WARHAMMER DOES NOT BELONG TO ME. MASS EFFECT DOES NOT BELONG TO ME. OMNI-BLADES ARE COOL. CHAINSWORDS ARE COOL. OMNI-CHAINSWORDS, ANYONE?

*Checks timer*

Huh, I seem to have left the Crusade baking for a bit. Let's see how it's looking.

Star-Bound

Chapter 11

Crusade

Delmoor VI had once been a beautiful world. Vast, open plains had supported the many farms whose goods were shipped to the rest of the sector, while the planet's moon manufactured machine parts to support a nearby Forge World. The world was peaceful, having only suffered an Aeldari pirate raid in M39, and many of the people had fooled themselves into believing that the dark forces in the galaxy would leave them alone.

That belief was shattered twice. First, by the Great Rift, which caused nightmares and madness in any who stared at it for too long. It soon became law to avoid looking up during the day, when the Rift was visible.

The second time the world's sense of safety was destroyed was the day the Orks came. The sky was torn asunder further as hundreds of ramshackle vessels appeared, disgorging fighters and landing craft. The Delmoor PDF marched to fight them, but that only made things worse; with such a visible target, the Orks gleefully descended on the defenders. Outnumbered a thousand to one and caught by surprise, the humans' resistance quickly fell apart.

Some believed that there was still hope; what remained of the planetary government had received a garbled astropathic transmission that suggested help was coming, but the Orks had destroyed all means of communication after that.

That hope wasn't worth much to the wider populace, even if they'd known about it. For little Jerris, all he knew was that the terrifying green monsters were chasing him and his mother, and they were catching up.

"Don't let go!" his mother yelled, trying to sound calm, even as they ran. "Keep hold of my hand!"

"Yes, mama," the boy gasped as he ran. His legs hurt, and his lungs burned from running all day, but the fear of the monsters behind him was enough to keep him going.

"We're almost there," his mother assured, though she hadn't told him where they were going.

Then there was a series of bangs, several wet thuds, and then Jerris' mother fell to the ground. Red blossomed across her back, and her hand slipped from her son's.

"Mama?" Jerris knelt by his mother's side and gripped her arm in tiny hands.

"R-run," she said weakly. "Run to the church… the Emperor p-protects…"

A shadow fell over Jerris; the boy turned and, for the first time, saw the face of the enemy. The Ork was huge with muscle, and would have been far taller than a man had it not been hunched over. It wore rough leather clothes over its scarred green skin, and its fang-filled jaw jutted out; in its hands, it carried a large gun. The smoking barrel suggested that this was the one who had shot his mother, though Jerris was too young to make that connection. All around him, thousands of Orks were swarming what was left of the rural settlement, butchering any human they found.

The Ork laughed, a deep, cruel laugh that made Jerris want to hide, but he was too frightened to do anything but stare as the beast pointed its gun at him. With nothing else to do, Jerris closed his eyes and silently prayed.

The Emperor protects… the Emperor protects…

Instead of a bang from the Ork's gun, there was a strange whistling, a crunch, and then a thud. Jerris cracked open one eye, and saw that the Ork was on its back; there was a strange hammer-like weapon buried in its chest, but then it was yanked upward by a cord of golden light. The weapon flew up to meet its owner as she flew down on golden wings and landed between Jerris and the corpse. The light emanating from her made it difficult to see, but she wore silver armor, with a red stripe edged in white going down the right arm and to the back of her hand.

"Don't worry, you're safe now." The woman's voice was gentle, like his own mother's, but there was a strength behind it that banished his fear.

The Orks had taken notice of the winged woman that just killed one of their own. They roared and stormed towards her, weapons raised in the air.

The woman brought two fingers from her free hand up to her ear. "Any time now, guys."

As if summoned by her words, hundreds of rockets rained down from the smoke-wreathed heavens and slammed into the onrushing horde, killing hundreds in an instant. Following the rockets were dozens of Valkyrie gunships that swooped in low to disgorge squads of Tempestus Scions.

"I need a medicae," the woman said, raising her voice to be heard over the engines. A man rushed over to Jerris' mother and cut away her shirt to examine her injuries. "Will she make it?"

"It would appear that the slugs missed her organs, or were lodged in her ribs," the man said, and then looked at the boy. "You won't be an orphan today, child."

At those words, Jerris' eyes welled up with tears, and he began to cry. An armored hand rested on his head, and he saw the woman smiling at him. Her red hair practically glowed in the fires of the explosions, and cast her silver armor in gold.

"Stay here," she said, and turned to face the Orks that were rallying. "Crusaders! These bastards go no further! Hold! This! Line!"

Hundreds of voices rose as one. "IT SHALL BE DONE!"

Red beams of energy hissed out into the charging Orks, accompanied by bolts of blue plasma and grenades. The gunships lifted off and added their own fire, shredding any greenskin they struck. The armored woman, however, just stood there, waiting; she seemed to be inviting the Orks to come after her, and they obliged, especially since the rest of the soldiers were taking care not to fire near her.

Just as a particularly large brute with a roaring chainaxe was bearing down on her, she lifted her weapon. She smashed the hammer-side into the beast's wrist, pulping it and leaving its swing unbalanced. She then flipped the weapon around and drove its blade-side into the Ork's head; the energized blade seared through skin, bone, and brain, and when she tugged the weapon free, the front half of the Ork's head came with it. With a shout, the woman grabbed the Ork's mutilated corpse and hurled it at several others, knocking them over.

"Attack!" she yelled, and Jerris looked up when he noticed the sky growing brighter.

More winged women, hundreds of them, were descending from the heavens. Unlike the first one, their wings were made of metal, and fire slowed their descent; each was armored in black plate, and most carried a pistol in each hand. They landed amidst the Orks, firing even before they hit the ground—and a few decided to crash directly on top of the aliens, crushing them with the weight of their descent. A small group had pistols, but also carried crackling swords and fought at their leader's side.

Jerris couldn't tear his eyes away from the sight, even as it devolved into a swirl of blood and smoke. The only detail that stood out throughout the entire battle was the woman with the golden wings. He watched, entranced, as she hacked her way through the Orks; even to his inexperienced eye, she wasn't graceful, but she also seemed to only put what effort was absolutely necessary to defeat a given foe, and when the fighting died down, she looked as fresh as when she'd first arrived.

"Good work, everyone!" the woman called out, and the various soldiers cheered. "Make sure our dead are put somewhere safe for burial, get our wounded and the civilians onto the gunships. Let's move!"

There were more cries of 'It shall be done!', and the soldiers dashed off. Some carried flamers and burned away the Ork bodies, while others helped their injured comrades and the neighbors Jerris had seen survive. It was all done remarkably fast; time had become strange for Jerris, but he could have sworn it had all taken only a few minutes. He was then gently tugged to his feet by one of the armored women.

"Come, child," she said gently. "I will take you to the gunship with your mother. She will heal faster if her son stays by her side."

Jerris nodded shakily, but as he walked, he looked over his shoulder at the woman who had first rescued him. "Who is she? Did… did the God-Emperor send her?"

The woman guiding him wore a helmet, but when she followed his gaze, her tone softened to a reverent degree. "She is Alexia Shepard, a Living Saint—she is the leader of the Shepard Crusade, and Harbinger of the Emperor's Wrath."

A Living Saint! He was only a child, but he knew enough to recognize the significance of a Living Saint. Had he not been held up by his arm, he would have fallen to his knees and made the sign of the Aquila.

"The Emperor does protect," he whispered as he was lifted onto a Valkyrie.

"Yes," the woman said as she stepped back. "Yes, He does."

…

Shepard watched as the gunships lifted off. "How many did we save?"

Vils glanced at a dataslate. "Six hundred and nineteen, Your Holiness. This settlement had about eight hundred inhabitants; we got here before the Orks could do too much damage."

Shepard nodded; there had been campaigns where they had been lucky to save anyone on a planet, but the Delmoor system was unusual in that they had been ahead of the Orks more often than not. On top of that, they were inflicting heavy casualties on the Orks; the current estimate was that this Waaagh! would be broken in less than a month.

Still, Shepard and the rest of the Crusade's leadership were unhappy with how long it was taking. In the five years since the Shepard Crusade began, they had waged a lightning war throughout Imperium Nihilus, striking hard and fast. Following the example of the Indomitus Crusade, led by Roboute Guilliman, they fought battles in systems where Imperial forces held out, or could otherwise by easily reinforced from Imperium Sanctus. In those five years, they had fought aliens, mutants, heretics, and traitors of almost every stripe, and had come out victorious every time.

For Shepard, the most important part of the Crusade was how it had bonded its members together. The combined-arms approach she'd taken had burned away old hatreds, and her soldiers fought as brothers and sisters, regardless of their unit. She'd seen Guardsmen shake hands with Skitarii, and Sisters of Battle share celebratory meals with Space Marines. They fought for each other as much as they fought for the Emperor, and that forged the Crusade into a fighting force willing and able to face any foe.

This wasn't the first time the Crusade had fought the Orks, and they had developed tactics to deal with them. Thankfully, they had been fortunate to catch most of them in the space above the planet, where the Imperial ships held the advantage. Shepard had led the ground forces to the smaller settlements that the Orks were attacking first, creating a show of force that would attract the greenskins away from the larger population centers.

Shepard could hear the scream of engines as bombers flew overhead, signaling the next part of the plan. As the Orks swarmed towards what they considered a good fight, they were exposed on the open plains; moving so fast, there was no time for the Imperials to land artillery, but Dartan had been more than willing to send flights of Marauder bombers to devastate the strung-out Orks. With the Orks in disarray from the bombing runs, the ground forces would relocate and present a new target. The strategy was extremely effective so far, and the Crusade had only been on the planet for a day.

"All right, we've done our part here," Shepard said. "Call in our transports, get ready for another strike. The Orks are still out there, so let's give 'em something to chase." As the Scions and Sisters got to work, Shepard tapped her vox bead. "Zandtus, did you find any signs yet?"

…

"I believe we have," Zandtus said as he stepped through a river of blood and gore.

"Keep me updated as the situation develops. Shepard out."

"This is the fifth site today," Torlim, Captain of the Necropolis Hawks' Third Company, commented dryly. "If Lord Corax was here, he certainly kept busy for a very short amount of time."

The Chapter Master hummed noncommittally. "From the records of the Great Crusade, I believe the greenskins of the time were much bigger. It is possible that Lord Corax finds this… easy."

Torlim laughed, a deep, bone-rattling sound that fit for a man in hulking Gravis armor. He had been captain of the Third for almost as long as Zandtus had been Chapter Master, and the two were among the first Necropolis Hawks. It might have been pride talking, but Zandtus hoped that it would be those among the first of the Chapter to find their gene-sire.

Such a task had taken years, but Zandtus wasn't discouraged; if anything, each world they went to suggested that they were getting closer to finding the long-lost Primarch.

It had started with the discovery of slaughtered Chaos Marines that had commanded an uprising on a hive world. They had been killed several weeks before the Crusade had arrived, while the cultists were still reorganizing. The wounds inflicted on the bodies suggested incredible strength, and the fact that the Chaos Marines hadn't even reached for their weapons hinted at inhuman speed, stealth, or both. The Necropolis Hawks were unanimously convinced that these assassinations were the work of Corvus Corax, and Shepard believed them.

Similar scenarios were repeated on nearly every world the Crusade had visited, with each instance happening with less and less time between the killings and the Crusade's arrival. As sons of the Raven Lord, Shepard had asked that the Necropolis Hawks send a force to locate and investigate each site. When not leading his Chapter's efforts on the wider battlefield, Zandtus would head these investigations himself.

"This was a major Warboss," he said as he knelt by what was left of a particularly large specimen. "Note the cuts against its ligaments; each was meant to disable, rendering the beast helpless for the final blow." His gauntlet brushed against the edge of a gash. "The cut is only deep enough to do the job; it's precise and efficient."

"Could it have been an Assassin?" Torlim fervently believed that it really was Corax, but in such discussions, it had become customary for one officer to play devil's advocate.

"Not like this, not on so many worlds," Vandtus argued calmly. The evidence supporting that it was Corax was almost overwhelming to the Primarch's gene-sons, which made any arguments against him seem weaker. "Still, we have searched this area, but we should expand our perimeter, just in case. If we have found nothing in an hour, we will return to dealing with the Orks."

"Zandtus, come in!"

The Chapter Master blinked at the urgent tone in Shepard's voice over the vox. "I am here, Shepard. What is it?"

"I need immediate support from your Chapter at my coordinates! We've encountered enemy armor and heavy weapons! It's only me and minimal forces to help the local PDF, and you're the only one who can survive getting through the enemy flak!"

Zandtus whirled and ran for the door to the Ork compound, Torlim on his heels, already calling out orders.

"We're on our way," Zandtus said grimly. "Just hold on."

…

In hindsight, Shepard knew that she had made a mistake. It was the kind of error that many leaders had made in the past—she had tried to play politics in a warzone, and now she was fighting for her life in terrible conditions.

One of the few remaining PDF regiments had been resupplying in a base, and had asked for the blessings of the Living Saint. While Shepard still had no idea if her 'blessings' actually did anything beyond hurt Chaos, she couldn't deny that it boosted morale, so she had diverted her course and let Vils handle the next counterattack. She had considered taking more of her crusaders, but decided against it; the Delmoor people were extremely proud, and the PDF didn't like the crusaders stepping on 'their' turf.

After some consideration, Shepard had arrived with her bodyguards—a squad of Zephyrim, elite Sororitas who specialized in close-combat jump assaults. The entire complement of the Order of Our Martyred Lady had competed in a tournament to see who would be part of this unit, so only the best were accepted. Blaise had christened them the Alexian Guard, and they swore to fight for Shepard as if the Emperor Himself was watching—and considering the relationship that Shepard had with the Emperor, He might well have been.

Though Shepard liked her elite unit, she'd wished for more when hundreds of Ork battlewagons and other ramshackle vehicles came bursting out of a cloud of dust and a flash of light. They hurtled towards the surprised PDF at downright suicidal speed, their crews' shouts barely heard over the throaty roar of the engines.

The PDF had done their best to rally, and had the walls of their fortifications, but they had few heavy weapons to fight the armor. Shepard's raw strength let her destroy vehicles with a single throw of Liberator, but there were too many enemies, and soon, the Orks had created a breach in the walls, and the aliens rushed out of their transports to charge through the hole.

It was there, at that breach, that Shepard fought alongside her bodyguards. There had been other battles where the Alexian Guard had proved their worth, but Shepard was still proud of that sisterhood as they fought together. Each Zephyrim was a veteran of battles even before the Crusade, and they put all their hard-earned skill and experience to use. Power swords hacked aliens in half, while bolt pistols boomed; occasionally, one of them would fly up with a burst from their jump packs and dive down on the Orks below.

Shepard's powers didn't affect the Orks, or anything that wasn't empowered by Chaos, but she was still strong, and she could fight. Moreover, she had experience from fighting the greenskins that attacked the Empire; the only difference was that these ones had guns and effective, if crude, vehicles. Thanks to that experience, she wasn't that surprised when the Crusade first encountered the Orks.

None of that was doing much good now, though, she reflected as she turned an Ork's skull to paste with a well-placed punch to the head. Liberator sliced off another's arm, sending it careening into a Zephyrim's sword. Shepard then drew her bolt pistol and fired into the head of a larger Ork until its skull exploded.

"Your Holiness, we cannot hold this position for much longer," a Zephyrim said, calm despite the fighting raging around them.

"I know," Shepard said, and then hurled Liberator into a pack of Orks, turning them into charred ruin. "We just need to hold out until the Hawks get here."

If she hadn't been fighting, Shepard thought the Sister would have bowed her head. "If that is your command, it shall be done."

Shepard smiled, though it faded when her vision was filled with red light. On the walls, the PDF had finally reorganized and were sending disciplined waves of las-fire down on the Orks.

"About time they got their act together," Shepard said; for a few minutes, the breach in the walls was clear of Orks. "Finally. I could use a breather. Everyone, take a break, reload, and pray we get some reinforcements soon."

In the distance, a cannon boomed, and the walls shook as a shell slammed into the base. More than one PDF trooper was knocked from the walls and fell to his death.

"Go to the local troops, they said, it'll be good for morale, they said." Shepard rubbed her temples in an effort to ward off a headache. "Next time, I'm bringing the whole damn Crusade, screw local politics."

A few of the Zephyrim who heard her muffled their laughter. They had gotten to know Shepard on a personal level, and her occasional bouts of complaining made her more approachable as a person.

Another shockwave buffeted the walls, but Shepard noted that the explosion had hit away from the base, amidst the Orks. Shepard grinned as a dozen Overlords screamed to a hover over the base; they continued to fire missiles, lascannons, and heavy bolters into the Orks, even as they disgorged hundreds of Primaris Marines. Two squads of Aggressors, wearing heavy Gravis armor and armed with boltstorm gauntlets and frag launchers on their backs, stomped up to the breach in the walls. At their head was Captain Torlim, who saluted with his sword.

"Saint Shepard, it is good to see you well," he called out. "Allow us to clear out these unwanted visitors."

Shepard made an exaggerated gesture towards the breach. "By all means, Captain."

The defenders cheered as the Necropolis Hawks sent out waves of disciplined bolt-fire into the Orks, shredding their infantry and lighter vehicles. Overhead, the Overlords concentrated on the many looted flak tanks and battlewagons. Within minutes, most of the Orks' antiaircraft weapons were destroyed, and hundreds of Valkyries joined in the airstrike, after depositing the Deltic Scorpions.

"For Saint Shepard!" Hiral cried as he charged out, the standard of the Crusade held high. "For the Emperor!"

Shepard couldn't help but be proud of Hiral; he had earned more than a few scars over the last five years, but was respected across every unit as one of the bravest men in the Crusade. He had traded in his flamer for a Militarum-issue bolter, which he fired with his augmetic arm, a replacement for the one he'd lost to a Chaos Marine two years earlier.

With his other hand, he carried Shepard's personal standard—a white-edged red stripe that went from the upper-left corner to the lower-right, on a field of storm-grey. At the center of the stripe was a golden skull with black wings behind it. At the bottom of the standard was the Crusade's motto, stitched in blood-red: It Shall be Done.

Shepard had been unsure about a personal standard, but the war council had convinced her that the Crusade needed a unifying symbol, something to rally behind. She had never created her own family crest in the Empire, though many had considered the white-edged red stripe the basis for a crest one day. She had taken that to heart when designing what had been dubbed the Shepard Banner; the grey represented her armor, and had the stripe incorporated. The golden skull represented the Emperor, and the black wings represented the first Primarch they were trying to find. And, of course, it included the Crusade's motto; it wasn't as ornate as other Imperial banners, but after explaining her reasoning to the war council, Xem-Beta had approved, saying it was efficient in its purpose.

There had been no argument when Shepard had suggested that Hiral be the bearer of the standard. He was already considered the first member of the Crusade, and it was right that he carry the Shepard Banner into battle. Since then, in all the campaigns he had held the banner aloft, the Crusade had achieved total victory.

As Shepard watched her friend carry her banner, she smiled and turned to the Zephyrim. "Come on, ladies; there's more work to be done!"

Shepard's wings materialized, and she shot into the air, followed by the Alexian Guard. They landed near a squad of Reivers as they hacked their way through the Orks; in later years, artists would capture the image of Shepard as she was about to land on a battlewagon, Liberator held high, while the most elite warriors the Imperium had to offer charged behind her.

The slaughter that followed was immense; with their heaviest weapons and vehicles destroyed, the Orks were unable to counter the Imperial response. Before the day was out, every Ork was killed, and their vehicles left as burning wreckage.

Leaving the troops to handle the cleanup, Shepard met with her friends. "What is it with you guys and dramatic entrances?"

Vils chuckled. "I don't think you have any room to talk after what happened this morning."

Shepard grinned at him. "What, you've never seen a hypocrite before?"

Zandtus crossed his arms and tried to look like a disapproving father, but failed. "I believe we discussed bringing additional forces when you attend to such matters?"

"Oh, come on!" Everyone laughed when Shepard, Living Saint and leader of the Crusade, pouted like a child. "How could I have known that the Orks had all that hardware left? They showed up out of nowhere! Seriously, where did they come from?"

"I believe they utilized their primitive teleportation technology," Zandtus said. "It is likely that they came from one of the remaining vessels in orbit. I believe that the leader I killed in this battle was the warlord; with so many of their leaders dead, what little coordination the xenos had is all but gone. I believe that the Orks will be completely vanquished within five days."

"Good to hear," Shepard said. "How's the cleanup of all those Ork spores coming along?"

"Between the analysis of the Mechanicus and the thoroughness of the Sororitas, the entire planet will be cleansed no more than three days after the fighting is done."

"Fantastic!" Shepard ran some calculations in her head. "There's a reclamation force coming from Vigilus in about three weeks. We can wait in orbit until they arrive; it'll give us time to treat our wounded and repair any damaged equipment."

"It will be good to see this world become a bastion of the Imperium once again," Zandtus commented.

Shepard grinned. "Yeah, it will be."

…

The Shepard Crusade had been wildly successful, but its impact on the wider Imperium was finally starting to show. Shepard had cleared dozens of small, but stable pathways through the Great Rift; called the Shepard Corridors, the Imperium was able to make contact with dozens of systems that were close to the Cicatrix Maledictum. Acting on orders from Roboute Guilliman himself, fleets were dispatched to turn many of these systems into strongpoints, from which further advances into Imperium Nihilus could be made. While Shepard had yet to meet the Avenging Son in person, he had sent her a message, thanking her for her contribution to the Imperium. It had sounded a little trite, but considering that the Lord Commander of the Imperium was overseeing a thousand conflicts every day, Shepard didn't complain.

Aboard the Vehemence, Shepard watched with no small amount of satisfaction as the last of the scrap-ships that were the Ork fleet were destroyed over Delmoor VI. The campaign hadn't lasted long, and casualties amongst the Crusade had been light; as always, the Crusade believed that the Living Saint had blessed their endeavor, while Shepard insisted that they had won so handily because of their own skill and courage. The war council knew that she wasn't just being humble, but that she genuinely believed that, and it only made them more loyal to her.

"Excellent work, Dartan," Shepard said. "As always."

"You honor me, Your Holiness," Dartan said from his command throne.

"Only because you earned it." Shepard raised an eyebrow as the ship's sensors detected vessels exiting the Warp. A moment later, they were confirmed to be Imperial. "They're early."

"The vagaries of the Warp sometimes work in our favor," Dartan commented. "The soldiers those ships carry will be an excellent garrison for this system."

"We'll let them get settled in, and then we'll be on our way," Shepard said. "Please inform the rest of the fleet that they've performed beyond even my expectations this time."

Dartan smiled and nodded. "Of course, Your Holiness. May I ask what you will be doing?"

Shepard gestured to her scuffed and bloodstained armor. "For one thing, I need to get cleaned up; I can't be making a mess on your beautiful ship. After that… I think I need to find out where we're going next."

…

While being a Living Saint had many burdens, it did come with a few perks. One of them was a large bath that Shepard could soak in and let her troubles wash away, if only for a little while. The tub itself was carved from marble and inlaid with gold; Shepard hated the ostentation, but she accepted it, if only because it let her enjoy the simple pleasure of a hot bath.

Not for the first time since arriving in this universe, Shepard couldn't help but marvel at her restored youth. She wasn't vain, but she enjoyed being young again. She had noticed that she'd stopped aging altogether, though she wasn't sure if she just appeared young, or was actually immortal.

"One more world saved," she said to the empty air. She played with the foamy bubbles all around her for a few minutes, and then looked over at the small object that rested on a stool. "You're really not making this easy for me, you know that?"

As if to taunt her, the feather she'd found on Prospero winked out of existence, only to return to its jar a heartbeat later.

Shepard scowled. "Seriously, where the fuck are you? We've been looking for you for five years and across dozens of planets. How are you traveling so fast?" She sank down to her chin in the water. "Why did the Emperor have to have such a weird kid? Why couldn't they all wear bright freaking blue, like Guilliman?"

She glared at the feather again; this time, the feather started to turn in place, until it pointed to her right.

"Oh. I guess you've arrived at wherever it is you are now." She sighed. "I guess I have to get out. Couldn't you have given me a few more minutes? I was comfortable."

With some muttered curses, Shepard washed off the bubbles covering her, and then grabbed a towel. She would have been happy with a simple cotton towel, but the Ecclesiarchy demanded that a Saint have the best, so the material was softer than silk, and always seemed warm. It was so comfortable, and Shepard was embarrassed to admit that she had a set of pajamas made of the same cloth for the nights when she was on the ship.

Unfortunately, it seemed that she would not be able to enjoy that particular creature comfort today. Instead, she put on her Militarum-issue officer's uniform, made sure it was free of wrinkles, grabbed the jar with the feather, and headed for the door. She considered braiding her hair, which now fell just past her shoulders, but she decided that could wait, and merely put it in a ponytail.

"Your Holiness," the two Alexian Guards outside her door bowed their heads as she entered the hallway. "Is something the matter?"

Shepard held up the jar. "It seems we'll be shipping out sooner than I thought. Please inform the war council that I'll need to speak with them once we arrive at our destination."

One of the Alexian Guards began transmitting the message through her vox, while the other kept close to Shepard's side as she walked.

"Your Holiness?" Dartan raised an eyebrow as she arrived on the bridge. "I wasn't expecting to see you again so soon."

"Neither was I," Shepard said, and presented the jar. "But it seems like we have work to do. Lord Corax, wherever he is, can't take a break."

Dartan bowed his head and waved her towards the map. This had happened many times over the years, but never so quickly. Shepard placed the jar on the map as the hololith expanded; she put one hand on the jar, raised the other, and closed her eyes. To anyone watching her, it looked like she entered a trance as she gently swayed side-to-side, while her hand drifted across the hologram of the stars. After a few minutes of this, her finger rested on a single mote of light, and she opened her eyes.

"Huh," she said as she read the name of the system. "I wasn't expecting that."

Dartan slowly limped over to her and highlighted the system she'd chosen. "Neither was I, but I am not one to question the Emperor's decree." He turned to his officers. "Spread word to the rest of the fleet—have their Navigators set course for Baal."

Interesting, a thought that wasn't her own entered Shepard's mind, is the Raven going to the grave of the Angel?

Whatever the reason, Shepard decided as the bridge erupted into activity, they would soon find out.

Hooray, I'm back, and in less than two weeks this time! For some reason, this chapter just flowed much faster than usual.

Anyway, here's a five-year time-skip. What, you thought I would write every battle that Shepard fights? Hell no, it would be a hundred chapters of 'Shepard goes to (insert place here), kicks ass, moves on'. Instead, here's a unified Crusade that has had five years to work out the kinks, and is now a well-oiled (and blessed by the Omnissiah) machine.

I know I mentioned a Sororitas unit called Zephyrim a few times. For those of you who don't know, they are a new unit for the new codex. They're basically the Sororitas version of Vanguard Veterans—super elite Sisters with jump packs. I'd always envisioned a unit of Sisters called the Alexian Guard for Shepard, but I'd considered Seraphim until now. It fits, in my opinion.

And so, the hunt for Corax continues, but now we're headed for friendly territory—the homeworld of the Blood Angels! Why would Corax go there? Who knows? I mean, I do, but I'm the author. I know things.

While I am glad that I got this chapter out so soon, it's probably going to be a while before I get out another. I'm going to my first convention, Loscon, next week, and then I'm going to Empire Con the week after that. I'm selling my book there, so if you want a signed copy, come on down! If you can't make it, please consider purchasing Alpha Sanction by Josh Gottliebon Amazon. It'll give you even more to read!

And, if you want to be an awesome person, please consider supporting me on P-atreon (link in my profile), so that I can do nothing but write and attend conventions all the time. Imagine, me updating at least one of my stories every single week! You can make it happen!

I'd also like to thank those people who are already trying to make that dream a reality:

Serious Muffins: CrazySith87, jafr86, SpaceEmperorSpar, Nimrod009, Anders Lyngbye, Krisjanis Jansons, Matthias Matanovic, ChaosSpartan575, Alexis Troy, John Collins, Calleo, Casey Pak, Red Bard

Incredible Muffins: RaptorusMaximus, michaelb958, Crazyman844, Jaeger456, killroy225, Brian McGloughlin

Ultra Muffins: Adam Costello, Jeffrey Perigo, Matthew Bunting, RangersRoll

Next Chapter: Shepard visits the home of the Angels to search for a Raven, but more than just the Living Saint hunts for a Primarch…

We bear the Holy Trinity: Bolter, Flamer, and Muffin!