|
|
|
|
|
The Rose by Chris Cook, Part 9 @->--
It was two months, and many battles, later when the incident was
brought back to my mind, in the worst possible circumstances. Our small
force was repelling an attack on a neighbouring hive from a
well-equipped tech cult that had arisen in the neglected Golem Hive of
Vallat Two. We were in two groups, Sister Superior Helenna and her
squad protecting a fuel pipeline in a valley adjacent to where I was,
under the command of our overall leader Celestian Superior Ilen, helping
to defend a maze-like power relay station. The squads were not
organized as they usually were, for the defence of the relay needed
those like myself, who at least understood the basics of the machinery
we were fighting amongst, and would know when a piece of equipment was
too valuable to risk firing near or using as cover. All the
non-technical Sisters, including Serena, had been assigned to protect
the pipeline, which was a simple, straight-forward defence. We fought
inside the relay for five hours before finally forcing the techs to flee
from it. When we were finished we learned that Helenna's squad had
stalled a major attack at the pipeline, facing overwhelming numbers of
techs who hoped to break into the hive itself. Helenna and her Sisters
had faced the army down, and forced them to give up their element of
surprise and over half of their fighting troops - and in the process,
had been completely wiped out.
If we had fought on, perhaps it wouldn't have been so difficult,
but with the techs' long-awaited attack finally made, and defeated, the
situation was considered safe to hand back to the planetary defence
force. So we returned to the Saint Valkyrie, and set out for a
rendezvous with a nearby Sisterhood transport carrying new troops for
our suddenly empty ship. Even when we were back at full strength, the
ship still seemed empty. No, I seemed empty. Serena had been a
constant, from that first night aboard the Sacred Star. I loved her - I
had never had a sister, but she was a sister to me as truly as if we had
shared blood. Without her I suddenly felt very alone, and homesick not
for Brightwater, or the Convent, but for her, because she had been there
in every place I had felt I belonged.
It was the night after her service that I had the dream. I had
cried, silently, as the flames took her to the life beyond, and in the
slight chill of the ship's night I still felt the warmth against my
face. After lying awake for a long time I eventually fell into a light
sleep, sadness and loneliness still preying on me. Normally when I
dream it makes no sense - random images from reality, shuffled and
distributed in a bizarre experience that is all strangely disconnected
from me. This one was different - as I opened my dreaming eyes I knew
what was happening, and I was entirely myself, not just a pawn of my
unconscious mind as it sorted through miscellaneous memories. I was in
a place where there was only light, and I felt like I was floating.
Initially I thought, somehow, I was just dreaming clearly for once -
often in my dreams I fly, like swimming through air. But I dismissed
the thought immediately, for the very fact that I was thinking
coherently told me that this was no mere dream. Then a shape came into
focus in front of me, blurring out of the light as if my eyes were a
lens slowly being turned. Serena reached out towards me, an expression
of hope on her face. I took her hand without hesitation, drawing her
close to me, and then I was no longer there, but looking on from afar as
she moved forward, and my arms around her became the silver wings of a
great eagle, wrapping around her body as if to keep her safe. I looked
up, past the eagle's head, to see a golden figure riding its back, a
young man with an old man's eyes, a handsome face with so much wisdom it
seemed that he had seen all the galaxy had, and understood. I woke up,
and two things stayed with me from the dream besides the images - I no
longer felt lonely, and I knew somehow that the eagle had been the one I
had seen, glinting in the sunlight for just a second, that day on Oriax
Prime.
@->--
I was changed the next day, when I woke from a trouble-free
sleep. Colours seemed more vivid, sounds were sharper, voices almost
melodious. I almost couldn't help but stare at the stars, for we were
in realspace at the time, shifting position to catch a different warp
flow to the one we had been following. I had the strange feeling that,
somewhere just beyond the steelglass viewport, every star waited for me
to reach out and touch it. And the people around me were different -
suddenly I understood them in my heart, as well as my mind, and when
they spoke to me I knew not only their words but the feelings behind
them. I suppose I should have been concerned, or wondered what had
happened to me, but it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
Celestian Superior Ilen noticed the difference in me, and not
long after assigned me as assistant squad leader to Sister Superior
Fionne, who had joined us after Vallat Two. She remarked, once or
twice, that I seemed well supplied with self-confidence, and indeed I
did feel confident. I knew my abilities, and exactly how far I could
push myself. Most importantly, though, I believed in myself. If I had
to liken the feeling to anything, it would be to the time at the Schola
when we began to be given tasks to complete on our own. I said that
this made me feel like my duty was my choice, and again this was the
case, but so much stronger. I now felt that, whatever the hardships I
faced, simply living was a gift that carried enough joy to overcome any
sadness. I make it sound so intense, and it was for a while.
Eventually I came to terms with this strange shift in perspective, but
always there was this little gem of wonder, astonished at the beauty of
the galaxy. I don't think it will ever fade.
But this was not the only change that had come over me, as I was
to discover. That discovery came almost a full year later, when the
Saint Valkyrie came to the aid of a freighter that had been damaged and
forced to put down for repairs, and been unlucky to have caught the
attention of a band of the strange machines known, to those who give
them names, as Necrons. At the time I was well on my way to becoming a
Celestian, and often given charge of a squad when we deployed ourselves
in small groups. We landed behind the freighter's position and
discovered that a recon attack had already struck - there were wounded
who could not be moved, else they would almost certainly die. Knowing
the main force of machines was barely an hour away we prepared to defend
the grounded freighter.
They came at sunset, stalking over the brown-tinged grass,
faster and surer than any Imperial robot. They wasted no time, but
immediately began firing their strange weapons at the freighter's hull,
weakening its side. We returned fire, felling some, but even when one
was badly damaged it often stood back up and resumed its attack as if
nothing had happened. One who had strayed into my sights lost an arm
without even acknowledging the damage - it simply kept advancing slowly,
firing as it went, until my next shot caught the side of its head,
spraying tiny pieces of metal into the air. It continued on a few
steps, still firing, then suddenly its legs collapsed under it and the
metal warrior vanished like a mirage.
Even with our best efforts, and the assistance of the healthy
and walking-wounded among the freighter's crew, the machines made it
inside the freighter. I heard over my comm that they had breached the
hull and entered, and immediately fell into the plan that had been made
for this eventuality - myself and a handful of others would leave the
firing to our Sisters and fall back to the improvised medical bay, where
the badly wounded lay. I arrived first, with Sister Superior Fionne on
my heels, to see two of the machines entering from the hole torn in the
medbay's wall. Both raised their weapons, aiming directly at the
nearest of the frightened, half-conscious crew. Fionne was not yet in
the doorway, and I could stop one of them at best. I had seen in
previous engagements what the Necron weapons do, flaying their target
layer by layer until nothing remains. Worse, when their target has been
unable to fight back - injured on a battlefield, or unconscious - they
seem to take much longer, as if given the leisure to take their time
while the victim screams for as long as he has a throat.
Some instinct rose up in me, overriding my training and giving
me instructions from somewhere a lot deeper inside my soul than the
tutors of the Schola Progenium had been able to reach. My bolter
clattered onto the floor as I raised both arms, hands extended towards
the two metal demons, fingers splayed, palms down. Something passed
through me, like a shiver but warm instead of cold, and the Necrons were
hurled backwards, crashing into the back wall of the corridor they had
broken in from. Such was the force of the impact that their bodies
fractured along the joins in their casings, and they crumpled to the
ground as mere collections of machinery. I wondered what on Terra had
happened to them, and at the same time heard Fionne's intake of breath
from behind me - she had turned the corner just in time to see it. I
turned to her, baffled, to see her hand unconsciously making the sign of
the eagle, her eyes wide, staring at me.
@->--
To be continued...
--
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.
|
