Four. Five. Six.
Paulina Majewski watched the macabre spectacle that was the so-called festival through her field glasses, and counted the condemned as they were murdered by the so-called frateris. She made herself witness as each
Baraspini prisoner, soldier and civilian alike, was scoured from existence by a flash of promethium – to the braying adulation of the feral mob, as the so-called clergy who presided over this abomination of a so-called religious service goaded their mindless flock into a bloodthirsty frenzy.
She had lived a life of service. Divinatory Guard before and after the Crisis. Resistance fighter, when the heretics invaded the Nebula. Imperial Guardswoman, when the traitors were Adrantis’ own. She had always taken a quiet pride in her service - even in the bleakest days at the height of the occupation, or when scorned while wearing the accusatory armband of the Legion. She had always stood on the side of the Emperor and his angels. She had always been a loyal soldier of Baraspine and the Imperium.
Seven. Eight. Nine.
She knew the Legion’s senior leadership had urgently attempted to prevent this ungodly pantomime of a trial. She had understood those cynics who had proclaimed that effort a forlorn hope, but she had not agreed. She had lived a harder life than she had expected, even as a daughter of the working class. She had lived a longer life than she had expected, spent as it was with a rifle in her hands. She was not one for hope, but she had always been one for faith in Him. She had always been one for faith in humanity.
The largely indifferent response from crusade’s military and religious leadership to the Camite abuses and crimes against her people had disabused her of that faith. She knew that the Legion would not remain on Baraspine, and she would never return once they moved on to the next Adrantean warzone. She knew from her experience in the resistance’s war, that she had the willpower to compartmentalize. She knew that she could sequester her anguish, grief and rage and move on if she wanted to move on.
Ten. Eleven. Twelve.
She did not want to move on. Not this time. Not again.
Never again.
The Imperium she had fought to restore in Adrantis would not enforce the laws it sought to reimpose on Baraspine, and across the Nebula. She could not abide that, and neither could dozens of her fellow Baraspini within the Legion. They were mostly veterans of the occupation, and they had clandestinely organized and prepared in the days since humanity, reason and words had almost completely failed. Today was the day the Baraspini resistance was reactivated. Today was judgment day for the Camites.
“I wasn’t sure I could handle there being civvies…kids.”
Lina came back into the moment with a slow blink as she overheard one of her men – Timov, one of the younger ones, who had been born after Baraspine’s liberation - make that admission. The rest of the fireteam were silent, as they waited for the signal and for the comrade to finish his confession.
“That damned
happy music fixed that for me.”
That damned happy music. Lina bitterly added her own soft hum of agreement to the vehemently muted chorus of affirmation. She had become well acquainted with death as a younger woman, in the remorseless war to liberate Baraspine for the first time in her lifetime. However, the sight of so many Baraspini roasted at the stake for Camite mob’s
entertainment –
an actual bread and circuses, bring out the whole family affair – made her insides coil and writhe with disgust.
Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen.
“Heretics.” She hissed, as she slowly lowered her field glasses. “Bloody heretics.”
She had not been as quiet as he had thought, as her fellow deserters once again voiced their assent to the common sentiment. The gamut of responses ran from laconic grunts, terse growls, and guttural profanity – punctuated by a young woman’s ironically chipper, and ironically spoken
‘Aye!’
The playful, foreign exclamation punctured the brooding mood amongst the deserters, and soon to be partisans, as some chuckled. Lina indulged in a chuckle herself as she heard the joker batt down an apathetically tossed crumpled ball of paper. She made no effort to tamp down on the juvenile antics yet, as she had also learned in her time that humor was an essential release valve for stress and tension. The laughter kicked up a notch as some of the others attempted to echo the unfamiliar foreign word.
Juvenile antics are appropriate. Lina admitted as she turned her field glasses away from the barbarity to the north, and once again reviewed her unit’s positions.
Commodore Thomas Tierce Leadership and Service Academy had been the model schola for Baraspine as it rebuilt its educational system. She knew it had been an elite institution, but not elitist, as children from all strata of Baraspini had been eligible based on merit. Thomas Tierce was a son of the mid-hive, and yet had commanded the fleet and forces which liberated their world. In honor of the namesake liberator of the academy, students were required to enroll in the corps of cadets of a PDF branch.
The schola had been used as an impromptu defensive strongpoint by Divinatory Guard stragglers. Lina heard rumors the only officer was a young lieutenant who had graduated from the academy, who had led their formation to familiar territory. The decision was sound, as new civic buildings were designed with defensibility in mind. They had followed the tactical manuals, and fortified in depth and laid improvised explosives in anticipation of an inevitable confrontation with the Imperial invaders.
When the inevitable happened, the academy had suffered accordingly. Lina had also heard the rumors about how once the armored infantry engaged by the stragglers realized it was a schola named for Traitor Tierce, they fell back to hold the perimeter and called in aeronautica and artillery strikes. The blown husks of academic buildings, and burnt-out hulks of a couple half-tracks and a Hydra to the west of the suspiciously intact buildings her static units had occupied on the campus lent some credence.
Munitorum box-ticker with a sense of humor intends for this to be an occupation district HQ. Lina reasoned, as she observed the team hunkered in the multi-story garage across the lightly cratered parade ground from her position in the main administration building. She next flicked her gaze down to the duo of idled, backed up trucks concealed around the corner in the parking structure’s shadow. Her gaze flicked further south, to the nearest of the broad dormitory wards.
Mikal in the clocktower.
Lina winced slightly at that last thought, as she lowered her field glasses and stared at the basalt edifice in-between the administration block and dormitory rows. While none of the presumably ordered to be spared buildings had been untouched, an ‘accidental’ misfire by a Navy pilot had blown through the once-elegant Baraspini glasswork facing and blown the head of the spire open to the harsh elements. It was structurally compromised, and also the roost for her dear comrade, friend and marksman.
Mikal accepts the risk, as he always has. Lina affirmed as she turned away from the window to regard the fireteam she had deployed alongside with. The reactivated Baraspini resistance were at ease while they waited, lounged on overstuffed chairs or leaning against desks or support beams. They all still wore their Legion kit, aside from the damned armbands which they had all shed as soon as they were in the clear. Lina was mostly not surprised to hear that the conversation still revolved around
Aye.
“
Aye…where the frak did you hear that, Yuliya?”
“The grandfatherly priest with the kind, sad eyes that those Callisto girls had in tow.”
“
Aye…with the grenade launcher, showed up with that commissar and his sidekick?”
“
Aye, Timov, the
handsome commissar. I heard -”
“Timeout, timeout, timeout…how the frak could you find a
commissar handsome?”
“How else? Biology and personal taste.”
“So, you’re in for tall, dark and facial scars?”
“Not having a moustache was another positive.”
“We can discuss what fires Yuliya’s furnace after we’re done discussing
Aye!”
“
Thank you for that redirect, Nina. I think.”
“Anytime – which, coincidentally, is when you can finish your story.”
“As I was saying, I heard -”
“Word from the barracks, something went wrong. The shooting has already started.”
The inane chatter ceased immediately as Boris; their vox-operator, broke his silence from his position next to her by the window. There was a heavily silence as the two younger deserters exchanged looks. The old hands from the Crisis merely stood, adjusted their kit, and clapped their youthful comrades on their shoulders or backs as they picked up their weapons and moved into firing positions. Lina inhaled a breath, even as she reached down for the vox-horn to address her whole taskforce.
“Unfortunate, but not unexpected in war. The fact we have made it thus far is a sign that the Emperor approves of what we’re going to accomplish tonight.” Lina assured them, and nodded after the veterans. “You’ve all trained for this, and you’re all ready for this. Now, let’s get this done!”
“Aye, ma’am!” The duo affirmed as they stood, armed and double timed it into cover.
Lina almost smiled, as she raised the microphone. “All sections, all sections, we’re going active. I repeat, we are going active. Stand-to and standby. On your prerogative, Mikal. For the Emperor and Baraspine!”
+ + + + +
"Blessed be the God-Emperor.”
Mikal Gorecki began to recite another psalm as he observed the heretics through his bolt-rifle’s scope, and waited. Patience and prayer were essentials he had learned as a child soldier in the Crisis. Patience and prayer, until the moment came for him to deliver His retribution unto the heretics. Patience and prayer, and steady aim. He had used his time to observe the fanatical peasants and their debauched revelry in the ill-gotten spoils of war, and the wretched excess of their debased clerical overlords.
He did not watch the prisoners burn. He had seen too many Baraspini burnt in the last war.
“My strength, which teach my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.”
Mikal scrawled his crosshairs over the braying horde, their shamefully and shamelessly exposed faces contorted in rictuses of hate. He did not recognize any common humanity with the heretics, as they thundered their murderous adulation at each incineration – but he did recognize some faces, as twisted and bestial as they might be by the ecstasy of bloodlust and corrupted Imperial scripture. His marksman’s eye resettled on a young couple, and their younger daughter, behind the cordon line.
The parents seemed to have been militia, although it was hard to tell as the so-called religious warriors and their non-combatants had been hard-toiling peasants. Mikal had watched earlier, as the little girl had been carried on her father’s broad shoulders above the crowds. He had noticed her rosy cheeks were painted with swipes of the militia’s colors, and the single-minded determination in the child’s eyes as she tried to steer her paternal steed towards a confectioner. The father smiled, as tiny hands pressed firmly into his cheeks, and the mother laughed at the spectacle even as she touched her partner’s back.
Mikal had chuckled quietly as he watched the family’s earlier antics. He did not chuckle now.
The couple were bellowing abuse along with the rest of the frateris and their civilian cohort, caught up in the indecent ecstasy of ritualized murder. The child remained on the perch of her father’s shoulders to watch the unjustly condemned burn, braced by his strong hands on her ankles. She incessantly clapped without rhythm and cheered, the blue remnants of a spun sugar treat framed her mouth and staining her fingers and tongue. He could see the gouts of flame reflected in her wide, rapt brown eyes.
The daemon wears an angel's face. Mikal gently touched his Aquila pendant as he remembered the old proverb from his childhood, a lesson of warning from his parents. They had been devout servants of the God-Emperor, and they had died. He and Lina had never been able to find out what happened to them. Or what had become of their bodies, after they had ascended into the God-Emperor’s Light.
“My goodness, and my fortress; my high tower.”
The marksman’s gaze shifted away from the frateris and their families, towards the stands where his erstwhile comrades from the Imperial Guard had congregated to spectate from a distance. Mikal could feel his teeth grind as he registered the uniforms of Cadians, Callisto, and Casterians amongst the Camite heretics. He had fought alongside soldiers from those units, and some of those same soldiers had fought beside the Legion – and the Baraspini, conspicuous with their faith masks, amongst them.
Mikal could hear the spike in his heartrate in his ears, as his finger tremored with the desire to shift his finger down to the trigger. He very much wanted to pick off some of the Guards who were smoking and joking through the murders – and knew
exactly who he’d begin with.
I see you, you bastard.
Officer, noble breed. Slumming. The marksman deduced, as he expertly framed the bearded face of a Casterian in his scope. The blueblood’s aides had muscled him a perfect, unobstructed view to the stakes and ensured their liege wouldn’t
actually have to brush shoulders with social inferiors. Mikal watched, his stomach clenching and curdling with disgust, as the Casterian feasted on the Camite peasant’s faire fare supplied by his attendants, with gusto that matched his enthusiasm for the murders.
“My deliverer; my shield, and He in whom I trust."
Mikal closed his eyes, and squeezed his pendant tighter as he actively forced himself to calm down.
I am but merely an instrument of His Vengeance against the blasphemers and wayward souls who falsely call themselves servants of the God-Emperor...the so-called priests who spiritually guide this flock, and the so-called soldiers who defend them. Mikal took a slow, steadying breath as he willed his trembling finger into stillness.
My deeds are the glory and the wrath of the God-Emperor. I am a true servant of Him. I will not debase and shame myself before the Lord’s eyes as these heathens do.
Mikal pressed the Aquila against the smooth metal of the faith mask which covered his mouth.
I’ll be within your Light soon enough, Dominus. The marksman confided in the true God of Mankind, sanguine to his fate. He knew that his task was effectively a suicide mission, as did everyone involved with the Baraspini retribution against the Camites. The reactivated resistance was not taking it lightly, provoking such a well-protected psyker – even an
allegedly a sanctioned one. It had been for good reason, that he and Lina had privately embraced before he entered the ruined clocktower.
“Thank you, Lina. For everything.”
“No, Mikal. Thank you.”
Mikal slowly opened his eyes, and panned his scope away from the traitorous Guards in the bleachers. He widened his view as he took in the ringleaders of this ghastly abomination, as they observed their depraved work from the garish luxury of their dais - ‘Cardinal’ Odervank, and the witch that the Camites had the audacity to call a priestess of the God-Emperor. Mikal had encountered psykers who claimed to speak on behalf of their deity before, during the occupation. The servants of damnation had likewise coerced Baraspini civilians and prisoners to listen to the false gospel of abomination and profanity.
He had stuck them down in the God-Emperor’s name as the mutated, heretical filth they were.
“Shoot some fugger who’s deservin’ of a bolt between the eyes an’ we’ll call it square.”
“I would like to, First Sergeant.” Mikal responded, as he remembered his earlier exhortation from his now former company’s senior noncommissioned as he handed him the bolt rifle he now held in his hands. The marksman whispered a sincere prayer to the God-Emperor that those good ones from the Legion – Buford, Quintana, and the Colonel herself – would not be harmed by their deeds tonight.
Mikal tightened his scope’s crosshairs as he settled his aim onto ‘Cardinal’ Odervank, and as before – when he had tracked the bastard as he arrived to the scene of the crime on his repugnantly overwrought carnival float – he could almost taste bile in the back of his throat, brought on by a furious anger at the sight of this so-called man, a so-called man of the cloth, as he and his witch smiled and waved...while minions aboard the rolling eyesore encapsulated the ridiculousness by throwing bread, offensively formed into His Aquila, to be fought over by the screeching peasants who lined the route.
The marksman scowled behind his faith mask, as he forced himself to regard Odervank at his pulpit of precious metal stone. The heretical hierophant’s thin, angular face reeked of seediness, due to his oiled beard and slicked hair bundled into a so-called warrior’s knot. The hairstyle was made all the more offensive than it typically was, as despite the massive suit of burnished and ornamented armor he wore…Mikal hadn’t heard any stories of this self-styled warrior priest personally engaged in combat, unlike the Havenite and Kriegan commanders. He also hadn’t heard of an Odervank strategy to limit civilian casualties and take prisoners, unlike Colonel Worthington-Jones and that soulless mutant.
You are shameless before the God-Emperor. Mikal condemned, disgusted to his core by Odervank, as he stood swaddled in the exorbitantly expensive trappings and wargear, doubtless demanded as an entitlement of his rank – which the idolatrous masses had duly provided their own personal savior, as they turned their backs on the one and only God-Emperor. Odervank wore what was intended to be an impassive expression as he watched the murders he had ordered, surely to seem as if he weren’t truly savoring his handiwork. In Mikal’s opinion, the supposed stoic stare made him seem constipated.
Will you be so stone faced when it’s your people burning for their sins, and yours, you heretical shit? Mikal asked of the apostate, as his rodent-like face was illuminated by the fires of yet another condemned Baraspini dead - executed by the will of this madman, for the appeasement of the mob.
Before the marksman could ruminate and excoriate further, his vox chimed and he heard Lina’s voice.
“All sections, all sections, we’re going active. I repeat, we are going active. Stand-to and standby. On your prerogative, Mikal. For the Emperor and Baraspine!”
“For the God-Emperor and Baraspine, Lina.” Mikal responded. “Now and always.”
The marksman pivoted and lowered his aim from the ‘Cardinal’ to the witch. It was on the grandstand behind its master, perched on a plush seat with a ghoulishly beatific smile as humans burnt, one after the other, on the Camite’s vain pyres. Mikal could see the depravity and madness that lived within the mutant’s tainted mind through its gleaming eyes.
The windows of the soul, as they were known.
“Choose your targets wisely, yeah?”
“Yes, First Sergeant.” Mikal murmured. He had not forgotten the implicit warning, after Buford had deliberately chosen to not hear his carelessly voiced desire to pick off Moustache. The marksman knew that, God-Emperor willing, Commissar Kulkarni would be dead – imminently, if he wasn’t already. They had their targets within the Legion who deserved His Vengeance as well, for their abuses and sins.
Mikal cast aside any further thought of the Moustache and his demise from his mind, as he settled his eye in on the frateris’ witch. He scrawled his aim lower to regard the icon of the Holy Church around mutant’s neck, and touched the Aquila points. His finger twitched against the rifle’s trigger guard. He desperately wanted to terminate the witch. However, it was not the target. The resistance understood that those who deserved to die most were the least likely to be killed in their retaliation. In the manner of any fragile and precious object, they were enveloped within too many layers to be reliably harmed.
Physically, at least. The marksman conceded, as he adjusted his aim over the witch’s left shoulder. Mikal shuddered with reflexive discomfort as one of the psyker’s cherubim twins filled his crosshairs. The constructs were crafted in the image of adolescent young girls, exemplifying the innocence and purity the witch would never have. He had even witnessed it cooing over the cherubs,
as if they were its own children. The beast was clearly damaged in the mind beyond even its inherent curse.
Mikal could understand that.
“Be not thou far from me, O God-Emperor. All my strength, haste thee to help me.”
Mikal Gorecki gently squeezed the trigger as he finished his recitation. The bolt rifle rocked back against his shoulder as it barked, and hurled its mass reactive shell toward his target with the roaring whoosh. He watched as the cherubim detonated with a spray of blood and oil across the Camite worthies on the dias. He could see shining metal and sparking machinery embedded within muscle and bone.
The marksman went rigid as he inhaled sharply behind his faith mask. He was blind through his scope, as pandemonium erupted at the festival.
Spray of blood and oil. He was distantly aware of the sick, gnawing ache in his stomach as a hot rush of bile surged up his throat.
Sparking machinery embedded within muscle and bone. His entirety spiraled inwards around the horrible truth he had revealed.
The cherub was not a clockwork construct.
The cherub was not a clockwork construct.
The cherub was not a clockwork construct.
Mikal Gorecki could feel his threadbare sanity began to completely unravel at the monstrosity, and with a keening wail of despair through his clenched teeth, he channeled every ounce of his devout faith to hold off the mental oblivion he knew was coming for him. The last of his consciousness was confined to his scope as he found the little angel amongst the heathens. With one last gentle squeeze of the trigger, as if touched by the divine, he freed her innocent soul so it would ascend into the God-Emperor’s Light.
The marksman exhaled with a wracking shudder and wept down his faith mask as he exhaled, and allowed himself to be subsumed within the depthless well of the God-Emperor’s fury. He reflexively shrieked verses of vengeful scripture as he hammered on his rifle’s trigger, and fired bolt after bolt towards the mutant beast who had murdered those children – and its enabling, profane master.
+ + + + +
“
No…” Lina breathed in horror as she watched the first cherub detonate in a scatter of semi-biological matter across the dais. She stared at the bloody mess of what had been a toddler before she was murdered for the vanity of one supremely damaged woman, and numbly failed to rationalize the inhumanity of what she had seen.
Surely not even these barbarians would have…?
“Did…I? I didn’t…did anyone else see what I hope to frak I didn’t see?”
“No…God-Emperor, no-oh, frak, frak! FRAK!”
Lina cried out in dismay alongside her team leaders as the second cherub, which had soared into the air above the Camite worthies to escape the frantic scrum of startled prelates and activated bodyguards, violently came apart. She immediately considered that Mikal’s single most difficult, finest shot. She had no doubt it was a neigh-on Emperor given miracle in order to save those poor little girl’s caged souls.
“They were kids… The bloody servos were kids!”
“You bastards!”
She had no doubt the heinous discovery had broken her lifelong companion’s tenuous grasp on sanity, as she heard Mikal’s rifle thunder in as close to a rapid-fire cadence as it mechanically could. Lina swore she saw a bolt ricochet from the bellowing Cardinal’s force field, and nearly decapitate an ornately armored female crusader as she shoved her way towards the witch. The dead warrior’s body tumbled, and bowled the distraught woman over into the blasted, bloody remnants of the girls she murdered.
"Permission to kill them all, ma’am?”
“Negative.” Lina answered more reflexively than by conscious choice. Throne knew she agreed with the sentiment - but they were soldiers and they had a plan. Until circumstances rendered it unviable, they would execute it. “We stick to our script. Ludmilla, you are cleared to rain fire on the blasphemers.”
“With pleasure, ma’am – okay, boys and girls, let’s clear out the cheap seats!”
Lina scrawled her gaze away from the pandamoneum on dais, where it seemed as many of the bodyguards and their wards were being killed and maimed by shield deflections as direct hits, over towards the viewing stands. She could see that many of the Imperial Guard had already begun to clear out, either by barging their way down through the panicked civilians and reeling faith militia, or leaping over the sides and off the back of the risers. Their efforts only accelerated at the telltale thump-whine of mortars, and as incendiary shells smacked into the upper decks and began to steadily walk downwards.
“Grigor. You’re in motion.” Lina stated as she watched blooms the pyrotechnic blooms shed flailing, flaming petals. She objectively knew it was horrific, to watch what should have been her comrades in arms miserably dying – however, she knew it was not nearly as horrific as what was about to come. The nearly inhuman screaming of so many mortally terrified humans was only going to get worse shortly.
“Copy, Paulina.”
“The Emperor and Baraspine love you all for your sacrifice.” Lina responded. She wordlessly offered a prayer of commendation to their souls as she touched the Aquila points. “Petyr, have that krak ready –”
Lina’s words were cut off as an impossibly,
unnaturally loud shriek of what could only be described as maternal anguish pierced the air and drowned out all the other noises of human suffering. The cry modulated into a snarl of depthless wrath, and Lina winced and recoiled from the window as Alda twilight became Marioch noon. She coughed and rasped as the air became that of Horus’ own furnace. She saw a spiraling, Aquila headed beam of white-hot flame roar out and directly impact the tower.
The flame coursed through the broken open clockface where Mikal’s hide had been, and burst through every remaining window and writhingly coil around the tower even as its basalt façade began to melt like tallow. Lina could feel blood pouring from her nose as it felt like the whole bloody hive was shaking beneath her boots, as the tower began to rattle apart underneath the vicious psychic assault – until the witchfire suddenly vanished. She inhaled deeply, choked, and raised her faith mask to spit out a mouthful of blood as she could heard the screams of the damned below. She could hear gunfire, too.
Lina saw black, billowing smoke rise from the worthies’ dais, after Petyr’s missile strike. She could not tell whether Odervank and his pet psyker were dead – but she doubted it, and that was hardly their objective. They had only needed the witch’s concentration throw off, once she had committed, and it seemed as if Petyr had done so. Lina guiltily forced herself to take in the sight of the clocktower – blackened, bowed and twisted. It seemed almost as if it had been a clay model, grasped and torqued unto ruin while still wet, and fired in the kiln regardless. She knew there was nothing left of her ward.
The Emperor and Baraspine love you as much as I do, Mikal Gorecki.
Lina could spare no more time as she saw the flashes of headlights, as a shoal of motorcycles and civilian vehicles began to roar towards their position. She gritted her teeth as she noticed several of them had already come within weapons range, undoubtedly those on perimeter security on this side of the faire, while most of the resistance was stunned by their proximity to the psychic pyrotechnics. The nearest two raked their stubbers and infantry weapons over Ludmilla’s own trucks and the mortar crews - and they in turn, were scythed into by the resistance fireteams thus far concealed in the campus grounds.
Lina wordlessly pocketed her field glasses and took up her carbine. There was nothing else to say, and only one thing left to do until Grigor’s blockbuster grand finale was triggered.
Kill them all.
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