Chapter 21: The second six hours – Part 3: Dual (Samara's Perspective)
I wake to my own heatbeat, a low, thudding ache in my ribs, every breath scraping like a jagged blade inside my chest. The light is dim, a jaundiced glow from half-dead lumin strips. A makeshift tent, stinking of blood and burnt flesh, crammed wall-to-wall with groaning forms. The odor hangs so thick it almost has a texture. It's the smell of failure and slow death.
The smell clogs my nostrils and turns my stomach, a cloying mixture of iron and rot that seems to cling to every breath I draw. My ribs groan as I shift on the cot, the coarse fabric of the infirmary blanket scraping against skin that feels like it's been flayed. My body is a ruin of bruises and pain, but it's nothing compared to the fire in my chest. That fire burns hotter than plasma, hotter than anything Helena and her cowardly flock of sheep could understand.
They dumped me here, with the ones who can't fight or crawl.
Muffled whimpers echo around me, but I ignore them—let them whimper. Let them waste away like gutless heretics.
They stripped me.
My hands curl into fists, the bandages wrapped around them pulling taut. My armor is gone, my jump pack too. I can feel the absence in every naked inch of me. My joints protest as I force myself upright on the narrow cot. I press a hand to my bare collarbone where my Aquila used to hang. The chain is gone. They must have stripped it from me too, along with my dignity.
How dare they.
My fists clench. I can still feel the righteous clarity that came when the horde parted for me, how the Emperor's light must have shone, how He must have smiled on my boldness, not on Helena's squeamishness or Aurora's hollow sanctity. No—my mind burns with the certainty that I was in the right. The horde parted, and that's all I need to know.
I blink against the pale, flickering light and look around. Cots line the space, each one occupied by bodies that barely stir. Groans and wet coughing punctuate the air, each sound a reminder of failure. Most of them don't look like they'll last the day. Good. Their weakness only drags us all closer to the grave.
"You'll spend the rest of this engagement defending the wounded. You can die at their side if the Emperor deems you worthy of redemption."
Redemption.
The word twists in my mind like a blade. Who is she to speak of redemption? Redemption is for the unrighteous, for those who cower behind walls, for those who watch as their Sisters fight and die for a false saint and a broken ideal.
The Emperor parted the horde for me. He showed me His favor. And Helena? She stripped me of my station, humiliated me, discarded me like waste.
She will burn for it. They all will.
A shadow falls across me. A Hospitaller in white robes steps closer, her face pale and drawn beneath the glow of the lumen. She smells like antiseptic and sanctimony. I hate her immediately.
"Rest, Constantia," she says softly, her voice tinged with pity. "You've been removed from the front to recover. The Canoness—"
The name snaps something loose inside me.
The Canoness.
The architect of my humiliation. The word fills my ears like static, drowning out the Hospitaller's prattle.
She's close enough to grab. She's defenseless.
Something vicious sings inside my head and my body moves before I've decided to act. My hand shoots out, seizing the woman by her chestplate. She gasps, her eyes wide with shock, but I don't give her time to scream. My other hand drives upward, palm slamming into her nose with a crack. The wet sound of cartilage shattering and driving upwards into soft, grey brain-matter is almost as satisfying as the look of shock frozen on her face.
She sags in her armor, her eyes wide and glassy, the light of life already fading. Blood bubbles from her shattered face, pooling around her collar as her chest jerks once, twice, then stills.
I don't feel guilt. Only the cold certainty that she was unworthy.
"Unworthy," I hiss, stripping off her armor piece by piece.
Heavenly power from cowardly hands.
The Emperor's sweet irony.
"Should have kept your helmet on," I mutter, sarcastically as I work. The power armor is ancient, clunky and ill-fitting, a pale imitation of the armor they took from me, but it will serve. I tear her body from it and step into its place. The weight of the plates is grounding as I fasten each piece, the servo-assisted joints whining faintly as they adjust to my frame.
No one in the tent stirs except in delirium. A Sister moans, eyes fluttering, but she's not focusing. Another with a missing leg sobs quietly into a pillow. None of them can rise, let alone stop me.
I finish adjusting the last plates of the Hospitaller's armor, ignoring the sting of bruised flesh. My chain-laced boots click against the stone floor. A small prayer book dangles from the belt, mocking me.
I tear it off, fling it aside. "I have my own prayer," I snarl.
The Hospitaller's bolt pistol is a paltry substitute for my lost arsenal, but it feels good in my hand. Solid. Righteous. I holster it and glance down at the woman's prone form.
Unworthy.
"Unworthy," I murmur, caving in her chest with a boot as I step forward.
The canvas of the tent flaps as I push my way out into the open air. The sounds of battle reach me, faint but growing louder—the crack of lasfire, the guttural roars of the enemy, the dying cries of the so-called faithful. The stink of the battlefield hits me like a wall, thick with ozone and charred flesh.
I draw in a deep breath, letting it fill my lungs. Then I fasten the woman's helmet into place, just another hospitaller, just another heretic…
This is where I belong. Not rotting in a tent among the dying and discarded. Not kneeling at the feet of a heretic like Helena. The truth is clear to me now, as clear as the Emperor's light.
Lucious was right.
The real heresy lies within the Imperium, festering in leaders like Helena who blind themselves with their false faith.
They will burn. All of them.
The shadows play across the courtyard. My lips twitch into a humorless smile. They tossed me aside to "defend the wounded?" They should've killed me if they wanted to crush my faith, to keep me out of the way of their false schemes.
I slip out into the gloom of the courtyard, careful not to be seen just yet.
Time to finish what Helena was too blind to start.
The Imperium has forgotten its true faith, but I remember.
Lucious was right.
The real heresy lies in letting this false saint, this Aurora, lead. In letting untested, unsealed Jessamine cultists steer us. The real heresy is them.
The stolen armor is stiff, the servos in the gauntlets sluggish, but it carries me forward with purpose. Each step across the courtyard is accompanied by the faint whine of misaligned joints, but no one stops me. Why would they? The bloodied white of the Hospitaller sigil on my chest grants me the authority to move unnoticed, unchallenged.
The courtyard sprawls ahead, a vast expanse of shattered stone and broken lives. Overhead, the not-sky churns, blackened false clouds, the aftereffects of such ammunition expenditure and death, illuminated by the relentless flashes of battle. Smoke and screams drift on the wind, and the ever-present tang of ozone and burnt flesh clogs my lungs with every breath. I relish it.
I relish it.
This is the scent of righteous fury. My Fury.
My fury.
I keep my pace measured, deliberate. The vox-channels hiss and crackle in my ear, a symphony of chaos that feeds my growing certainty.
"-loss of void shields confirmed. Repeat, void shields are down—"
"-Tech Abominations advancing on the southern quadrant—"
"-Nullmaw… Emperor save us, it's a daemon! Plasma ineffective! Volcano Cannon ineffective! We are—"
The channel devolves into static, but I don't need their fear-filled chatter to know what's happening. I've heard enough.
The fortress, this bastion of lies, is crumbling under the weight of its own hypocrisy.
Helena's faith is failing, her walls collapsing, her army shattering.
The truth, cold and inevitable, claws at the edges of my mind: this is what happens when the Imperium places its trust in the weak willed and blind.
Ahead, hundreds of Arbites and gangers are dragging debris to form a barricade at the base of the chapel steps. Their movements are precise, practiced, but their faces betray them. Every strained expression, every hurried glance over their shoulders, speaks of the inevitability they're too afraid to name. They even pile up the walking wounded alongside weapons to man their pitiful defense.
Among them, one whose name plate reads 'Briggs' is shouting orders, his riot shotgun slung over one shoulder. His bandaged leg stiff beneath him, but he's still moving, still directing.
I stop a few paces away, letting the dying light cast long shadows over the worn ceramite of my stolen armor.
"Trooper," I call out, my voice clipped and authoritative. He turns, squinting against the haze of smoke. His eyes widen briefly at the sight of my armor, and he straightens instinctively.
"Sister," he replies, his voice tense with respect. "What's your need?"
I let my gaze drift to the quad-load missile launcher sitting on its pad against the barricade, its sleek frame gleaming dully beneath a layer of grime. The warheads glint like promises in the fading light. I've never seen one before, but as I stare, schematics flash through my mind.
A weapon, like any other.
I can use this, I need this.
"That launcher," I say, my tone sharp enough to cut through the noise of the battlefield. "It's needed on the wall. The Tech Abominations are closing."
Briggs hesitates, glancing between me and the weapon. His uncertainty is palpable, but the Hospitaller sigil on my chest gives him no reason to question me. His nod is stiff, reluctant. "Understood, Sister. It's a two-man system. Need a hand?"
"No," I snap, my hand already curling around the launcher's grip. "The Emperor guides me."
The weight is immense, a challenge to my battered frame, but I revel in the strain even as the servo assist groans in carrying something almost as heavy as the armor I wear. Pain sharpens my resolve. As I hoist the launcher onto my shoulder, I catch Briggs's gaze lingering on me, his expression uncertain.
He doesn't know.
None of them do.
The truth would crush their weak minds.
The wall looms above, its jagged edges silhouetted against the smoke choked sky. The cacophony of bolter fire and screaming fills the air, punctuated by the guttural roars of the enemy below. The ramp of corpses stretches upward like a grotesque monument to the futility of defense, and at its apex, the tide of heretics surges over and splits into two streams towards lines of arbites riot shields.
This is where the Emperor wants me. Not rotting in a tent among the dying. Not kneeling before a false saint, a false throne and her blind flock. Here, on this wall, I will prove my worth to the true master of mankind!
I push through the swirl of smoke and fumes, the heat of the battle clinging to my faceplate like a second skin. The quad-launcher's weight digs into my shoulder, its ammunition heavy with purpose. My breaths come short and sharp, the raw ache in my ribs sparking with every inhale, but I welcome the pain. It focuses me, reminds me of why I'm here—what I must do.
The top of the wall is a writhing chaos of blackened stone and flashing muzzle flares. Arbites thrash in two tight clusters, pinning an endless horde sprawling up that obscene ramp of corpses between them. The ramp glistens wetly, a mixture of blood and offal, the stench forcing bile up my throat.
For a moment, I drink it in: the churning tide of filth, the flicker of las bolts, the flashes of stolen muzzle fire. Their vantage, their fight, all meaningless now.
Tully's men hold their ground, a wall of shields and shotguns, their defiance a flickering candle against the storm. The men and women of the Arbites craning terrified glances at me—none know I'm the traitor. The scuffed white of the Hospitaller armor gives me a free pass.
Another Sister come to help, to heal. If only they knew.
I sight a figure above the carnage, wings of fire and promethium on her back—the telltale arcs of a Zephyr jump pack in full thrust. Helena.
I feel her presence like a knife twisting in my gut. I can almost taste my hatred. She's leading the Zephyr squad, each one diving in tight formation, unloading flame and bolt on the ramp. I see them pass in a searing arc of smoky contrails, loop around, and climb skyward. Again. Again.
And for what? To buy a few more minutes before the inevitable collapse?
She is a symbol—a false one. A testament to the weakness festering at the heart of this imperium. The Emperor did not favor her, nor her hollow doctrine.
He chose me. The horde parted for me!
I slide the quad-launcher forward, bracing its prow against a cracked battlement and my right side. My servos whine, compensation, systems chugging as I align the targeting reticule built into this ill-fitting helm. The crosshair of my HUD syncs with the launcher's targeting augur resting against the lip of the wall, the ancient armor groaning as it struggles to acquire a lock centering on Helena's silhouette. My body trembles in anticipation. My heart pounds with a cold, savage glee that feels more honest than any prayer I've uttered.
You took my station. You tried to leash me. Anger flares so bright, I can barely breathe. You should have killed me, Helena.
I click the vox to the defenders' open channel. My voice rasps out, raw with scorn. "Heretics," I hiss, letting the condemnation fill every syllable. "You follow a false saint! A false sisterhood! The Emperor's will is clear—cleanse the heretics of Jessamine!"
The vox erupts in static and panicked voices. Questions. Shouts. But I don't listen. My world narrows to the targeting reticle, to Helena's soaring form framed against the ash-choked sky.
She dips low, leading another pass. Her thrusters flare as she banks left, heavy flamer igniting another swath of the ramp. My finger hovers over the trigger, the cold metal a promise, an oath sworn beneath my touch. I see her tilt, swirl, begin a wide, climbing turn.
PerfectPerfect.
I squeeze the trigger.
A thunderous kick hammers my right side as the first missile whooshes free, trailing a twisting contrail. I grit my teeth, ignoring the jolt of pain rattling my bruised chest.
Over the vox, Helena's voice crackles, half-panicked, half-furious: "What in the—? Who's firing? That's a friendly—!" She banks hard, thrusters flaring as she tries to avoid the incoming streak.
My lips pull back in a snarl as the first missile rips through the smoke-choked sky. It detonates near Helena's flank, a bloom of fire and shrapnel that shreds the air around her. The impact sends her twisting mid-flight, her thrusters screaming as she fights for control.
My pulse quickens. The sight of her struggling, her pristine form marred by chaos, is a drug I never knew I needed.
"Yes," I hiss through clenched teeth, the word slithering out before I can stop it. "Fight it, heretic! Fight and fail."
The second missile races forward, a fiery spear slicing through the ash-drenched wind. For a moment, it looks like it'll connect, a perfect strike to tear her from the sky—but then it veers, the targeting augur failing to lock onto her erratic trajectory. It finds another target instead: one of her loyal Zephyr Sisters, Miriam, the kiss-ass.
The explosion is glorious.
Miriam vanishes in a ball of flame, her heavy flamer igniting mid-detonation and spraying molten promethium in a spectacular arc. Bits of charred armor and scraps of cloth flutter downward like grotesque confetti, the stench of burning flesh wafting even to my position. I laugh, the sound wet and strangled in my throat, a raw bark of triumph.
"Collateral," I mutter, my voice cracking with anticipation. "The Emperor has no need for the unworthy."
The third missile is away, homing faster, smarter—closer. Helena's flight pattern breaks completely, her jump pack sputtering under the concussive force of the near-misses. She spirals wildly, the controlled grace she always wore like a badge of pride reduced to frantic survival.
She's flailing, the mighty Canoness reduced to a panicked animal in the air.
"Almost!" My gauntleted fingers clench against the launcher's grips, my body trembling with the sheer need to see her fall. My breath fogs the inside of the Hospitaller helmet, the visor smeared with condensation. My tongue darts across my cracked lips, savoring the metallic tang of blood from where I've bitten the inside of my cheek without realizing it.
Her thrusters scream again, a shrill, desperate wail that mirrors the growing frenzy in my chest. Each dodge, each desperate twist, only heightens the tension. My heart pounds against my ribs, my entire being teetering on the edge of something primal, something raw and uncontainable.
"Die," I whisper, the word barely audible over the pounding of my pulse in my ears. The missile detonates above her, bathing her in another wave of shrapnel. " Die, damn you!"
The fourth missile launches. Time seems to slow, the hiss of its propulsion cutting through the cacophony of the battlefield like a blade. My vision narrows, the world shrinking to that single fiery streak as it homes in on its target. Helena's voice crackles over the vox, frantic, furious, commanding—until it isn't.
The missile strikes.
The impact is a symphony of fire and fury, a crescendo that drowns out all else in my world. Her silhouette is swallowed by the explosion, her jump pack obliterated in a roaring inferno. My hands go slack, the launcher slipping from my grip as my knees almost buckle under the weight of it all.
"Yeassh!" I breathe, my voice trembling, saliva pooling in my mouth as my jaw goes slack with exultation. I feel it now, a flood of warmth and clarity, a sensation so pure it borders on divine. My tongue lolls briefly against the visor, tasting the slick inside of the helmet as I shiver with something that feels like ecstasy.
Through the haze, I see her falling. A burning comet, her once-glorious form reduced to a spiraling wreck. She hits the ramp with a sickening thud, swallowed instantly by the writhing tide of heretics. They surge over her like a living wave, her armor vanishing beneath the tide.
My breaths come shallow and ragged, my entire body trembling. My lips part, a line of drool slipping free as I murmur, "Unworthy."
This is it. The moment. The Emperor's will made manifest, and I—his chosen vessel—have delivered his judgment.
I hear frantic shouts—someone screaming "Canoness down, Canoness down!"—then it's drowned by an agonized roar from the horde below.
A frozen hush grips the top of the wall. The bolts from the nearest defenders slow, their aim faltering. Some Sister yells something incoherent, shock choking her words. Tully's men, a battered row of riot shields, stare wide-eyed, confusion etched across their dirt-smeared faces. Diaz's voice breaks through the stunned silence, raw with denial, "No—!"
None of it matters to me. My gaze lingers on the spot where Helena vanished, waiting for some sign of life, some last thrash. Nothing. I feel the corners of my mouth tugging upward in a silent snarl. Let her see how it feels to be discarded in a worthless pit. Let her be devoured, as she deserved.
The battlefield's roar returns in a rush—bolter fire, screams, the roaring hiss of flamers. Over the vox, demands shriek in confused union:
"Identify that launcher—who is that Sister?!" "Friendly fire! For Throne's sake, that was Canoness Helena! Helena is down!"
I ignore them. My heart hammers in my chest, adrenaline singing in my veins. I savor this moment, a sweet, bitter taste of vengeance. I step back from the quad-launcher, letting it thud to the battlement floor. The shock of the collision reverberates up my legs, an anchor to the reality I've just created.
Around me, the defenders reel. Some turn, leveling uncertain glances. But still no one aims at me—no one dares. They're too stunned to process the idea of betrayal in their midst.
Helena is gone. The false saint's puppet has fallen. One step closer to purging this rotten husk of an Imperium.
I step past the disbelieving troopers, bolt pistol drawn in one gauntleted hand, the thick reek of fear saturating the air anew. Let them flounder in confusion. Let them wonder which Sister is next to put a bolt in their skull.
I am Samara, I remind myself, the Emperor's chosen. If He parted the horde for me once, He'll do it again.
I allow a single, trembling laugh to gurgle from my throat, cutting through the haze of gunsmoke and shrill alarms. Helena's scream still echoes in my mind, bright and glorious. The ramp teems with fanatic scum, but my path is clear.
Purge them all. Their heresy ends here.
"Canoness down! Canoness Helena is down!" someone I vaguely recall being my classmate in some other life in some other place very far away is still screaming, their voice tight with disbelief.
I laugh—a dry, rasping sound that claws its way out of my throat. The fear, the confusion rippling through the defenders around me, is almost tangible. They don't understand yet. They think this is an accident, some cruel misfire. How naïve.
Stepping forward, I draw the bolt pistol from my holster. It feels righteous in my hand, a weight that anchors me to the Emperor's purpose. My gauntleted fingers tighten around the grip as I turn toward the nearest cluster of Sisters, their wide eyes darting between the smoldering remnants of Helena's descent and the weapon in my hand.
"Yoarall heretics," I snarl, my voice amplified by the vox in the stolen helmet. "ThEmperDemandyour blood!."
Before the nearest Sister can react, I squeeze the trigger. The bolt pistol bucks in my hand, and her head snaps back as the round detonates at her throat. Blood and shrapnel spray across the faces of those beside her.
The others freeze, their bolters slack in their hands. Pathetic. Weak. They should be raising their weapons against me already, but hesitation is their undoing. I step forward and rip the bolter from the dead Sister's twitching fingers, leveling it at the next group.
The weapon roars in my grip, each round finding its mark with a visceral precision. The muzzle flare lights their faces, twisted with shock and betrayal, before they are obliterated. Their bodies crumple to the battlements, and I step over them without a glance.
"The Emperor's judgment is clear!" I bellow, advancing toward the next cluster of defenders. They scatter, some raising their weapons at me, others frozen in place. "You follow a false saint! Your faith is a lie! I am His wrath made flesh!"
More shots ring out, more bodies fall. The smell of scorched ceramite and blood thickens in the air, mingling with the tang of ozone. My lungs burn with it, every breath fueling the fire in my chest.
A voice cuts through the chaos, rough and unyielding. "Enough!"
I whirl toward the sound. An Arbites sergeant stands before me, a riot shield raised in one arm, his other hand gripping a battered shotgun. His face is grim, his eyes locked on mine with a determination I hadn't expected to see in one of these weaklings.
"You think that peashooter can stop me?" I taunt, my voice dripping with scorn. The bolter clicks empty in my hand, the magazine spent. I drop it without hesitation, the gauntlet-mounted chainblade on my arm roaring to life. Its teeth glint wickedly as they spin, a growling hymn to the Emperor's vengeance.
The sergeant doesn't flinch or hesitate, he fires, loads a round from his chest pocket, and fires again, repeatedly, spraying shot across my ancient armor like ineffectual hail. His shield rises, as I charge unimpeded through the storm as seven shots ping off my armor. The chainblade screams as it meets hardened plasteel and thin ceramite. Sparks fly, the shield buckling under the force of the strike. He grunts, his arm straining under the weight of my assault.
"Heretics like you," he growls, chambering his final round, his voice tight with pain, "always talk too much."
I press forward, the chainblade biting deeper into the shield. His strength falters as he attempts to bring the shotgun to bear, and I see my opening. With a savage twist, the blade rips through the shield, shattering it and sending shards of plasteel flying. His arm snaps under the impact, the crack of bone audible even over the chaos around us.
He staggers back, his shotgun clutched awkwardly in his off-hand. Blood drips from his shattered limb, but his gaze remains fixed on mine, unyielding, as he pushes himself up into a crouch.
"You should've stayed down," I sneer, raising the chainblade for the killing blow.
Before I can strike, he fires and the shotgun coughs empty as the round from his pocket flies true.
The breaching slug slams into my chest, the explosive force cracking the ceramite and driving the air from my lungs. I stagger back, the ill-fitting armor toppling me onto the cold stone beneath me. Pain flares in my ribs, sharp and electric, but it's drowned by the laughter bubbling up from my throat.
"You—" I choke out, still laughing, blood pooling in the back of my throat. "You think—this changes anything?"
The sergeant doesn't answer. He steps forward, his movements deliberate despite the tremor in his legs. The barrel of his shotgun presses against the breach in my armor, the cold metal biting into my skin as he braces it, loading another round.
The last thing I see is his face, grim and resolute, as he pulls the trigger. The blast tears through me, my chest rupturing in a spray of blood and ceramite as ball bearings ricochet around inside the chest cavity of the ancient armor, shredding me instantly.
It feels incredible.
Even as the world dims, my laughter doesn't stop.
I see it now, the throne of bleached white light, the promise of the Emperor's glory. The pain fades, replaced by a searing ecstasy, and I scream in inexpressible joy as all my beliefs are made manifest before me and a new purpose blossoms where once my heart beat: Lucious was right...
On the battlements, darkness consumes me.