To the task, comrades! To the glory! Witness me as I stride forward and strike!
When you speak of me, say I was an avenging angel.
When the enemy speaks of me, they will say I was from Hell.
Yeoman Third Class Hal had imagined himself in this very position several times over the course of his otherwise unexciting career. He had been part of exciting actions before—fleet battles, orbital bombardments, and he had even been present for more than a dozen planetary assaults. But as for actually seeing action? Taking part in the fighting?
Until this moment, his role had been to record the number of hits Gun Number Four made during an engagement and report it to the First Class Yeomen of the deck, who then reported it to the Chief Yeoman, who finally recorded it in the ship's history.
He had watched the armsmen with awe—their sharp uniforms, their well-polished armor—and looked upon their weapons with envy. He had a well-practiced daydream that boredom often dragged across his mind.
They would be chasing down some traitor vessel and engage in a swirling gunnery duel, when the arch-enemy would close to board out of desperation. He would fight bravely, of course. He always pictured himself as part of the phalanx, armed with a power sabre and a heavy stub revolver. They would hold their ground until they couldn't, making a fighting retreat through the ship until their final stand before the bridge doors.
Sometimes they would die in glory. Most times, they would win—spurred to victory by their valiant captain and saved by His finest just in time.
Every time, he would cry out "For the Murdered Angel!"—either with his dying breath or during the picture-worthy countercharge that swept the traitors from their blessed decks.
Instead, it was the Tau.
The Tau, of all species, had boarded their vessel.
He had never even heard of a Tau boarding action before, and now they had come aboard Martyr's Blood to desecrate Her decks with xenos blood. The thought made Hal feel sick. He remembered the words of the Sergeant.
The enemy was too many. They were too few.
Their deeds would be forgotten by the Imperium—but by the God-Emperor, the xenos would remember. The survivors would carry stories of the indomitable, violent human spirit.
A shadow fell over him.
Hal allowed his eyes to flick upward, then cast them back to the deck, suddenly ashamed—as if the Angel towering above him could read his thoughts. Slowly, he raised his gaze again.
Ebony-armored legs.
A sculpted armored torso.
Pauldrons leading to arms, to hands—and the sword they held.
His eyes stopped at the collar, where armor met exposed neck.
His breath trembled as he forced himself to look upon the bare face of the Emperor's Angels—the inheritors of Sanguinius, his lords. If not for years of psycho-indoctrination, he would have wept at the beauty of the superhuman before him.
"Friend Yeoman," the Angel said gently, "have you not yet received the blessing?"
Hal suppressed a gasp and lowered his eyes once more.
"No, my lord. I have not."
The words left his lips not by choice, but by indoctrination forcing its way past awe and dread.
"May I administer it, then?" the Angel asked. "I am no Chaplain or priest, but I would consider it an honor should you allow me to anoint you."
An honor.
Hal barely felt worthy to breathe the same air, let alone be blessed by one of the Angel's sons.
"Of course, my lord."
"Your cutlass, please."
His hands trembled as he reached for the blade. Until yesterday, he had thought it might remain ceremonial—a testament to willingness rather than necessity. It would have been passed to the next Yeoman on the day of his death, just as he had received it years before.
He drew it free and held it out with reverence.
Luceon Morar took the blade between three fingers and raised it to his free hand. He placed the edge against his palm and increased the pressure delicately. When the skin broke, he drew the blade across and pressed his thumb into the wound before it closed.
The cutlass now sanctified, Luceon returned it to Hal—then pressed his bloodied thumb against the tattoo above Hal's left eye, soaking the cross and its fanged skull in the blood of his lord.
Hal winced as the blood burned his skin. He masked the pain and remained stoic.
"You knelt to me as a friend," Luceon said softly. "Now rise with me as a brother in the blood. The Chapter marked you when you entered our service as a serf. I have marked you so that all may know—when called, you did not betray the faith."
Yeoman Third Class Hal did rise, and though he only reached the Space Marine's abdomen, he felt as if he stood shoulder to shoulder with the giant.
***
>DX-6 04.77.219.452-03 online.
>System status verification initiated.
>................
>Power state nominal.
>Stealth envelope engaged.
>Pair-link established.
>Synchronization variance: negligible.
>Vector solution uploaded.
>Transit initiated.
>Void conditions stable.
>Radiation scatter within acceptable variance.
>Passive detection only.
>No stellar interference.
>No pursuit signatures detected.
>Course correction unnecessary.
>Target mass resolves.
>Void-capable structure identified.
>Hull geometry irregular.
>Internal pressure gradient present.
>Structural analysis in progress.
>..............
>Primary hull strata: ceramite–adamantine composite.
>Secondary reinforcement lattice detected.
>Integrity rating exceeds initial projection.
>Adjustment required.
>Energy reserves at 96.1%.
>Charge curve recalculated.
>Breach probability converging.
>Collateral modeling initiated.
>..............
>External biological signatures detected.
>Classification match: Vespid auxiliary organisms.
>Proximity to projected breach point: within acceptable envelope.
>Exposure risk: within tolerance.
>No further adjustment required.
>Pair status confirmed.
>Secondary unit synchronized.
>Attack vector aligned.
>Charge cycle initiated.
>Microfracture propagation simulated.
>Hull resistance exceeds baseline.
>Energy output increased incrementally.
>Threshold approaching.
>Charge cycle sustained.
>Structural resonance identified.
>Failure cascade imminent.
>Execute
>Hull integrity compromised.
>Pressure differential inversion detected.
>Atmospheric venting initiated.
>Breach confirmed.
>Immediate exfil vector calculated.
>Stealth envelope maintained.
>Unexpected mass displacement detected.
>Foreign object trajectory intersects exfil path.
>Collision warning registered.
>Impact
>Secondary unit telemetry lost.
>Wingman nonresponsive.
>Debris field expanding.
>Foreign mass integrity degrading.
>Surface contamination detected.
>Damage assessment: negligible.
>Mission state unchanged.
>Replacement asset request transmitted.
>Pair-link severed.
>Exfil complete.
Recorded nowhere and remembered by no one, Yeoman Third Class Hal struck the Imperium's foe at last—not in life, as he had dreamed, but in death.
***
Mira felt the roar of decompression beyond the bulkhead. Then the breaching charges detonated, and hell was invited in with them.
Battlesuits poured pulse fire into the opening as the La'rua charged through, drone-shields flaring as the Gue'la returned fire. A series of soft thumps—felt more than heard—followed in the dead silence of the void.
The Pathfinders had located the gravity generators.
Those Gue'la not already torn from the deck now drifted helplessly, weapons spinning from nerveless hands. Vespids poured in through the hull breach and began to pick them off with brutal efficiency.
Then Mira noticed them.
The Gue'ron'sha.
At first, he had mistaken them for statues—too large, too still, looming among the star sailors like armored idols. Then one rose above the melee on a short jet of flame. Its blade cut through several Vespids in a single sweep before the warrior seized another by the neck, reengaged his jump pack, and thundered back to the deck in utter silence.
Others followed. They moved with terrifying economy, weapons larger than Mira himself firing from the hip as they turned almost casually to engage new targets.
Battlesuits answered them, spheres of plasma scorching ceramite. The monsters endured.
As great a threat as the Gue'ron'sha were, they were not what threatened Mira directly. When his firing arc cleared, he sighted a knot of Gue'la and fired. Where before the humans had shown little will to fight, now they refused to give ground without demanding payment in blood.
Mira was determined that payment would be human.
Strike teams poured fire into the Gue'la defenses. Ion grenades detonated—not set to stun as before, but erupting in brilliant flashes that incinerated everything caught within their radius. Breachers surged forward, pulse blasters cutting brutal gaps in the Gue'la lines.
It was not a bloodless victory for the Tau.
Drone shields flared until they finally failed. Fire Warriors were cut down by las-fire. Breachers who pressed too close were pierced by bayonets or slashed by wicked, heavy blades.
Alvah fell this way. She had leaned over a barricade expecting a single Gue'la. Instead, three pairs of hands reached up and pulled her down. She vanished beneath the press of bodies—then floated back up, limp, blood bubbling from her armor.
A heavy slug round slammed into Mira's pauldron. He staggered back, then twisted, bringing his weapon around to return fire at the offender.
Their courage was undeniable, but it lacked nobility. There was no hope in their resistance, no righteousness in this violence. To Mira, it was slaughter—on both sides.
He saw a drone break formation mid-strafing run, suddenly careening into a slab of floating debris. Then another. Then a third.
A flash of blue and violet light caught Mira's attention. When he turned toward it, pain flared behind his eyes.
It wasn't brightness. His black-sun filter should have handled that. This was something else—something that hurt to perceive.
Kriitan raised her hands to her helmet and screamed. The air around her twisted, folding in on itself like a disturbed reflection. Then she went limp, her legs kicking once before she drifted away.
A squadron of Vespids dove toward the source. Mira forced himself to look again, straining against the pain.
What he saw, he would never be able to explain.
A Gue'ron'sha stood statue-still, blue light pouring from his eyes like fire. Reality warped around him, edges bending where there should have been none. As the Vespids closed, lightning lashed out from the staff in his hands and tore through them.
Their bodies froze mid-flight, wings locked rigid, suspended in impossible stillness.
Mira fired a burst from his pulse carbine. The rounds vanished before impact, swallowed by nothing he could name.
This was not a weapon.
This was a phenomenon.
Something struck Mira from behind, knocking him forward. When he looked up, he saw the Kroot kinband charging the Gue'la line, respirators awkwardly fitted over their beaks to compensate for the thinning air. They moved quickly in the dying gravity, using low-hanging rubble to leap and bound forward in a way the humans could not anticipate.
It gave Mira an idea.
"Shas'Ui! We should disengage our mag boots!"
He saw Eldi duck under a low wall as a barrage of las-fire streaked overhead.
"Why? We would lose cover and limit our mobility."
"The Kroot are engaging them in melee," Mira replied. "If we use the zero-G environment, we can fire down into their rear lines."
A ball of plasma consumed half the wall Eldi had been sheltering behind.
"Do it," Eldi snapped. "First La'rua, on my mark. Disengage mag boots and jump."
She held up three fingers.
Two.
One.
Eldi made a fist.
Each member of the squad released their connection to the deck and leapt forward. They rose gently over the Gue'la positions and began firing down into them, rendering the humans' cover useless from the new angle.
Surprised but not helpless, the Gue'la returned fire. Thunn was struck by several las-bolts. His body went limp, still carried forward by inertia, drifting among the squad.
More La'rua joined the maneuver, momentum carrying them up and forward until Mira's back pressed against the ceiling of the ship. Under pressure from the Kroot assault, heavy battlesuit fire, and the combined marksmanship of Vespids and strike teams, the humans began to fall back—including the Gue'ron'sha.
The monsters never looked back. They always faced forward, retreating in massive, deliberate steps. Their bolters obliterated strike warriors, shredded drone shields, and tore open battlesuit armor. Only the threat of being overwhelmed forced them to withdraw.
Mira's comms screamed with status reports.
"Third La'rua falling below nominal numbers."
"Casualties exceeding acceptable projections."
"Battlesuit munitions status copper."
Dozens more vibrations rattled against his auditory bones. He tuned them out and focused on his next target. When it died, he found another.
A missile screamed out from a battlesuit launcher, its exhaust briefly illuminating the wreckage-strewn deck. It vanished into a service trench beneath the primary gun housing.
A heartbeat later, the ship answered.
The detonation did not roar—it punched. The deck lurched violently, slamming Mira into the ceiling hard enough to rattle his vision. Below him, the plating split open as if unzipped, incandescent light pouring up from the wound.
Secondary detonations cascaded through the gunnery deck in rapid succession.
Ammunition racks ruptured. Power conduits burst. Gun housings tore loose from their mounts and began to drift, still firing in erratic bursts as their control systems died screaming.
Even pressed against the ceiling, Mira felt the vibrations through his armor, deep and bone-shaking. Stress fractures spiderwebbed across the deck, glowing white-hot before tearing wider. Entire sections of the deck peeled away, exposing raw structure—then nothing at all.
Stars spilled in.
Gravity flickered in uneven pulses. One moment Mira was pinned to the ceiling, the next he drifted free, his stomach lurching as the ship twisted around him. Fire flared where atmosphere rushed back in, then vanished again as pressure dropped.
This space was no longer a battlefield.
It was a collapsing machine.
That was when the Gue'la broke.
Even the mighty Gue'ron'sha turned, retreating toward the next bulkhead in massive, deliberate steps. Seeing them run—truly run—at full speed defied everything Mira understood about mass and motion.
The deck continued to die.
Cracks became fractures. Fractures became gaping wounds. Structural members snapped free and drifted, still glowing from internal fires. Somewhere below, an entire gun assembly tore loose and vanished into the void, trailing bodies and debris behind it.
Eldi's command cut through the chaos.
"La'rua! Push off the ceiling! Rejoin the line—now!"
Mira obeyed, kicking free and letting himself fall back toward the deck as what remained of the gunnery section shuddered around them.
When the last Gue'ron'sha passed the threshold, the blast doors closed. Gue'la were still running to escape. Mira hoped they would see their situation and surrender.
Instead, they turned, raised their weapons, and fired once.
Pulse fire cut them down.
Mira looked around at what they had won.
A killing field.
The dead floated where they had fallen—Tau, Kroot, Vespid, Gue'la—tangled together in their final moments. There were more human bodies than cadre members.
But fewer Tau than he had expected.
Fewer than he believed could take the ship.
He continued his scan, seeing the true cost of the action and the state of the vessel itself. Through rent hull plating, he could see stars and distant ships sliding silently through the void. Everything moved gently, gracefully—until a flash of light reminded him that the violence outside was no different from the violence within.
Still, he thought.
It's beautiful.