Mortarion and Lorgar had been defeated and forced to retreat. Yet Dukel, the Imperial Warmaster, did not count this as a loss. The Daemon Primarchs had come prepared—arrogant, yes, but not foolish enough to fall so easily.
The counteroffensive of Mankind had only just begun. There would come a day when even the Traitor Legions would find no place left to run.
High in the atmosphere above the planet Vigilus, the gunboat Doom tore into the void. Inside, Dukel's voice echoed across the vox-net of the Imperium, reverberating through every channel.
The Warmaster had stood alone and driven back two Daemon Primarchs. The news spread like wildfire, racing through every Legion and every battlefront. Across the stars, loyal warriors raised their voices in triumphant cheers. The hellish howls of the traitor warhosts on the surface of Vigilus now rang hollow—a wail of dying heresy.
Amidst the chaos, the evacuation of Imperial civilians accelerated. Though victory had been seized, Chaos still clung to the land like a rot, turning the planet into a festering ruin. Poisoned fog and corrupted swamplands spread beneath the soldiers' feet, but within their hearts blazed newfound hope.
For the first time in decades, the light of the Imperium's future shimmered on the horizon. One day, all traitors—all Daemons—would fall.
Deep beneath the surface of Hive Vigilus, in a forgotten basement cloaked in darkness, the voice of Dukel crackled through the vox.
"We must act swiftly," Shivara said with a grin, her voice calm despite the circumstances. "Our master calls. Let us not keep him waiting."
A shockwave rattled the passageway. Stone and steel groaned above them as dust rained from the ceiling.
From the depths of the tunnel came guttural chants—foul litanies of Chaos. A tide of heretics surged from the shadows, chasing the Sisters of the Heart with fervor.
"Do not waste breath on the damned," Shivara barked into the squad channel. "They already belong to the Lord of Destruction."
Without missing a step, she lobbed a frag grenade down the tunnel. It detonated with a thunderous roar, causing a full section of the corridor to collapse in a maelstrom of dust and fire. The delay wouldn't be permanent—but it would be enough.
"Move. Now."
Their mission was not to purge heretics, though they would not shy away from it.
During the previous campaign on Vigilus, the underhive had swallowed entire forces. Any who entered vanished without a trace. Even the Midnight Haunters dispatched by Abaddon had been silenced, their fates unknown.
But Chaos wasn't the only force to suffer losses here.
A squad of Space Wolves had also gone missing—last seen descending into these very tunnels.
That was why the Sisters of the Heart were here. As the personal guard of Warmaster Dukel, their purpose was to investigate the anomaly—and to retrieve the Astartes, if any yet lived.
Shivara led the procession with discipline forged in blood and fire. The Sisters' armor gleamed beneath the grime: gold and crimson laced with obsidian black—the colors of the Warmaster himself. Each step echoed confidence, purpose, and duty.
The tunnels forced even these smaller-than-Astartes warriors to crouch as they moved, shoulder-to-shoulder. Dust and filth clung to their robes, but the golden heraldry upon their pauldrons shone defiantly through the muck.
The hive's lower ventilation systems had long since been destroyed in the conflict, and no clean air remained. Smoke from detonations lingered like mist, blurring everything behind them. Dust motes hung suspended in the light of their weapon-mounted lamps, swirling like tiny, silent watchers.
These tunnels twisted like the coils of a great machine, a labyrinth deep beneath Vigilus. They had already marched ten kilometers or more, and behind every veil of darkness lurked another ambush. Xenos, cultists, mutants—it mattered little.
No one knew just how many of the Emperor's enemies festered beneath the hive. The Sisters struck them down swiftly, but for every foe slain, two more seemed to rise in their place.
Then came the alarm.
"Contact!" a Sister at the rear shouted.
The squad turned instantly, weapons raised.
From the dust-choked dark came nightmares—Genestealers. The xenos charged like rabid beasts, claws slicing the air with terrible purpose.
Behind them came the Pauper Princes, those twisted remnants of humanity, wholly corrupted by the Genestealer Cult. Many had mutated beyond recognition, their flesh warped, their minds lost.
The confined space of the tunnel forced the Sisters into a staggered formation. Those in front dropped to one knee, allowing the rear ranks to open fire over their shoulders.
Fwoosh!
Red-tinged promethium howled from flamers, turning the forward charge into a firestorm. Grenade launchers thundered behind them, echoing like distant artillery.
Flames engulfed the xenos swarm, clinging to chitinous hides and spreading like wildfire. The tunnel became an inferno of shrieking aliens and collapsing stone.
Yet the tide did not stop.
Genestealers clawed over their fallen kin, heedless of pain or fire. Their obsidian talons scraped at ceramite and flesh alike, each determined to be the first to reach their prey.
Still, the Sisters held. Shivara's voice cut through the chaos, coordinating every move.
Then—a massive shadow lunged forward, smashing through the burning remains. A Genestealer Patriarch, grotesque and immense, drove its claws deep into Shivara's armor, seizing her leg and dragging her across the blood-slicked floor.
The Genestealers' power was not to be underestimated. Their claws were more than capable of slicing through the ceramite plating of even the Emperor's finest—the Adeptus Astartes.
Shivara, caught by one of the creatures, raised her free leg and slammed her armored boot into the xenos' bulbous, chitinous skull. The impact crushed its cranium with a sickening crunch, yet the beast clung on, its claws refusing to release her leg. It gnashed its needle-like black teeth, slick with filth, snapping hungrily at her.
"Above you, Sister Shivara!" a Battle Sister cried out.
A torrent of promethium fire erupted from her flamer, washing over the Genestealer in a blaze of divine wrath. The creature screeched, releasing its grip as its flesh ignited.
Shivara rolled free, bolter already raised as she joined the volley with her sisters. The burning monstrosity thrashed and convulsed under the hail of mass-reactive rounds before collapsing in a blackened heap, its remains adding to the growing pile of alien dead.
"Another grenade!" Shivara barked, her voice steady amid the chaos.
A fragmentation grenade was quickly passed forward. She armed it and hurled it down the passage, then turned away as the detonation rocked the corridor.
Boom.
The tunnel shuddered violently, dust and debris cascading from the ceiling. As the smoke cleared, the Sisters spotted the mangled bodies of cultists crawling feebly through the rubble—twisted mockeries of humanity, pierced and torn by shrapnel, yet still clinging to unholy life.
There was no mercy for the damned.
The Sisters executed the wounded heretics without hesitation, bolters barking as they pressed deeper into the labyrinthine underhive.
After a prolonged and brutal advance, the squad finally halted in a wide subterranean chamber, taking a moment to regroup. These rooms, scattered throughout the hive's underbelly, offered brief respite from the suffocating confines of the tunnels.
"I suspect we're nearing the end of this tunnel network," Shivara said, unrolling a tattered tactical chart. "We've eliminated over ten thousand hostiles thus far."
"Grand Sister," one of the nuns spoke up, "I recommend we purge every xenos we encounter on the return path. Their numbers are vast. If left unchecked, they'll fester into a far greater threat when the cleansing fire of the Imperium descends."
"Agreed," Shivara nodded solemnly. "The Imperium's duty does not end with survival. We are to bring holy extermination until the last alien parasite is eradicated."
"But if we do so, we risk delaying our withdrawal," another Sister cautioned. "The xenos have spread like a plague."
"Then we shall disinfect this blighted warren before we leave," Shivara answered firmly. The fire of her conviction burned bright, the cunning edge of her demeanor now veiled by the righteous clarity of purpose expected of a Canoness in the Emperor's service. "Sisters, we move. Forward."
With Shivara at the helm, the squad entered another tunnel, their bolters ready.
The hive's underworld was impossibly complex—its twisting corridors and hidden shafts forming a web more intricate than the nest of any Terran insect. To prevent disorientation, Shivara had ordered the Sisters to mark each intersection they passed with a sacred Aquila, carved into the stone and etched with the direction of their approach.
Their path became clearer with every mark. Over time, a crude yet reliable map of the entire subterranean route took form.
Hours passed since their last clash with the Genestealer swarm. The tunnels now felt eerily quiet, as if the xenos had withdrawn into the shadows, watching and waiting.
The corridor they now navigated was in better condition—free from rubble and fresh from the Sisters' cleansing efforts. Their pace quickened, morale bolstered by hard-earned progress.
Shivara's stride grew more confident, her mind already reaching for the light beyond this darkness. She longed to return to her true place—at the side of Warmaster Dukel. Once the filth in this hive was purged, they would rejoin his crusade and bring fire and vengeance to even greater foes.
Glory awaited.
Suddenly, Shivara raised a clenched fist, halting the squad behind her. The Sisters of Battle fell into disciplined silence, forming a tight column as they scanned the darkness ahead.
With senses honed by decades of combat and devotion, they caught the faintest stirrings—a presence moving in the shadows.
"Be alert," Shivara whispered, voice cold and sharp as a blade.
Grenade launchers were raised, their matte-black barrels slowly aligning toward the source of the sound. Tension gripped the air.
Then, at the edge of the corridor's gloom, a massive figure emerged.
It stood taller than any Genestealer they had encountered—broader, heavier, radiating menace. But unlike the frenzied, animalistic charges of the Tyranid bioforms, this creature moved with calculated control.
"I dedicate all I am to the God-Emperor," a Sister murmured. With a warrior's grace, she drew a ritual dagger from her hip, eyes narrowing like a predator ready to strike.
But the beast did not lunge.
Instead, the unmistakable whine of servos and the deliberate clank of ceramite boots echoed down the tunnel.
From the darkness stepped a towering figure in scorched, battle-worn Mk X power armor—adorned with the heraldry of the Space Wolves Chapter. His pauldrons bore runes etched in Fenrisian script, and his armor was pitted with claw marks, gore, and the ash of a hundred kills.
"Lower your weapons," Shivara ordered, voice firm yet measured. She did not relax, nor did her Sisters. Their mission was to rescue the lost warriors of the Emperor—but vigilance, as always, was paramount.
Even in this moment of potential reunion, trust had to be earned.
She scrutinized the warrior's movements, noting the layered blood on his armor. He had clearly been down here for some time.
"I am Canoness Shivara of the Order of the Sacred Flame, Ophelia VII," she declared, her tone unwavering.
The Space Marine slowly lowered his weapon. His gaze swept over the golden-armored Sisters, caked with blood and soot, and he nodded with grudging respect.
"Sisters of the Sacred Flame? I didn't expect to find any of your kind in this Emperor-forsaken abyss. You've clearly been fighting your way through this hell."
Shivara didn't need to respond. The grime staining their resplendent armor spoke for itself. What once gleamed like sunlight now bore the mark of countless xenos slain.
"It's been a long march," she said coolly.
"This place is a damnable pit," the Wolf muttered bitterly. "Noble warriors such as yourselves shouldn't have to set foot here."
His voice cracked, and his next words came with a grim weight. "I've lost every one of my brothers to these abominations."
He spat on the floor, disgust and grief etched across his weathered features.
"All of them?" Shivara's voice was low. She wasn't offended by the Wolf's bluntness—each Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes had its own temperament. But his words carried a chilling truth.
She had known the threat on Vigilus was dire. But for an entire squad of Primaris Astartes to be wiped out? That was a sobering revelation.
Recalling the relentless battles she and her Sisters had endured, Shivara felt a grim pride. It was a miracle they had survived this long. Any mortal regiment would have been annihilated by now.
"Your strike force cut all contact after entering the underhive. Locating and extracting you was one of Warmaster Dukel's primary objectives for this campaign," she said.
The Space Wolf gave a solemn nod.
"Then you've honored us, Sister. But I wish you had come sooner—before I was forced to watch my brothers die one by one." His voice faltered, grief still raw beneath his warrior's stoicism.
"My name is Bron Snowpetl, Pack Leader of the Greyfangs," he added.
Shivara nodded in return, acknowledging his rank and sacrifice.
"At present, Imperial forces are leading evacuations across the surface. Technically, I should escort you to safety immediately." Her tone shifted, a slight, cunning smile crossing her lips.
"But as you may know, when on campaign outside standard doctrine, there's always room for… interpretation. Wolf Lord Snowpetl, perhaps we can strike back at the Tyranid infestation beneath this hive. The dead cannot return, but vengeance… vengeance is still ours to claim."
The Space Wolf's eyes gleamed with renewed purpose.
"You'd risk your life to help me avenge them?" His voice rose, gratitude evident—though it was quickly tempered. "No. No, forget it. If this delays your greater task, Warmaster Dukel will not look kindly upon it."
"Punishment is but another form of the Emperor's blessing," Shivara replied, her smile cryptic and unreadable to Astartes sensibilities.
Snowpetl did not understand the expression, but he recognized the fire behind it. It was the same fire he'd seen in the eyes of his battle-brothers—unyielding devotion, clad in flesh.
Then, both warriors fell silent.
From the tunnel ahead came a sound both knew well: the hiss of clawed limbs scraping stone, the whisper of many-legged movement in the dark.
"They're coming again," Snowpetl growled, his voice low and guttural—a predator preparing for war.
...
TN:
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