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?

Chapter 1

Sister Irene Axilla sat in the chapel of the convent of Thracia Prime and lit the fifteenth candle.  Fifteen days since the entire Order of the Ebony Fist left on campaign to purge rebels from the world of Tacitus Segundus. 

They had drawn lots and she had come up short.  It was her lot to stay at the convent and take care of the place while the Abbess and all others were gone. 

Fifteen days of doing nothing worthwhile.  Fifteen days down and at least a year to go. 

The convent of Thracia Prime had never felt so empty, so devoid of life.  What had been her home for twenty five years was now a collection of gray stone walls. 

Fifteen days and she was ready to kill something.  

She stood up from where she had kneeled in front of the alter of St. Augustina and brushed her robes off. 

This was ridiculous.  She had just been promoted to Sister Superior, in charge of a Retributor squad and should be out there fighting the heretic.  Instead she was praying and meditating and making sure the servitors clean the convent while the Order was away. 

Of course it was holy work and an honor to serve the Emperor, but some had callings to serve in different ways.  Her calling was to stab any heretic, mutant or xeno in the face with her chain sword. 

“Patience,” Abbess Placidia told her before she left.  “It is your calling.  It is no coincidence that you were chosen to stay here.”

Not a coincidence; a mistake.  Certain sisters had the humor to maintain an empty convent.  Irena did not.  This was not why the Emperor brought her into the fold of the Order.  She was made for combat, not…whatever this was. 

She reached down and unholstered her plasma pistol, a gift for her newly earned rank.  The weight was different than the bolter she was used to. She liked the heaviness and power of the bolter.  The bolter was also as reliable as the setting of the sun.  The plasma pistol was temperamental at best.  It did not seem a promotion to her. 

She wanted to shoot something with it; something that needed shooting. 

Still, the convent wasn’t completely empty.  There were a hand full of new Sisters Repentia and a few non-combatants left, but she hardly knew them.  The Repentia were the survivors of a squad and they were being punished for cowardice.  They had full Soriatas training but they hadn’t finished their purification so they hadn’t left on campaign.  Sometimes she would hear their screams late at night. 

She passed by the scriptorium where the Diologus, Sister Honoria was working.  Irena glanced in and saw the woman bent over a pile of scrolls.  A servitor skull was hovering above her taking pictures of whatever she was working on.  The tall woman seldom left her scriptorium and preferred the company of dusty books.  Her way of serving the Emperor was with scholarly pursuits.  That was fine, but it would have been torture for Irena. 

The other sister left was a Hospitilar that worked mostly with the nobles.  They needed one Hospitilar left or the nobles would do nothing but complain.  She was usually off at the palaces of the ruling class.

The only other person left in the convent was a Mechanicum adept.  Only females were allowed within the walls so they had a female adept to work on their equipment.  It was too much work for one inexperienced adept so the piles of broken down things kept accumulating.  She had to go see the adept soon.  Her cybernetic arm needed recalibration. 

The cyber arm was a reminder of the power of artillery during the cleansing of Patimos IV.  The explosion had thrown her into the air and when she had landed she had been missing an arm.  She still had her bolter though so she continued the fight.

Somehow she found herself by the door to the Paleastra of arms.  Some target practice could do her good; providing the plasma pistol didn’t explode in her face. 

She went into the training room and had the servitor move the plasteel target back to fifty meters.  It was a thick chunk of metal that could take a few hits from plasma.  She’d have to turn the setting down to avoid blowing the target up before she managed to improve.

She gripped the pistol tightly in one hand and then brought the other around the other hand, with her thumb pointing forward.  Taking aim down the sights she held her breath and squeezed the trigger in a slow, smooth manner. 

The plasma pistol flared and there was the bang of the sudden heat difference as the plasma super heated the air around the blast.  Her shot hit high and to the right. 

It wasn’t a bad trigger at least. 

She fired until the plasma coils were spent and the temperature warning light was flashing. 

It didn’t have the visceral harshness of a bolter and somehow didn’t feel as satisfying as the heavy projectile weapon.

Shame.

She then made her way to the almost empty armory.  Only a handful of weapons and vehicles remained and most of those were in need of repair. 

The black armory door slid opened revealing the vehicle bay and the weapon lockers on the far side. 

An engineless rhino sat beside an immolator with no tracks. A penitent engine sat in the corner in a heap and various parts and pieces she didn’t recognize covered the rest of the armory floor.  The lights were clear and bright in here, unlike the darkness that pervaded in the rest of the convent. 

She walked over to the lockers and racks and found a spare plasma batter.  She changed it out and put her used battery in the recharger.  At least she wouldn’t run out of ammo during the year.  She had a feeling she’d be at the firing range often.

Irena made her way to her cell where her armor hung on the wall.  Her Sabat pattern helmet with the white visor now had a fleur de lis on top.  She ran her gloved hand down the new ornament.

That’s all it was; an ornament like her.  She decorated this convent but did nothing in useful.      

She opened up the book of Flavius Erobolis and began reading.  At times the scriptures gave her comfort and guidance

But not tonight. 

She had to do something.  Heresy and treachery were out there, not in this empty convent.  Her sisters were purifying the galaxy and she was stuck in a cell. 

Ornamentation.  But she was not meant to be an ornament.

Saying a word that was beneath her, she jumped up off her bed and began putting her armor on.  She holstered her pistol, strapped the chainsword on her back and donned her helmet.  The displays in the helmet’s vision appeared, the targeter icon lay active in the middle of the display.

Sister Irena wasn’t going to sit idly by while the world of Thracia Prime degenerated into heresy.  The main force of sisters were gone, but by the Emperor she was still here. 

She marched out of the main convent doors and into the frigid air of the winter night.  The immense town square lay before her, the fountain depicting one of the High Lords of Terra was shut off so the pipes wouldn’t freeze. 

The glow globes illuminated the square but nobody was here.  That was because criminals and heretics performed their deeds in the darkness.  That was where she had to go. 

Irena began walking towards one of the alleys, with no idea where she was going.  The Emperor would guide her. 

The rubber soles of her armored boots didn’t alert anyone to her presence and her helmet switched to the grey vision to allow her to see in the dark. 

She walked through the narrow side streets of the small, crowded city.  Thracia Prime was small, solitary city whose only purpose was to keep the mine of adamantium going. 

At one time there were plans for this world, but somehow in all the bureaucracy the world had been forgotten. It was just one, miserable city that was freezing at night and filled with soot during the day. 

The local garrison could only do so much and their attentions were usually divided.  With the Sisters gone no one was there to watch for corruption. 

The side streets had closed doors and few windows.  What windows there were, were boarded up and bared.  Evidence of fear.  No Imperial citizen should have to live in fear. 

Now that Sister Irena Axilla was on duty they would have no more reason to fear. 

Then she saw something that made her stop.  She looked at it for a few moments before turning and walked towards it. 

On the corner of a building was a shrine to the Emperor.  Only the icon that was normally there was on the ground and shattered into pieces.  Where the statuette once stood was a crudely painted symbol of some kind.  It looked like a circle with three lines crossing through at different angles.

The color of the symbol looked like dried blood.