Celestine by Sister_Lucy

“Keep steady, Sisters,” whispered Palatine Ultiona. “The Emperor will protect us.” New to command, the normally stanch leader felt a hint of fear fluttering within her breast, offset by her firm knowledge that she must succeed. Sanctus Lys would not fall on her watch. Looking out on the terrain that rolled out from the hill they stood on, Ultiona made a striking figure. Resplendent in her power armour, short black hair framed her handsome face, marred only by the small Fleur de Lys tattoo on her right cheek. Murmuring a Litany of Faith, she firmly clasped the haft of her sword, the Blade of Purity, so named after it was blessed by a prioress years ago, with the blade itself cleansed in holy fire. A rosarius was mounted around the hilt of the weapon, thrumming with energy as it produced a conversion field to save her in combat. Her cloak moved gently in the breeze, an antiquated relic once worn by St. Aspira of the Order of the Bloody Rose in her liberation of one hundred worlds.

Her loyal protector and friend, Ancilla, listened intently to vox transmissions coming through from various missions scattered across the frontier of the wasteland that lay before them. Behind them, a small, temporary hospital had been erected by the Order of the Cleansing Tears. This Order Hospitaller had aided the Order of the Sacred Flame since its conception, establishing itself in memory of Celestine so that their Battle Sisters would not be alone in their defence of the Palatine Sector.

Days of bombardments raining down from orbit had transformed what was a lush jungle into dirt and craters. Turning to Ultiona, Ancilla gave a slight nod, the signal that they were at the forward post. Smiling grimly, Ultiona donned her Sabbat Helm and absent-mindedly stroked a purity seal on her power armour. From across the wastes, she could hear the roar of bolter fire and the battle cries of the Ecclesiarchy’s warriors as they desperately fought to hold the line. The poignant truth was that every Sister there knew that the enemy would break through, that the forward position was little more than a delay to their pitiless foe. It was their job to ensure that once the enemy did break through, they could advance no further, so that the Order of the Sacred Flame might live to fight another day.

Ultiona turned to face her Battle Sisters, holstering her bolt pistol. Her tall body was silhouetted against the fires of battle behind her, the rumble of Exorcist missiles rocking the hill she stood on, but she never faltered. “Sisters! The enemies of the Emperor are at our doorstep, but we must not fall! Our order was established to protect this place and the memory of Celestine, the Living Saint. If we fail, we desecrate the memory of her, and have ultimately failed in our duty as Adepta Sororitas. But take heart, Sisters, for we have the Emperor’s guidance and protection.” As she spoke, a colossal explosion flared behind her, and the sound of gunfire ceased from the forward position. There was only the sound of running footsteps and inhuman yells. As the sound grew louder, the attacking force broke through the smoke of the ruined fortification, and the Sisters caught their first glimpse of their ancient adversary, their nemesis. Chaos Marines.

The traitorous World Eaters pounded across the landscape, bolters levelled towards the Sisters and madness in their eyes. Possessed Marines waved their Warp-touched limbs and bellowed their challenge across the arid expanse between the two armies. Amidst the twisted humans were towering monstrosities, fiends from the foulest realms of the Immaterium, flanked by smaller daemons that ran swiftly by their greater counterparts’ sides.

Drawing the Blade of Purity from her hip, Ultiona faced the enemy, and as her retinue of Celestians assembled around her led by Ancilla, she called her own challenge to their old adversaries. “FOR THE ECCLESIARCHY! FOR CELESTINE! FOR THE EMPEROR!”

With a mighty roar, the Sisters tore down the hillside as fast as they could, throwing themselves into battle with joy. On their flank, Immolators thundered forward, blasting fire into the heart of the Marines in an attempt to burn the taint of Chaos from their souls. Exorcists began firing salvos of missiles towards their adversaries, and great basins formed where they struck. Not to be outdone, from behind the Marines came massive Defilers and powerful Dreadnoughts, blasting their overwhelming weaponry at the Sisters ranks. Raptors descended from the sky, laughing maniacally and hacking at the righteous warriors. Scenes of warped horror could be seen taking place all over the battlefield, with Bloodletter daemons leaping onto Sisters bodies and slashing wildly at them, and whole packs of Raptors swirling around the heroines and eviscerating them.

Maintaining calm, Ultiona and her Celestians moved steadily forward in a tight formation. Nothing could hope to stand in their path and live. Ancilla’s Combi-Flamer ripped through the Marines, and occasionally ejected promethium into their midst, as well as using her power sword to thrust into armour and tear into the vulnerable flesh beneath. Virgilia blasted her attackers calmly with her bolter, taking strength from the sacred banner of the Order attached to her armour. Monica clasped her Simulacrum Imperialis fervently as the squad’s Imagifer, mumbling prayers to the Emperor under her breath even as she put bullets through the skulls of Marines left and right. Ardelia’s flamer blazed into the fray of incoming Chaos Marines, roasting them in their power-armour coffins. Argenta’s heavy bolter roared, spent bullet cases flying everywhere as she carved a swathe out of the enemy. The bolters of Fidela, Letitia, Kalare, Portia and Serena all did their part, with almost every bullet finding a target in the swirling confusion of battle.

As fast as the heretic Marines fell, another seemed to take their place almost instantly, a new bolter roaring towards the Sisters and a new power-armoured vision of death. Hell Talons shot overhead, twin-linked lascannons slicing through Immolators and Rhinos as the tainted Servitors within drew them away from Imperial anti-air guns. A Dreadnought strode slowly towards Ultiona and her squad, batting Sisters aside like an angry child’s toys. Picking up an unfortunate Daughter of the Emperor, the infernal machine crushed the life out of her, before throwing the corpse in the air and firing its autocannon straight into her, ripping through her power armour like paper and wrenching her body apart with the force of the impact. The monstrosity laughed with a voice like screeching metal and lunged towards the unit, raising its arm to strike down on Virgilia’s head. She turned round, leaping backwards a fraction of a second too slow. The Dreadnought’s fist came crashing down – only to fly away as the titanic walker stumbled backwards from the twin beams of intense heat being projected into its very core. The source of the standard bearer’s saviour became apparent as a Retributor squad advanced from an Immolator’s access point behind them, with two multi-meltas being fired directly into its chest until the siege-engine was naught but a heap of melted slag.

+Palatine! We’re being assaulted from the rear!+ voxed a Dominion Superior, before the sound of a blade slicing through flesh and bone alike silenced her. Turning to try and spot the new attackers, a groan went up from the Sisters as they saw what dashed towards them: Berserkers of Khorne, axes thrust towards the sky, running hard with fanatical bloodlust. Their voices could be heard even from the great distance they had yet to cover, repeating their signature battle-cry with malice-laden voices.

+Hold your positions! I will lead a charge against them myself!+ Ultiona transmitted, ordering her entourage to follow her. As they retreated, Battle Sisters formed a rear-guard to provide covering fire for their Palatine leader. Surging through the battle, the squad forged a path towards the berserkers, bolters flaring as they rent a channel through the mêlée. Drawing her bolt pistol, Ultiona’s muzzle flashed again and again, each flash signalling another slug destined to bury itself in a heretic’s skull. So engrossed in her task was she that she was oblivious to the fact that her cortege of faithful Celestians had fallen behind, fighting their own skirmishes within the mayhem of combat. Surrounded by berserkers, Ultiona muttered a prayer of passion even as she parried the blows that rained down on her from all sides.

As she completed her prayer, she felt the Emperor’s presence within her very soul, and time itself seemed to slow around her as His will gripped her muscles, lending her newfound alacrity. Batting her opponents’ weapons aside, Ultiona whipped her blade up and into a berserker’s throat. As his blood bubbled around the wound, she span away and blocked another blow, placing the barrel of her pistol where her assailant’s mouth would be behind his helmet and fired a volley of shots in quick succession, knocking him to the floor. An axe caught her off guard from behind, whistling towards her as she whirled around, but another minion of Khorne lay dead at her feet as she drove the Blade of Purity between the plates of his armour.

Like a woman possessed, Ultiona spiralled between her opponents with the grace of a dancer, and dealt fatal blows with every strike of her sword, chaos-tainted blood spilling upon the ground as she parried their furious hacks with their axes and thrust the Blade of Purity into their exposed points. Her rosarius saved her from the worst assaults, turning aside the berserkers’ blades with the power of the Emperor. Her ordinary bolt-pistol did its fair share as well, slaying her enemies at long-range and helping her at close quarters.

The battle wore on, taking its toll on all the assembled Sisters, but they gave no quarter and held their ground, as slowly the underlings of Chaos thinned in numbers. Fighting her one-woman battle, even Ultiona felt the fight tire her. The Sisters’ power armour allowed them to perform physical feats beyond the capabilities of a normal human being, but it did nothing to help mental exhaustion. Only the psycho-occulal buffering of the helmets of the Adepta Sororitas saved them from madness or even conversion to the taint of Chaos. Her armour and rosarius had saved her from the most grievous wounds, but whenever a blade got through, the injury slowed her, making her more susceptible to her enemies.

Her retinue tried consistently to get to her side, but the forces of Khorne penned them in, infuriating Ancilla every time she attempted a desperate push to reach her esteemed commander. She caught the occasional glimpse of her superior, minions of Chaos swarming around her as she twisted and turned like a viper, snaking around their blows and slaying them with superior skill, but she was losing ground heavily and the berserkers were surrounding her. Tripping over a body, Ultiona fell to the ground, desperately rolling to avoid an axe that tried to bury itself in her head. In vexation, Ancilla furiously swung her power sword into a Chaos Marine’s neck, severing his spine as she kicked his body forward, withdrawing the blade and slashing at another, spilling his intestines on the ground as she tried to forge a path to the Palatine. The rest of the squad grouped behind her, focusing their fire to clear a way through their enemies, their Bolters blazing and cutting down their foes. The Chaos Marines were now all but defeated, the Sisters vengefully strode forward, scorching the ground with fire as they cut the remaining foes down.

Finally, the squad reached a clearing in the battlefield, warriors of Chaos strewn across the ground, and in the middle lay the body of Ultiona. Her Sabbat helm rested forgotten beside her as blood trickled from her mouth, her punctured lung flooding with her own fluids. Her face contorting with fury, Ancilla raised the Canoness Commander of the Order of the Cleansing Tears on the vox, requesting medical aid for her friend and leader. Sisters Hospitaller ran from behind the front line, stretcher and technical equipment on hand. Lifting her body onto the stretcher, they marched back to the hospital, Ultiona’s Celestians providing covering fire for them. As they filed towards the aid station, a Sister Superior studied the body for damage. “Sister Ancilla, the spark of life may yet be recovered within her,” the lead medic said. “We have bionic implants that could keep her alive if they were installed around her vital organs.” “Do it.” Ancilla ordered, scanning the horizon for enemy fire. Lightning fighters darted overhead, gunning down the last of the heretics. Sanctus Lys, and Palatine Ultiona, were safe from the Emperor’s adversaries, at least for now.