Sister Novice Tella looked across the ongoing slaughter in the courtyard far below her spire window. Her sisters-at-arms, girt in ceramite as white as their categorical purity of mind and body, fought desperately against the Eldar assault. But the graceful aliens were quickly overtaking them, for the sisters had not come to the feudal world of Ahn-Rega in force.

This was supposed to have been a purely diplomatic mission.

“What would these creatures want with such a backward world?” Tella wondered aloud. Her lovely but sorrowful features suddenly lit up as a battle sister below unleashed her flamer. The unfortunate sister was almost immediately cut down by the aliens’ shuriken weapons, her snowy armor streaked red by a thousand razor-thin lacerations.

“Who can tell?” Sister Preceptrix Ellawyn shrugged. “The Eldar are inscrutable.”

“We are outnumbered,” Tella whispered as another battle sister fell. Only a single squad had accompanied them to this rustic world, an honor guard to subtly impress upon the generally compliant Ahn-regan nobility the seriousness involved with a formal visitation from Order Famulous. And undoubtedly to remind them of their singular inferiority before the Imperium.

“We will prevail if the Emperor wills it.”

Tella turned from the window and gave her superior a sharp look. Ellawyn simply collapsed into a luxuriously upholstered chair. “We must have faith,” she sighed, closing her eyes.

The woman had been acting in this demoralized manner for the past several days. To Tella’s frustration, Ellawyn’s indecisiveness had been hindering their work in brokering the royal marriages of Ahn-Rega. She sensed that frustration now building into a powerful, searing anger. The Preceptrix’s attitude bordered on heresy, at least from the eagerly fanatical perspective of a Sister Novice. Still, she did not dare give voice to her rage. She was bound by sacred obedience until death, not until she faced death.

A terrible explosion jerked Tella’s attention back to the window. One of the keep’s inner walls had been blown apart and a handful of black-armored giants burst into the courtyard. Their huge bolters tore mercilessly through the alien’s flank, dropping a half dozen instantly and throwing the survivors into confusion.

“There are Space Marines down there!” Tella felt a chill in her heart. They were on the same side, she knew, and even so few Marines significantly improved her own chance of living past this hour. It did not matter. She had been afraid of them for as long as she could remember.

Sister Preceptrix seemed to feel the same way.

“What?” Ellawyn shrieked, jumping up from the chair and running to join Tella at the window.

“They came through the wall,” Tella said, pointing to the breach. As she was speaking, a lone figure strode past the rubble. His tall, wide-brimmed hat bore the unmistakable emblem of the most feared institution in the Imperium. “An inquisitor . . .”

His presence did not daunt the Eldar. Their leader, a female, sang out orders in its own strange, lyrical language. Along with one half of its forces, it charged the black-armored Marines while the other half laid down cover fire against the remaining battle sisters.

Several of the charging alien warriors deftly pounced upon the Marine at point but the grim giant raised his bolter in more than enough time to evaporate his elegant opponents. In the same moment, however, the Eldar leader landed feet-first against his torso while driving its jewel-laden spear tip into his now-vulnerable throat.

So they can die? Tella thought. She knew that they could, of course. But to see it . . .

The Eldar female kicked off of the crumpling Marine into a low-arced back flip, leaving the spear lodged in the its victim’s neck, and landed nimbly amidst the alien warriors providing suppressive fire. In one movement, it drew its sword and led a second charge through the broken line of battle sisters. The keep’s heavy wooden doors did not give the Eldar a second’s pause.

“They’re inside!” Tella looked to her superior for orders but found the woman’s eyes transfixed. Following Ellawyn’s gaze, Tella saw the Inquisitor staring back up at her.

The Inquisitor barked orders to the four remaining Marines, who had in just a few heartbeats dispatched the last of the assaulting Eldar. He pointed to the window. The Marines ran, more quickly than seemed possible in such heavy armor, to the main keep. The Inquisitor trailed behind them, shouting at the few remaining sisters to form a perimeter at the ruined entrance.

Then the door behind Tella fell in and Eldar streamed into the room.

“Sister Preceptrix—” Tella gasped as she dove into her superior, knocking Ellawyn down to cover her.

“Get off of me, you bitch!” Ellawyn hissed. She flung Tella fully across the room, where the novice slammed into a stone wall. Somehow, she had not cracked her skull and so was still conscious. When she saw what unfolded next, she wished it were otherwise.

Ellawyn got up and turned to the Eldar leader.

“It’s here,” the Preceptrix said enthusiastically, “on Ahn-Rega, as you suspected.” She pulled a data tablet from the folds of her habit.

“You have failed me,” the Eldar said, waving a graceful hand toward the window. Even speaking in low Gothic, its voice was melodious. Even beautiful, like a choir of angels. Tella wanted to stop her ears but her body was numb with cold fear. The righteous disgust she felt, however, extinguished any heretical admiration of the alien’s speech.

“No, I have not failed,” Ellawyn flatly countered. “I knew nothing of this. No memories of an attack plan were in the human’s brain. But the coordinates are here—“

An alien warrior guarding the door exploded, its delicate armor raining down around Tella in gory splinters. The Eldar leader seized the data tablet and sang orders to the others before leaping through the open window. Those few not already dead moved to block the door.

And then they died, too.

A Marine strode into the room and grabbed Ellawyn by the throat. Her tiny hands pried uselessly at his grip and she cursed at him in a strange language.

“Careful, Bataar,” one of the Marines said in an unexpectedly light tone. His left pauldron was silver and emblazoned with the Inquisitorial seal. The right one was yellow framed in grayish blue. It bore a black wolf’s paw. “Quiroga will want that one alive.”

“Of course, Eyjolfur. And the other?” The Marine called Bataar, whose right pauldron was white with a red lightning bolt bisecting a golden bar, looked down at Tella.

“Move and you die.” A Marine with a dark green pauldron aimed his impossibly immense heavy bolter at her. She did not dare nod her assent.

“Where did the witch go?” It took her a moment to tear her eyes from the giant muzzle of the heavy bolter and realize that a fourth Marine, whose pauldron bore a white “U” in a royal blue field, was talking to her. “Speak,” the Marine commanded.

“Through the window,” Tella said evenly, not taking her eyes off of the bolter muzzle.

“It does not matter quite yet,” a fifth, unaltered voice declared.

The Inquisitor strode, his scarlet-trimmed cloak sweeping in his wake, directly to Ellawyn. While Bataar held her still, the Inquisitor tore Ellawyn’s sleeve from her arm and stuck a strange needle into her bare flesh. The Preceptrix screamed as her skin warped and distended. He merely nodded.

“Xenos,” Tella hissed, her hatred overcoming her fear at last. The Inquisitor turned on her.

“Janus, pick her up,” he ordered and the Marine with blue pauldron had her by the neck and in the air before she could even think of resisting. “Eyjolfur?”

“Right.” The Marine with the yellow and gray-blue pauldron pulled off his helmet. His unkempt hair was a dull orange, graying at the temples and in his beard. He rumbled closer to her and stuck his face into her hair. She inadvertently yelped as he breathed in her scent.

He pulled back suddenly, teeth barred and snarling. She saw then that his canines were as sharp as a beast’s fangs. “Not a Simulcura. Something . . . else.”

As she stepped off of the Aquila-class Lander’s lowered ramp, Tella’s left leg jerked and she felt herself begin to fall. A hand instantly caught the young novice from behind and steadied her.

“Remember,” Sister Merofled whispered, “let the servos do the work.”

Tella had put her power armor on for the first time only a week ago. Yet, with gracious assistance from the Battle Sisters of the Order of the Sacred Rose, she was now capable of a range of movement that seemed impossible only a few short days before. Some small obstacles remained, of course.

Tella noticed Sister Austrechild subtly step back into formation in front of her. It took the novice a moment to realize that she had just benefited from tactical cover.

Merciful Throne, Tella worried, if Mother Veneranda saw that . . .

But the sisters’ kindness—and Tella’s own clumsy inexperience—seemed to have escaped their superior’s notice. Tella had not expected such warmth from the Sisters of Battle. Contrary to their dour reputation, these women had welcomed her with genuine affection. They taught her, between vigils and fasts, as much as they could about wearing power armor and firing a bolter before she perforce faced this day, her first test in the field.

Tella did not feel prepared. Not once in her bare nineteen years of life had she ever expected to wear power armor much less oversee a mass execution of heretics. May He Who laid my path give me the strength to walk it, she silently prayed.

Mother Superior Veneranda marched the white-armored sisters in parade formation some two hundred meters from the landing platform to a stout, golden domed fortress. Fearsome two-headed eagles, gilt with gleaming ruby eyes, perched at the summit of each buttressed corner and the tall iron-framed portal was wrought into the grim heraldry of the Ecclesiarchy. The huge skull at its apex glowered over the plaza spread out before it as it had for centuries beyond count. To the people of Janos, this was a place of penance and absolution: their capital city’s Chapel Confitorium

To the sisters of Squads Alef and Lamed, this was Reconciliation Center One-One-Zed.

The thousands-strong crowd parted reverently as the sisters marched across the plaza to the steps of the Confitorium. Tella did not divert her gaze from the back of Sister Austrechild’s head but she knew this mass of lay-civilians was entirely composed of women and girls. All of them were terrified. The novice struggled to not think of what lay ahead, not to question what must occur.

Squads Alef and Lamed continued up the wide stone stairs before Veneranda halted them at the Confitorium doors. She ordered the sisters face outward and they turned as one, their weapons clapping in unison against their snowy breastplates. A long double rank of Janosian Planetary Defense Troopers stood between them and the crowd. Tella now saw that many of the women were quietly crying while clutching at daughters or granddaughters. The younger ones openly sobbed.

At various points across the plaza, huge braziers sent up clouds of incense. Missionaries in gas masks stalked the crowd, swinging billowing incensors at those who were further from the braziers. Virtually all of the women so anointed bowed and made the sign of the Aquila. Tella knew the incense contained a plethora of depressants to help ensure cooperation. She, her fellow sisters, and the Jansoian Troopers had been immunized against its effects the day before. She wondered if the troopers understood why they had been given those shots.

“Novice,” Veneranda called.

“Yes, Reverend Mother?” Tella answered evenly. Being addressed by Mother Superior afforded an excellent opportunity to practice the virtue of fortitude.

“Step forward and greet Grand Curate Sigeric-Clodio.”

Tella had been so entranced by the hushed agony in the plaza that she had not noticed her superior guiding the wizened Ecclesiarchy official down the line of Battle Sisters. The Grand Curate was clearly ancient, held together no doubt by augmetics nearly as old as the Confitorium itself. But any artificial modification was completely hidden by his opulent vestments.

“Yes, Reverend Mother,” Tella affirmed, careful to let her muscles merely guide the armor’s servos. An inward sigh of relief and simultaneous prayer of thanks punctuated the successful maneuver. “Hail, Most Esteemed Reverence.”

“So young . . .” the clergyman wheezed, looking into the novice’s clear blue eyes. His own eyes were yellowish, rimmed in sickly pink, and the left one was completely clouded over. “And what do you make of the sacrifice we offer up today, my daughter?”

“It is to His glory,” Tella replied without thinking.

“We pray that it is so,” he said, turning his gaze to the miserable crowds. “Three hundred years have I shepherded this flock, and nary a single whisper of heresy . . .”

“It is not our place to question—“ Veneranda began. The old man did not need to snarl to silence her. His voice carried authority as naturally as the clouds carry rain.

“As an Amalathian,” Grand Curate Sigeric-Clodio declared, “I do not even think of questioning the commands of the Inquisition. This is because I know my place exactly, Reverend Mother.”

At the wave of his gnarled hand, servitors carried a tall, ornately carved ambo to the lower landing of the Confitorium stairs. A third servitor, upon whose shoulders rested a golden vox caster, stood in front of the ambo while the two others knelt behind it so that their bodies formed a ramp. The Grand Curate mounted his pulpit.

“My daughters of Janos,” his magnified voice boomed across the plaza, loud as thunder but clear as a flash of lightning. “I address you in the Most Solemn Name of the God Emperor.”

He made the sign of the Aquila and his traumatized audience genuflected in waves. Many hundreds of them ceased to cry and looked up at him with glints of hope. As the Grand Curate launched into mesmerizing parables of faith and loyalty, Tella started to step back into formation.

“Attend me, Novice,” Veneranda commanded softly. Tella moved to the side of her superior. “Sigeric-Clodio is a master of theatrics, as you will see. But tell me, what do you really make of these events?”

The question caught the younger woman completely by surprise. Was it a test? Her mind raced, searching for a catechetically appropriate response. Let faith guide all your thoughts and words. The sing-song prayer she learned at the Schola rang out in her heart.

“I am ready to die today,” Tella finally managed. “But I am worried for the success of our mission. Surely two squads will not be enough to keep order among so many thousands.”

“We are not here for them,” Venernanda whispered. She inclined her head to the Planetary Defense Forces. “We are here for them. Even the Planetary Governor has not been fully apprised of the seriousness of this situation.”

“A trap . . .” Tella whispered, her mind opening slowly to the wider truth. She could not help but tremble at the power of the Inquisition. Veneranda simply nodded.

“The fate of these women is sealed,” the Reverend Mother continued. “The Four Hundred Seventh Alporan has been deployed all over Janos, at every Reconciliation Center.”

“Alporus Minor is in the next sub-sector,” Tella recollected.

“Yes. The superiors of Order Famulous apparently taught you well. So you can probably draw out the logic for yourself. “

“Of course. We could not risk using a regiment drawn from anywhere remotely near to this system. How wide a heresy is this, Reverend Mother?”

“That is beyond healthy curiosity, novice,” the superior pronounced sharply. “The Alporan Guardsmen will stymie any resistance on the part of the condemned. But whatever corruption demands these women’s death will be stamped out absolutely. If that corruption has spread to the planetary government, anywhere on this world, we will soon know it.”

Tella felt her heart harden with the resolve of faith. Her former uncertainties were burnt away in righteous disgust at the scope of such blasphemy.

“And novice,” Veneranda said, “I hope you are ready to die today. Or at any moment. Now step back into order.”

As Tella obeyed, she noticed that the Grand Curate was finally getting to the heart of the matter. She was surprised at his bluntness. Clearly, he had great faith in his people even unto their uttermost desperation.

“It has come to the infallible knowledge of the Emperor’s Holy Inquisition,” he rumbled, gathering momentum to demonstrate his very deepest revulsion, “that a noxious and despicable cult has taken root among the daughters of Janos.”

The women gasped collectively. They had certainly guessed as much already. And yet Tella could understand why they had not dared believe it until now. Suspicious glares were thrown back and forth across the plaza and then shrieks of accusations, even confessions, although these latter could not be trusted. It did not matter now anyway. The Grand Curate paid them no heed.

“As I have taught you, my children, the sins of a handful can damn many thousands,” he shouted. But then his voice became very low. “You are damned, all of you.”

A great wailing went up. Some women tore at their clothes and their hair. Others dropped to the ground, writhing in fear and sorrow. A few undoubtedly died at that moment. The masked missionaries continued to swing the incensors while women who attempted to cling to their robes, begging to be absolved, were discretely shown the Emperor’s final mercy by attendants with auto-cauterizing stunknives.

A shudder ran through the ranks of the Planetary Defense troops. Tella saw helmeted heads turn questioningly to their officers while the officers themselves cast furtive glances first toward the Grand Curate and then the Battle Sisters. Had they been told anything? How many of those men had mothers, sisters, or daughters in the crowd?

“But wait!” the Grand Curate blasted, raising his harms as if to part the clouds of pollution and let golden sunlight shine on these wretched sinners once more. As a matter of fact, Sigeric-Clodio had arranged just that. Sky plow lighters, equipped with megacapacity air scrubbers, passed over in force at that moment. Their howling engines contributed to the power of his gripping voice and the sun was indeed clearly visible for a few minutes thereafter. The women and the Planetary Defense Troopers all stood in awe despite themselves and the terrible condemnation.

“By the grace of the God Emperor,” the Grand Curate very nearly whispered those words before building his volume back up, “and under the personal authority of the Emperor’s Ecclesiarch Caritabertus LXVI, Primatial Lord of this entire sub-sector, the faithful who make good deaths”—he paused to reiterate—“good, painless deaths in obedience to this charge under the immortal authority of the Imperium, accepting as much as penance, will be granted absolution in toto.”

There were actually cheers. Having come to the brink of damnation, some of the women were glad to accept the painless death of their bodies to escape the eternal torment of their souls. Sigeric-Clodio had convinced them, with but sparing use of psychoactive agents and rhetorical gimmickry, that they were guilty for crimes of which they had no inkling. These were the ones it was a pity to euthanize.

“Conversely,” he growled as the cheers died down, “any who persist in their heresy by resisting this clemency graciously bestowed upon you by the Emperor’s own divine hand will suffer ipso facto excommunication and be burned alive as a witch forthwith! ”

Several hundred priests, accompanied by a multitude of servitors, streamed past the stunned Janosian Troopers and into the plaza to organize the administration of the Emperor’s mercy. Some of the women had taken pitiful, drug-hindered flight to the back of the plaza. Tella could already hear gunfire.

And then gunfire nearer to the Confitorium. She jerked her attention back to the ranks of the Planetary Defense Force. A single trooper had fired on a priest and his servitor but, as Tella watched, several more opened fire. Soon a dozen or more had broken rank at two points. Those noble women who had accepted their penance were now turning to flee.

“Squad Alef with me to the left,” Veneranda barked as she strode down the Confitorium stairs, “Sister Radegund, take Squad Lamed to the right. Novice with Lamed.”

Tella found herself marching forward without fear, taking aim at her first heretic.

“From the lightning and the tempest,” she chanted. Her gait was a bit stiff. Let the servos do the work.

“Emperor deliver us!” Merofled, Austrechild, and the other sisters of Squad Lamed responded in plainsong as they opened fire.

“From the scourge of the warp,” Tella sang over the roar of her bolter. A Janosian Trooper’s chest blew apart and the force of his exploding innards knocked another down.

“Emperor deliver—“

One sister did not complete the response. Tella swung around to see Sister Austrechild falling backward, a thick fountain of blood spurting up from her neck. In a second that seemed to last forever, Tella saw her sister’s head turn toward her, an angelic smile playing upon her white, lifeless lips. Austrechild had taught her how to fire a bolter.

Tella followed the line of fire back to the trooper who had scored the lucky shot.

“No!” she bellowed, charging forward at an impossible speed. It was suddenly as if she was born to wear power armor. Every bone, muscle, and nerve in her body throbbed with pure rage. She felt as though she might burst into flames.

Suddenly, she was upon him.

“No, please!” he cried. Flinging her bolter away, she pounced. Her servo-enhanced grip tore off one of his ears and then tore through his eye sockets into the soft flesh of his cheeks. Visions of a monster that had haunted her thoughts for too many years hurtled into the forefront of her mind. A huge thing in black armor that ripped men limb from limb. It howled in exaltation of the slaughter, using Tella’s own lungs to vent its lust for carnage.

She felt its lust course through her, infusing her with a terrible strength, as she pulled the man’s arm first out of its socket and then, with a wet crack, free from his torso altogether.

“ . . . leeees oh, leeees oh” he managed though his mouth was ruined. She pressed her face close in to his as she rained blow after blow into his teeth and gums, letting the blood splatter into her eyes and mouth. His pathetic mewling became a gargle in the back of his throat. “Tella, stop!”

It was her father’s face. Or was it her mother? But the thing, the monster had murdered them. A trick! She crashed her fist again into her parents’ alternating faces. And then again and again. She didn’t care if it was them. Why did they die and leave her alone in this accursed, godless universe? She hated them, hated them, hated them forever. Forever!

“Tella, stop!”

Tears were streaming down her face, mingling with the blood of the man she had eviscerated. The noise of combat had almost ceased. The only gunshots came from far off, across the plaza.

“Tella!”

Her eyes focused through her tears. Taddius Harokai stood a few meters away from her. Behind him was another man who wore a tall, wide-brimmed hat. There was no mistaking the emblem it bore. Another inquisitor. Taddius looked back at him.

“It’s fine,” Taddius assured him. “She’s alright. Lower your weapon”

Tella noticed that the other inquisitor had a bolter pistol. It was leveled strait at her head and he did not lower it.