[57] and [58]

[57]

Sister Verity Cade died on 290.738.M41 at approximately 10:20 Vogel local time. She was twenty-one years old. I loved her. She was my friend.

[58]

I laid Verity down gently. I put her legs and arms in a dignified posture. I took her ammunition and split it three ways. I kept apologizing to her, like I was taking something she still needed because I needed it more.

I don't know how many Eldar had been in this room when the darklight weapon detonated. There were no bodies or even parts. So I think only one, maybe two if they were close together.

The Eldar tried an assault about twenty seconds after we entered our bunker. They led with their plasma grenades. The explosions shook the faltering roof and made my head ache, but the grenades did nothing else to us. Searing flashes, roiling waves of energy—but we were in our shelter, crouching down to await the blasts. A second later we were back on the firing line. Tara was sitting against the rubble behind us with her gun pointed at the aperture we had crawled in from.

I don't know if we killed any when they came out to see the results. There was flickering motion and a shimmer in the air at the entrance to our rubble-filled, low-ceilinged room. Hana and I both fired a few shots, and the shimmer disappeared. I threw a grenade at them just as they threw one at us. They went off almost at the same time, another painful full-body thump that made my heart jolt and my head ache. The building shifted, cracked, groaned.

Hana had her gun back up, so I grabbed one of Verity's grenades and threw it into the breach. There was no answering grenade or incoming fire.

A few seconds later, the Fear began again, unendurable, soul-rending horror—but before it could seed its twisted certainties, before I could even draw breath, there was a flash of intense blue-white light.

It seemed to come from the whole sky. Every crack and puncture in the structure, everywhere with a view of the sky lit up like a meltabomb flash.

The Fear ended.

There was a huge, rending CRASH, and then a ripping sound that was more than just the building coming down, more than the wall crumbling and the rockcrete roof collapsing on top of us in a cloud of dust. It was like God Himself was tearing open the sky. Like a million thunderclaps set off in a line across the world. And then, visible even through the dust and rubble—FLASH-FLASH!

Two more explosions lit the world, their sound and pressure blending into each other. It crushed the breath from my lungs even through my power-armor, chased the dust away, shook the improvised bunker that was fast becoming our cairn. There was that huge, constant, ripping sound. It filled the world. Like flight after flight of jet-fighters ripping overhead, like weather, like cloud-lightning across the entire expanse of the world. It rolled and tore and snarled and boomed, on and on without end. Wind howled and roared.

❖ ❖ ❖

​

Excerpt from Navis Imperialis WS1-5: Gunnery (M38)

Section 7: Light Laser Battery​

Subsection 3: Space-to-Ground, Habitable Atmosphere​Targeting: Designate the center of the target area. For a standard template beam aperture, anticipate a terminal radius of 50-100m due to beam dispersion when fired from altitudes of 100-3000km.​​Safety: Confirm ship-risk authorization before proceeding with fire mission at altitudes less than 100km. Confirm fratricide-risk authorization before proceeding with fire mission with friendly targets less than 200m from point of aim.​​Firing: Energize one standard pulse. Observe effect on target. If targeting coordinates match effect zone, energize two standard pulses at a 0.5 second separation. This will appease the machine-spirits of your thermal rejector matrix and ensure optimal effect through atmospheric beam-dispersion.​​Effect: Anticipate low terminal effect: much of the beam's energy will be expended in transit through atmosphere.​

• Direct structural damage to hardened targets is unlikely.
• Damage to armored vehicles is unlikely.
• Direct energy damage to sheltered infantry is unlikely.
• Anticipate severe burns to unsheltered infantry, flash fires, blindness, and thermal shock within the target radius.
• Anticipate disruption of exposed electromotive, vox, and electronic warfare (EW) equipment.
• Anticipate significant concussive effect across 2-5 times the direct target radius. Weak or unstable structures may collapse.

❖ ❖ ❖

​

Our firing slit was gone, buried completely under rubble. The hole we had crawled into had widened, but it had gained a low rampart of debris. It faced west. The building's wall in that direction was destroyed—not vanished, but collapsed. Part of it was our little rampart. Late morning sunlight spilled down at an angle from behind us.

I couldn't see the sub-metro. The tall building blocked most of our view. Everything that had been green and growing was blackened and singed. Two Orks were writhing on the ground and pawing at their faces. They were almost unrecognizable as Orks, their bodies not green but black and yellow-red with horrible char.

Farther to the west, the city was burning. Not an inferno, but there were countless scattered fires, whipping and guttering in the wind. Every dense-grown patch of vegetation was ablaze.

There was a faintly glowing wisp in the air. Little arcs of potentia jolted like miniature lightning from structure to structure to the west.

I heard a continuous quiet buzz and crackle. It was just audible behind the ongoing ripple of thunder that now seemed to come from high, high above. I thought at first it was something related to the bombardment, or hearing damage despite my helmet's protection. I realized I was hearing my vox. Something related to the bombardment, yes—but something my vox's spirit could hear, and transmit to me.

I tried the squad-net. "Vox-check."

Hana, just a couple of meters away, answered on the vox. "Copy." I could hear the grim smile in her voice.

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"Copy," said Tara.

I tried switching to the command net and reaching Palatine Elin, but there was no response. Then, back on the squad net, I heard a man's voice, fuzzy, faint, but understandable:

"Marisa, Command. Status." It was Wessex.

"Three effectives. Can you relay fire mission?"

"Yes. Grendel? The team—"

"Dead. Relay repeat request. Good effect, repeat last fire."

"Copy. Stand by."

I turned back to Hana and Tara. "Cover!" I scrambled back into the little rat-hole in the rubble that was our only shelter.

Wessex voxed: "Fire inbound."

"Eyes down!" I forced myself not to look outside at the sky.

CRASH! CRASH-CRASH! Again, the enormous impact, the sound and pressure in buffeting waves from every direction, echoes thundering, wind howling, the sky itself crackling and tearing and thundering without end for minutes after the brief flash of the blasts.

I saw three Eldar pass our field of view, their stealth coverings failing—dashing towards shelter about thirty meters away. Hana, crouched at the other side of the hole, saw them too. We both fired. One of the xenos went down. I shot it again to make sure it stayed dead.

There was a flicker of darkness, a grinding sound. Spall and shrapnel impacted my back. I glanced back. There was a new hole in our makeshift bunker. Another darklight weapon, shooting at us through our cover, from an angle I couldn't see. It hadn't hit us—yet.

A few seconds later, another hole appeared, another spray of shrapnel. I tried to risk peeking out to find the shooter, but shard-fire filled the entrance, rattling off of my helmet and shoulder plates. I jerked back inside. If one found my neck I was dead.

"Wessex! Wessex, we need fire, danger-close. Can you get—"

Another flicker of darklight. I felt a violent impact slam me against the inside of the rubble shelter. Suddenly my armor was seizing and smoke filled the cramped space. A glance back showed me another hole in the rubble—and my backpack half reduced to slag.

It couldn't miss forever. Even if it ran out of ammunition, we couldn't have long before one of them got close with a plasma grenade.

Wessex voxed: "I have your vox position. Target off of yourself."

"Just shoot us! They're on us, they're on us!"

"Copy. Maximize cover." Somehow he made those words sound like a prayer.

A few seconds passed. Darklight. Hole. Shrapnel.

He voxed: "Expect fire. Stay in cover. Stay in cover. Do not leave cover."

I didn't hear the shots. They weren't noise anymore, they were just impacts, crushing, concussing, world-consuming. I couldn't tell which impacts were the shots and which were our cover collapsing in on us, burying us completely, flattening us under hundreds of kilograms of rockcrete and mangled steel. I couldn't tell how many shots there were, or when they ended.

The vox was a constant roar of static. I couldn't move my arms or body, but I could kick and squirm. We had air, I told myself. We had almost two hours of suit air and Wessex had our position. We wouldn't suffocate.

Still, it was not easy to be buried alive. I struggled. Something shifted and I could get an arm under me. I pushed, straining with my strength and what was left of my damaged armor's. Something else shifted.

"Marisa?" said Tara. "Hana?" Her voice was almost inaudible, muffled by debris, overwhelmed by world-filling thunder.

"I'm here," I said.

"Alive," said Hana. "I can see sunlight. Can I try to dig out? I—wait. I hear something."

I tensed. "Eldar?"

"I don't think so. No, listen."

A tearing sound, punctuated by thunder. It sounded like more of the aftereffects of the lasers. But it was close, much closer. And it wasn't quite thunder. Sharper, higher pitched crashes in short deliberate groups.

"I see them," said Hana. "The Guard. Guard aircraft. Thank God. Thank God. Thank God."

I closed my eyes. I let my head drop the few inches to the ground and let the rubble sift in on top of my helmet.

I listened to the sound of the Imperial Guard hammering the hidden base with bomb after bomb, the roar and crash and groan of dive-bombers hitting the target again and again. Nearer, a gunship's autocannons and heavy bolters opened up for a few seconds, and I heard the roar of its engines as it banked and flew away.

The vox came back after two minutes. I called for rescue, but Wessex made me stop.

"Already en route," he said. "How many injured?"

"Tara is bad. Multiple shard wounds. I couldn't get them all out."

"Others?"

"Hana and me. Probably something broken. Concussions. Bad."

"Any… anyone else?"

"No. No. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

He took several seconds to vox back. "Dead, or missing?"

"Dead."

Something shifted above me a few seconds later. I felt debris shift and move and lighten for half a minute. Another shift, and I could see light. Another, and I saw hands reaching down for me, pulling me free. It wasn't a Sister, it was a man, Guard infantry, medic tabs on his shoulder.

"Are you Tara?" he said.

"No."

There were five of them, all surrounding the rubble, picking up pieces of rubble and tossing them aside. The big pieces were already moved aside by heavy machinery. I wanted to help, but when I tried to stand, the world tilted sideways and I ended up lying on my back staring up at the still-flickering sky, with nausea making my stomach clench and my vision trying to double.

There were small fires everywhere. The wind had died down.

A flight of Arvus transports banked in for a landing to the west. I think they were our transports—the Order, still answering Grendel's last command in its most unlikely contingency. Out of sight, my Sisters would be moving in to mop up after the orbital strikes and air-delivered bombs.

There were thin white clouds in the clean blue sky. They were the strangest clouds I had ever seen, all arrayed in a circular swirl around the path the laser had made.

"Are you Tara?" he said again. He wasn't asking me.

"Yes," said Tara.

"Is that all of you?"

Hana was already out, but they hadn't gotten Verity. I said, "No—Verity, she's—"

The medic swore. "Warp! Warp! They said three!"

All five men turned back to the rubble, grabbing pieces and shifting them out of the way. "Verity! Can you hear me? Speak if you can hear!"

"No," I said. I felt a horrible pain in my throat and I couldn't say it, but I had to. "No, stop. I was wrong. She's dead."

"Oh—oh. Good. Warp. Warp. Sorry. I'm sorry. Come on, let's go. We'll get your friend soon."

They took us away.