Day 29, Continued

Aliciel was floating, adrift on soft currents. Her face, which had been charred and melted by the scorching heat of plasma, felt the wind and the spray of seawater . Her eyes, which had melted and fused shut in their sockets, opened and she looked up into a beautiful, blue sky, clouds of pure white lazily drifting across it. Her hair that had been singed to its roots clumped together in the water, the locks occasionally brushing up against her neck and shoulders. The scent of the ocean, salt and sand, was heavy. She flexed her fingers, all ten when there should have been only five, feeling the sea itself.

She stayed like that for a long time, not thinking about anything, just… existing. Experiencing a simple bliss that she had been denied years ago. She knew these waters, knew them quite well. They were those of the Caldian Gulf on the ocean-dominated world of Gulrac. A small, unimportant world populated by small, unimportant people. Like her, before she had been given the chance to be more. Given a chance to serve the God-Emperor.

And yet… even after her training, even after her indoctrination into the ways of the Sisterhood, she had never forgotten the simple pleasure of the Gulf's waters, its ever-calm waves. Gulrac was far from paradise, with its many leviathans and sea monsters, but the Gulf was safe. Peaceful. Home.

I miss my home too.

She became aware of someone floating in the water next to her, almost close enough for her limbs to brush up against theirs. She didn't turn her head. She wasn't curious about who it was. She already knew.

"It must have been divine," she said and was stricken by how… out of place her voice sounded. Wrong and ugly, a missed stroke in the canvas of a painting, an octave off in a song. She immediately felt guilty for even daring to speak, for causing such a… infraction upon this realm of perfection. She realized that her very presence was a mistake, a trespass in a place she was unworthy of being. The Caldian Gulf, a place she should have forgotten, should not have made herself remember, a precious and guilty secret exposed…

You feel guilty for not forgetting. For daring to exist.

The day's light faded away, the clouds clearing from the sky with it, and the night's beauty descended. Familiar constellations appeared and three moons hung low in the sky. Starlight illuminated the silver sea. Yet, something was wrong. A star was out of place. Moving, not as quickly as a meteor, burning a trail of orange across the sky and growing larger.

Her eyes widened in recognition of the engine trails of a gunship. Of the gunship.

She remembered this night. Her last night on Gulrac.

"Please, no." She whispered, speaking before she even realized she wanted to speak.

And like that, the gunship froze and faded away. The moons sunk below the horizon and night was lit by an unseen sun, bringing with it the blue sky and clouds.

As you wish. Until you are ready to remember, rest.

Aliciel closed her eyes and felt the world around her.

Elsewhere, Aliciel's body, barely still alive, was dragged deeper into a hidden antechamber by nineteen Sisters that moved, but truly rested just as she did, floating in their own memories, safe and free for truly the first time in their lives.

Uirus strode into what had once been the base camp of Janus' PDF, a vast market square whose many stalls and statues and fountains had been smashed to ruins, broken to make room for equipment, tanks, and hundreds of thousands of tents. A million men milled about, though not one of them saw him as he passed, sorcerous power ensuring none could perceive him with mortal senses. The sight of an Astartes would surely have given these wretched mortals a morale boost, but it would also cause questions to be asked. The Inquisitor had not made any obvious moves, one of a number of concerns that grew with each passing day.

The core of his concerns were brought about by this siege. Janus' defenders, the ones dedicated to defending and pushing back this siege, were eight million strong, along with Kalak's horde that was hundreds of thousands strong at least, although nowhere to be seen on the surface among the regular, unenlightened troops. By comparison, their enemies were less than half that with fewer than a thousand Sisters. Janus' defenses were not so strong as to make the hive city a fortress, but they were strong enough that many more mortals should have been required to besiege the city to make any progress.

And yet, day by day, reports came in that his forces were being pushed back, tunnel by tunnel, block by block. There were victories, of course, especially now that he had released Kalak and the rest of the beastmen to fight as they pleased. While casualties among his own forces conspicuously spiked every time the Bronze-Blood's berserkers joined a fight, their enemies had it worse. So, why were they still losing?

Their enemy had the Sisters, but even the power of those zealots to build fires within the hearts of the blind should not have allowed for such rapid progress. Uirus had fought Sisters before, slaughtered many, yet the Order of the Cleansing Rains was not like the others he had encountered it seemed. They were cautious, methodical in a way he could almost respect. The Sisters he'd fought were battle-crazed, keener on martyring themselves than they were in actually winning the battle. While the reports indicated the Sisters sent into the fray were just as fanatical as he'd come to expect, it seemed their leaders were not so glory-hungry.

Good leadership went a long way in ensuring the success of an army, but it wasn't everything. Certainly, PDF were little more than chaff, yet some of the reports from the frontline combatants he had seen spoke of these Malum troops strangely. It had gotten to the point that Uirus suspected the Imperium had somehow swapped eight regiments of PDF with eight regiments of their most fanatical guardsmen.

Uirus cast his gaze around, studying the mortals around him. While it had been some time since he'd had any similarities that could allow him to relate to these lesser beings, he could see they were tired, worn. Laughter was rare and usually hollow.

Ahsael likely wouldn't have cared about the morale of these mortals, having spent too much time among daemons and other beings that were just as far removed from the Materium. Uirus knew that it was these men, not the Neverborn, that would win them this world. Perhaps he should reveal himself to them, he considered.

Regardless, it was something he would think more of later. He had reached the other side of the square and entered one of a number of tunnels. He moved past layers of defenses, through barricades and machine gun nests, floating over razorwire, sliding by the treads of tanks, unseen even by the most alert sentries.

Deeper into the tunnels he went and he did not have to wait long to find signs of battle. It was obvious to see the work of Kalak and his lot. Ankle-deep pools of blood, some still fresh, toppled piles of skulls. Bodies that had been mutilated and desecrated. There were also plenty of areas the beastmen had not touched as well.

However, Uirus began to notice something off about the bodies. A pattern that took him a moment to recognize. Their uniforms, at least those still recognizable, were all Janus PDF. There were no Malum PDF bodies from what he could tell. They had taken the time to retrieve their dead? It was an odd practice to have in the middle of a siege.

He travelled further and soon found the enemy's front line. He strode fearlessly up to the sentries and walked by them, their gazes never wavering from the tunnel in front of them.

He paused. He took a step back and studied one of the PDF sentries more closely. A small feeling of concern blossomed in his gut.

The man wasn't moving. He breathed and the pupils of his eyes dilated, Uirus could see the slight tremor caused by the beating of his heart… But the micro expressions that all mortal humans had, the twitches of the face and body, the shifting of the weight to maintain imperfect balance… There was none of that.

Uirus's eyes turned to the rest of the sentries. All of them were the same. Like machines of flesh, frozen in their duties, doing the bare minimum to maintain their own existences until given a command.

Where had the Sisters found these mortals? Even servitors were not so… statuesque. He had only seen such command of one's own body in fellow Astartes and a very small number of exceptional mortals.

A part of him warned him, told him he should depart and speak to Ahsael of this discovery as soon as possible… But Uirus was one of the Thousand Sons and curiosity was their creed. There was more to learn and he might uncover more about just what these PDF troops really were, for they could not have been ordinary humans.

He travelled quickly forwards, studying the mortals as he passed by. They performed their duties silently, efficiently. Too efficiently. They did not seem to even need commands, their officers utterly silent. Were it not for the thrum of machinery, the distant echoes of fighting, and their own breathing, the tunnel would have been empty of sound. Some kind of psychic commands? He did not sense anything. Perhaps they were modified with some kind of machinery like the Skitarii of the Mechanicus, but he saw no signs of augmentation on any of them.

It was hours before he reached the outskirts of Janus and it was here he stopped. He had managed to make it this far because Malum's PDF had no counters to his psychic abilities, but that was not the case for the Sisters of the Cleansing Rain. If he traveled further he would almost certainly reach their base camp and be discovered and swiftly killed.

It was fine with him to stop, since he could still study the base from afar and it was here that he discovered something else of interest. He watched an interaction between one of the PDF and a Sister, conversing with speech. He couldn't make out their words, but they seemed to be joking with each other, laughing about something. A significant difference from what he had seen of the PDF at the front lines.

Other PDF were acting similarly, like normal humans. While it was difficult to read their micro expressions from so far away, he could see them shift. And yet, there were patterns here as well, like they were all going through similar motions.

Were they hiding their true nature from the Sisters? Interesting. Very interesting.

Uirus almost wanted to risk going in further, consequences be damned, to get a closer look. However, something else drew his attention. A group, a battalion of PDF around a thousand strong, marching out through a section of the base of Janus' wall. They were not headed towards the tunnels being fought over, but another entrance, a service duct Uirus had ensured was heavily defended by a large force of trusted cultists to ambush anyone attempting to use it. They had already killed a small group of Sisters attempting to infiltrate the hive. Now, it seemed, their enemies were interested in sending a larger force.

Something marked this battalion as different, Uirus noticed as he closed the distance with them, his gait letting him easily catch up to them. Their uniforms had been marked with three letters in Low Gothic, spelling out 'ONI' in grey paint. It seemed to be a recent addition, the paint was still fresh, and he wondered what it meant as he had not seen anything like it among the rest of the Imperial forces present.

For a time, these PDF were like the ones he'd seen in the camp. In fact, they seemed even more alive, more raucous than the others had been, joking with one another, playfully pushing and jostling their comrades, as a proper army would. However, he soon saw the pattern was merely different, not gone, and as they lost sight of the base camp, the battalion fell into the same silent, inhuman state he had seen from those on the front line.

They were hiding it. Had the Mechanicus of this world created an army of hidden Skitarii with no one the wiser? Uirus wasn't sure if he should be enraged that such a thing had occurred without his knowledge or applaud the scheme for its audacity and success.

He followed the battalion, passing by the garrison posted to guard the Imperium's side of the service duct. He had considered sending Kalak and the rest through the tunnel in a flanking attack, but he doubted the beastmen would agree to such a plan, if they could even understand it. While Khorne took all sorts so long as they committed to the letting of blood in his name, Kalak's lot were the sort to eschew such dishonorable things like ranged weaponry and any tactics more complicated than a headlong charge into the enemy's lines. It had proven a useful tool and kept their numbers reduced, even as others were drawn to the scent of carnage to replenish the horde's strength.

Had Kalak had a mind beneath all that brawn, had any of the beastmen, perhaps it would not be Tzeentch who would control this world when this war came to an end. Fortunately, strategists among Khorne's sort were few and far, far between.

The pace of these 'ONI' forces increased as they filed into the tunnel, nearly filling its width at thirty men standing shoulder-to-shoulder, going from a standard march to a jog and then a full-blown run. Uirus matched their stride easily enough, his heavy steps making no sound as he followed them from behind, taking care to study these slaves of the Mechanicus closely. The ceiling was just barely high enough that he could walk without scraping his helmeted head along the rockrete.

They did not show signs of tiring, not even sweating or breathing more heavily. They didn't move quite in time with one another, he noticed, but they also did in a way. He picked out sixteen groups, each around sixty men strong spread across the entire force who moved in lockstep with one another, but differently from the other groups. Was it to hide their true nature? To reduce the noise caused by their footfalls? Or, perhaps, were the groups each controlled by separate tech-priests? There were other patterns he noted as well, some rather obvious, others so well-hidden he couldn't be sure they were intentional.

They kept running for nearly an hour, at a pace that few mortals could have managed for themselves, let alone simple soldiers. Uirus knew they were nearing the areas where his cultists had been reinforced by several battalions of Janus PDF who had been subtly converted in recent days.

How would these PDF fight, Uirus wondered. His cultists had reported the sisters sent into the duct were all dead, so there was nothing preventing these troops from displaying their full might. Would they fight as well as the Skitarii did? They did not have any obvious augments, no integrated weapons systems, so he doubted it, but they could still be dangerous.

They were picking up speed, Uirus realized. They had entered into a full sprint, a pace no guardsman or PDF trooper should have been capable of maintaining for such a long period, and they were still getting faster. He was forced to break out into a run of his own just to keep up with them.

Ahsael would be interested by this new threat, Uirus knew. He wanted, he needed to see them fight. They would be coming up on his defensive positions soon enough. At their pace, less than five minutes, he estimated.

Four minutes later, the battalion came to a dead halt, well outside of sight and weapons range of his forces. Uirus wondered why, until he saw the reason.

Several Sisters of Battle emerged from a hidden alcove in the wall, moving silently, stripped of their power armor. They didn't acknowledge the PDF, only filed past them one-by-one.

Uirus' eyes narrowed. It seemed his cultists had misreported the situation in the hopes their failure to capture or kill the Sisters would not be discovered. He'd have to have a word with any of the survivors later. His eyes widened as another Sister emerged, held carefully between two of her fellow zealots.

She was covered in burns that no mortal being could have survived, her flesh charred and cracked, one of her hands a ruined stump ending in a shard of bone. Her face looked half-melted, almost fused shut, yet she somehow still breathed, the rise and fall of her chest steady and strong. She should not have been conscious, let alone capable of doing anything more than writhing in pain, yet one of her legs covered in less burns assisted the two sisters in carrying her along.

One of the PDF stepped toward the Sister that should have been dead, a man of considerable bulk, though it was obviously all muscle. His uniform didn't seem to fit quite right, seeming too small for his frame. The man rolled up the sleeve of his uniform, revealing an arm and Uirus studied it in puzzlement as the flesh seemed to writhe.

His eyes snapped open in shock as the man ripped off his own arm with not even a moment's hesitation or a cry of pain. Yet, that was not the end of the strangeness. No blood spouted from the wound and the arm kept moving even after being detached, the flesh slowly starting to crawl towards itself, the bones seemingly melting, if they ever existed to begin with. In a matter of seconds, the arm had transformed, mutated into an amorphous blob of flesh.

That alone was not so terrifying. Uirus had seen such mutations take place often among Chaos worshippers, particularly among Tzeentch's followers. However, such events always had powerful psychic emanations, emanations that he could feel. He felt nothing of the sort from whatever had just happened now.

A cold pit grew in his stomach as the blob crawled along the ground and latched onto the Sister, rolling itself up and along her legs, stomach, arms, and head, covering her entirely like some kind of second skin. It writhed, seemed to tighten around her, then settled.

Uirus watched in astonishment as a face emerged- no, grew from the second skin, eyes, a mouth, a nose, even eyebrows formed from the raw biomass. Gone were the grotesque wounds, replaced by a flawless picture of humanity. Then, even that picture changed, flesh that looked like it was scarred appearing from nothing. The rest of the Sister's body was similarly healed, repaired, by the biomass. Even a full head of hair, colored white like many Sisters possessed but certainly not dyed by any usual methods, sprouted.

Meanwhile, the man, if he could even be called a man, with the ill fitting uniform began to shift and change as well. His body seemed to shrink, but soon Uirus realized his empty sleeve, hanging loose at his side without an arm inside of it, was starting to fill out. In seconds, the one-armed man was two-armed again, his uniform fitting him perfectly.

The Sister, fully healed, was released by the others of her Order and joined the rest of them departing back towards the Imperium's lines. They passed by Uirus, who watched them go, incomprehension in his unseen eyes.

Ahsael needs to know. Ahsael needs to know now.

His plans of following these creatures forgotten, Uirus turned and sprinted back down the service duct. It was not fear that drove him, he told himself. He was a Space Marine, after all. They knew no fear.

Nonetheless, he did not slow down all the way back to his palace.