[@jbeil][@Andreyich][@Kratesis][@BCTheEntity]


The Guard were the sledgehammer of the Emperor, rank upon rank of armoured might and flak-vested infantry, the armed might of humanity used to smash asunder all opposition. The Adeptus Astartes, the Angels of Death, had often been compared to the scalpel – a precision instrument of His divine will – an elite among elites and almost always the last thing an enemy of the Imperium would see before their demise by bolter or blade. Then there were the Adepta Sororitas, the Maidens of the Emperor, healers, scholars and warriors blended into a shell of peak physicality and clad in a lesser form of power armour to bring fiery destruction to His foes.

All this passed through the mind of Kliment as he watched the Sisters advance on the enemy position, explosive rounds blowing what had once been men into puffs of gore, sacred promethium – a favourite of the Sororitas – sending traitors to their flaming ruin, and out there on the field a voice more apt to the shared vocalisations of a feminine choir suddenly began the [i]Fede Imperialis[/i]. Such a sight and the multitude of sounds assailing his ears may have bought him to tears, had he been able to cry after the removal of his tear ducts, but he had no doubt that the emotion he felt was nothing compared to the eternal torment of those PDF troopers souls.

His thoughts were interrupted as a figure dropped down beside him, none other than the Amazonian Hospitaller apparently, one arm dangling from her side while she gripped her bolt pistol in the other; Emperor but he had been right to request their protection, for they were truly his chosen.

“Sister, are you alright?” He questioned, leaning around the corner long enough to sight and destroy a grim-faced trooper in a flurry of shots to the largest body mass, the man thrown backward by the momentum of the shots into his body. She did not appear too injured to him, and he had to get into the barracks before his quarry could get away, “follow me when you can.” His face was oddly reassuring then, one hand pressed to her shoulder before he too stood from his squatting position and advanced on the enemy.

“From the blasphemy of the Fallen,
Our Emperor, deliver us.”

Although clearly not a Sister or a member of the Ecclesiarchy, he was as aware of the Sororitas battle prayer as any other, his bionic eye glaring with a baleful light as he mouthed the words in his own deep voice.
One-by-one the voices of two became the voices of many, female voices raised high in praise of the God-Emperor even as shells whined around them and bodies were piled up on both sides, the fire from the PDF slackening as their foes began to wonder why they were fighting and just where their loyalties lay.

“From the begetting of daemons,
Our Emperor, deliver us,

From the curse of the mutant,
Our Emperor, deliver us,

A morte perpetua,
Domine, libra nos.”

The last words were spat froth in a catechism of hate, their adversaries beginning to break under the withering storm of superior shots and sturdier belief, some even throwing down their arms and falling to their knees. Kliment was immune to such things however, having passed the death sentence of entire planets in his long life, gunning down a trio of troopers even as they surrendered; to him they were traitors and nothing more.

In a fibre-muscled burst of speed he leapt over the sandbags of the enemy cordon, hammering two gunners into unconsciousness with the butt of his pistol, before propelling himself, alone and unprotected, into the interior of the NCO barracks.


[hr]


Van Der Schartz was already dead when Kliment hammered down the doorway into the comm-room of the building, his pistol scanning for foes as he entered, his eyes moving first to the corpse in the middle of the floor – a still steaming hole burned through the centre of his forehead – and then to the eerily calm Operator sat by a crackling vox-set.

“My apologies for the mess,” said De'Shard with a smile, “but the Colonel had somewhat of an accident.”

The Inquisitor moved with the grace of a feline, moving around until he stood in front of the Operator, his pistol pointed directly at him.

“Well,” shrugged De'Shard, “I won't be needing this any more.”

One las-pistol was thrown to the floor, the man who had been holding it now lifting his hands up to show his empty palms.

“You can't stop it,” he sniffed nonchalantly, “everything will be as She said, whether you believe stopping us here will make any difference or not. We were told to expect you you see, told that one of you may come, he told us on Her behalf and he was right.”

“Speak plain, heretic!” Barked Kliment, “and I will make sure that you receive a quick death.”

“Heretic?” The seated man looked genuinely confused by this, his face showing that whatever it was he believed in that he believed it sincerely, “you still don't understand.” His voice was full of pity now, his tone like that of a teacher or parent speaking with a child, “we did this [b]for[/b] the Emperor, under instructions from His emissaries...we did nothing wrong.”

“By the Throne you have some nerve...who do you speak of? Who?!”

“Immortality Through Faith, Inquisitor, that is what your comrade-in-arms told us – he said that She would be reborn through her faith, an angel to fight at the side of the God-Emperor, and that through them both we would live forever.”

Comrade-in-arms? She? Something deeper was happening in this sector, something more than he knew or could see, something that had already caused disturbances on other worlds and something that needed to be stopped.


[hr]


Kliment emerged from the barracks with the now silent De'Shard in tow, his hands bound with vox wire and a stupefied smile across his face, not a mark of violence upon him...not yet.


[hider=PLEASE READ]Righto if everyone – at least everyone at the compound – could make a 'finishing post', I'll get us back aboard the ship and off planet once more. Feel free to take prisoners, kill everyone, have a little battlefield prayer time, gather up any intelligence you can and so forth; I'll have another post up on Wednesday come rain or shine, so what you do between now and then is up to you.

Emperor bless.[/hider]