Justine was afraid.
Afraid as she had never been before.
Her nightmares were nothing compared to…
this.
Her legs were giving way.
Her stomach was hollow.
The musky smell of the mutants, to the girl’s great shame, excited her body, breaking through the stench of burnt flesh, spawning a whole constellation of visions in her mind.
The Force groaned in this place.
The Force screamed.
The Light here was so weak that it had almost completely abandoned its follower.
The hilt of her faithful sword lay in her hand, but for some reason it no longer gave her confidence.
Her trembling fingers couldn’t find the activation button.
Understanding came to the Sephi: if she did nothing, she wouldn’t be the only one to die.
She would welcome death.
Death would spare her the torment of what was to come.
Justine didn’t want the captain to die, didn’t want the loyal clones to fall.
She understood that if they fell, the med-complex was doomed.
Only she could stop this madness.
Only she could overcome the monsters, the living dead that blaster bolts couldn’t stop.
Justine even knew what she would use to stop them, and that knowledge made her blood run cold.
Last time, the dark side had shown her the future, as if the Force itself had willed it.
As if in mockery, every attempt to tell anyone had led to tragedy.
The last one had ended in an explosion right in the Temple itself, costing several dozen Jedi lives and hundreds of other sentients.
That explosion had nearly cost her teacher his life.
So she had stayed silent.
That was exactly why she had run away to the AgriCorps.
But now revelation had come to the girl: the means didn’t matter, only the goal mattered.
Victory had to be achieved, and if that meant stepping onto the dark side, then she would do it!
* * * Kelvin winced when his pistol let out a warning beep, signaling that the gas cartridge was almost exhausted.
Still, he should lower his rate of fire.
A couple more shots, and despite the remaining gas and power cell charge, the weapon would refuse to fire, simply from overheating.
The small squad had managed to put down the first three living dead — in whom the officer recognized the wounded clone and the two left to assist him — though it had cost them ammunition expenditure far beyond any regulation.
They’d also dealt with four bloodthirsty clones.
Fortunately, those hadn’t possessed the durability of the first one.
“Probably because they had fewer trophy heads,” the officer filed away in his memory.
Things got bad when two former exotics from Kamino flew at them.
They were identifiable by their characteristic necks and the remains of their clothing.
Tentacles grew from everywhere on them, spraying a stupefying liquid around, and their hands had been replaced by terrifying scythe-claws.
They moved with the speed of an experienced Jedi.
The small squad was lucky the enemies were in a narrow passage where there was no room to dodge.
Mathematics came to the GAR troopers’ rescue this time too, though it cost the life of one clone, who was torn in two by a single blow from the nimble enemy, which seemed to draw strength from its own pain.
Giving the two remaining officers no respite, living dead in characteristic shreds of body bags began pouring from the ventilation.
“The morgue!
So this filth doesn’t just work on the living!” Skuratti noted to himself, hosing the enemies with bursts.
The smell of the strange mutants didn’t intoxicate or stupefy him, the bloodthirsty living dead didn’t frighten him.
The anger rising from the depths of his soul was his shield.
Only the sergeant-clone’s experience and training saved him.
He was being stupefied.
His armor’s filters and the chemicals from his auto-medkit weren’t helping.
He held on stubbornly, trying to prove first and foremost to himself that not all clones were made of rotten dough like his maddened brothers…
No!
Traitor mutants.
First the captain’s blaster pistol fell silent.
Then the sergeant’s weapon, forcing him into hand-to-hand combat with a corpse.
The physical strength of these creatures could easily rival a Wookiee’s.
Skuratti understood they wouldn’t escape this fight, and in the last moments of his life, he regretted only one thing: not having a detonator to blow himself up along with the enemy and take them to the grave with him.
The Jedi’s blade activated with a characteristic sound.
A blue gleam illuminated the section.
At that moment, the entire planetoid seemed to shake.
The figure with the sword blurred into one long streak of sand color.
A trail of bright blue light from her blade trailed behind her.
A slash.
Chunks flew from the corpses.
Invisible hands pressed dead bones into the walls.
Her strikes were perfect.
Every blow ended in a severed limb or a chopped-off head.
It was a dance of death, perfectly executed by the Sephi.
As if she had risen from the underworld to drive the escaped dead back.
It was beautiful, but it threatened no living thing.
What was frightening was that a song was sounding in the center of the man-made slaughter.
No emotion — there is peace.
No ignorance — there is knowledge.
No passion — there is serenity.
No chaos — there is harmony.
No death — there is the Force.
The words of the Code were the song that literally burned dead flesh.
The asthenic figure of the Jedi rushed into the very thick of the dead bodies.
The sword cut flesh.
The Force crushed their bones.
In his long life, Skuratti was witnessing such techniques from a Jedi for the first time.
Her movements inexorably reminded him of Asajj Ventress’s…
“For the Order!” Justine’s voice crushed everyone standing to the ground.
The sword rose above her head, clutched in a hand as hard as steel.
A branching stream of lightning, as if woven from sunlight, struck from the tip, making it look like a blazing cross.
At that moment, it was as if a giant, a protector of all living things, had stepped onto the earth, clattering with armor, burning the undead with the heavenly flame it had brought.
A wave of fire rose from behind the girl’s back in two flaming wings.
Her eyes blazed in the darkness with an emerald light.
The darkness around her thickened, but the Sephi’s figure seemed outlined in a glowing contour.
Her ashen hair formed a bright halo around her head.
The two fiery wings made a sweep, burning away the remnants of dead flesh, lifting the girl from the ground.
The sword went out.
Justine fell onto the heat-warped floor plates like a broken doll.
“I didn’t know Jedi could do that!” the clone-sergeant forced out.
“I didn’t know either,” Kelvin replied, thinking: should he shoot the Sephi before she came to, and did he have the means to do it, or should he go and give the girl first aid?
A second later, the officer slowly made his way to the girl, taking a field medkit from his belt.
“I know perfectly well that Jedi can’t do that, otherwise the war would already be won.
I need to find out as much as possible about this.
Maybe I’ve been given a chance to uncover a top-secret mystery.
And shoot her?
We can always shoot her.
And I need to finally figure out: what’s happening here and what happened there, in the darkness of deep space.” * * * Taron Malicos slowly stirred his caf, sipping the hot drink from a disposable cup, holding it with his hands bound in shock cuffs.
A blissful smile bloomed on his face.
His little experiment had turned out to be almost too successful.
Everything had happened just as they had said.
All the more pleasant it would be to begin the second experiment.
He just had to wait a little and play his role in the performance.
The remaining actors had already passed the audition.
The sets were arranged.
The soloist would arrive in two, one…
The door to the cell opened, and an officer entered in a rumpled tunic — and he himself was rumpled too.
The blaster in his hand was aimed steadily at Malicos’s forehead, which made him laugh inwardly.
Outwardly, he allowed himself to look at the officer and clap his hands a couple of times.
“You’re a bit late, Captain.
Care for some caf?
They make it surprisingly terribly here.” The corridors of the lower decks were always shrouded in darkness and the horror that lurked in the ancient labyrinth of long-forgotten passages.
Every person who, by duty, had to descend to maintain the communications would take not only a bigger gun but also the most powerful light source they could get their hands on.
But there were those who had no need for light.
And he was one of them.
He was the chieftain of his pack.
He was the leader of those the void-crew, sailors, and servitors called “ship revenants.” Lurking in the darkness, the chieftain waited with his pack.
He waited for the right moment to attack, although he knew that a bunch of frightened children could hardly put up a fight against his kin.
What were the people who sent them even thinking…
Was hunger raging again on the upper decks, and they had decided to get rid of extra mouths?
The chieftain was not an animal, unlike his subjects.
He had learned to think and analyze everything happening around him, and he had also managed to remember human habits.
But what had made these children come here?
No one goes into the kingdom of darkness of their own free will — that was the first thing the chieftain had learned.
“Light is our salvation,” said one of the children sitting by the lamp, breaking the silence that surrounded them.
The chieftain would have laughed if he had been physically capable of it.
The children’s stupidity amused him, but there were more important matters now.
The pack hadn’t hunted in a long time, so a grand feast had to be arranged.
He continued to creep toward the fire, leading his “kin” behind him.
However, the outcome of his hunt was already predetermined, though the “ship revenant” himself didn’t know it yet.
A deafening roar literally tore apart the surrounding silence.
The most impatient of the pack fell first.
Only one word flashed in his mind in bright bursts — a raid!
Anger and rage, clad in “deathly gifts” that tore flesh and bone with playful ease, fell upon his pack again…
The remaining revenants began to silently retreat into the darkness.
The experience of countless generations, absorbed into their genes, told the “kin” how to slip away and survive, to pass the knowledge on to the next generations…
But the deadly bolts caught them there too.
The chieftain realized the enemy had the ability to see in the dark and ordered everyone to fall back.
Fleeing from death, the revenants didn’t know they had already fallen into a trap.
Jets of fire poured from the side corridors, turning the wave of mutants into a screaming jelly of molten bodies, seasoned with the acrid smell of burning.
The chieftain howled with rage, for the pack’s nest was in that direction.
And if the enemy was already here, then the nest was no more.
The revenants continued to die, but the chieftain no longer cared.
The nest was gone.
He had nothing left to lose.
Only seething anger, vengeance, and pain remained.
Claws as sharp as adamantium ripped open one enemy’s throat.
Dropping its deadly weapon, the enemy fell.
It was easy to kill, because these enemies were less experienced.
And, of course, they didn’t wear those nasty, durable suits of armor when, like immature tadpoles, they rushed into battle first…
The chieftain managed to dispatch a couple more enemies, restoring a timid hope of survival to his pack.
But the next opponent was clearly beyond his strength.
It was the enemy pack’s chieftain, and he was clearly stronger than all the revenants combined.
Baring his teeth, the Chieftain rushed into his final battle.
The last thing he clearly remembered was the symbols on the sword.
Three crossed blades.
* * * The sword pierced the creature’s ribcage, leaving the abomination not the slightest chance.
Pulling the body off the blade, Mezarius threw it to the floor and crushed its head with a massive ceramite sabaton.
“One less unholy life,” the son of the Lion thought with satisfaction.
His warriors were conducting the cleansing even faster than originally planned.
Mezarius hadn’t even thought at first that the bait idea would work so effectively.
But here was the result: the creatures, starving for about two weeks, had come out for human meat with almost their entire pack, leaving the nest under the protection of guards specially bred for that purpose.
In physical strength, these creatures could even rival an Ogryn.
The nest guardians had only one serious drawback — their intelligence was even lower than that of their ordinary brethren.
Because of this, they hadn’t been hard to kill.
At the moment, the cleansing group was already gathering the creatures’ bodies into a pile to consign the revenants to fire and oblivion.
The captain looked at the enemy’s corpse.
Judging by everything, this was the chieftain.
Even here, he had shown some semblance of intelligence — he had chosen to die quickly, knowing that he and his pack had no chance.
If he hadn’t been a simple mutant, he might have been immortalized on an iron plaque among other worthy opponents.
This tradition had existed in the Third Company for a long time, but such a plaque was rarely filled completely in its owner’s lifetime.
The sons of the Lion had had few worthy opponents lately.
“Brother-Captain!” One of the sergeants, Corf, brought Mezarius out of his thoughts.
“We’ve lost several scouts and one brother-destroyer.
The remnants of the creatures managed to retreat toward one of the junctions in Sector 24.
Sergeant Theldis’s scouts have an ambush set up there too, but I’m afraid they won’t hold out long.” “I permit you and your squad to continue pursuing the creatures and assist Theldis’s subordinates,” Mezarius replied.
“Mutationem temperitus acta mortis.” “May the Lion protect us,” Corf nodded, departing.
Mezarius looked one last time at the mutant’s corpse, which in its short life had managed to earn the sad fame of a “ship horror” among the sailors of the lower decks.
Soon the ship’s sanitation control personnel would remove the bodies, people would stop being afraid and forget about yet another nightmare.
For a few years, peace would reign in the abandoned labyrinth.
The son of the Lion was satisfied with the work done.
Approaching the group of children, he examined them.
Wrapping themselves in cloaks, they had already picked up the lamp and were getting ready to leave.
Two scouts were supposed to escort the young sprouts to the exit.
The measure might have been excessive, but no one had canceled the possibility of an attack by surviving mutants.
Two human silhouettes emerged from the neighboring corridor.
The captain paid them no attention.
Before the descent, one of the youths had asked to hide his sister, whom he couldn’t leave at home.
The transition through the Warp and the subsequent disturbances had confined their parents to their beds, and the prematurely matured man had taken care of his own blood upon himself.
Now the youth, with joy on his face, was leading his sister, who looked no older than the first decade of standard cycles.
When Mezarius was about to head into battle, the girl suddenly stumbled and dropped something from her hands.
As it turned out, it was a sheet of paper.
A rare thing for the lower decks of a huge ship.
On that sheet of paper was drawn something resembling a Space Marine from his Order.
Quite good for such a child, but where had a sailor’s child even found paper and pencils?
He wouldn’t have paid attention to the drawing.
But the sheet of paper seemed to touch something inexplicable in him.
Something forgotten and erased, but still tormenting him.
Something still carefully preserved in his memory.
Something from that life.
Usually, people, upon seeing an Astartes, try to look away and not fall prostrate (unless, say, one of the many traditions and foundations of the Imperial Cult demands it) before an Angel of Death.
After all, mortals’ knees buckle of their own accord at the sight of a mighty demigod.
However, to Mezarius’s surprise, this little blonde girl was only looking at him with reverence, clutching the drawing in her hands.
She looked as if she had received a gift on the Emperor’s Ascension Day.
Perhaps from the outside it looked symbolic.
A defender of humanity approaches and kneels before a child he is bound to protect.
Mezarius remembered the enthusiastic rejoicing of the crowds during the celebration of yet another victory.
He remembered the fervent prayers addressed to him.
But looking at the serene smile of this girl, he felt something different, distinct from all religious glorifications.
“What is your name, child?” he asked, still recalling all the gentle words he knew.
“Annad,” she whispered with a mixture of fear and reverence.
“Annad…” he seemed to have heard this name.
But he couldn’t remember where.
“Won’t you show me your drawing?” Nodding, she held out her work.
At first, he couldn’t understand the reason for his interest.
The drawing of a warrior from his Order was executed with a richness and detail beyond her years, as if it was trying to leap off the sheet of paper to fulfill its duty to the Emperor and the Primarch.
The author knew exactly the proportions of this or that part of the armor or the small details of a bolter rifle…
The helmet was the best…
The helmet…
THE HELMET!
Memories washed over him in an instant.
The events of a past life flashed by so quickly that it was impossible to grasp them.
They left behind only peace and tranquility.
He wanted to dive deeper into this pensieve of memory, to find joys and sorrows understandable only to himself, to remember…
“Brother-Captain, are you all right?” Mezarius seemed to wake from a dream.
Corf, who had appeared nearby, helped him to his feet.
The endless stream of thoughts finally stopped tormenting his mind.
Looking around, he saw worry and fear on the faces of everyone around.
The young artistess continued to stand before him.
Regret was readable in her brown eyes.
“Everything is fine,” Mezarius smiled slightly.
“I liked your drawing.
You did well.” Beaming with pride, the girl went to the other children, who were looking at her with outright fear.
Children who aren’t afraid to speak to an Angel of Death are rare.
In the captain’s memory, this was the first and, most likely, the last time.
“Any special orders regarding the children?” Corf asked, adjusting his stole.
“None.
The scouts will lead them to the exit from the lower decks.
There they’ll be handed over to the counter-boarding troopers, and they’ll take them home.” “It will be done.” Watching the departing children, Mezarius continued to recall what had happened to him at the sight of the child’s drawing.
What had been so joyful in his childhood?
Psycho-indoctrination usually completely erases such things, unnecessary for an Angel.
Most likely, he would never know, but even the flashes of memory were only a joy to him.
The vox-transmitter hissed, and then he heard the Master of the Hunt from it: “How is the cleansing progressing, brother?” “The pack of revenants is almost completely destroyed, your idea with the bait worked perfectly.” “I never doubted it.
None of the children were harmed?” “These creatures didn’t have time to reach them,” Mezarius was proud of his battle-brothers as he spoke these words.
“As for the children, I have some information for you.” “Information?
And what kind?” “You told me that our guest likes to draw.
I managed to find a child with a talent for drawing.” “That’s…
interesting information,” Kazimir said thoughtfully.
“I thank you for that.
What is this child’s name?” “Annad.” “Just Annad?
There could be thousands of them on the ship!” “If you need something, you’ll find it — we both know that,” the captain sighed in reply.
“Alright.
I’m grateful to you anyway.” “Still, my battle-brothers and I must continue to finish off the remnants of the mutants.
Good luck in your endeavors.” “Of course.
May the Dark Angel carry you on his wings.” After the communication ended, Mezarius realized he had missed one thing.
The thing that had made him relive his life again.
That helmet that was in the drawing.
Why had she drawn that particular one?
How did she even know about its existence?
He had to find out at any cost.
But that question could wait…
For the hunt for the creatures was more important.