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The Rose by Chris Cook, Part 7 @->--
Time passed, and we grew used to the necessities of our task.
After many such purity control inspections it was decided that it was
time for the novices to learn how to be the hand that delivered the
Emperor's mercy to those whose deviance called for it. Forgive me if I
don't discuss it at length - it was one of the hardest things I have
ever done, that cold, clinical duty. I felt shamed then, as well as
almost physically sick. The nausea passed, with time and experience,
but the shame never went away, not for as long as I performed that
service. I felt it every time, and after every time I prayed that I
would never become so used to it that I did not feel a thing.
This was not the only possible outcome of our inspections,
though. Four months after we had begun our term as novices we were
diverted to a small farming world known as Daylight, where deviance had
led to rebellion faster than our Order had been able to detect it.
There were already three ships like ours in orbit when we arrived, and
we were told we would be participating in cleansing only - the majority
of the work had been done, in battle, before we arrived.
Our first assignment was to contain and eradicate a small rebel
compound on the outskirts of a town. We had landed a few klicks from
the place - they had no heavy artillery that could have hit us at such
range - and moved in, fifteen of us, three novices and twelve Sisters
under the command of Celestian Theresa. The other half of our number
were performing a similar duty a dozen miles from our location, which I
later learned was an almost unnecessary operation - intelligence had
overestimated the forces there, and Serena told me later it took barely
ten minutes for them to be overcome and eliminated. Our target,
however, turned out to be more significant.
It was as we were moving in from the established perimeter that
Celestian Theresa got word a cult leader was thought to be in the
compound. His elimination became our highest priority - what had led
him to flee here we didn't know, for he was apparently important enough
that almost two hundred well-trained and well-armed followers died to
cover his escape from the one major city on Daylight. Their sacrifice
had not been without its cost to our Order either.
We picked up our pace, moving in to surround and secure the
compound as quickly as possible. Trip-wires and alarms were being
located and disabled as we went, but either something was missed or,
more likely, we were simply spotted by eye, for suddenly we were ducking
under a hail of fire from the windows of the buildings. We returned
fire as best we could - we couldn't make out our targets save for the
muzzle-flashes of their weapons. I was armed, as a novice, with a
pistol which lacked the range needed to trouble the rebels, so I devoted
my attention full-time to scanning for trip-wires and other hindrances
as the Sisters at my side let their bolters speak for us. A large shell
- a heavy bolter, or perhaps an autocannon - exploded against one of
them, a young Sister named Annebell, and I had a sudden recollection of
the battle simulations on Delva Four. But Sister Annebell barely broke
her fire, rolling and firing from the ground for a moment before
regaining her footing.
With our superior armour and firepower we soon entered the
compound itself, and the fighting became house-to-house as we cleared
out one building and moved to the next. In those conditions the rebels
were unable to bring much firepower to bear on us as any one time, and
the danger now lay in surprise attacks. There was no lack of these, as
the rebels were fanatical. I saw one leap off a roof at Sister Melany,
a grenade clutched in his hand. She spun and blew him out of the air in
mid-jump, turning her back as the grenade in his lifeless hand exploded
harmlessly as his body landed, thrown back by the bolter's impact. He
can't have been older than twelve.
Slowly the compound was cleared, and the outlying buildings
burned to the ground. We had taken a few casualties, but no fatalities.
There remained only a single building, a two-storey farmhouse that had
been converted into a bastion of sorts. We reformed into two squads of
five, with one novice being left outside to stand over the wounded -
apart from one who had a concussion from a near-miss from a grenade,
they were awake and capable of defending themselves, albeit without
moving, but a wounded Sister was never left alone while a guard could be
spared.
Sister Annebell led myself and the two other Sisters and one
novice accompanying us into the building, timing our entry with that of
the second squad led by Celestian Theresa. Gaining entry was easy - we
simply blasted a hole through a non-supporting wall and walked in.
There were surprisingly few rebels inside, it seemed most of them had
joined the defence earlier, and died. But there was one moment when we
had to fight.
We were on the upper floor, clearing out room after room, when
they ambushed us. The walls were thin wood only, and two rebels with
heavy rifles opened fire on us through a wall to our side before we
reached the door to their room. As we turned, Annebell and Melany
firing, a double-door to our right opened to reveal half a dozen rebels
who fired without pause. A shot grazed my arm, but not badly and it
only gave me added incentive to shoot into the mass of people as the
Sisters turned to do likewise. It wasn't so hard to kill in battle as
it was when we were conducting the tests - although we had attacked, it
almost seemed self-defence.
The three Sisters quickly disposed of the ambushers, with a
little help from myself and Jacquelin, the other novice with us.
Annebell waved us into the room out of which the first attack had come,
which seemed clear through the gaping holes left in the wall by the
exchange of fire. She and the other two Sisters started moving towards
the room from which the main attack had come, wary of further
surprises.
I entered the side room first, and forgot everything I knew about
cleanse doctrine for an instant. For all I know I might have died
there, from that shock, but for a strange chance.
The walls were painted red, strings of arcane symbols smeared in
blood, the floor and ceiling likewise. There were tall candles, knocked
over by the firing, and a sickly smell in the air. The purpose was
clear - a sacrifice had been made. Details aren't necessary, except to
say it had been recent. A man in long, flowing robes still stood over
the body, a blade in one hand, his eyes turned towards me - at the time
I was terrified, but in recollection I think I surprised him as much as
he did me. He dropped the knife and his other hand went to his belt, my
hand was raising my pistol, far too slowly it seemed, and then there was
a crack from the boarded-up window and the man jerked and fell to the
ground. It was so quick that I fired a bolt shell into the space where
he had stood before I realised he had fallen. I then looked at the
window, of all things - fortunately Jacquelin hadn't had such a shock,
having followed me, and was covering the man in case he was still
alive.
The window was, as I said, boarded over from the outside, and only
thin, grimy strips of light filtered through it. One of these now had a
single, tiny dot of pure sunlight where a bullet had passed through,
without so much as fracturing the window glass beyond the perfect round
hole. The shot had caught the cult leader in the head, at exactly the
point where the carnifex is used, and killed him instantly.
Thankfully Annebell had returned by this stage, and we quickly
left the room, trying not to breathe the air or touch the floor. I
spent a moment being sick in the corridor outside, trying to stop
ghastly images of the room from playing through my memory. Melany
offered me some water from her flask, which I gratefully accepted, and
we left the building. The attack was over.
We left Daylight the next day, the last of the rebels having
been killed or, in those cases where they were merely deluded rather
than truly deviant, captured for trial and re-education. A curious
footnote to that one day on that world, which I learned some time later,
explained what had happened in the compound. When the cult leader had
fled the city he had been followed by an assassin, a trainee from the
Vindicare temple whose presence had already done much to disable the
rebellion by removing those leaders who contributed the charisma that
brought ordinary, decent people to mistakenly defy the Emperor. The
trainee tracked the cult leader to the compound, and killed him from
almost a mile away, firing one shot only through that boarded-up
window.
The assassin's name, I later found out, was Ursala.
@->--
To be continued...
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TRANSLATOR: Chris Cook
TRANSMITTED: Alliance Heavy Cruiser Artemis
CROSSFILE: http://www.netspace.net.au/~alia/
AUTHOR: Sister Antonia
THOUGHT: To every life a light that shines.
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