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The signal appeared suddenly. A small thing, it was barely a blip upon the holo-map of the front lines. A small green stain on an otherwise blue background nestled amongst a cluster of red runes. The new rune glowed brightly, flickering slightly with the hologram as nearby techpriests made their near constant adjustments, augmetic appendages and mechadendrites flicking to and fro as they stabilized the machine spirit within the delicate machinery.
It wasn’t that the rune had appeared suddenly, for such things occurred with relative commonality. Patrols sometimes became lost, remnants of assaults were occasionally rediscovered behind enemy lines, and transponders were known to remain or become active after loss as their machine spirits awoke or held vigil despite the deaths of their living counterparts. What caught the attention of the assembled officers and staff wasn’t that the rune had appeared. Rather, it was the symbol of the Inquisition that accompanied it.
In moments, cogitator banks confirmed the encryption and verified the signal. WIthin minutes, orders were given as men ran to powerful vox-casters to relay information. As men and materiel moved and the gears of war ground back to life, the signal’s message hung in the air above the holo-map:
“//Ordo Hereticus//Code Vermillion//Immediate Evac Required//”
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“They’re getting closer.”
“I see that,” whispered Ziven as he adjusted the sights of his longlas. “Frakking red glow gives ‘em away.”
Pytor was still fresh. A Tempestus Scion plucked by the Inquisitor for his skills, much like Ziven, but fighting with the Guard and fighting with the Inquisition were night and day. This was far from the man’s first mission with the Inquisitor, but he’d yet to fully understand the nuances of being an Acolyte.
“Just keep down and quiet.”
Pytor grudgingly nodded and the sniper quietly ducked over to where the others were. He could just make out the figures tucked into the rubble and gave the callsign: two clicks, high-low like a pebble tossed into the street. Distinct, yet discrete, given the situation. The response clicked back with two highs and Ziven moved closer.
“Anything?” he breathed, keeping his weapon trained toward the entrance of the tiny shelter of rubble they’d found.
“Still stable... For now, at least,” the gaunt man next to him stated, his face pinched and grimy. Even in the dark, Ziven could still see the tiny indents where the chirurgeon’s spectacles had once sat on the bridge of his nose. The sniper figured Borisov had lost them in the same explosion that had killed Marte and Otmar.
“They’re both still unconscious,” he continued, his voice muted and hushed. “Ambra will probably be fine. Nasty gash, broken arm, concussion. The Inquisitor…”
“How bad is it?” Ziven muttered as he glanced over to the shapes carefully laid out on the flatter portions of rubble.
“Bad. Severe blood loss, the remaining leg will likely need to be amputated, and internal hemorrhaging that I can’t do much about without proper facilities. Have there been any responses to the distress signal?”
“Stand by,” the sniper responded with a shrug. “Could be minutes, could be hours, could be never. You sure we can’t move them, doc?”
Borisov shook his head and returned to his patients, the conversation clearly finished. Ziven carefully made his way back to Pytor and tucked himself behind the remains of an old wall opposite the other man.
“Well?” Pytor mouthed. Ziven glanced over the crumbling bricks at the darkness surrounding their little burrow. Far into the distance, he could see the faint glow of their pursuers. Heretics and traitors, they had dug into this dust ball of a planet for reasons the sniper didn’t want to fathom and the Inquisitor had declined to share. The locals had taken to calling them Soul Burners from the red lamps that some of the heretics kept on their hips or backs. The name had quickly been taken up by Ziven and the rest of the Inquisitor’s retinue. The purpose of the things was a mystery to him, but they did help him keep track of where the enemy was.
Ziven opened his mouth to respond, but stopped, the words dying before ever being formed. Most of the groups searching for them were led by Soul Burners making them easy to track, but not all. A head had poked itself over the wall behind Pytor, the ugly black and brown camouflage of the helmet at odds with the crimson mask it wore on its face. A split second passed as Ziven met its eyes there in the dark. A split second where he would later swear he could see the hellfire in its eyes as they bored into his.
It pulled itself up to bring the rifle it carried to bear, howling like a feral animal into the night as it rose before suddenly pitching backwards in a cloud of red mist. Pytor shouldered the hellgun he carried as the dying crack of Ziven’s longlas gave way to an answering howl from all sides in the darkness around them.
No words passed between the two soldiers. No words were needed. The little burrow had only one real entrance, but only one exit as well: the low wall they now defended. As the howls and the faint red lanterns grew closer, Ziven settled in for the fight. He could hear Pytor’s muttered prayers as the man checked over his weapon and steeled himself for what was to come, but as much as he tried to ignore the whispers and focus on what lay through his longlas’ scope, he soon found himself quietly whispering along.
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