Part 6

Sister Thekla.  Repentia.

Sister Thekla sat cross legged in her Castigation Cell and meditated.  She meditated on her weaknesses and how she wasn’t strong enough to be the Emperor’s weapon. 

In her last battle she had personally killed three of the Edlar Corsairs but her squad had been decimated.  The Cannoness found no fault, but Thekla did.  She could not possibly carry on as the Sister Superior of the squad. 

She had to first atone for her failures.  She had wasted the Emperor’s servants that would be needed at a later time.  Now the entire Order was off to war and she remained here to receive her more than just punishment. 

At first the Cannoness had refused but eventually relented and allowed her to join the ranks of the Repentia.

Every day was a new torture to cleanse them of impurities.  Like a refiners fire she would go through the burning fires of pain and come out a tempered, more lethal tool for the Emperor. 

Then she heard armored boots coming down the stone hallway towards her cell.  Usually it was only the one pair from the Mistress of Pain.  This time there were two.

Variety was not a part of her life as a Repentia and this new situation broke her meditation. 

The metal door unlocked and swung open.  The Mistress stood there in full armor but without her helmet.  Her white hair was pulled back into a tight tail and instead of a small fleur de lys tattoo on her cheek, she had two giant ones, one on each cheek.

“Thekla, get up,” the Mistress said.

Thekla jumped up off the ground, eager to obey. 

“Not fast enough!”

One of the Mistress’s whips lashed out and struck her on the stomach.  She almost bent over from the pain but ignored it.  Pain was a part of her life now and she had to accept it, make it a part of her. Her faith would carry her through pain which was nothing more than a distraction to the mission she had to perform. 

Then a sister she recognized from the lower ranks entered.  Only she wore the gold fleur de lys of a Sister Superior.  She must have been recently promoted.

“Sister Thekla?  I’m Sister Irena.  I was told you can drive a penitent engine.”

“I was training with it before it broke down, sister.”

“Do you think you can take it into battle?”

“I believe so.”

“Answer her with more conviction!  Either you can or you can’t!”  The Mistress said.

“I cannot pilot it very well, but with the Emperor’s guidance I know I can do what is asked of me.”

Sister Irena smirked.  She put her hands on the pommels of her weapons and looked Thekla up and down. From what she remembered, Irena was an impetuous hot head that tended to act before thinking.  But she was strong in the faith and never wavered.

“Fair enough.  Bring her up,” Sister Irena said.

The Mistress tied her arms behind her and led her up the stairs to the repair bay where a red robed Mechanicum woman was working on the insides of a penitent engine. 

“Sophia, this thing working yet?”  Irena asked. 

“I believe it will function as intended,” Sophia said. 

The Mechanicum adept closed the covering to the engine and backed away. 

Irena then flicked her wrist toward the crouched walker.  The thing’s long arms were spread out as if inviting her to join it.  She knew then that this was right and good.  She was meant to be here. 

She had been installed with the neural plug that hooked into the Penitent Engine.  She climbed in and turned it on.  The clamps came down over her wrists and ankles.  The bio-monitors in the clamps cut into her flesh and drew blood.  Then she moved her head back to connect with the neural hook up.  It was one of the many reasons her head was shorn.  She was wearing hardly anything and the flesh that did show was covered in scars and cuts.  Some of them earned in battle, others by penitent torture and other by her own hand when the torture wasn’t sufficient.

As the Penitent Engine came to life she felt the sensation recede from her own body and move into the machine. 

Slowly she stood up.  She used the long arms of the walker to brace herself as the piston legs of the Engine raised its metal body to its full height.  She tested the arms, activated the giant buzz saws and then took a few trying steps.  It felt as she remembered it and adjusted quickly. 

“I’m capable of fighting,” she said, her voice coming from a loud speaker built into the war machine. 

“Excellent,” Irena said.

Thekla couldn’t help but smile.  With this machine of war now operational she could strike down the enemies of the Empire with more terrifying power.  That is all she had ever wanted: to be an instrument in the Emperor’s hands.  And now she was a more lethal instrument than ever.

*

Sister Olga Kyrinkonov.  Hospitillar.

Sister Olga sat at her bio-analysis station looking into the microscope for signs of the illness that was spreading in the poor quarters of the city. 

It wasn’t anything serious but she liked to keep ahead of things in case they turned for the worse.  She wasn’t going to be caught by surprise like a sleeping guard.

She sat back in her seat and stretched.  This wasn’t so bad.  Almost everyone was gone leaving her in peace to perform her research.  She helped out the civilian doctors when she had time, but mostly she was left to her own devices.  They’d be gone for over a year.  A year of solitude and tranquility. 

Sister Irena was too preoccupied with running the convent in the Order’s absence.  She’d forget about the lone Hospitillar over in the east wing. 

She was fully trained to be a combat medic, but her real talents lay with sicknesses and diseases.  Pathology was beautiful in its simple perfection.  How many soldiers loved the lethal efficiency of their firearms, she loved the efficiency of viruses.

What she didn’t like is how they affected human beings.  When the two met, terrible things happened.  She admired them, but wanted to wipe them out completely.  They were her enemy. 

Then her door opened and Sister Irena burst in wearing full battle plate. 

“Please, Sister.  I’m in the middle of an important study,” Olga said, without looking up from her microscope.

“It will wait.  I need you to prepare for battle.”

“Is this a training exercise?  Because Cannoness Agrippina said that I was to be left alone to my work unless there was an emergency.”

“It’s an emergency.  Get up.”

Olga looked up and saw the look in Irena’s eyes.  She was furious about something and Olga decided that whatever it was, was serious. 

She stood up and sighed.

“What’s the situation?” Olga asked.

“The Governor is a heretic and is secretly worshiping dark powers.”

She couldn’t be serious!  The Governor?  Impossible.  Dark Powers. 

Her mind flew into a maelstrom of thoughts and possibilities. 

“How bad is it?”  Olga asked.

“We’re sending servo skulls to scout the place out but we have to assume that he has his household guard and at least some of the garrison with him.”

“But everyone’s gone.  What are we supposed to do?”

“We fight.”

“But with what?”

“We have a squad of Repentia and one working Penitent Engine.  There is Sophia, the Tech Adept and Sister Honoria.”

“The Diologus?  What’s she supposed to do?”

“She’ll fight the enemies of the Emperor as is her duty.  All our duty.”

A handful of sisters against the Governor?  This was absurd. 

But what choice did they have?  By the time any assistance arrived, the situation would be over one way or another.  It was them or nobody. 

“Very well, Sister. We show them what traitors are to expect.”

Sister Irena smiled and smashed her armored fist into her palm. 

“Go get your battle kit on.  We have work to do.  Meet me in the repair bay.”

“Yes, Sister.”

Irena left and with her the courage she had felt.  They had to do something but their odds weren’t good. 

She went to her room and put on her power armor and habit.  The only weapon she had was her bolt pistol.  She had a feeling that that wouldn’t be adequate.  Once fully armored she stopped by the armory before proceeding to the repair bay.  She continued to chant the litany of strength the entire time.

The armor was desolate and only a few weapons were left.  One thing caught her eye: a heavy bolter with two drums of ammunition.  But her power armor lacked the additional reenforcements to use the heavy weapon effectively.  Without the specialized power armor, the recoil would throw her shots off to the point that it would be useless. 

There was a rack of bolt pistols, a few scattered bolters, a chain sword, and a bolter with an underbarrel single shot plasma gun. She passed all of those by when she saw on the far side of the room a solitary flamer with four full canisters of fuel.

She picked it up and checked its functionality.  She opened it up and saw it was all still oiled with no rust or corrosion.  Perfect working order.  She snapped it closed, attached a canister of fuel and headed out to the repair bay. 

When she arrived she saw Irena talking to a Tech Adept in red robes and several servo arms.  Honoria was wearing power armor beneath her black robes and she held her Laud Hailer like a bishop’s staff.  She had two bolt pistols, one on each thigh.

Eight Sisters Repentia stood off to the side with their shaved heads, cowls and rags they wore.  The Mistress stood with her arms folded and her neural whips coiled at her sides.   In the middle of the room was the enormous Penitent Engine with a sister already strapped in. 

“We’re all here,” Irena said. 

Olga walked over to a table and sat down on the edge of it.  She brushed her long robes out of the way and got comfortable. 

“We all know the situation,” Irena said. “Today will test our faith like never before.  We’re sorely outnumbered but if we put our faith in the Emperor, our enemies will be destroyed.  Our servo skull scouts have shown that there are only the normal amount of guards, their loyalties are questionable.  If they show the slightest resistance to our entering, shoot them.

“Then we go in and declare the Governor under arrest, and by that I mean we shoot him on sight.”

“Doesn’t he have to stand trial?”  Sister Honoria asked.

“If there was a higher authority, perhaps.  But I’m in charge and I don’t have the authority to try anyone.  But I can execute.”

“What are we waiting for?”  The Mistress asked. 

“Night.  I want them to be asleep when we come.  Mistress, I want your Repentia to go ahead of us, kill any guards that stand up to you and secure the front gate.  We will enter followed by the Engine.”

“Isn’t there anyone else we can ask for assistance?”  Honoria asked.

“The planetary militia is under his control.  If we ask them, they’ll alert the Governor.  We also don’t know how far this corruption has spread.  They may have turned traitor as well.”

Olga held up her hand. 

“Yes, Sister Olga.”

“I have a suggestion.  In the medical bay I have two canisters of pain nutrilizer.  It’s the gas we use to put people under for surgery.  They might make good grenades.”

Irena nodded.

“Excellent.  Take whatever you can.  Make no mistake my Sisters.  We will be outnumbered by no small margin.  We have to use every weapon in our arsenal or we will not prevail.”

“For the Emperor!”  the Mistress shouted out.

“For the Emperor!” They all said in unison. 

Part 5

Sister Honoria

Sister Honoria closed the ancient codex and set it aside.  So far she hadn’t found the meaning of the symbol that Sister Axilla had given her.  She didn’t honestly believe that the symbol was of any importance, but the puzzle intrigued her.  If it was known to the empire, she would find its meaning. 

Also, Sister Axilla wasn’t one to refuse.  She was frightening. 

She stood up from the wooden table and picked up the heavy, leather bound codex.  She put it back in its proper place and went to the next book on her list.  This “book” was an ancient data slab left over from the time of Strife when slower than light ships spread humanity out to countless worlds, only to let them fall away in ignorance and solitude. 

She plugged the data slap into a terminal and brought it back to life.  The cracked screen burst into static for a few seconds every few minutes, but it still worked and the data was not lost. 

It was in a Terran language that no one spoke anymore but her cyber eyes brought up the translation using a program she had written herself.  She had help from the Mechanicus woman, Sophia, but she had provided all the translation data. 

She had gone through a hundred pages when she noticed the time on her internal chronometer.  She had an hour before she had to be at the palace of Governor Preventius.  It was time for his children’s tutoring in language and literature. 

Once everything was put back into is proper place and the convent library was perfect again, she shut the door and began walking towards the exit.  She passed by the chapel and found it odd that no one was there.  Where was Axilla? 

She left the walls of the convent and walked up the hillside to the Ciel District where the rich and powerful had their homes.  The paving became smoother and trees lined the streets.  The trees grew bigger the closer she got to the Governor’s palace. 

The guards gave her a cursory inspection before letting her in.  She carried nothing with her and only had her robes.  All the other gear of a Diologus sister was left behind in the convent.  She didn’t need her vox projectors or anything else.  She only had three well behaved students. 

Back during her novice years of training, she had received basic firearms training and she knew how to shoot a las-pistol and even a heavy bolt pistol, but she had never needed those skill since. 

She was a scholar, not a fighter.

A few of the servants gave her nods as she passed. By. 

It seemed the entire mansion was being redecorated.  Old tapestries that had been there for years were being taken down and servants were running carrying vases and statues. 

“What is going on?”  she asked a nearby servant that was carrying a rolled up carpet.

“The master wants the house redone in some new style he’s obsessed about.  I don’t know what they do, I just do as I’m told.”

“As we should.  Thank you.”

Some new fashion among the nobilitae?  She had little time or patience for such trivialities. 

She went to the family wing of the mansion and to the door of the children’s quarters.  They were expecting her and the three children were sitting around the table with their data slates. 

“Very good, children.  You’re all ready to start your studies,” she said. 

It had taken a year but she had finally gotten the children to conform to the standard template of childhood instruction. 

One of the girls raised her hand. 

“Yes, Lucia?”

“Father says that history is a waste of time.”

“Waste of time?  Not at all.  Only by knowing the sacrifices our ancestors made for the Empire do we appreciate what we have.”

She started with a lesson in basic mathematics and then went into the lesson on the Imperial Creed. 

As she lectured she saw that Julia wasn’t paying attention and was doodling on her data slate.  Honoria reached over and snatched the slate away. 

“What are you drawing that’s more important than the Imperial Creed?”

She turned it around and looked at what the little girl had drawn. 

It was a symbol.  A symbol that a little girl should not have known unless she had seen it somewhere.  It was old and something was wrong with it.  Her memory stirred and she took out her own data slate and began searching through her library until a match appeared. 

The symbol of the Chaos power Slaanesh. 

She almost dropped the slate. 

“Julia, where did you see this symbol?”  Honoria said, keeping her voice level and calm. 

“Father has it in his office.”

Julia kept her eyes on the ground.  She was scared of punishment but Honoria didn’t care about such trivialities right now. 

This was big and it was terrible. 

“Does it have something to do with the redecorating?”  Honoria asked.

Julia shrugged.

“I don’t know.  I think its for all his parties that he won’t let us go to.”

“Parties?”

Julia and Lucia told her about late night parties with wild music, drinks, chems and naked people doing strange things.  The symbol Julia drew was on the wall where the Imperial Eagle used to be. 

Honoria had to do something.  The governor was trafficking in powers he shouldn’t be meddling with and casting aside the Imperial Truth.  She suspected that he had waited for the Order to leave before opening up as a heretic. 

But right now she had to realize her position.  She was the house of the most powerful man on the colony and for all she knew all her armed guards were heretics as well. 

She erased the image and gave the slate back to Julia. 

“Children, do not mention this to your father or anyone else.  You must swear to pretend that you never saw this symbol and never showed it to me.  Understand?”  They nodded their heads.  “Sister Honoria is not feeling well and I’m ending the lessons early today.”

She packed up as fast as she could without appearing to be as panicky as she felt. 

As she walked out of the children’s quarters and down the hall she was aware of every person around her.  Few seemed to pay her any attention but she held her breath every time someone glanced at her. 

She clutched her data slate to her chest as she approached the guards at the exit. 

“Leaving early?”  One of the guards asked. 

Her eyes shot to the las pistol at his hip. 

“I’m not feeling well today and I have a great deal of work at the convent while the Order is away.”

“What ails you?”

“Headache and nausea.”

“You can’t stay until your appointed time to leave?”

She was trained to use words to sway people and she took a deep breath and let her training change her voice to one of assurance and authority.

“No, I’m afraid I have more pressing matters at the convent.  The lessons will simply have to be postponed until tomorrow.  If there is a problem you may call your master but unless you have taken to dictating policy regarding the Governor’s children I suggest you let me about my business. 

He quickly nodded and they let her pass. 

Once out of the mansion’s walls she bolted into a run.  She ran as fast as she could all the way to the convent and didn’t stop until she was at the door of Sister Irena’s quarters.

She pounded on the door while gasping for breath. She hadn’t run that hard since her days as a Novice. 

There was no answer.  It wasn’t her place to intrude but this was an emergency.  No, this was the worst kind of emergency.  The implications of everything she had learned were reeling through her mind. 

The planetary governor had turned traitor.  For all she knew there were already cults in place.  Perhaps he was planning a rebellion.  If that was the case he would surely come to wipe out every sister left in the convent. 

She opened the door but found Irena’s cell empty. 

Irena was one to never sit idly by while there was work to do.  She would make a lousy scholar but the Emperor had seen to it that she found a vocation in which her personality could flourish. 

She began jogging through the halls, looking in every door for Irena. 

Then she paused when she heard a scream.  At first she thought it was the Mistress torturing the Repentia as she did every day, but then she realized that the voice had been male.       

She followed the sounds of the screaming down into the Castigation Cells and found Irena and the Tech Adept standing over a nude man that was lying on a Atonement Table.  Blood was everywhere. 

She took a deep breath and entered the stone room. 

A servo skull flew over to her and buzzed around her head as she made her way to where Irena was. 

Irena glanced up from the table and waved her forward. 

“Sister Honoria, what brings you here?  Found out anything about those symbols?”

Symbols?  Oh, yes, Irena had found strange symbols vandalized into the walls of the city. 

“No, not that.  Something worse.  Sister, I’ve just returned from the Governor’s mansion.  While instructing the children one of them drew a Chaos symbol of Slaanesh.  She said that she had seen her father replace the Imperial Eagle with this symbol.  He’s having late night parties full of vice and wickedness.”

Irena furrowed her white brows and placed her hands on her hips. 

“Say that again.”

Honoria recounted her story in detail from the beginning. 

When she finished she watched as Irena began pacing up and down the room.  The Tech Adept remained silent and still.  The woman’s red cyber eyes looked right at her and Honoria wondered what they saw. 

“We need a plan, Sister,” Honoria said.

“Then it’s a good thing that I have a plan.  Sophia, I need you to get that Penitent Engine up and going, now."

Chapter 4

Sister Irene Axilla

Irena entered the repair bay where the Mechanicus woman was working.  The metallic voice on the intercom was reciting sayings of their cult. 

“The Omnisiah watches all.  Do not falter in his sight and maintain the sacred machines.  Do not fear for the Machine God does not fear,” the voice said, sad and hollow in the background. 

It was heresy.  Only the Emperor was worthy of worship.  All else was lies and superstitions.  She wanted to shoot the loudspeaker to silence the apostasy emanating from it.  

“Adept Sophia.  It’s time.”

The techpriest stopped the repairs she was making on a Rhino engine and stood up.

“I am ready, Sister Superior.”

The adept walked beside her as they went down the hall.  Irena had her helmet tucked under her arm.  Many sisters liked to prove their bravery by entering battle without a helmet.  She thought that was foolish and risking their deaths when their lives would serve the Emperor better was a sin. 

“Have you heard anything more about the desecrations?”  Sophia asked.

“No, but I have a feeling in my stomach that we’ll there’s more to this than wicked vandalism.”

“There is no basis for continuing that line of thought.”

“Don’t you machines have intuition?”

Perhaps they lost their souls when they gave up their bodies. 

She wondered how much of Sophia was actually left under those thick, red robes.  Sophia was lower rank so she couldn’t be as extensively modified as other Mechanicum she had seen.  She had at least the top part of her skull replaced, her right arm and probably her legs, unless she was wearing armored boots.

“Are you wearing armor?” Irena asked.

“No, but I am well armed and skilled in battle.”

Irena laughed.

“Many think they’re skilled in battle until the real thing strikes them in the face.”

“I have undergone seventy five combat simulations.”

“Simulations and the real thing are no the same.”

“The simulations were programmed for maximum realism.  A battle in which you can not tell if it is real is no different than one which is.  Theory leads to practice.”

“You’ll see once death starts flying through the air at you.”

They marched out the front gate and into the city square. 

Only a few men coming back from late shifts at the mine were walking about.  One of the men walking off toward the center of the city wore the uniform of a planetary militia.  They weren’t close to the professionalism of the Imperial Guard, but sometimes they were all that stood in the way of the enemies of the Empire. 

She made the sign of the Aguilla over her chest in honor of the brave men and women of the Militia and Imperial Guard. 

She had often wondered if she would have joined their ranks if her parents had lived.  They had died when she was but seventeen months old.  All she knew of them were that they were nobles from Terra.  It was more than she needed to know.  They were meaningless next to her service to the Empire.

Irena noticed that a few of the miners, upon seeing her, hurried off in the other direction.  What did they have to fear if they weren’t heretics?  If they were pure then they had nothing to worry about. 

But if they did have heresy in their hearts, then she’d shoot them and take their families in for questioning. 

“Do you have any suggestions on where we may begin our search?”  Sophia asked with a polite bow.

The adept’s hunched form was a good head shorter than Irena.  She’d probably come up to her chin if she stood up straight.  The servo arms though made her quite imposing. 

She liked the choice of the melta gun on the end of one of Sophia’s servo arms.  It showed she meant she took this threat seriously.  Some would call it over-kill, but Irena didn’t believe in such a thing.

The melta gun was like a Justicar’s shotgun.  Powerful up close with a wide spread. 

Shotgun. 

She thought about it.  There were some circumstances where she’d like a shotgun. Perhaps if she could mount one under a bolter like the Cannoness had a flamer under hers.  She’d have to ask permission for that later.

That would do better than an untried plasma pistol. 

The two of them began walking through the narrow back streets of the city.  Her helmet tracked movement and saw through the shadows.  So far, nothing but rats. 

“Are we to capture or kill?”  Sophia asked.

“Kill of course.  There’s nothing to learn from destructive heretics.”

Irena rested her hands one her belt and stopped to listen.  Sophia stopped beside her and cocked her head.

“Sometimes it’s necessary to stop and listen,” Irena said.

After a while of listening to the sounds of the sleeping city, she continued on. 

Two hours into their patrol she saw something move in an ally to her right.  She grabbed Sophia by the metal arm and pulled them to the side.  She then peeked around the corner and saw a man at the far end where a shrine to Empire stood.

The man wore rags and had half his head shaven with strange tattoos covering the bald portion.  He had a hammer and was hacking away at the shrine. 

As she was raising her pistol she saw a gang of about ten men approach the man.  They were likewise dressed in unsavory way and most of them were armed.  Some carried civilian las an auto guns, shotguns and various pistols. 

Eleven of them armed with crude but effective weapons.  They had numbers on their side but she had armor, plasma and the faith of the Emperor on hers. 

“Ready on the count of three,” Irena said.

“What, may I ask, is the plan?”  Sophia asked.

“We kill them all.”

“We’re outnumbered.  Our chances are above fifty percent.”

“Nonsense!  You and your damn logic.  Where’s your faith?  There are enemies of the Empire right there and so we have a duty to destroy them.  It’s that simple.”

“I see there is no arguing.”

“You’re beginning to learn.”

“Very well.”

The adept’s servo arms came up over her head with their guns at the ready.  Their red targeting lasers moved down the alley and landed on the back of one of the heretics.

“One more thing,” Irena said.

“Yes, Sister Superior?”

“Don’t forget to stay behind cover.”

“Of course.”

“Three…two…one…now!”

She crouched down low and aimed around the corner.  They were in a close group so aiming wasn’t that difficult. 

She fire and the air around the pistol warmed her face.  The bolt of searing hot plasma struck the first man in the gang and he burst apart in a fiery mess, covering his compatriots with gore and fire. 

That wasn’t bad!  Perhaps she could get used to this pistol.

The Adept opened fire in a blaze of energy and light.  The scatter laser tore through the crowd and the melta gun struck two of the men burning their flesh to the bones in a blinding instant. 

The four men that remained scattered.  One fell over on to his back and the three others took off running in different directions.  One of them let loose with a burst from his autogun that struck the wall near Irena’s head.

“Follow!”    

Irena bolted after them and she could hear the wheezing mechanical sounds coming from Sophia behind her. 

Just as she came to the corner she felt a hand stop her in her tracks.

“Don’t stop me!  They’re on the run!”  Irena shouted at the Adept.

“Ambush.”

One of Sophia’s mechadendrites with an ocular device moved and peered around the corner.

“As I surmised.  Two of them await behind a tractor,” Sophia said. 

Irena stopped and thought.  She would have charged right around the corner without hesitation.  She should have known better. 

“I have a flash grenade,” Irena said.

Sophia nodded and withdrew her optic. 

Irena unclipped the grenade from her belt, pulled the pin and threw it.  The manual says to count to three, but in her experience three often meant one. 

The grenade went off and Irena burst around the corner.  The two heretics were staggering and holding their hands to their eyes. 

She reached back and grabbed the chainsword.  With one clean motion she unhooked the sword and brought it down in an overhead arc onto the first heretic.  The motor of the sword burst into life with a maniacal sound like a roaring beast.  The teeth of the chains moved too fast to see and tore into the unprotected flesh as if it weren’t there.  She had cut through his entire torso at an angle and his head and shoulder flew away from the rest of his body.

She looked over and saw that Sophia had the other heretic in the grip of one of her large servo-claws and had lifted him off the ground.  He was struggling in vain to loosen the grip around his neck as his feet kicked in the air. 

“I will question this one,” Sophia said.

Irena flicked her sword to get the filthy blood off and returned the sword to its mag-clamp on her pack. 

“If you insist.  I’d sooner crush his head in.”

“I will take him back to the Manufactorum for complete interrogation.”

“I want to be there.”

“You might find it unpleasant.”

“I highly doubt that.”

Chapter 3

Engineseer Sophia Teranachus.

Sophia wondered at the emotional reaction the Sororitas was having at the image she had produced.  Her biological responses were obvious and her flesh eyes went wide.

“I assume this is indeed the image you saw?”  Sophia asked.

“How did you know?”

“We have found this mark painted on several of our sacred images at our fabricorum.” 

“You’ve experienced desecration as well?”

“Someone has smashed a few of our holy Cog symbols on the outside of our walls.” 

“Any suspects?”

“None.”

The Sororitas shook her head, her white chin-length hair swaying about her like useless wires.

“We assumed it was anti Mechanicus zealots,” Sophia said. 

“Apparently not.” 

“We discovered the vandalism too late and weren’t able to detect any evidence.”

“Evidence?  What kind?”

“Chemical readings mostly.  They leave no DNA or fingerprints.”

“But if you found a fresh sacrilege, you might be able to get some kind of reading?”

“That is correct.”

Sister Axilla sat back and rubbed her chin with her flash hand while tapping on the counter with her cyber hand. 

The cyber arm the Sororitas had was an older model, one reserved for low ranking soldiers that were too valuable to simply let retire.  It was an older design but one that Sophia respected.  It was reliable and easy to maintain.  That meant she spent less time maintaining such limbs and more time with the truly important things.

She looked over her workshop at the mountain of projects she had yet to complete.  Several out of commission vehicles, weapons and a Penitent Engine that was having problems with its machine spirit. 

All the other Engineseers were off with the Sororitas Order on campaign.  She was left here due to her ability to enter the convent.  They attached meaning to biological terms such as “male” and “female.”  The flesh didn’t matter.  Only the metal was strong. 

It was irrational and against all logic, but she resented staying here.  She was a better engineer than most others of her rank, yet she was left behind to work in the shop. 

It was beneath her.

Then the Sister leaned forward with a feral grin.   

“Sophia, how about we go out tonight and look for recent desecration?  Perhaps we can gain evidence if we’re timely enough.”

“That is not my duty.”

“It’s everyone’s duty to protect against heresy.”

“It is not this one’s function to investigate.”

“I don’t have the sensors that you do.  If you can find evidence I need you.”

The sororitas spoke logic.  Her limited flesh faculties could not detect trace chemicals, heat or DNA. 

“I will ask permission,” Sophia said.

“Very well.” 

The Soroitas slapped the workbench and laughed.  Then she got up and left. 

Sophia finished her work that day and left the convent.  The convent was unusually quiet now that the Order was gone.  It felt almost abandoned. 

She left through the arched gateway and into the streets of the Imperial city.  She reminisced on what had taken her from Mars to this lowly backwater planet far from the Holy world of Mars.

Her master was disgraced and she, by association was disgraced. 

But she would earn her way back to Mars.  She would not spend the rest of her life on this miserable rock. 

Her metal feet clicked pleasantly on the pavement of the city street.  Even the sound of her walk separated her from the flesh humans that surrounded her.  Everywhere she looked she saw mindless people going about their daily lives, completely oblivious of the true glories of the universe.  They had never peered into the inner workings of a plasma reactor or ran a diagnostic on a Dreadnaught’s machine spirit.  They didn’t see the Noosphere and its infinite information that surrounded the followers of the Machine God. 

Sophia stopped at the gate of the manufactorum and slipped one of her mechadendrites into the slot.  The security computer read her ID codes and the metal door beside the enormous vehicle bay doors opened.  She walked in and her cyber eyes switched to low-light settings. 

All around her she could hear and feel the humming of the manufactorum machines.  It was a sweet feeling that reminded her of Mars. 

She made her way to the office of the Chief Artisan of the manufactorum.  Her noosphere told her that he was here and she sent a request for a meeting. 

His reply was almost immediate.

“Yes. Now,” the message said.

The door opened and she stepped through.  His office was covered in screens of scrolling information.  He stood in the middle as his dozens of eyes scanned everything that happened around him.  The hood of his red cloak was down, revealing the array of sensors and communication devices that made up the Artisan’s head.

“You wish to speak?”  Artisan Dominarus said in machine cant. 

“The recent desecration of holy symbols.  Sororitas are concerned.  Imperial shrines destroyed.  Sororitas requests that I accompany her to scan for evidence she does not have the capability to detect.”

“Your work in the convent facility?”

She sent a data burst of everything in the repair bay of the convent. 

Two of his eyes turned and focused on her. 

“That is a lot of work for one Engineseer.”

“I have time. The Order aren’t scheduled to return for two years.  I estimate it will take me fourteen months maximum to finish repair work.”

“Do you approve of the Sister’s plan?”

“It has logic to it.”

“Permission granted on basis that you arm yourself.”

She bowed with respect and left. 

Next she went to the Tech Guard’s armory.  The world had a militia but the manufactorum had its own defenses.  Gun-servitors and Tech Guard outclassed mere planetary militia. 

Another Engineseer managed the armory.  His six servo arms were busy repairing a plasma gun. 

“Can I help you?” He canted without looking up from his work.

“The Artisan asked that I arm myself.”

“Reason?”

“An investigation outside.”

“Not your usual task.”

“No, but necessary.” 

His flesh hand pointed over to a wall where weapons made to fit on modular servo arms were stored. 

Sophia walked over and looked over the selection.  There were dozens of each type of weapon, some she didn’t recognize and assumed they were creations or modifications by the armory’s Engineseer.   

She used her two cyber arms to detach the claw of her bottom right servo arm and put it in a container for safe keeping.  Then her servo arm moved up and attached itself to the rear of a melta gun.  She did the same with her bottom left one and attached a multi barrled laser that didn’t fit the standard template.  As it attached she opened the data packet that appeared in her noosphere.  The information said that it was a modified multi laser with a higher output but shorter battery life.  The targeting program downloaded into her brain. 

Red dots appeared in her vision showing where her guns were pointing.  She had had basic combat training and knew how to fight if it was unavoidable.  She would prefer not to.  Even if victorious she might receive damage to her glorious machine body. 

Once equipped she made her way back to the convent to inform the sister superior that she was ready. 

“Not yet.  At night.  The cowards only come out at night,” Sister Irena said. 

The internal chronometer told her she had two hours until the sun set.  She went back to the repair bay and worked as she waited.

Chapter 2

Irena stared at the blasphemous desecration of the Emperor’s image. Someone had smashed the icon on purpose and drew that horrible symbol.

She drew her plasma pistol and began looking around.  There was no evidence as to who did this or when.  So she walked from shrine to shrine looking for signs of desecration. 

Three other shrines had been vandalized.  Each one had that symbol. 

No one was about to question or interrogate and no matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find any evidence.  All she could do was take a photo of the symbol using her helmet’s camera.

Irena went back to the convent and hung her power armor up on the wall. Then she put her pistol and sword in the rack.

Investigation was not her strength.  She didn’t even know where to begin.  The Prioress would know what to do.  But she wasn’t here. 

She wasn’t an ornament; she was a weapon.  She needed to be pointed in the right direction so she could destroy the enemy. 

Sleep didn’t come easily that night and she woke up earlier than usual.  Whatever her strengths were, she wasn’t clever enough to figure this out on her own.  She needed some way to catch the heretics in the act or track them down.  Perhaps some servo skulls monitoring the different shrines?

The only clue she had was the symbol. 

She knew nothing of symbols, but Sister Honoria did.  Diologus were trained in symbols and obscure codes. 

Honoria wasn’t in the scriptorium.  She probably wasn’t up yet.  So Irena went to her room and opened the door. It was still dark inside but the light from the hallway illuminated the tiny room. There was a sleeping form in the bed. 

“Wake up, Sister Honoria!” 

She kicked the bed with her booted foot. 

“Huh?”

Honoria sat up and rubbed her face.  She could hear Honoria’s red cyber eyes adjusting to the dark.  Flesh eyes were too weak to cope with the constant reading and studying the Diologus had to do so most opted for machine eyes.  That way they could also capture images in their computer memory. 

“Wake up, Sister Honoria.  I need your help,” Irena said. 

Honoria moved her feet to the edge of the bed and placed them on the cold, stone floor.  Her white hair in a bob was sticking up at odd angles and her face was covered in marks from where she had been sleeping on it.    

“What’s going on?”

“I need you to look at this.”

She held up her crude drawing of the symbol.

Honoria’s brow furrowed as she leaned in closer to inspect it. 

“Is this important?  It’s only 0400, you know, sister.”

“Can you tell me what it means?”

Honoria’s red mechanical eyes peered at the piece of paper for a moment.

“I don’t know,” Honoria said.  “Let me do some research and get back to you.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“But I…I don’t have it in my memory.  I have to see if it’s recorded somewhere else,” she said, wincing a little. 

“Very well, but I expect you to hurry.” 

“I will, Sister Axilla.” 

Irena left to let the Diologus get dressed.  There was no telling how long it would take Honoria to come up with an answer, so she had some time.  She hated having time.  Spare time meant that something wasn’t getting done. 

She went and had breakfast in the empty cafeteria where there’d normally be hundreds of sisters.  Rows of wooden benches and tables sat in lines and the area where the cooks normally were was filled only with an auto dispenser that served instant food.  The place felt like a tomb. 

Afterwards she checked on the maintenance servitors, read some scriptures, prayed, walked the perimeter of the convent and read some more.

It wasn’t even midday yet. 

Irena took off her left glove and looked at her machine hand.  Everything felt normal with it.  She had basic tactile function, no glitches in the motors, but sometimes it felt a bit sluggish.  No point in putting it off.  She had to go see the Mechanicum adept. 

She went to the armory and as soon as she opened the doors she heard the sound of heavy machinery and a horrible drilling sound, like the shriek of a tone of twisting metal. 

Irena stuck her head in and looked around.  In the far corner the Adept was working.  Her backpack had several servo arms, one of them was holding a giant piece of metal while another one equipped with a plasma torch was cutting it into two.  All Irena saw from the rear was the servo pack with six arms that reminded her of some sort of insane insect and the dark red robes of the Mechanicum. 

She couldn’t remember the Adept’s name.  She tried not to get close to heretics, even sanctioned ones.  Why Terra permitted these engineers and mechanics to serve a false religion was beyond her.  But, she’d get into serious trouble if she shot one of them, so she had to tolerate them for now. 

“Adept, I need you to look at my arm!” She shouted over the sound of cutting metal. 

The Tech Priest stopped what she was doing and turned to look at her.  Her glowing green eyes, one large and the other a cluster a three, stared at her for a few moments.  The only flesh she saw on the female Tech Priest was the lower half of her face.  One arm was a normal machine arm similar to what Irena had, the other looked more like a mess of cables, clamps and tools.  Her eyes and everything above was machine.  She didn’t want to guess at what was under the robes. 

“Sister Axilla, what may I do for you?”  The Adept asked in a monotone voice. 

“I need you to look at my arm.  It’s acting odd.”

She held up her cyber arm to show the adept. 

“Define, odd.” 

“Not as responsive as it should be at times.” 

“Necessary calibration is most probable.”

“Well then, let’s do a necessary calibration.”

The female adept motioned towards a work bench that was meticulously neat.  Every tool and shelf was in its proper place.  With the machine way these Mechanicum people operated she didn’t doubt that everything was in its most efficient place. 

The adept motioned for her to place her arm on the workbench.  Irena complis ed.  Then one of the metal tentacles came up and attached itself to Irena’s arm.  The woman looked at the arm without a hint of expression. 

“Good news or bad?”  Irena asked. 

“Neither.  What is, simply is.”  

She was starting to sound like the old prioress before she died.  She mumbled fatalistic ramblings all the time. 

“Something is troubling you,” the adept said. 

“Why’d you say that?”

“Your body’s algorithms are chaotic.”

Irena had no idea what that meant and didn’t care. 

“Can you fix it?”

“Already calibrated.  But this model of cybernetic limb will continue to experience data corruption if the biochemical signals it receives are sporratic and contradictory.  What troubles you?”

“Nothing.”

“I can tell by your increased heartbeat and dilation of pupils that you are lying.”

This heretical machine woman was starting to annoy her.  The last creature that annoyed her received a bolter round in the face. 

“It’s nothing.  I just found some desecrated shrines to the Emperor.”

“Where?”

“In the city.” 

“Desecrated how?”

“Smashed.  There was also graffiti of a symbol I didn’t recognize.” 

“Symbol?  Did it look like this?”

The tech priest lifted her human shaped hand and a holo projection appeared above it showing the circle with the three marks through it. 

“By Terra!  Where have you seen that before?