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Elin gave us Hana. She wouldn't have been my choice. She hadn't been close to any of us, and she hadn't fought the Eldar before, not even a few minor skirmishes like Verity.

She wasn't untested. As a novice, deployed to the Ork containment line, she had helped repel an assault. And her Superior said that on day 198, she did as well as any in the Fear. But she was new. And young. I asked Father Phaedo for guidance and he laughed aloud when I told him that.

"Yes," he said. "Not like you, oh wise old woman of twenty-two years. You are two whole years older!"

"Almost twenty-three," I said. "Two and a half."

I knew that I sounded like a little child, that I sounded ridiculous, but it was true to me. Years mean more when you expect so few. The Eldar war shaped all of us who lived through it. Even Verity and Tara. Even the ones just months older than Hana had walked through the asteroid stations with their bolters ready for the slightest flicker, trying not to make a sound. Seeing the abandoned tools of xenos atrocity, fearing their sadistic traps. Sensing the malice they had left behind.

Hana was our Sister. We loved her for that, even if we weren't friends yet. She was good, she had our doctrine, and we could fight together. She would do well; she would cover her sector and move with the unit and keep her head when things went mad. Elin's choice was sound, giving us someone that no other squad yet depended on. My misgiving was greed, maybe, or vainglory. I asked the priest to pray for me to not be foolish. He solemnly placed his hand on my shoulder and prayed,

"Mighty Emperor, wise amongst all that are wise, grant that your Daughter not be foolish."

We trained hard for three days, spending all our time together. Elin gave us special dispensation from every task between None and Vespers to train together. When we did a linear stack, Hana would be position four, rear security, like Gwen. We didn't have time to become friends, exactly, though the closeness had almost the shape of love. We were too busy trying to become one body, one instrument of violence in four persons, a seamless killing whole.

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Grendel sent us our vox controller first. Throne Agent Wessex was to ask and answer questions and become integrated with our unit. He spent much of his time with Surs, asking about our procedures and habits. He listened in on our fireteam vox as we trained.

From Wessex, we learned the beginning of Grendel's plan, and the unknowing role we had already played.

An investigative team had reached the Manakal building two hours after our mayday. Their careful measurements and scanner-lore had told them the same thing I had sensed at once. Eldar—working with the insurrectionist sect, or exploiting it, or perhaps the reverse.

Inquisitor Grendel was notified at once.

"And then," Wessex explained, "all the world's administrators devoted a day to the ritual of finger-pointing and asset-clutching, common as it is to all Inquisitorial actions. Belike it is a necessary function, permitting us to practice patience, mercy, and occasional exemplary execution, for the good of all our souls."

But hunting Eldar was a task for administrators, for all that they are given to cowardice and clutching after power. Who else would sift through mountains of records and reports, count every missing child and mutilated corpse, reckon all the distances and dates? Who else would apply the esoterica of statistics and cogitation, so that evil itself might map its own undoing?

I could laugh with Wessex at their leaders. But I felt a sudden rush of love for the gray-faced, gray-souled men and women whose cowardly and clutching work might put an Eldar under the sights of my gun.

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Castor, the sniper, had been a Guardsman. He was forty years old, wiry, with the kind of relaxed stillness that looks like violent speed waiting for release. He would double as the fallback-point medic. We all had first-aid training and our personal aid kits, but there are degrees to all things.

The first thing he said to us was,

"I hope you cloistered girls don't mind an old man cutting your clothes off, poking, prodding, and defibrillating you."

I held the straightest face I could. "No," I said. "The Emperor has His role for us all, even decrepit old men."

That was Castor. He had been associated with the Inquisitor for four years. Not a close companion, but an asset in his employ. He had fought the Eldar, both in the 736 campaign and before, in his life as a Guardsman under a different star.

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Mak'ti, the tech-adept, wasn't from Gaervalt either. She barely talked. Her specialty was electromantic warfare—keeping our vox connected, and degrading the enemy's. She would also be our servo-drone operator. She had been with Grendel longer, and had worked closely with Castor for all four of his years.

Mak'ti had what Castor called "toys"—several forms of small automata. The servo-skull that would accompany us was among them. But also one like a four-legged crab the size of a dog that she could wear like a backpack, to which she could mount low-recoil weapons; and a thing like a miniaturized tank that was a self-propelled, auto-loading light mortar; and a case full of fist-sized non-combat drones carefully wrapped in individual purity seals: mindless scout units and vox relays.

I didn't have much faith in the two large ones. Many tools that would be amazing to have are too big or too heavy to take with you where you need them. I reserved judgment until we had a chance to drill together, but within a few hours, I was convinced. The crab and the tank would stay behind. They took up cabin space that could be filled with shoulder-fired rockets, antipersonnel mines, tanks of medical air, and a chest-compression machine.

She didn't argue. She just wrapped them in cloth painted with Binaric and High-Gothic prayers and stowed them reverently away.

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Adem was a Navy armsman, or he had been before Grendel. He and I had served on the same ship during the Eldar war, the Fist of Tabbat. We hadn't met, but there had been twelve thousand of them and forty of us. He was thirty-one years old, heavily built, with a big square head still shaved armsman-fashion, though he had belonged to Grendel for a year now. His weapon was a light lascarbine with an underslung launcher. His role would be close security for Mak'ti and Castor, plus a small measure of indirect fire support for us.

He and I had an instant bond. The same ship, the same battles, the same worst hours. It carried over to Tara and Verity, and even Hana by association.

He said he wanted to stay on Gaervalt and take a wife, if Grendel would grant him a permanent post. Castor told us, "Don't ask to be released from your vows just yet, Sisters. I happen to know someone has him wrapped around her finger already." It made Adem blush to the top of his shaved head.

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That was the team. Seven, split into assault and support elements. Plus a servo-skull, the vox controller—sometimes Wessex, sometimes Grendel himself—and the vehicle crews of ground and air transports. Two seats would stay reserved for Grendel and a possible assistant, though he did not intend to fight with us.

I enlisted Castor's help in setting up a training schedule. We spent four days integrating the unit. Grendel was seldom seen. He was advancing his plan to locate the Eldar, about which we were soon to learn. We were involved in a small way.