It had been going so well.

Sergeant Kaela remembered just a week prior when she and the rest of her regiment had been the first to set foot on the alien moon. It had been like the rest of the war until then, they had quickly scattered the small number of aliens who dared oppose them and established a camp from which they would advance further.

That had been her last simple day.

She did not know where the aliens had gotten it from, but since then, the Imperial Guard had to deal with more armor and fortified positions than they had in the entire crusade. For the first time, they took meaningful losses, with fields of their dead covering the grey dusty field of the blasted alien world.

Kaela was gritting her teeth as she ducked behind a rock next to her vox caster and fired her lasgun blindly at the enemy. The vox caster was dead, his body slumped against the rock and mouth agape after a rock had crashed into his visor and exposed him to the airless void of the alien moon. His eyes’ blood vessels had popped almost instantly, coating the sclera in deep red in the few seconds before all his blood froze.

To her left and right, two Leman Russ tanks were naught but quickly cooling wrecks surrounded by the bodies of soldiers. A column of fire had ejected the turrets of the chassis before dying off in a few seconds.

The turrets had never come back down.

Their destruction had been the signal that the attack had not just failed, but had been an utter disaster. Despite that, Kaela knew she and the others did not have the liberty to retreat without an explicit order, so they had marched straight into the hail of bullets, energy beams, and rocks thrown at terminal velocity, They had kept trying to push through the defenses for hours with only corpses and wrecks to show for it.

She had learned quickly that, on that moon, even the smallest puncture in a suit could lead to a swift and painful death. That reality had made the combat there the most deadly she had ever seen in her brief experience of the galaxy.

“This is Sergeant Kaela. I am pinned on sector three-a!” She shouted in the vox, ducking her head as she heard and felt the heat from one of the alien energy beams hitting her rock chipping away at it. It would not be long before it broke through. “The assault is a bust, half the company is wiped. We need reinforcements now!”

On the other end, she heard only white static, and she mentally cursed the aliens. The vox had stopped working the moment they had approached the alien lines, and her shouting into it was more a result of desperation instead of genuine hope for relief.

“Where are the Space Marines?” She shouted again, this time less at the vox and more like a loud thought.

The Marines had been with them, well, mostly around them, during the entire crusade until that point, but now they were nowhere to be seen.

Even without them, the combat had been a walk in the park for them and other imperial forces. Sure, the idiots and the unlucky got killed, but the casualties had never been so high that she had ever doubted the outcome of a single battle besides that odd delay the guard had faced on one mountain.

Now they were paying for every mile they took with hundreds of bodies. She had even seen rows of those unsettling Skitarii going down, although their fights were a much more balanced affair than what unaugmented humans had to face.

It wasn’t just a matter of the aliens suddenly becoming more determined. The two destroyed Leman Russes reminded her that their gear had gotten a sudden upgrade as well.

She had never seen them pour out so many bullets and shells of any kind until then, especially not in such a short amount of time. Many of the craters she saw around her were not part of the moon’s natural landscape but were the result of the artillery barrage that had spelled the end of their assault.

She dared to poke her head over her protective rock to look over the gray dusty wasteland that preceded the complex line of trenches and white bunkers they had slammed themselves against for the last three days with nothing but corpses and wrecks to show for it.

The bunkers seemed to almost merge with the lifeless environment around them, and the trenches would have looked like normal depressions in the lunar ground if not for their pattern, and the alien heads occasionally poking out of them. Hovering far above the trenches and bunkers, she could see many rounded purple disks that intercepted their artillery shells, denying them the easy way through the defenses.

She ducked back just in time to avoid an energy beam that would have turned her head into fine vapor and looked at the Imperial forces behind them.

Discipline had utterly vanished, and each unit was doing its thing. All were charging, of course, but there was no coordination between the squads.

And she could only think of squads at that moment. Any semblance of cohesion had gone to the wind when the commissars, officers, and their few brave souls had perished in the charge. Now it was just a mad dash to the enemy lines and a quick end.

The squads and soldiers that were still alive had gathered in the craters around the field, occasionally firing back before alien artillery wiped their position in a flash of fire.

Kaela knew it would be only a matter of time until either the artillery or the energy beams claimed her as well.

It was then, while she was looking at the Imperial forces, that she saw them, the Space Marines. They had been there the whole time, but her brain had not realized it immediately as their grey armors blended perfectly with the lunar surface, now that she knew what to look for, she could at least make out their outline.

They were immobile, still like ancient statues if not to point at something about the alien defenses or their weaponry.

She raised a hand to wave at them and beg them to come down from the hill, but they showed no reaction to her gesture because they didn’t see her from that distance or, as it seemed more likely. After all, they were choosing to ignore her.

She had grown up with tales of the heroic space marines, those mighty heroes of the Emperor in shining armor, thinking of them being myths at first, only to realize they were real once the Imperium took her to the stars.

Realizing those heroes of hers had watched the entire slaughter and not moved a muscle, something in her head snapped and she made her choice.

She reached down to her belt, picked her only frag grenade, and held it in front of her. She saw her haphazard orange environmental suit and the chains and sword on her shoulder pads representing her penal legion and all the mistakes she had ever made in her life.

All the time she had spoken up or annoyed those around or even above her or thought herself smart enough to ignore imperial laws coming back to haunt in one simple symbol.

Her explosive collar still blinked with a tiny red light threatening her with immediate death should she even take one step back without an order, and she was aware her handlers were watching her.

It was only then, while staring at that blinking red light, that she knew she was doing the right thing. Maybe the order to retreat was just about to come, but she no longer cared about it.

She would make her first choice in a very long time.

“This is Warder Thunder Storm. All hostiles approaching sector twenty-five have been terminated, over,” a voice said in Luna’s radio transmitter.

“Acknowledged,” she replied drily. “Maintain position until relief arrives, over and out.”

She then closed the channel and looked at a tiny explosion in the distance, probably some kind of grenade. Luna wondered if it was a manufacturing defect or a deliberate choice by its user.

She was standing in the trenches, with one hoof on no mare’s land and overlooking the first enemy assault wave fizzle away into nothing under the sustained fire of just fifty royal guards dispersed in small squads of five amongst the thousands of regular soldiers defending the trenches and bunkers.

Then again, fifty royal guards were nothing to scoff at.

Such a number was a fifth of their entire presence on the moon, a considerable investment of resources for just one small trench section, but the enemy had assaulted it relentlessly, so the golden warriors had been the only thing keeping the area from falling into enemy hands.

The enemy was about to put centuries of defensive construction and theories to the test, and Luna intended to make them pay for every inch.

Looking at the invaders’ bodies, torn apart and left to lie on the grey ground in their orange suits, she felt her heart tugged in two directions. They were invaders, so they had to die so others may live, but she also wondered if their souls were truly as black as their genocidal actions in the colonies suggested and if violence was truly what they desired.

It mattered little, Luna thought as she saw the second wave assembling in their positions and prepared herself mentally for another round of fighting.

She looked to her left and right and saw five royal guards bedecked in golden armor standing at attention, waiting for the enemy to come to them. Their resplendent armors reflected the sunlight in slightly different ways because of the many details on their surfaces that a distracted viewer might not notice.

A symbol there, a name carved here, an especially bright gem on the forehead, and so on. The armors could not look more different to Luna if they tried, with the abundance of gold being the only thing they shared. That, and the oxygen tanks on their backs, which were not a standard part of their gear.

Just behind them were soldiers of every species belonging to every species of the confederation, wearing pale grey suits with small eye-slits of reinforced black glass and heavy oxygen backpacks that looked like slightly rounded blocks with smooth tubes reaching under their helmets.

Luna had usually walked around the moon with no protection from the void of space, the only creature able to do so, but now even she had to wear protection just like everyone else. She considered another sign of the changing times.

Her armor was a black and blue suit that hugged her body and enhanced her movement’s speed and strength with something that Twilight had called artificial muscles. For her, there was no need for an oxygen tank, so she was glad she did not have to bear that added weight like everyone else. Luna had also rejected the option of having combat stimulant injectors built into the suit, no matter how much the engineers in charge of the design had tried to convince her, stating that she had no desire to alter her senses regardless of what she would have to face.

She had never understood the technology’s finer details, not really, but she had learned how to use it and she trusted that its creators had come up with an excellent design, despite her one restriction.

“Warder,” she addressed the nearest royal guard. “Prepare for combat; wait for the enemy to be in optimal range and focus on officers and move into melee should they reach the trenches.”

“As you command, ma’am,” the pegasus nodded and aligned her shoulder-mounted cannon with the horizon.

For one minute, Luna waited in silence as the wave of aliens rolled and marched over their dead comrades. Her helmet’s sensors automatically highlighted and cataloged all their gear and presented in a list on the top right corner of her vision that she could expand with a blink.

She noticed that these had dull brown suits, not bright orange like the previous ones, and had what looked like gas masks on their faces. Their rifles also seemed longer than those in the previous waves. Lastly, she saw that some of them, probably their officers, wore light metal cuirasses over their chests and had sabers with elaborate handles attached to their belts.

With two blinks to the left of her vision, she shared that information with the royal guards next to her. The private network in their respective helmets allowed its users to share pieces of information in a few blinks.

“This is Luna calling on third artillery company, fire for effect on grid coordinates twelve twenty-five, over,” she then ordered over the radio.

“Acknowledged, fire for effect on grid coordinates twelve twenty-five, over and out,” the pony on the other side repeated her order.

A few seconds later, she saw the shells land in the middle of the advancing enemies, claiming dozens of them every time. Because of the lack of air, the explosions were silent and created a surreal experience for her and her troops.

The attackers dispersed, but not in a panicked way, like all the others before them. They carried some of their wounded with them, but only those with light injuries, never bothering with those who were twitching on the ground or had lost limbs.

Seeing that the enemy kept advancing, Luna shouted the order to fire and watched as a silent volley of bullets and tracers hit the ground and pierced the enemy’s suits. If they screamed in pain in their last moments, Luna could not hear it.

She ducked as the response arrived as red beams that punched small holes into the soil they hit. They dug slightly deeper than what all the previous weapons had used. A few of the shots found their marks in the faces of unlucky soldiers who ducked too slowly or went for a second look, but most went nowhere close to their targets and were meant to suppress the defenders. The bolts that connected with something alive pierced right through their targets’ helmets and skulls, leaving the bodies to fall slowly and silently to the ground.

Earlier in the war, she had felt the weight of every death and every wounded soldier, feeling they were a personal failure of hers, and that a perfect commander could keep all her soldiers alive. Now she just accepted them as an ugly inevitability that should not keep her awake in the few moments of rest she allowed herself.

She was not sure she enjoyed thinking in such a callous manner.

A bolt coming dangerously close to her head broke her out of her thoughts and she noticed that, heedless of danger or casualties, the enemy was now charging at them in what looked like a mad dash to the trenches.

They were moving much faster than the previous assaults, having covered the same distance half the time. She dared distract herself for a moment to look up and saw the magical shields above the trench flickering while a storm of silent explosions hit them.

Before she could think more about the losses that would follow the moment even one shield failed, she lowered her eyes just in time to see that her enemies were already almost upon the trench.

Looking at them up close, she could not help but find them unnerving, with their disregard for casualties and industrial gas masks.

“Fix bayonets!” she ordered, perhaps too late, and the soldiers quickly obeyed with well-practiced movements.

A few seconds after the soldiers attached the blades to their rifles, the first alien jumped into the trench to be followed by a swarm of his kind.

In all her long years, Luna had never seen anything uglier than trench combat. She was glad there was no air around her, because the moment she saw the first guts being spilled onto the ground, she knew the smell would have made her vomit anything she had ever eaten. It had happened the first time she had seen someone die in front of her, and the second, and the third, then the sight just gave her nausea.

The silent fight around her was brutish and short, with bayonets piercing equestrian and alien flesh in equal measure, and the blood turning into vapor the moment it poured out of the wounds as the dying screamed their soundless cries that never went past the air in their helmets.

Luna and her royal guards were right in the middle of the melee, and the exception to the brutal and unpredictable combat around them, their armors putting several steps above their assailers. Luna’s helmet almost fought the battle for her, telling her when to strike with the retractable blades and when to dodge or parry the flurry of blows and shots directed at her.

The royal guards were odd soldiers in Luna’s eyes, they were perfectly coordinated thanks to their systems, but each one seemed to be fighting their own battle and just happened to be sharing the same field with their gold-clad brethren, with different styles of combat and sometimes even different gear.

Luna watched as one of the royal guards, a unicorn, used his telekinesis to wield a long golden spear with a gun next to its tip. It was an odd design for a weapon, Luna thought, but she could not deny its effectiveness as she saw him skillfully alternate between cuts, thrusts, and shots in a deadly dance that claimed a life with each move.

Another royal guard was one of the rare dragons in its ranks, and his style of combat was much less refined. He was cleaving through multiple targets at once with his ornate axe. The weapon had a roaring lion’s head at the top of its handle from which the blade sprung forth.

Luna wondered if the war would be looking as desperate if they had spent more time and resources creating such weaponry instead of investing in civilian projects.

After a blur of fighting on auto-pilot, Luna realized the combat had ended and looked around at the surrounding massacre.

The enemies had fought to the last, and their bodies lay strewn about the trench network, creating a carpet of dull brown bodies covering her soldiers. The fact that helmets covered every face made the sight easier to bear, but not enough to avoid giving her a slight sense of nausea.

She noticed that the enemy had blown up several bunkers in the trench network, leaving round craters in their places.

“This line won’t hold for another attack,” the warder, who had walked next to her as she examined the aftermath.

She was surprised to hear him speak so clearly immediately after a fight and wondered just how powerful some of those combat stimulants were.

“Indeed, it’s time to withdraw to the previous line,” Luna nodded and began to walk to the back of the line. “Relay the order to the army and start laying the proximity mines around here.”

Luna had expected this moment, as she knew she did not have the number to hold the enemy forever. She planned to fight a long retreat through a long succession of trenches for as long as she could to give Twilight as much time as possible to prepare.

She could only hope it would be enough.

Most construction projects of the Equestrian Confederation were sensible things, done with sensible budgets and unimpressive at first glance. Just plain, efficient buildings with little to no frills attached.

That was not so for the colossal structure that was the southern polar fortress, one of the two places where the military budget had truly gone, with the other place being the tunnel network under the Canterlot palace.

Even from a distance, could see the southern polar fortress dominate the horizon with its grey walls and a lineup of black turret-mounted guns atop them.

The fortress appeared like an unassuming circle that Luna knew hid the labyrinthine corridors beneath its thick grey walls.

On the roof, she spotted the reasons why the enemy had not landed on Equestria just yet, and why she had to hold that fortress for as long as possible.

The long and stretched railguns dominate the structure’s top like the main spikes of a crown of thorns made a mockery of the idea of armor or shields.

Even at their low number of just seven, they prevented any large-scale landing operations. The invaders could still slip through and land small raiding parties on Equestria, but never in overwhelming numbers. A large-scale landing operation required time, which was exactly what those weapons were denying the enemy.

The northern fortress also had three of those guns, but the structure was nowhere as impressive as its southern counterpart.

According to the reports she had read from Equestria, the raiding parties were small bands of cyborgs that self-destructed the moment victory in combat looked anything less than certain.

Luna was observing the fortress from the seat in the magic-shielded maglev train of pure white metal racing through lunar waste as it speedily approached its main station alongside several other trains coming from other tracks all converging there.

She had removed her helmet as soon as she had stepped inside her carriage, enjoying the freedom of her man and neck.

The train passed the station’s force field and her ears could finally hear noises from the outside beside the constant gentle humming of the train’s engine. It was mostly the marching steps of hundreds of soldiers, the barking of orders, and the yelling of regimental mottos, but it was better than nothing. The five royal guards following her could do many things, but smooth conversations were not part of their skill set.

Her station was a steel grey surface of smooth metal, just like the rest of the surrounding area, with powerful electrical lights from every angle chasing away any shadow from the many soldiers standing there at perfect attention.

Once the train came to a smooth halt, she immediately stepped outside of it and immediately saw a company of soldiers saluting her, their eyes brightening the moment she appeared in front of them.

Luna knew her mere presence was an inspiration to these soldiers. She had been in retirement for centuries, and most of them had heard of her from dusty history books. Now she was walking among them and many of them saw her as a hero from their golden age coming back in their hour of need.

She imagined herself giving a speech to them, truly inspiring them before they went into combat once more, but she had never been talented with words when she was in power, and now she found those skills had degraded even more.

She resorted to just saluting them back and going on her way, her royal guards following behind her.

Luna made her way through the entire train station, seeing several other companies of fully equipped soldiers waiting in square formations for their trains or others dismounting from their rides back from hell.

Finally, she reached a hexagonal door that withdrew into the wall like a camera’s lens when she approached it and stepped into the sterile white corridor beyond it.

The recycled air entered her nostrils as soon as she stepped through the door, carrying a thousand smells she had not realized she had been missing until they returned. Her nostrils picked up the scent of sweat, the pungent taste of machine oil, the sterile aroma of disinfectant, and some sort of meat-like odor from a nearby canteen.

Her hoofsteps echoed down the fortress’ clean white walls as she walked down a now familiar path. Soldiers and officers, who were all waking at a sustained pace to whatever station they were assigned to, parted to make way for her and her royal guards.

“I need those anti-air guns repaired an hour ago!” she heard an officer, a griffin, shouting into his radio as she walked past him and walked through another hexagonal door.

In comparison to the train station, the fortress’ interior was a stark and sterile white labyrinth that assaulted her eyes with their brightness.

Her destination was a circular and predictably white room with black consoles hugging its walls and a round table in its middle with a holographic map of the moon. Several sections of the map were marked red to signal enemy control, but far less than she had feared when she had first seen the enemy land.

A few petty officers circled the map, but there was only one that mattered to her. Looking resplendent in her mountain of golden armor, Commander Fair Sight looked stoically at the map in front of her, its red and white lights enhancing the shadows on her dark grey face and slit pupils.

As a commander, the bat pony mare had authority over a quarter of the royal guard, and her troops had proven invaluable to the defense. She had also brought Luna up to speed with modern combat practices and how much things had changed since the days of swords, shields, and spells.

Necessity had forced her to learn and adapt at a pace she had not thought possible before, but it had worked, and now she knew how to operate a modern force to the best of her abilities. Somehow, giving military orders was becoming much easier than interacting normally with ponies and other creatures.

“I am glad to have you back, princess,” the Commander cracked a hint of a smile on her face. Luna did not know why she used the title she had abdicated centuries ago but was not willing to start questioning her at that moment. She had much bigger concerns than an outdated title. “I trust everything is going as we planned?”

“We withdrew from the first line just as planned,” Luna informed the Commander. “We held it for as long as possible, but I gave the order twenty-five minutes ago.”

“Good, you held it for a bit longer than what the simulations predicted,” Commander Fair Sight said, her smile fading away and her face growing serious again as she pointed to a specific point on the moon. “I think their next assault will be there. It’s a deliberate weak spot.”

Luna looked at the area Fair Sight had indicated and saw that it was a thinner section of the second line compared to the rest. She also noticed that the ground in front of it was perfectly flat, unlike the uneven and crater-riddled ground around it.

“They’ll think it’s a trap,” Luna pointed out while wondering what she was missing about this. “They’re not that foolish.”

“They’ll know it’s a trap, but they won’t have a choice. There is no other spot they can effectively attack,” Commander Fair Sight explained. “The other sections are one continuous fortress on elevated positions with uneven ground and minefields in front of them. They have to go there.”

“What if their giants show up?” Luna asked.

With that question, Commander Fair Sight’s face turned to stone. The giants were the unspoken ace card of the enemy, the one force against which nothing had worked during the entire war. She thanked her lucky stars they had not shown up on the moon just yet, but she knew it was only a matter of time until they showed their gray-armored faces.

“If they do, we will meet them and see who is the better killer,” Commander Fair Sight’s voice was ice cold as she spoke those words. “For now, our focus should be on conventional attacks.”

“I understand,” Luna nodded and stepped away from the map. “I will check on the armory before going back on the field. These royal guards are now back under your authority. Give them a deployment.”

“Roger,” Fair Sight replied mechanically, and her eyes returned to the map.

Luna quickly walked out of the room alone and into the maze of corridors and doors beyond it. She followed the signs placed at regular intervals that guided her through the fortress until she reached the white doors of an elevator.

The elevator’s interior looked far less clean than the rest of the fortress’ corridors, with its rusty bronze surface and cracks spreading along its walls. If Luna did not already know from experience the elevators there were safe, she would have boarded none of them.

The ride down felt longer than it had any right to and she almost sighed in relief when she felt the elevator finally stop and the door opened with a hiss.

The corridor in front of her was dimly lit, with one flickering lightbulb and some cracks in the floor tiles. At the end of the corridor, Luna saw a little equine robot with a pink and light purple artificial mane and green eyes that were approaching her at a brisk pace. The walls were a dim brown, a stark contrast to the clean look of the upper floors.

Luna got off the elevator and waited until the little robot was in front of her. Its eyes seemed to brighten when it looked at Luna, and a smile formed on its tiny mouth.

“We are glad to have you,” the robot said in a synthetic and emotionless voice that Luna found to be oddly soothing. “Please state your destination and we will guide you, or do you prefer to continue our previous conversation on light density on the upper floors?”

The fortress had dozens of these robots and many other automata roaming around it, doing everything from simple janitorial chores to complex work, like fixing and maintaining weapons and vehicles.

Luna had interacted with a few of those robots but had never heard one of them offering her to guide her through the armory.

The automaton in front of her had a clean, white shell bolted onto its metallic skeleton and its artificial mane flowed down her head like that of a young filly. She recognized the little thing as a very advanced artificial intelligence model she had seen before somewhere else.

“I’m just doing a check-up on our stocks. Guide me, starting from the experimental weapons before reaching our stocks of conventional ammunition,” Luna informed the robot. “And please tell me who you are. I don’t think I’ve interacted with you.”

She usually did those checks alone but figured that one robotic guide wouldn’t hurt the process.

“This hardware is designated as SWB-42, but we have already met several times so there is no need for introductions,” SWB-42 said as it began walking down the hallway, gesturing with a mechanical hoof for Luna to follow it. “Please follow us.”

Luna followed silently for a moment, trying to understand what the small bot was talking about while they walked past many doors with little markings on their handles that indicated what was beyond them. For the moment, they were just mundane cleaning supplies and spare parts for repairs.

She had done this more times than she could count already and while she never found the simple act of checking on things, reading numbers, even remotely enjoyable, she understood the importance of doing it personally and appreciated the few minutes of solitude it granted her.

“Are you sure we have met before?” Luna asked after they passed through several locked metal doors.

Most of them were failed projects sealed away in the hopes they could be restarted once their science progressed forward, but a few were powerful artifacts that could be studied to discover their military potential.

As long as those doors remained sealed, everything was fine.

“Of course,” SWB-42 said and looked back at Luna. “We remember you being here just sixteen hours ago.”

Luna checked her memories. While that was true, she had visited the storage just sixteen hours before; she did not remember meeting this robot or interacting with any similar models besides watching them walk around the armory.

She had no idea what the robot was talking about. Luna had met others like it, but not this one. She was quite certain of that.

“Let’s just get this check done, shall we?” she asked, putting the question aside as they turned a corner.

“Acknowledged, please-” SWB-42 began, only to stop when the ground trembled for one second and almost threw the both of them off their feet. “Explosive-caused structural damage detected. Please evacuate.”

“Explosive? from where?” Luna asked as she stood up and ran down the hall, with the robot right behind her.

“Explosion located at this level, would you like us to guide you to its source?” the little bot asked, pointing in a seemingly random direction.

“Lead the way,” Luna said. “Can you access the security cameras here? Do you have any idea of who or what got inside?”

“Negative, affirmative, the intruders are one female invader and one of their giants,” SWB-42 reported in its usual soothing tone, but Luna noticed the words were coming out slightly faster than they had before.

Had the air from the explosion somehow damaged its vocal unit?

“Oxygen levels dropping rapidly, users are encouraged to equip an oxygen mask and evacuate the area. We thank you for your cooperation,” the robot informed her, but she wasn’t paying attention to it. Oxygen had never been her concern, anyway.

The fact that even one giant was there caused an icy hand to grasp Luna’s heart. She knew from the reports what even one of those monsters could do and knew she was about to face the greatest challenge in her life. If that thing got inside the polar fortress, it would all be over.

“Since you know who and where they are, can you do something about them?” Luna asked, hoping to avoid the fight or at least even the odds.

“As AI-powered assistant robots, we are unable to assist you in such a capacity. Please forgive our inadequacy,” SWB-42 responded. “If there is any other way we can help, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“I’ll deal with it myself then,” Luna sighed as she kept following the robot through the corridors.

Saureil hated every second he was spending with the inquisitor. Her name was Kateryna, but that was the only thing he had learned of the woman since he met her.

Sure, he knew inquisitors were never the talkative types, but he had expected to at least have a vague idea of what their mission was if they ever recruited him into their service.

That had not been the case.

She had kept him at arm’s length, but at the same time demanded that she follow him on all her little missions since she had forcibly recruited him.

Kateryna had dragged him along the various alien colonies, visiting what looked like old temples in the middle of nowhere and never taking part in the crusade, even when the fighting had been a few hundred meters away.

He had no idea how, but the inquisitor was aware of a cave network running deep under the alien moon’s surface and had brought him along on the long underground journey in absolute darkness. She claimed that her psyker powers had guided her there, but Saureil had found such a straightforward explanation unconvincing.

There was something in those eyes that caused him to grip his bolter tighter than usual every time she spoke of her powers and visions.

The only reason he had not questioned her further was because he knew to never look too much into an inquisitor’s business.

He had hoped to find some alien beast waiting to pounce on him so that he could prove his valor, or an alien ambush, to give him a taste of the many battles he was sure his brothers were having. Instead, they had met nothing but dark silence in the tunnels that went for miles until, just after what felt like hours, they reached a wall on which Kateryna had ordered him to place the melta charges he had carried for the entire journey.

The explosion was a satisfying sight to his eyes and ears and Saureil immediately rushed into the newly created hole to enter the fortress’ interior. The walls were of a dull brown that reminded him of wet fertile soil despite being metal, and Saureil was grateful the lighting was at least bright enough that he did not feel like he was fighting in the shadows like a coward.

“Not to question your motives, inquisitor, but should we not have shared this information with the crusading forces, or at least with my brothers?” Saureil asked as he checked his surroundings, his finger already on the trigger.

“They would get in the way,” Kateryna replied, her tone leaving no space to doubt that. “Let’s go. This is what we came here to do.”

“Mayhap that’s true, yet this remains a weakness in the enemy’s shield. It would be just and wise to share this knowledge,” Saureil said as Kateryna walked ahead of him and he followed her.

She had come there expecting a fight, that Saureil could tell from looking at her equipment when she walked in front of him. Her light grey carapace was graceless but effective, leaving no skin exposed with its sharp angles and thick plates of interlocking metal. On her right hand, she wielded a power mace that crackled with energy that occasionally lapped at the ground beneath. With her other hand, she wielded a laspistol with an especially long barrel. Despite his expensive knowledge of weaponry, Saureil did not recognize the model, so he assumed it had to be a custom piece.

To complete her gear, two red grenades with a bone-white skull engraved on their surface rested on her belt, one to her left and one to her right. The grenades seemed to be hand-painted, and he figured that there had to have been an easier color to use than white for such minor details. Perhaps it was a show of wealth on the part of the grenades’ creator?

“That is true, and you may do so after we finish this mission,” Kateryna replied without bothering to look back. “Now we must move. Someone powerful is here, and there is no time to waste.”

“As you wish,” Saureil grumbled as he sped up.

While he took no joy in going along with the inquisitor’s commands, he hoped to meet this powerful thing that was apparently within these tunnels and meet it soon. He imagined the songs the bards would compose of him slaying such a beast before remembering that none would be there to witness such a feat.

Despite that reminder, he would not let the lack of glory dissuade him from his duty of bringing ruin to the alien. If the aliens had a powerful creature hidden beneath the ground, it would do what his honor demanded and slay, even if he would have preferred for such a thing to happen under his brothers’ gaze.

Kateryna was walking at a confident pace through the fortress, turning at seemingly random corners and passing by doors in a steady walk, as if she knew exactly where they were going. Her head was always focused forward and he could have sworn he could have seen her eyes glow for fractions of a second each time.

Saureil had no problem keeping up with her, but could not help but wonder why she seemed so sure of her direction.

When they turned a corner, Saureil was both glad and disgusted to see an alien life form. Glad, because it meant he could finally unleash his bolter’s fire on something else than dirt and rock, and disgusted at the very nature of the thing he saw.

It was some kind of abominable intelligence, with a metal body and an artificial mane. Its body was that of some four-legged machine with two needlessly large eyes in its front that Saureil immediately shot, causing them to explode with sparks. Its body collapsed to the floor while electricity coursed over its damaged structure.

“Target destroyed, but now we know they are either aware of or looking for us. Whatever your target is, inquisitor, I suggest you hurry for your own sake,” Saureil informed Kateryna.

“Don’t underestimate me, space marine,” Kateryna smiled and looked at her maul. “I think we’re close.”

“If we get surrounded, I can guarantee my safety only,” Saureil warned her. “I do not desire a dead inquisitor in my history of deeds.”

“Your desires are of no interest to me, only your skill of arms,” Kateryna answered curtly as she turned another corner.

The place was so full of twists and turns that even Saureil had a hard time remembering its layout, yet Kateryna showed no signs of confusion during their walk. Every corridor they went through looked nearly the same with its dim and flickering lightbulbs, cracked brown walls, and red markings on the door handles.

“May you tell me what we are looking for now that we are here?” Saureil asked after another uneventful turn of a corner that did not reveal the enemy to him. “I could serve you best if I am aware of what our quarry looks."

“It is a green dagger, with Eldar runes on its blade. That's all you need to know,” Kateryna’s voice suddenly seemed distracted, as if she was thinking about something else while she talked to Saureil. “We are almost there. I can sense it is nearby.”

Saureil spotted two more robots observing from the distance and shot them down with three shots each.

Those were two targets that would have required one bolt around each, he realized as the bots’ heads exploded. His performance immediately disappointed him and he decided he would spend even more hours in shooting the practice the moment this inquisitor released him from her service.

His years as a pilot had softened his shooting arm, he realized, and he decided it was about time he corrected such a flaw within himself.

Such weakness was unacceptable.

Kateryna glanced at him before she finally stopped and turned to look at a large door with a glass window on it. Saureil approached her while he continued to scan the surrounding area.

Kateryna walked ahead, and he watched her raise her mace-wielding hand and smash right through the door, shattering it into a thousand shards in just one motion. The mace’s electricity then turned most of those shards into fine dust.

They both entered the room while the dust settled, his helmet’s systems allowing him to see through the smoke as he scanned for an enemy to put his bolts through. The room was a large and mostly empty space with a single bronze pedestal on which he spotted the dagger Kateryna had spoken of.

His sensors, and his experience, immediately recognized that an Eldar’s hands had crafted the blade, but that opened more questions than it answered.

The Eldar had not shown their faces for the entire crusade until that point. Now this dagger made him think that they might decide to try to recover their dagger.

He knew how sentimental the Eldar could be with some of their trinkets, after all.

Much to his disappointment, there were no guards for him to kill.

The inquisitor wasted no time in walking up to the blade and plucking it from its pedestal with a swift motion before placing it on her belt and turning to Saureil.

“We still have time to-” she began, only for her to stop talking when Saureil turned around and readied his bolter on what remained of the entrance.

He could hear steps, some metallic and others organic, getting closer to them. The sounds seemed to come from far away, telling him he had enough time to prepare himself for the incoming.

“If you wish to leave with life and prize, do so now or let yourself be trapped in this room,” he advised the inquisitor before stepping away from her. “Xenos will soon crawl all over this area.”

“Lead the way, Astartes, take the same route I used,” the inquisitor demanded before slowly walking to a spot behind Saureil. “I lingered too much. How foolish, Emperor, forgive me...”

It was the first time he heard her voice falter. While he was very familiar with the simple terror that gripped mortal hearts, the woman’s voice made it clear she was still in control of her mind and was just aware of something that he wasn’t.

He added that to his growing list of frustrations with the inquisitor.

“It shall be as you command,” Saureil replied as he raised his bolter and took his position in front of the hole that had taken the place of the door, with his back turned to the inquisitor and his eyes fixated on the corridor in front of him.

Seconds passed while the noises grew louder, causing the grip on his bolter to tighten. He decided he would step outside the face the enemy head-on like a space marine should and Kateryna followed him.

The moment they stepped out of the room, a bolt of dark blue energy struck his right pauldron, causing him to stagger for a moment before he instinctively fired at his attacker and looked at his target.

It was one of the four-legged aliens, but different. Her dark blue mane seemed to move with a force of its own, and she had both wings and a horn. A familiar expression of anger was on her face as her eyes glowed with pure white energy, her horn shining with the same magical energy as she floated above the floor and unfelt winds started howling around them.

Next to her was one robotic equine similar to the ones he already destroyed, but a few sizes smaller than most of its counterparts.

One of his shots had gone wide while the rest had found a magical blue shield blocking their way and had exploded harmlessly on its dark surface long before hitting the target.

Sensing a proper battle incoming, Saureil attached his bolter to his belt and raised his chainsword, hoping that his might could pierce through the sorcery only for another blast from the alien to sweep him off his feet and hit the ground with a loud thud.

He heard thunder crackling through the air and turned to see Kateryna’s eyes emit several arcs of blue lighting. She swung her power mace once before a bright flash momentarily blinded Saureil, followed by a deafening thundering noise that seemed to have no end.

The ground between the inquisitor and the alien cracked and split as each of them stood defiantly against the other and unleashed their reality-bending power.

Clouds of energy gathered around the two psykers as they unleashed their powers against each other in a confrontation in which Saureil knew he could take part without being turned to vapor.

There was no glory in a foolish death, after all, and his claims about being able to guarantee his safety had been fatal hubris, the most deadly of killers.

Saureil had never liked psykers, barely tolerating his brothers with such a curse because of their usefulness and often despising the human ones, but Kateryna was proving a tolerable exception to his hatred of magic as she stood toe to toe with the alien witch.

“This is not a battle for bolter and blade, space marine, and I don’t think I can overcome this alien right now. We must leave now,” Kateryna shouted while blasting a shockwave that sent the alien sorceress flying back and giving them an opening to take a few steps back.

Withdrawing from a fight felt like an act of cowardice for which he would have to do penance in the future, but he would not let the inquisitor out of his sight. When he saw her rush away from the combat, he reluctantly followed, occasionally turning around to fire his bolter at the alien with little effect, while Kateryna did the same with her bolts of electricity coming out of her mace.

“If your Deathwatch pets can hear you, this would be to call for their aid,” Saureil said as his heart pumped blood into his ears and the sound of his legs hitting the ground reverberated into his skull while he ran after Kateryna.

“There is no Deathwatch here!” Kateryna’s frustrated shout surprised Saureil.

Since when did the Inquisitors of the Ordo Xenos not travel with the Deathwatch? At least when they knew they would spend a long time in alien territory.

They turned around another corner, and Saureil fired a shot at two alien soldiers who seemed both surprised and terrified to see him appear in front of them.

Reinforcements were coming. That was a problem if he wanted the inquisitor to live.

His bolts made quick work of his targets, leaving nothing but a bloody stain behind them, but noted his shots had barely struck them. If the targets had worn effective armor, they would have fired back.

He kept running forward, slowing his run to a pace that a human could keep up with.

Just as he saw the hole his melta charges had created, he heard Kateryna scream behind him and turned around in a split second to see her on the floor with her right leg missing. He noticed there was no blood around; the blast having instantly cauterized the wound the moment it made contact.

He rushed to help her up, momentarily putting away his bolter and kneeling for a moment to lift her in his arms. Despite all her gear, she felt surprisingly light when he hoisted her.

“The grenades, throw one of them,” she pleaded, and Saureil obliged. “Throw it!”

The alien witch turned the corner the moment after he had thrown his grenade, getting caught in the blast. Saureil had expected a powerful blast, but what he saw was an odd dispersal of golden dust that caused the alien witch to stumble back.

Suddenly, her alien eyes turned to normal, and she looked powerless as her mane lost its unnatural motion and fell with her body. Even the howling of the winds, which had been a constant since the fight had started, had stopped howling in an instant. It was as if reality had immediately reasserted its power over the material plane.

The blue glow on the alien’s horn flickered and faded while Saureil stared at the result of what he could only describe as the most peculiar weapon he had ever seen in his life.

The alien looked horrified at her suddenly and was taking several steps back while her eyes focused on the space marine. She was quickly regaining her senses and increasing the speed of her retreat as he stared at her while one hovered over his bolter.

“Let’s go, now!” Kateryna ordered, surprising Saureil, who was already mentally visualizing his metal boot crushing the alien’s head.

“But we have her,” Saureil protested. “This xeno witch must-“

“It is not her time,” Kateryna interrupted him, sounding desperate, and Saureil could feel her squirming as he held her in his arms. “That xeno still has a role to play in the Emperor’s plan. She must live. If you care for the Emperor’s designs, you will not take that fatal shot I know you wish to take.”

Saureil hesitated for a moment before nodding.

“As you wish, inquisitor,” He said as he started walking again, entering the dark caves from which they had arrived. “I hope I do not regret following your commands.”

“So do I,” Kateryna whispered in response.

A moment later, the two of them disappeared into the subterranean darkness from which they had arrived.

Author's Note

Damn, eleven months this time, I'm getting slow.
Honestly, I'm not exactly happy with how this turned out, but I wanted to have something before reaching the 12th month.
All of this because I wanted to show the moon a bit.
Many darlings were brutally murdered in the making of this chapter.