Chương 3: Chapter Two - Sisters

The only reason Octavia wasn't injured was because she was in 'time out.' That is to say, that because of her improvements to the battle hymn-cycle, Novitiate Superior Daydris had sent her to her bunk without food or drink to 'think about the Emperor's decorum.' It was stupid! All she had done was sped up the tempo and increased the pitch a little. If anything, it made the hymns better listening, and hey, the service had ended two minutes early! They should be thanking her!

Octavia giggled in her bunk, then stifled the laughter. If anyone heard her, she was going to be in so much more trouble. But really, the Sisters of Order of the Shattered Glass were so very uptight sometimes. They needed someone like Octavia to help loosen them up a little. Being too uptight wasn't good for anyone. That led to stress. Really, by being a pain in the ass, Octavia was serving the God Emperor in her best capacity. If it meant that it would take a few more months to become a fully-fledged sister...

well, it would be worth it, probably? She perked up when the doors into the rooms they had been graciously given by the lord captain opened. Of course, the five Novitiate Superiors and the Palatine (Sister Androsa, whose uptightness was legendary) had the finest rooms, but that was normal. Octavia was more than happy with a little bunk in the corner of the room.

"Oh, it's you," she said. There was a sigh from the young woman who had just entered.

"Hello, Sister Octavia," she said.

"You're supposed to be praying for forgiveness."

"I did!" Octavia lied.

"I prayed to the big man, and he hasn't smitten me down, so I think we're good. If anything, I'm awaiting a holy miracle wherein the Emperor, in his infinite grace and with his infinitely good taste in music, praises me for my slight alterations to our order's battle-hymns. You know you liked them, Sister Jeanne." Sister Jeanne sighed.

"Octavia... I think I saw a vein in the Novitiate Superior's head about to burst." Octavia giggled.

"Good! She needs to learn that things don't always go according to plan."

"God Emperor's kindness, Octavia, you're going to be tossed out of one of this fine ship's voidlocks and told to scrub the exterior with your own brush if you keep this up."

"Ah, well, that would require a proper saintly miracle to survive," Octavia said.

"They don't make saints as short as you," Sister Jeanne replied.

"Oi!" Octavia said. She sat up in her bunk, which was something only she could do. Most of her sisters had been complaining, at length, about the size of their bunks. They were exactly five feet long, and had three feet of vertical clearance. More than enough room for someone of Octavia's size... not so much for any of her sisters.

"You know that I'm sensitive about that."

"Uh-huh," Sister Jeanne replied.

"And next you're going to say that the only reason you were never promoted to full sister is because they don't make power armour that small."

"Hey!" Octavia said. She was ready to start laying into Sister Jeanne when the gravity in the room shifted. She felt herself floating upwards for a moment, then clung onto the edge of her bunk.

"Brace!" she shouted. She wasn't sure if that helped any. The entire room lurched, violently, and she was thrown. Fortunately, for her, she was thrown down, into the thin cushion of her bunk. The small distance helped as well, though she was still bounced around. It wasn't much worse than some of her training.

"Are you okay?" she asked as she lay, folded up in her bunk. A groan from deeper in the room had her scrambling to get out and rushing over to where Sister Jeanne had fallen. The young woman had a bump forming on her head, and was going to bruise. She had been thrown halfway across the room. Fortunately, the room was mostly empty except for spare blankets and other than a pair of boots that had flown over from under someone's bunk, the space was clean.

"C'mon, let's get you on your feet," Octavia said.

"We'll go see the Hospitalier for that bump."

"You're not allowed to leave the room," Jeanne said.

"And the ship just crashed. I think Novitiate Superior Daydris has bigger worries," she replied. That proved to be true. On exiting the bunks, they walked through a messy corridor riddled with flickering lights and into the main space given over to the Order of the Shattered Glass. It was a bit of a mess. The armoury had been turned into a disaster, and several sisters were laid down on cots, rapidly deployed in one corner of the room. There was a lot of motion, lots of raised voices, lots of near-panic.

Then someone shouted.

"Calm!" Everyone flinched and turned towards the entranceway.

"Damn, Palatine Androsa has some lungs on her," Octavia said. Unfortunately, she said it while everyone was still quiet, and her voice carried. Sister Androsa stared daggers at her from across the room, and for a moment, Octavia was worried that she'd have more than time out to worry about. Fortunately, the situation was more complex than that.

"We're still receiving reports of what just happened. The bridge isn't replying to our Vox. However, there are others who have. One of the Sergeant-at-arms has reported mass unrest in the lower decks. I need each Novitiate Superior to form a kill team, now. Grab what equipment you can, then report back to me for tasks." She backed off, then spoke to a sister with a vox-pack and another of the senior sisters.

"Are you feeling better?" Octavia asked Jeanne.

"Having Sister Palatine Androsa catch me in her glare was enough to make me forget about my bump for a moment," Jeanne said.

"You're welcome! You could say that my presence is healing."

"Pft." They both straightened as Novitiate Superior Daydris stomped by. The woman was in her power armour, though it was missing some pieces which were being carried by a novitiate just a few steps behind.

"Sisters Jeanne and Octavia. A pleasure to see you survived. Get your gear, unless you wish to fight like the Repentia?" That last part was very much aimed at Octavia.

"I have nothing to repent, Sister," Octavia replied.

"All I have done has been for the glory of the Emperor."

"Get dressed. We're leaving in five."

"Must you antagonize everyone so much?" Jeanne hissed as they scurried over to the armoury. A sister quartermaster was grumbling as weapons were handed out, as well as armour and other equipment. Since this pilgrimage was mostly composed of novices, it wasn't anything too special. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

"It keeps people on their toes. And makes me happy." Octavia was handed gear that was deeply familiar to her. A breastplate of carapace armour, heavy cloth robes, and both a sword and lasrifle.

"Hey, do you have that one set that's a bit... smaller?" she asked. Then she was jostled aside, and pulled away from the quartermaster by other sisters who weren't so picky. Cursing (very quietly) to herself, she donned her armour, then squirmed within it. It was designed with straps and adjustments, but there wasn't a sister alive that would consider the gear comfortable. The sword was large, heavy, and designed for hands that were bigger than hers.

The gun was fine, though she would have preferred a flamer of some sort. Novitiate Superior Daydris was waiting nearby, with perhaps three quarters of the usual cohort of novitiates.

"Good, I received more information. We're heading to the lower decks. There have been sightings there, of ab-humans. They are in a frenzy." It wasn't long before the entire team was moving down one of the central corridors of the ship, and that's where it started to sink in that the bump they had received was more serious. Panels had fallen off of walls, and there were some corridors flooded with liquids. Voidsmen were moving about, running through damage control operations.

Strangely, there were few members of the Adeptus Mechanicus around. That, in her opinion, was not a good sign. If they weren't here, then they were somewhere more critical, which meant that there were bigger, worse problems elsewhere. One of the sisters started to sing a battle-hymn to the Emperor, begging for courage. Others joined in. Octavia remained silent. They rode an elevator down, then disembarked into chaos.

Voidmen-at-arms were demanding the crew to remain calm, but it was only barely keeping things from boiling over. People wanted answers, and there were none to provide. A man in thicker, nicer armour stomped over to them, then nodded to Sister Daydris.

"Ma'am! We have things under control here, Emperor-willing. We need more assistance deeper in, however."

"What is the issue?" Sister Daydris asked.

"We don't know," the voidman-at-arms replied.

"I have conflicting reports. The vox network isn't stable at the best of times down here, and right now it's a mess. What I do know is that my men one deck down are asking for reinforcements, and I can't get troops through all of this." He gestured at the gaggle of civilians.

"We'll take care of it, then," Daydris said. They pushed through the crowd, who at least had the common sense not to stand in the way of the tall Sister in the power armour. The common man of the Imperium only rarely saw a sister, but there was some respect, there. Arriving at the end of the corridor, they found a stairwell, with some people fleeing up to their level. One of them paused, panting, and told them to run before they followed their own advice.

Octavia had a bad feeling about that, about the whole situation, really. Arriving one deck down, and that uncomfortable feeling was realized when they discovered several dead. Not by collapsing against a bulkhead. These were people that had been shot, and cut. Others were fleeing past, but the sisters stopped and observed for a moment.

"Look, that one!" one of them said. She was pointing to one of the dead, a man that looked like he was on the wrong side of abhuman. He was clutching a symbol in his hand, on the end of a short chain.

"Heretics," Novitiate Superior Daydris spat.

"Split up. Three teams. One will remain here with myself. The others, go down that corridor, and that one. Find any worshipers of the enemy of mankind and show them no mercy. This vessel is in no state to afford a mutiny by their sort." They split off. Somehow, Octavia ended up with Jeanne again, as well as a half-dozen other novices. They made it to the end of one corridor, then continued down another, following the distant sounds of a scuffle.

It wasn't long before they discovered a group of voidsmen-at-arms who were running from something. The men's eyes lit up at the sight of them.

"What's going on?" Octavia asked. It might not look it, but she was the senior-most sister here, for what little that was worth.

"They're mad!" a soldier replied.

"They... they came up from the lower decks, beneath the enginatorium. They're not human! Claws, and fangs and carapace!"

"Abhumans?" Octavia asked. One had to purge the abhuman, but she had always felt more pity for them. Maybe it was being called a squat for much of her life. The soldier shook his head.

"No. I know those. This is different."

"Regroup near the stairwell," she ordered. We'll go and investigate." The soldier shook his head again.

"No! They're coming."

"Then go now before they arrive," she snapped. The men moved by, and for a moment, she almost wanted to follow them. Instead, she turned towards her sisters.

"Remain here, just a moment. I'm going to look." She gestured to the next intersection ahead, a place crawling with deep shadows. Moving up, she brought her gun up, and tightened her grip on her sword. It took some time for her eyes to adjust, but what she saw when they did made her blood run cold. Genestealers. Her education had featured the monsters before. Her experience with them was... non-existent. There were a half-dozen creatures, pale skin, sickly, with ridged foreheads and limbs that were too long.

One of them looked up, the arm of a voidsman in his mouth. It dropped with a wet squelch, and the monster made a call. Three dozen more pairs of eyes appeared in the dark. There had to be fifty, maybe more, of the creatures infesting this one corridor. She did the mental math. Her sisters had auto-pistols and a few swords. A half-dozen against this many.

"Run!" she called out, waving her arm.

"Quick! Get back to Sister Daydris! Now!" The scream had the genestealers shifting closer. One of them howled, then the chase was on. Octavia ran, only she didn't run towards her sisters, but away, down the other end of the corridor. She only slowed down to shoot at the first of the monsters to poke its head out. It missed, but that was fine, it was its attention she wanted. If she could keep them on her, then her sisters might live. How was that for repentance?

Novitiate Superior Daydris would finally be proud of her!