Sister Superior Odia had passed the age at which a woman would ever marry or bear a child. By her regimen, medical and physical, her body believed itself to be spry and capable as in youth. It was. But her armor kept this secret. No man had laid eyes on her platinum blonde locks since she first took her oath to the Emperor and His Church. Her face to the Imperium was the battle helm of her Order.

She had lived as a nun for almost a century. She had lived a while before that, too. When she boarded Litany Against Xenos, she understood that this would be another distinct phase in her life. So she brought the aggression necessary to form good habits.

She trained to keep her past where it belonged. She trained in her cell until the exercise itself could give her a worthy death. Cronos expired before Kairos occurred. The intercom clicked for attention, and she was summoned to duty.

Odia stood from her workout and kissed her saints. As she left, her sisters followed, each tapping the engraving above the archway: "Work is Prayer."

She trained to make her body worthy of blessed ceramite. The power-armor made everything porcelain in her grip. Her maneuvering gear felt light as vestments. She wore the Fleur-de-lis over each breast, and the inquisitorial emblem as a sash. Her bolter pistol and chainsword hung holstered, but her sisters to either side brandished at low ready as they entered the airlock.

A troop of imperial guard stood waiting for them, vacsuits donned and forced-entry kits hefted with effort. Every man stood a head shorter than them, and looked up only briefly, making the bare minimum glance to show respect.

The airlock closed. Pressure began its steady drop, alarm lights circled, and Odia laid a hand on the woman to her left. She opened a secure haptic channel for the two of them. {Spera.}

{Sister Superior?}

{This will be your first excursion. Do not let your eyes wander at the stars. Keep your focus on our target, or on the Litany. Or follow my sigil in your visor if you lose both. The Galaxy is large. You must keep your bearings.}

{Thank you, Sister Superior.}

Odia released their contact, and saw that Fidea, to her right, was watching.

The airlock opened, and their eyes delighted in the spectacle of creation. Odia stepped forward, felt abruptly the absence of ship-gravity, and drifted toward the target.

A ghost ship floated in the void. Litany's floodlights illuminated the hull, and the name of the dead was brazenly displayed.

The Guardsmen planted a voxbox against the hull and announced: "River of Stars. This is the Imperial Guard. As you have not answered our hails, we are coming aboard to determine your status. We are cutting the hull, and exposing the Aft hall on Port side, deck three to vacuum. Please make a signal if you are in occupancy."

They waited for a response, but only the echo replied, as a faint reverberation in the hull. The reactor had long since run through its fissiles, and its heat had radiated to the cosmos. Silence was expected.

Odia used her jets to turn and find Spera, who was shining her headlamps towards the bow.

{Spera. Maintain element.}

The younger sister turned the wrong way, then the right way, and joined them against the hull.

Odia scolded, {The Eye of Terror is that direction. Another thing you must track in space, but never gaze at. And if it says your name, ignore it.}

Spera turned to face her. {Is that normal? That it speaks to us?}

{Has it spoken to you?}

Spera thought about her answer. {No, Sister-Superior.}

Again, Fidea watched silently.

The Guardsmen began their cut.

Hours later, the expedition returned: unharmed, but solemn and hushed. Odia did not have to scold Spera en route. The younger was distracted by the events aboard more than the stars. To Odia's other side, Fidea remained focused and observant.

Aboard Litany, inside the airlock, Odia thanked a guardsmen for his service, then turned her back before he could respond that it was just his duty. She would not have listened. She had just brought a threat aboard the ship.

She placed a hand on each sister, for privacy. {Spera. Disrobe and purge yourself with vindicating pain.}

{Sister Superior, should I not be executed?}

{I will choose your death before the Eye does. But for lying to me, I must find a way to forgive you. Fidea and I will find you unconscious from flagellation and then rejoice together in the labor of regeneration. Do not hesitate in your answer.}

{For the Glory of our God!}

In the conference room, Fidea sat beside Odia and awaited debriefing. Outside of their armor, the nuns wore veils and robes, covering their hair, faces, and figures so that only their eyes were revealed. To their left, the Captain quietly folded his arms and turned to the head of the table, where Inquisitor Halbert straightened his dress shirt and took his seat. He stopped Odia with a hand and glanced to the door, indicating that one more guest would arrive.

And then she did. In the absence of her corporeal form, they all felt, instantly, that they were face to face with the ship's navigator, looking into her eyes while she examined them. The sensation passed, the doors parted, and the navigator entered with her face cowled.

Inquisitor Halbert grumbled, "That was unpleasant of you."

Navigator Aratri had a pale and nervous complexion at all times. At the Inquisitor's scolding, she paused and pinched her fingertips. "Oh. Sorry."

Odia had never met anyone as socially pained. But where others saw rudeness, Odia recognized interpersonal ineptitude.

Aratri took a few more steps, then explained, "I usually look before I go anywhere."

The Navigator walked over-consciously, then pulled her chair back and crouched into it with all the caution of docking a battlecruiser. She took a moment to rearrange her billowing robes, then straightened them out so the Imperial Sigil and her family crest were unruffled. Only her hands protruded from her raiment. Her fingers had never tasted ultraviolet- any natural light- and her blue veins were visible far deeper than they should be.

Nervous of their combined attention, Aratri concluded, "I am here, Inquisitor. In person."

Halbert's eyes lingered on her awkward posture. He pulled himself from the sight before his squint was too obvious, and he pointed for Odia to begin her presentation.

"Thank you for your presence, Navigator Aratri," Odia nodded. "We are unsure how to classify this derelict. It was assumed that you would have questions for us. River of Stars is a sub-light vessel. It lacks a navigational chamber, and we saw no evidence that it ever had a navigator. It was manufactured in Martian orbit in pre-history. It follows- and for this we requested your input, Navigator- that the River of Stars did not arrive here under its own power. We thought, therefore, that this would classify as a Spacehulk."

Odia waited for an answer.

Aratri played with her fingers, seemingly distracted by the corner of the room. It occurred to Odia that she was looking through the hull at the other ship.

Aratri answered, "The interior looks Euclidian to me, and it matches the exterior dimensions."

"Yes."

"And it is just one ship, not several fused together."

"Correct."

Odia found herself suddenly reliving the expedition in vivid detail, rapidly traversing hallways and skimming clues. But with Aratri bunched up against her and staring over her shoulder.

"Navigator," she snapped.

"Oh. Sorry."

Sister Fidea sighed and scooted her chair an inch away from the navigator. It squeaked on the bulkhead.

Aratri asked "Was the crew missing?"

Odia continued. "We accounted for remains that indicate the ship had minimal crew. Slightly too few."

"And their condition?"

"Deceased. No flesh remained. Organic particulate in pressurized rooms, and remains of bones."

"Nothing… Strange?"

Everything about it was strange. Odia considered the question, and decided on a complete summary.

"Translation of the crew logs is unreliable, but we have many reasons to date this ship and the fate of its crew to the Dark Age of Technology. We believe the death of the captain resulted in a collapse of morals. We were unable to identify any spiritual guidance aboard. We found no icons, nor anything of religious significance- heretical or otherwise. We were unable to identify a chapel, let alone a cathedral. There was extensive fraternization between officers and crew, including sexual relations across age barriers."

Aratri gaped at the horror of it. The captain shifted his weight.

Odia proceeded. "We found one journal that we believe makes an unabashed reference to masturbation. Not even in euphemism. The lone mechanicus aboard the ship was poorly equipped, and we believe misceginated with an organic human teen."

Halbert's scowl grew disruptive, and he covered his mouth.

"The ship's medicae, a woman-"

"Indeed?" Aratri interrupted. "Sorry."

Odia continued speaking through both vocalizations, but added a sigh to her words. "- expired from a self-inflicted narcotic overdose. Indeed, most of the crew seems to have died alone, in their quarters. As we were unable to identify the acting captain, we believe that a demoralizing event lead to a rapid spiral of despair and a total collapse of all custom among the crew. This became... Not a mass event, but individual deaths of despair around the same time."

Aratri leaned forward with her chin out, asking permission to interrupt again. Odia raised an eyebrow. But that was not signal enough, so she added, "Yes, Navigator?"

"Is a breakdown of morals truly the catalyst? Could they not have just… Become stuck somewhere and been unable to supply?"

Odia was unable to parse the question. She looked to her side, where Fidea sat veiled and brow furrowed at the navigator. Fidea noted her superior's attention and shook her head that she likewise did not understand the question. The awkwardness made a full round of the table before Inquisitor Halbert intervened.

"Navigator, Suppose such a supply issue were to happen to a ship of the Imperium. It does, in fact. I have personally explored such derelicts. It would fall, of course, to the senior members of the crew, as with a parent to a child, to spare suffering in a way that reveals hierarchy in inverse. The bodies are not found alone- are not found at all, as funeral services are conducted. No one disposed of their remains, so the crew of the River of Stars must have all died together… Separately."

"Couldn't it be because they were starving?"

Odia interrupted, "Virtue is not subject to hunger."

"Oh." They had given Aratri much to think about. She retracted all skin to within her robes, which she now seemed to wear like a repurposed blanket. "But such a thing could not happen to us. Right, Inquisitor?"

He recognized the desperate appeal for reassurance, and with a nod to his Captain answered, "We will review stricture shipwide so that it does not."

Odia waited for the Navigator to meet her eyes again, and added, "They died from a lack of discipline. But you are safe with us."