure of…"
She held up a hand for silence, went back a channel. "Maintain radio silence," another voice snapped. "Hold fast and keep discipline. The Emperor will protect us this day."
She knew that voice. It was the one she'd been arguing with for most of a lifetime. Before she could stop herself, she was replying. "You never were much good at morale raising, were you, Zophia?"
There was silence for a time. "Tzarine." Zophia's voice was full of wearied loathing. "It seems that He wishes to make our trials even greater."
"I'm not here to fight you," Tzarine shot back, trying to maintain some semblance of calm. It was difficult. She'd never liked Zophia, but the note on which they'd parted before Senaav had been beyond unpleasant. "I came to rescue you. I heard the Mission came under attack. Whatever our differences, I have no wish to see you all come to harm."
Silence.
"Sparring ring. Just the two of us, our troops stay outside and watch. I saw the entrance hall, Zophia. You've lost control. You need my help to destroy this thing."
"Very well," the other woman growled. "I'll be waiting."