Chapter 45: Every Sacrifice Was Worth It
The fight was over.
What remained in the open space was scorched marking on the floor and scattered weapon fragments. The air carried ozone, burned metal, and something organic underneath both of them that did not have a clean name.
Duvette leaned against a section of twisted metal plating and breathed. The carapace armour was covered in scoring and burn marks across every surface. The hem of the commissar's coat had been charred away at one corner. He pulled the helmet off and let the air hit his face, sweat running freely.
In the upper left of his vision, the Soul of the Legion's HUD displayed a number without commentary.
[Total Strength: 26]
Twenty-six. From fifty to twenty-six.
If not for the true name. If not for the thirty seconds of Silence. The arithmetic of survival in this space did not improve past that. It was possible none of them would have come through at all.
He forced himself to be still and breathe steadily.
"Consolidate," he said. His voice had deteriorated to something barely recognizable. "Check your equipment. Count your ammunition. This space is safe for now."
The surviving soldiers began to move. Slowly, each of them carrying something that slowed them. Anderson had found a strip of cloth from somewhere and was using it to wipe down the meltagun's barrel, sitting on the floor with the weapon across his lap. Finn leaned against the wall beside him, the mechanical eyes producing a low hum as they cycled through their autonomous recalibration.
Footsteps.
Stroud came toward him, not quite steady, his face covered in dried blood that he was making moderate progress removing with the back of his hand. His other hand was intermittently hitting the side of his own head, his expression that of a man dealing with an unwelcome internal noise.
"Boss," he said. His voice had a slightly detached quality to it. "My head's still ringing like hell."
"Psychic shriek," Duvette said, looking at him. "Give it time."
Stroud nodded, came to a stop beside him, and turned to look at something across the space. He raised one hand and pointed.
"What do we do with her?"
Duvette followed the direction.
Juno Karol lay motionless on the floor. Her black Inquisitor's coat had absorbed so much blood that it had changed color, the black gone to a dark brown that was still wet in places. Her face was almost entirely obscured by what had come from her. The right eye socket was open and empty, a raw hollow where the golden eye had been, aimed at the ceiling with no expression possible in it.
Duvette pushed himself upright and walked over.
He stopped beside Juno and looked down at the unconscious woman. Then he raised his right hand and closed it around the grip of the bolt pistol at his hip.
He gripped it hard. His knuckles went white with the force of it.
He wanted to shoot her. Right now, in this place, one round through the skull. This woman had cost him half his soldiers, had tried to run at the end using everything they had bled to give her, and had been operating throughout the mission with the goal of getting what she wanted and leaving them to manage whatever came after.
And he did not need her any longer. The minimap from the Grand Strategic Display Module was stable and open across his vision. He could bring the survivors out without her.
His finger found the curve of the trigger guard and rested there.
In the end, he did not pull it.
He raised his head and looked across the space.
The three Battle Sisters had recovered from the psychic shriek. They were back on their feet in their power armour, bolt rifles in hand, the pain still registering on their faces but their eyes sharp again. The Adepta Sororitas, given a moment of stillness, apparently came back from the edge of that particular abyss faster than most.
He turned and looked at his soldiers.
Anderson was bandaging an exposed wound on another soldier's arm. Finn was scanning the perimeter with his mechanical eyes. Stroud was still hitting the side of his head with a look of mild aggrievement. The status readings on most of them had settled around what the System classified as light wounds.
Everyone looked exhausted. Everyone looked hurt. Everyone looked like someone who had made it through something that should have ended differently, and was still processing what that meant.
He did not want to put them through any more fighting today.
And there was the practical consideration, which he thought through with the same deliberate calm he had been forcing onto himself since the daemon disappeared. If they returned to the Siren's Fury without the Lord Inquisitor, questions would follow. The kind of questions that turned into the kind of trouble that did not resolve itself. There would be a reckoning over what had happened on this mission regardless, and arriving without Juno would not simplify it.
There was also the matter of the core on his belt.
The Abominable Intelligence's core processor sat in the magnetic clasp at his hip. Soul of the Legion had absorbed what it needed from it. Externally, the crystal was undamaged and appeared intact. Juno would not know immediately, and if she eventually did, data loss during a combat situation of this severity was an entirely plausible account. He had no exposure.
He released the grip on the bolt pistol.
Then Juno twitched.
Her fingers moved against the floor. Her eyes opened slowly, the left one â€" the red one â€" unfocused for a moment before it locked. She looked at Duvette. She looked at the space around them. Then her gaze came to rest on the magnetic clasp at his hip.
The three Battle Sisters moved immediately. One of them had a stimulant injector, produced from somewhere in the power armour's storage, and crouched to drive the needle into the side of Juno's neck before any instruction was given.
The drug went in.
Juno's body pulled taut. Her breathing changed to something rapid and sharp. She pushed herself upright with visible effort and looked, without any pretense of not looking, directly at the clasp on Duvette's belt.
Duvette gave a quiet, mirthless sound. He reached to the magnetic clasp, removed the Abominable Intelligence's core, and tossed it to her.
Juno bent forward and picked it up from the floor with hands that were still shaking. Her fingers moved across its surface, checking the facets and the integrity of the housing. Then she raised her head. A smile came to the corner of her mouth, weak and genuine in equal measure.
"Aren't you afraid I'll run?" she said. Her voice was barely functional.
Duvette said nothing.
He looked at her without expression. Around him, the soldiers were moving â€" not visibly, not as a formation, but standing up, arranging themselves. Anderson had the meltagun in his hands. Finn raised the lasrifle. Stroud stepped to Duvette's side.
The twenty-six survivors had quietly enclosed the space where Juno and the three Battle Sisters sat, the arrangement too consistent to be accidental.
"Aren't you afraid I'll kill you?" Duvette said finally. His voice was entirely level, and under the levelness was something that did not require raising to be understood.
Juno gave a sudden burst of laughter. It produced more blood than the sound, and she didn't stop laughing because of that. "I know," she said. "You'd like nothing better than to tear me apart and be done with it."
She looked down at the core in her hands. Her fingers moved across its surface slowly, with a care that had nothing performed in it.
"It doesn't matter," she said.
She raised her head and fixed the single remaining red eye on him.
"Bring it back, Commissar." Her voice had reached the point where each word required a separate act of will. "Get it home. Whatever you want to do with me afterward, that's yours to decide."
She stopped. Her breathing became more effortful.
"Every sacrifice was worth it. As long as the Imperium endures. As long as humanity can..."
The voice gave out before the sentence did.
Juno's body lost whatever had been holding it upright. She went forward, and the core left her hand as she fell, rolling across the floor into the dust. The three Battle Sisters reached her before she hit the ground and brought her down gently, laying her flat.
The Lord Inquisitor was unconscious again.
Duvette stood and looked at her. Then at the core on the floor.
The silence lasted approximately ten seconds.
Then he bent down, picked up the core, and reattached it to the magnetic clasp on his belt.
"Another injection," he told the Battle Sisters. "Ten minutes. Inventory everything that still has any use. Ammunition, equipment, medical supplies."
He turned and walked toward his soldiers.
"Ten minutes. Then we leave."
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