Chapter Text
“Let me emphasize that this is the ship’s best astropath you are talking about. I need more than ‘pretty sure’ before I’m willing to sacrifice such a valuable asset.”
Acheran let a slither of the metahuman sternness slip through his usually quite personable demeanor, enough to send shivers down the officer’s spine.
The officer swallowed, but he stood his ground, stammering, “Lord Tigurius has sanctioned this mission, my lord.”
The Astartes made a disgruntled noise but did not press. Instead, he spoke into his vox, “have Lieutenant Titus and his command squad report to the bridge."
Astia disconnected from the astropathic throne. The mechanism sighed softly and let out a small gust of steam. A scream sounded in a nearby chamber, drowning out the binharic prayer that was just starting for her throne. Astia’s action paused only momentarily, but she quietly got up and walked towards the door.
“Master Astia.” A voice whispered softly, about a meter in front of Astia. It was Xio, a mechanical priestess tasked with assisting Astia.
“If I am not mistaken, this is 1 hour 20 minutes earlier than the scheduled ending of my shift. Is something wrong?”
“You are requested,” said Xio, “please follow.”
That was especially uninformative even for a tech priestess. Astia did not ask more questions. She began to walk in the direction of Xio’s soft but persistent machine hum.
Astia followed Xio out of the Astropathic Cathedral. They walked quietly, without conversation. Astia had worked with Xio for two standard years now and they had a smooth working relationship. However, neither was the talkative kind.
Xio beeped once when they reached their destination and Astia stopped.
“Astia of the Astropathic Choir, reporting to the bridge,” Xio announced.
Titus looked down at the astropath.
Like all of their kind, this one was blind. A thin strip of fabric covered her eyes. It was blue with golden trims—Ultramarine colours. They marked this unit as a valued asset of the chapter.
Because she was blind, she did not tilt her head upward at him like most mortals would. Long, platinum-coloured hair draped down in front of her slim shoulders.
“I am Lieutenant Titus of the 2nd Company,” said Titus, “together with members of my command squad, Sergeant Gadriel and Brother Chairon. You are to accompany us in our next mission.”
“Understood, my lords.” Astia bowed. She did not ask for more information, waiting for him to explain at his preferred pace. Titus remembered that most of her file was classified. She had probably undertaken multiple missions of similar nature. This one, however, was likely going to be her last.
“You are to perform two kinds of tasks. The first is psychic shielding. A psychic amplifier will be provided to you. The second is to locate target artifacts for destruction. There are 9 in total. My squad will guard you during this process and provide the necessary intervention if needed.”
He paused. By necessary intervention, he of course meant granting her the Emperor’s mercy should the artifact corrupt her soul. Given that there were 9 of them in total, the probability of this happening sooner or latter was calculated to be absolute. If she could survive at least 5 of them, they would have time to locate the rest the old-fashioned way, and the mission would count as successful.
Regardless of whether his mission succeeded, however, she would have a brutal and painful death.
“Understood,” the astropath replied calmly.
Many souls in the Imperium were conscripted to serve a role that came with the expectation of death. Astartes was one such role. Yet many of them lived centuries-long lives, and most died quickly and heroically. Astropaths, however, always died in pain and darkness.
It took Gadriel turning his head to look at Titus for him to realize that his mind had wandered too far and the silence was becoming awkward. He gathered his thoughts.
“What preparations do you need?” He asked.
All psykers were different, powerful ones especially so. They related to the world differently and so required different preparations to use their powers.
Astia extended one hand outward, palm up. “In order to shield you effectively, my lords, it would greatly help me if I can archive your soul print. I only need to briefly touch the skin of those who will spend significant time within a kilometer of radius of me.”
Titus nodded. He was fully armoured save the helmet, so he knelt down, gently held her hand and placed it on his cheek.
Astia was startled by the sudden sensation and her fingers curled slightly, sliding down his stubble, making a soft scratching sound. Her hand was cold—the Astropathic Cathedral was always cold, a side effect of psychic energy. Her palm was incredibly soft however. Titus could not remember the last time he touched something this soft.
He could get a better look at her face now. She was thin and pale, common features among mortal psykers. She was not, however, as malnourished as many of ones he had seen. It might be the result of her elevated status and the associated rations. More likely, it was the result of her being especially psychically stable and capable of keeping food down when they traveled through the warp.
“…Archive completed. Thank you, lord Titus.”
Her voice snapped Titus back and he realized he had been staring for too long. He let go of her hand and got up, hoping the others would interpret this episode as him not knowing how long it took for a psyker to mark his soul rather than what in fact happened.
Gadriel and Chairon did the same, kneeling down to have her touch their faces. With some embarrassment, Titus learned how brief the touch truly needed to be. Without the initial startle, Astia quickly withdrew her hand when she finished her archive. It only took a second each time, rather than the 5 seconds Titus had held on to her hand.
“We depart within the hour,” said Titus. “I will have the rest of them report to the landing pad 5 minutes early so you can mark them too.”
“As you command,” Astia bowed again.
As the Astartes finished their final preparations, Astia waited at the landing site. She had nothing to prepare. Everything was provided for her. It was not a sign of status. Quite the contrary. Nothing would be done to accommodate her preferences, but she was not important enough to be allowed that kind of freedom.
Titus had pulled her out of the Cathedral earlier than he needed to and Astia had a guess as to why. This mission was almost certainly going to kill her, and he wanted to leave her some time to say goodbye. Astia had not interacted with this Lieutenant Titus before, though she knew of him somewhat through some of the astropathic messages she had been asked to send. Brief though their interaction was, she had come to understand him as a kind soul. A soul worthy to die alongside.
She appreciated the gesture, but he evidently did not know many astropaths. Every second of their lives was spent with the expectation that it would be their last. She had said all the goodbyes she needed to say a long time ago. Besides, even if she did have people she wanted to see, all of them were occupied by their own duties now.
Astia leaned back against the wall. They were still in the warp, but her headache was subsiding.
“Thank you for taking care of me these past two years, Xio.” Astia said. Xio was the only one who was there for her to say goodbye to.
“May the Omnissiah bless your mission,” said Xio. It was not clear to Astia how much human emotion Xio was capable of experiencing, but she elected to take this as a fond farewell.
After Astia marked the other Astartes on mission, she climbed into her casket.
The casket was made for the purpose of protecting a psyker on the field and making it easier for Astartes to transport. Her body was firmly held in place and cushioned against impacts. Her brain was plugged into a device that filtered out various signals so she wouldn’t get motion sick from all the rolling around she might be subjected to. This was not for the purpose of ensuring her comfort, of course, but to protect her concentration. Still, she was grateful.
Once she was fully settled, it was as if she was suspended in a life pod. She did not even feel the drop landing.
As soon as she felt the tingle of the warp fade away, Astia activated her powers.
Gadriel was in charge of the casket. He dragged it along with a chain, holding a chainsword in the other hand.
Three squads of Ultramarines dropped down to the surface in three pods. They were immediately attacked by cultists. The fight was brief and bloody.
“Establish base at location alpha,” commanded Titus. “Squad Secundus, establish a parameter around location alpha. Squad Tertius, scout the landscape and identify strategic watch points.”
“Understood,” replied both sergeants.
Warp energy covered the surface of this accursed planet. It was so thick that Titus could almost taste it on his tongue, even through his helmet. The air was faintly purple. The dust was like black smoke.
That was when Titus noticed a small circle of psychic barrier enclosing himself and all the other Astartes. Some distance away he saw a cultist blasting a beam of warp energy at a battle brother. It was not going to hit anyway but the barrier stopped it nonetheless. He realized this was Astia.
Although he had asked for psychic protection from her, this was not what he had in mind. His battle brothers were perfectly capable of handling this much warp. Perhaps he should have been clearer in his instructions, but he did not expect this kind of protection to be possible. Moreover, he had thought that she asked to archive everyone who would be within 1km radius because that was her protection range—it was already much wider than he had hoped—but he was quite certain that the battle brother he just saw was more than 2km away.
He supposed Captain Acheran did say that this was the most capable astropath of his company.
It took 6 hours for them to move to the identified base location, clear the cultists, and set up camp. Chairon turned on the portable void dome for air filtration and some added security.
Gadriel lifted the casket and placed it vertically on the ground. He keyed in a code. The box made a number of small mechanical noises as cables disconnected themselves from the astropath. Then, the casket opened.
Astia stood inside. Her hood had fallen off onto her back, revealing a face that Titus had the urge to describe as beautiful, though he rarely noticed that sort of thing in mortals. Instead of the blue fabric, her eyes were covered by a strip of mechanical device. It was a psychic amplifier, designed to help battle psykers focus.
Her pale lips were the only sign of her discomfort. Otherwise, her expression was perfectly serene.
“Shall I begin by locating the first artifact?” She asked.
“Before that, let me clarify that we do not need psychic protection until we are near the artifacts,” said Titus. “Do not waste your energy.”
Astia pressed her lips together, as if not knowing how to respond.
There was something in her expression that made Titus’s hearts ache slightly and he suddenly realized how stern he had sounded. It was not his intention to reprimand her actions, but that was clearly how she was interpreting it. Titus tried to think of something to say. To offer an explanation, perhaps. Eventually, all he managed was “I need you to survive through the core mission.”
That…did not come out right either. Titus stiffened. He was almost dreading her reaction.
Astia looked hesitant for a moment. Then she bowed her head and said, “protecting you on the field does not constitute a significant drain on my energy, but I will stop if it is your desire.”
Titus paid close attention to her every word and could not detect any sign of fear or anger. He sighed internally in relief. Then he realized Gadriel and Chairon had been surreptitiously observing the exchange and he felt a strange sense of embarrassment. Now he wanted nothing more than to get out of this situation as quickly as he could.
“In that case, I leave it to your judgment. I will only register my preference that you ration your energy for the core mission.” He said.
“Understood,” Astia gave another bow. “Shall I start the search?”
“Yes.”
Titus, Gadriel, and Chairon stood around the psyker, bolters at the ready. The second she showed any sign of corruption, they would end her. Titus was half glad that she was blind, so she couldn’t see herself being held at gunpoint by the same soldiers she protected.
Astia extended her arms on each side of her body and took a deep breath. Temperature dropped slightly around her. She slowly rotated her body clockwise and stopped when she was facing the gap between Titus and Chairon. Then, she held out her hands in front of her body and made a motion as if she was pulling on a rope.
A thread materialized in her previously empty hands. It looked as if hologramed, extending further through the walls of their temporary base. She wrapped the thread around her palm twice, securing it in her hand.
“It is about 25 kilometers in this direction,” said Astia. “I cannot make a more precise distance estimation, but I will be able to keep the thread active.”
“That is good enough,” said Titus. “Are you ready to depart?”
“Yes, my lord.”
She climbed back into her box.
Titus had never worked with mortal psykers before, so he really wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be this easy.
He soon learned what the soul mark was about. Once they moved closer to the artifacts, minor daemons began to manifest around them. As soon as they came within 1km radius of Astia’s casket, however, their movements would slow down, like they were trying to move under water. The Astartes’ movements were unimpeded, presumably because she could recognize and exempt their souls from her psychic aura.
25 hours after planet fall, night came. By then, they had already delt with 4 of the 9 artifacts.
They made camp. Warp energy was always stronger at night, and it was deemed too risky to have mortal psykers active during that period. Besides, it was good practice to allow the psyker proper rest. Exhaustion was harmful to willpower.
Astia did not look especially exhausted, but she seemed glad with the opportunity to stretch her legs. Her casket was configured to take care of most of her physical needs such as nutrition. When opened up, it also served as a bed.
She had a servo skull with her for navigation. It did not speak, but made different kinds of mechanical noises that indicated the type of terrain around her. It was what she used before she became important enough to have Xio.
The Astartes all had other tasks to perform, so Astia wandered around by herself. Her servo skull would warn her if she stepped too close to the edge of the parameter.
She went outside the abandoned storage compartment in which the camp was set up, feeling the soft foreign wind on her face. Then she found a rock to sit down. She pulled something out of her pocket.
“What are you doing?” A voice boomed above her and something metallic hit her hands. The items she was holding dropped on the ground.
A looming presence engulfed her. Although she could not see his face, she could sense his threatening stature. The hum of his armour surrounded her. She could almost feel the cold metal that was inches away from her head. Her fingers burned with pain.
She opened her mouth to speak but no sound came out. She was frozen in place with primal fear.
Then he looked down at the ground and realized what those objects actually were: a small piece of paper folded into the shape of a boat, a candle that had broken into four pieces, and a match that was the source of his initial alarm.
Titus stepped back a little, trying to soften his presence.
“What were you doing?” He asked again in a much gentler tone.
“I was…lighting a soul ferry,” replied Astia, her voice still slightly shaking. “It is a ritual we perform to mark death. One of my Choir colleagues died this morning. It is only paper, my lord,” she added hastily. “No psychic power involved. I would have done it before the mission but I couldn’t do it while we were still in the warp.”
“I see,” said Titus. A surge of guilt rose inside him. He tried to soften his voice even more. “I can’t have you light a match here. The enemy has an exceptional ability to detect light.”
“I understand,” Astia bowed submissively, “and I apologize.”
Titus pressed his lips together. He wanted to say perhaps you can do it after we’re done. Then he remembered that she was not expected to survive this mission.
To make matters worse, he noticed that her fingers had begun to swell. Although he only used one finger to swipe down, it was an Astartes’ gauntleted finger.
“Are any of your bones broken?” He asked sternly, trying to hide the fact that he was dreading her answer.
“No, my lord.” Much to his relief, her voice was no longer shaking.
She waited patiently, head tilted downward as a sign of submission. Titus knew it was time for him to dismiss her, but for some reason he could not bring himself to say those words.
Instead, he heard himself asking, “were you close?”
“Sorry?”
“The astropath who died this morning, were they a close friend of yours?”
“No, we barely knew each other,” Astia shook her head gently. “Astropaths do not befriend each other. I am burning him a soul ferry because we came from the same black ship.”
“Why do you not befriend each other?” Titus asked in surprise. He would’ve thought that serving together and dying together would have them develop a kind of camaraderie like the Astartes battle brotherhood.
Astia bit her lips and turned her head slightly away, as if searching for the right words.
“We are mere mortals, my lord. We do not wish to bear more than one set of nightmares.” She said.
That, he thought, was his cue to finally leave her alone.
According to the tech priests’ calculations, Astia was not supposed to survive past the 5th artifact, so Titus watched her 6th divination closely.
As before, she extended her arms and rotated her body, stopping at a particular direction and pulled in midair.
Before the thread materialized, however, she paused, tilting her head as if listening to something.
Titus tensed. He shot a quick look at Chairon, who was also observing the astropath closely but shook his head when noticing Titus’s questioning gaze.
Then, Astia suddenly turned towards Titus, holding her hand out, fingers spreading. At the same time, Titus sensed a dreadful presence behind him. He turned around suddenly, just in time to see a giant daemonic being rushing towards them, hitting an invisible barrier, sending shockwaves through the air.
“Squad Secundus, status report!” Titus shouted into his vox as he opened fire on the monster.
The monster roared and the ground shook. The ceiling above them crumbled. A huge chunk of concrete fell from above Astia. Chairon wrapped an arm around her waist, carrying her out of the way. Astia coughed violently at the dust before she managed to pull up her rebreather.
Titus was already engaging the daemon in close combat. Chairon tried to cover for him with the bolter which he held in one hand, while Gadriel engaged the cultists that poured in through the broken wall.
Astia struggled to find a way of holding onto Chairon’s pauldron, but she did not lose her focus. The psychic bubbles surrounding each of the three Astartes was almost like solid glass.
The daemon was much larger than Titus and almost as agile. Well, it started out almost as agile. As time went on, its movement slowed further and further. The daemon growled in frustration.
Titus stole a look backward. Chairon was still carrying Astia in his arm. A layer of ice crystals had formed on the surface of his armour.
Titus dodged yet another attack by the daemon. Then he jumped onto its back, plunging his sword into the daemon’s neck. With a loud thud, the monster’s giant head fell onto the ground.
They still had no word from Squad Secundus by the time they repelled the daemon and the cultists, but Squad Tertius, who was deployed in a different direction, seemed to be unaffected.
“Are you harmed?” Titus asked Astia as soon as Chairon put her down.
She shook her head, struggling to speak. Her teeth clenched tightly together. Initially Titus thought it was the effect of the warp, but then he took another look and realized she was cold.
There were ice crystals on her robe and she folded her arms as tightly as she could. She was shivering.
Titus looked around but couldn’t find anything capable of providing warmth. Finally, he walked towards her casket, lifted the giant piece of concrete on top of it, and fetched the blanket inside. He shook the dust off of the blanket and offered it to Astia.
Then, he realized two things. One was that Gadriel and Chairon were exchanging a glance through their helmets. Two was that Astia could not see the blanket dangling in front of her.
Titus tried to shoot his squad members a stern look, which probably didn’t work through his own helmet. Then, he wrapped the blanket around the shivering astropath.
Astia instantly bundled herself up with the blanket. Her fingers touched his gauntlet in the process. He could not actually feel it of course, but it was almost like he did. He withdrew his hands instantly.
It took Astia a minute to warm up, then she said, “I know where Squad Secundus is.”
Because Astia’s casket was smashed, they had to device a new strategy of transporting her. And because Chairon’s armour was still covered in ice, it was Gadriel who now held her. He folded his elbow so she could sit on his forearm and lean against his chest plate.
She pointed them to a pile of rubble some 20km away. It looked like a building had collapsed in on itself, all the way through the basements.
“I can tell they are still alive,” she said. “I don’t know why they are not responsive on vox.”
“Any other threats you can sense?” Titus asked as he carefully observed the structural integrity of the rubble.
Astia tilted her head slightly, as if listening to some distant noise. After a moment, she said, “there is some remnant of warp energy but it is no longer active. I sense no soul aside from the squad members’.”
Titus and Chairon dug through the rubble while Gadriel guarded Astia. He had put her down some distance away. She was still wrapped in her blanket and looked very out of place on this battlefield.
“Have you done this sort of mission before?” Gadriel asked casually as he scanned the landscape for movement.
“A few times,” replied Astia. “Never with more than one squad, though. I did not expect the cultists to be able to actually summon a daemon. Their sacrifice was not supposed to be enough.”
Gadriel raised his eyebrows and gave her a quick glance, “you are not taking this as your responsibility, are you?”
It was difficult to see her expression through the hood and the rebreather, but her voice was light. “No, my lord, for that would be presumptuous of me,” she said. “But if I was more careful, I might have been able to prevent it.”
So the answer is yes, you are in fact taking it as your responsibility, thought Gadriel.
She was right in calling this presumptuous, especially since the Lieutenant had already declared that they could handle some warp without the battlefield protection. Still, there was something in her answer that made Gadriel smile under his helmet.
It took a surprisingly long time for Titus and Chairon to dig Squad Secundus out. The main reason was that the squad members were also digging--in the wrong direction. Their auspex was broken by an earlier warp blast and it was difficult to know which way was up when one was buried underground.
Two of the three squad members had only minor injuries, but their sergeant had a literal hole in his chest. His squad mates explained that he was attempting to close the warp gate when the daemon appeared, piercing right through his chest plate, tearing his primary heart in half. He would’ve died from the secondary tear through the rest of his body except for the fact that Astia’s psychic shield had guarded all the organs that were not directly in the way of the daemon’s claw. Importantly, the shield kept his hibernator implant intact. The marine was currently in suspended animation, waiting for medicae intervention.
“We owe our lives to you, my lady.” One of the squad members said to Astia. He pounded his fist against his chest plate as a salutation.
“You honour me greatly, my lord,” Astia bowed. “I thank the Emperor that you are well.”
“What are your orders, Lieutenant?” The other squad member turned to Titus.
“Secure his body with a signal caster,” ordered Titus. “We will retrieve him after we are done.”
The nature of the artifacts was that, whenever one was destroyed, its power would be absorbed into the others. Consequently, the further along they went, the more dangerous it was.
Titus restructured the remaining 8 Astartes into two 4-men squads. Brother Signatus was to join Titus’ Squad Primus, whose mission was in the destruction of the remaining artifacts. The other four marines would form the new Squad Secundus, whose mission was in the decimation of cultists.
After the 7th artifact, they camped for their second night.
Titus had taken the supply bag from the astropath’s casket, but they really did not expect Astia to have survived this long. There was only one ration bar in the supply bag. The Astartes brought no rations for themselves either, as was customary. If the mission was short, they would be able to survive on energy stored in their bodies. If the mission was long, they would scavenge food on the battlefield, including from the flesh of their fallen enemies. This option was obviously closed to Astia.
Astia ate the ration bar without complaint, but Titus noticed that, unlike the previous night, she did not wander around to stretch her legs. Instead, she sat down against a wall, still wrapped in her blanket, presumably to conserve energy.
They all took sacrifices on battlefields. He did not know why this one bothered him so much.
Before he noticed what he was doing, he had already walked over to Astia and took a seat across from her.
“My lord?” She clearly heard the sound of power armour but could not tell who this was. She was still wearing her rebreather, since the void dome was also broken in the earlier fight. Her voice came out slightly muffled.
“Are you warm enough?” He asked.
He might be imagining it, but he thought she had smiled when she recognized his voice. This judgment was entirely based on the way her rebreather moved in response to the muscle movement on her cheeks, since her eyes were still entirely covered. He wasn’t sure. He probably imagined it.
“Yes, thank you for asking... and for the blanket.”
There was something welcoming in her voice that made him want to continue the conversation. Unfortunately, he was not very good at that sort of thing. After a moment of searching, all he managed to say was, “we have two more targets left.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
Either she was also not great at making conversations or she was not in fact interested in talking to him. For reasons that were completely obscure to him, Titus’ stomach sank when he considered the second option. He also remembered that his impression of baseline humans was that they tended to be great at making conversations, just not with Astartes.
He should probably just leave her alone, yet his body refused to move. It refused to get up and walk away. Was he tired? Titus blinked once to cycle his helmet display to give him performance metrics of his body. Everything was normal except for a slightly elevated level of adrenaline. This was a strange situation to trigger adrenaline. Maybe his body hadn’t properly adjusted to the ending of combat. Maybe this explained the weird sense of excitement he had been feeling since he sat down.
All of this reasoning took mere seconds of thinking. When he returned to the present, the silence remained.
Then he noticed something—Astia’s hands. Her fingers were no longer swelling, probably do to medical intervention administered by her casket. She had delicate fingers. They were thin, long, and pale. They looked fragile, just like everything else about her. They were fiddling a piece of paper. Unfolding and folding it along a crease. It was in the shape of a boat.
“Is that a soul ferry?” He asked.
“Hmm? ...ah, this.” She held out the paper boat for him to see, “yes. That is what we call it.”
“Can you tell me the story behind it?”
Astia tilted her head, as if curious why he would ask. But she did not inquire. She answered, “it is a tradition among some astropaths. We start our journeys being ferried away from our homes on black ships. Then we complete our service by sailing between the stars. Finally, we drown in the tides of the Aether. The legend is that some of us might be able to avoid sinking into the heart of the abyss if we could float long enough across the sea of souls. And the living can help the dead by burning a soul ferry made of paper. Supposedly, it brings a gust of fresh air into the Empyrean.”
Her voice was soft, as if telling a bedtime story. There was no obvious sadness in her tone, and that somehow made it worse.
“You said last evening that you were not close with this astropath. Do you do this for every fallen?”
“No. The custom is to only do this for fellow travellers, and that is typically interpreted as having started on the same black ship.” She said. Then she made a quiet noise that sounded almost like a hollowed laughter. “Many astropaths die each day. We cannot afford the time if every living was to honour every dead.”
Another period of silence. More deafening than the last.
Then she whispered in a volume that would’ve been inaudible to any mortal, “I am the last of the black ship that carried me. No one is left to ferry my soul.”
“I will burn you a soul ferry,” he said. The words burst out of him as if having a volition of their own.
Astia turned her head—not exactly towards him, but in a way that clearly expressed her surprise. She seemed speechless for some time, long enough for Titus to worry that he had overstepped.
Just as he was getting ready to apologize, she held out her hand, offering the soul ferry she had been toying with.
“It would be my greatest honour, my lord.”
The air in the temple was so thick with warp magic it was almost like a liquid. Even with Astia’s protection, it was difficult to maintain baseline agility. Their bolter guns felt three times as heavy as they did before, and the chainswords sometimes jammed.
Astia curled into a ball as tightly as she could, holding the navigational thread in her hand. Hunger made coldness even more difficult to endure.
It would be quite ironic if the astropath did not die from psychic corruption but from the lack of rations, thought Titus. There was nothing any of them could do, of course, except to march on.
One more to go.
The signal interference was so great that they couldn’t even contact Squad Secundus, who were about 100 kilometers away. Their task was to clear out the cultist camps and prepare for extraction. None of that mattered, of course, if they could not succeed here.
Titus focused himself, bolter pistol in one hand and chainsword in the other.
With one swift motion, he turned and slashed into a pink horror, slicing it in half. Then he opened fire. A string of bolts flew behind Gadriel, shattering the head of an approaching Tzaangor.
Astia quivered from the noise. She pressed her head into Gadriel’s chest plate, trying to focus on the humming of the power armour.
Something screamed above them and the air shook in response. Then the entire world shook.
“Screamers!” shouted Chairon as he unloaded his bolter above him. The screaming got louder, drowning out even the bolter sounds. Blue lights blinked through air. It was a bit difficult to tell, but Chairon had a bad feeling that none of the bolts really connected.
Then, Astia also screamed. A swirl of energy burst outward from her body like a hurricane. Strangely enough, none of the Astartes felt anything. The same could not be said for the pink horrors or the Tzaangors. They howled and turned to run, only to have their bones tore to shreds by the pure psychic energy. The screamers screamed some more. Then they fell from the sky like dead pigeons. Some of them burned up in the air. Others made it to the ground and was cut open by chainswords.
The whole process took five minutes. A normal human would have been driven mad by the scream alone. As it was, even the Astartes felt an after-ring in their ears.
After the last screamer dropped dead, Astia coughed violently. Gadriel had to put her down on the ground.
She immediately fell on all fours, clenching the front of her robe tightly. She made several attempts at throwing up, but neither food nor blood came out. Then, with a cracking noise, the psychic amplifier she had been wearing across her eyes shattered. She took it off and tossed it aside.
Her eyes were grey. They were surprisingly clear, if unfocused.
It took her another ten minutes to calm down. Then she sat up on her knees.
Amazingly, she was still holding onto the thread. It glowed a faint green colour.
“I am alright,” she said, her voice crackling.
Titus nodded. “Continue,” he ordered.
They continued, deeper into the shrine. More beastmen appeared, which were easy to handle with bolters and chainswords. There were a few pink horrors, but no screamer. Perhaps this was the result of Squad Secundus dealing with the cultists outside.
At the center of the shrine was a huge statue of the lord of change. Astia’s thread tracing directly into its heart.
Chairon pulled out a grenade launcher and opened fire.
Then, an insurmountable sense of dread engulfed them all.
The moment might have lasted forever, or it might have just been a split second. When the Astartes regained their senses, nothing seemed to have changed, except that Astia had left Gadriel’s arm and was now standing on her own, in the center of the 4-men squad.
Gadriel had a sense that something terrible had just happened. Something really, really bad. But he couldn’t tell what it was, and there was no sign of anything really happening.
A huge explosion. It was the grenade that Chairon launched from earlier...strange, why did he say ‘earlier’? He had launched it half a second ago, did he not?
A long screech echoed in the chamber. The sound of giant wings flapping. The statue had come to life and was flying away. It pulled on the thread that still wrapped around Astia’s palm and she flew forward in the air.
Titus was the first to react. He leaped forward and held onto Astia by the waist. She yelped as the weight of his body pulled in the opposite direction as the thread. Her bones made a cracking sound and her arm dislocated from her shoulder. Titus immediately began to spring forward to ease the tension.
“Cut the thread!” He shouted.
Astia opened her hand and let the thread escape her palm, leaving two bloody cuts.
The statue opened a hole in the ceiling of the shrine and flew into the twilight sky.
Titus put Astia down on the floor. She was as pale as a corpse. Her arm draped next to her body like a lump of meat. She shivered from the pain.
Someone needed to reattach her arm, but he didn’t trust the agility of an Astartes’ gauntleted hands.
Then he heard the sound of a bolter pistol reloading. He turned around and saw Signatus, pointing his gun at Astia.
“Weapon down!” He ordered, “what do you think you are doing?”
Signatus lowered his gun a little but not entirely, so Titus shifted his body to stand between Astia and the gun.
“It’s her isn’t it?” Signatus’s voice was slightly shaking, “she is corrupted. She let it get away.”
“I ordered her to let go,” Titus said sternly. “And put your weapon away. This is an order.”
Signatus finally complied. “But Lieutenant, think about it. She wasn’t supposed to survive this long to begin with, and now she has faced a dozen screamers and pink horrors and emerged unscathed. It doesn’t make any sense! The only explanation is that she is an agent of the dark gods and this is all an elaborate trap!”
“Watch yourself!” Titus’s voice boomed in the broken shrine. Anger emanated from his body like burning heat.
“That sounds like pure speculation, brother Signatus,” Gadriel chimed in. “Astia is a strong psyker, evidently stronger than the tech priests had anticipated in their original calculations. It won’t be the first time the tech priests made a misjudgment. Besides, if she really means us ill, waiting until now to thwart the mission seems unnecessarily complicated.”
“Then how do you explain her suddenly teleporting away from your arms onto the ground?” Demanded Signatus.
That...was a fair question to ask. Gadriel could not in fact explain it. He looked at Astia. Chairon also looked at Astia. Signatus was right about one thing—this was not a question they could ignore.
“Can you tell us what happened back there?” Titus asked gently.
“I’m not entirely sure,” her voice was barely louder than a whisper. “Everything seemed to have stopped. I called out but none of you answered. So I climbed down to investigate. Then...”
Her voice trailed off. Being blind made it difficult for her to learn to control her facial expressions, and it was obvious that she was searching for the right way to put it.
“Then, I was hit by some nightmares.” She said.
That was a lie.
Why would she lie? Titus tensed. He was certain that all of them could tell she was lying.
To his utter surprise, Signatus nodded and took a step backward, accepting the story.
All of them were wearing helmets, so Titus could not see their expressions, but he was quite certain that Gadriel and Chairon exchanged a look. He frowned.
“I...can still find that artifact,” after a moment of pause, Astia offered. “If you still trust me to,” she added quietly.
“Do it,” said Titus.
Titus held Astia in his arm. She shivered and breathed heavily. The sound of her giving directions was sometimes drowned out by the chattering of her teeth. He ran a thermo check on her. She was having a fever.
They moved as quickly as they could. Fortunately, the daemon statue did not fly far. Its body was wounded by the grenade. Its soul was likely wounded by Astia.
They threw every bolt rounds they had at the daemon. Signatus plunged into its heart to secure the destruction of the final artifact. By that time, Astia had stopped being responsive to external noise.
Her psychic protect did not fade until the Astartes securely returned to the ship.