A withdrawal conducted according to doctrine preserves lives, matériel, and initiative. Panic does none of these.

  “All units, this is Commander Longsun. The ship is broken and the enemy has unleashed berserker units. Fall back. Evacuate immediately. Do not engage.”

  Mira ran through conquered passageways, Skysword close behind him, as the ship did its best to kill them both. It groaned and screamed in its metallic tongue as they rushed past Gue’la and Tau dead alike.

  As he ran, Mira watched the signal of Commander Longsun degrade—from gold, to silver, to bronze, then to a terrifying charcoal hue when his final message came over all frequencies.

  Then it faded to the semi-translucent black of death.

  Mira stopped.

  Both eyes locked on the signal.

  “No,” he murmured.

  Skysword slammed into him from behind.

  “Keep moving, Shas’la. We have to make it back to the shuttle bay.”

  “But the Commander—”

  “I know. I see it too.” Skysword’s voice was a harsh bark now, stripped of its usual calm. “And I will mourn him—and all we’ve lost—when we have time. But right now you need. To. Move.”

  Mira heard the roar of the Gue’ron’sha in the passageway behind them, followed by a rapid fusillade of pulse fire, screams—then silence.

  He started running again.

  “Follow evacuation route Kappa-Seven,” Skysword said. “The route will highlight on your HUD. Don’t think. Just move.”

  Alarms screamed as they pressed on. Mira’s lungs burned with exertion. He held back tears as his comms delivered their grim reports.

  “This is Fifth La’rua. I can hear it coming. We will form the rear guar—”

  The transmission dissolved into screams.

  A hand seized Mira’s shoulder and yanked him back. Panic surged until he realized Skysword was holding him in place.

  Mira looked ahead.

  The glowing evacuation path sliced cleanly through open space—over a gap where a hallway had once been. The ship was tearing itself apart. A place Mira remembered clearing was now torn open, exposing raw structure and void.

  “The passageway is intact on the other side,” Skysword said. “We just need to jump.”

  “Are you mad?” Mira asked, forcing his voice steady as he gestured across the chasm. “We can’t make that jump!”

  “Check your sensors, Shas’la. Gravity is reduced here. If we get a running start and disengage mag boots at the right moment, we can make it.”

  Mira glanced at the readout in the corner of his HUD.

  Skysword was right.

  Gravity was a third of normal.

  He nodded as they backed away from the gap.

  Skysword patted his back as they braced.

  “On my mark. Together. Three… Two… One… Mark!”

  They sprinted forward. At the lip of the torn deck they released their mag boots and leapt.

  They floated across at speed. Mira began to rotate, arms flailing in a futile attempt to stabilize himself. Skysword grabbed him again, correcting his trajectory.

  Below them, Mira saw the burning fusion heart of the dying vessel.

  They landed hard but intact.

  Mag boots re-engaged.

  They ran.

  “When the hunt fails, the predator disengages and survives to strike again,” Skysword said between breaths. Mira recognized the maxim from the Fire Academy.

  Skysword led them down another corridor—then stopped abruptly.

  The glowing evacuation line on Mira’s HUD flickered, stuttered, and vanished.

  “That’s not possible,” Skysword said.

  “What?” Mira asked, already breathing too fast.

  “This route should be intact.” Skysword’s hand moved across his wrist console, pulling up secondary schematics. “Structural collapse probability was below threshold.”

  The deck lurched beneath their feet.

  Somewhere deep in the ship, metal screamed.

  The schematic updated.

  Red lines bloomed across it like a spreading infection.

  Skysword exhaled sharply. “Route Kappa-Seven is no longer viable.”

  Mira swallowed. “Then what?”

  “We reroute.” Skysword’s tone was clipped now. “Sigma-Two is—”

  The corridor ahead of them imploded.

  The deck folded inward, bulkheads tearing free as vacuum clawed at the air. Mira was thrown against the wall as emergency seals slammed down, barely containing the breach.

  The evacuation line reappeared—now curving sharply away.

  “…unavailable,” Skysword finished.

  He brought up another path. Less direct. Manual traversal.

  Mira felt his stomach sink. “That goes through unpressurized sections.”

  “Yes.” Skysword hesitated for a fraction of a dec. “We will seal our armor and move quickly.”

  They ran again.

  Gravity surged, then dropped without warning. Mira stumbled as his boots lost purchase, barely catching himself on a ruptured conduit.

  Skysword grabbed him, hauling him upright.

  “Stay close,” he said. “Withdrawal is only possible when the enemy agrees you are no longer worth pursuing.”

  His comms crackled to life.

  “This is Third—” static “—it’s here—” a shriek, abruptly cut off.

  Another channel opened over it.

  “—Broken Jade! I say aga—”

  Then another.

  “—shuttle bay breached—”

  Skysword swore under his breath and slammed his fist against his wrist console.

  “Silence,” he ordered, forcibly muting the channel.

  The sudden quiet rang louder than the alarms.

  They rounded a corner and nearly collided with a Fire Warrior sprinting toward them—helmet cracked, pulse rifle gone.

  He opened his mouth—

  A sound came from behind him.

  A wet, mechanical roar.

  The Fire Warrior turned.

  And disappeared from existence.

  Blood sprayed across the corridor wall and something heavy impacted the deck.

  Skysword didn’t look back.

  “Move,” he said, voice tight. “Move now.”

  Thump.

  Thump.

  Thump.

  Thump.

  Somewhere behind them, something was still walking.

  And it was not slowing down.

  “There’s a compartment just ahead. If we can seal it, we can buy some breathing space.”

  “How much?” Mira asked.

  “Enough,” Skysword said. “That’s all that matters.”

  They pressed on. When they turned the corridor, Mira saw the compartment Skysword meant.

  He also heard the monster speed up.

  The footsteps were louder now—closer. The time between impacts shortened.

  They ran harder. Mira’s lungs burned, each breath a raw, ragged pull. He couldn’t think. Adrenaline was the only thing keeping his legs moving.

  They crossed the threshold.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Skysword slammed his hand onto the wall control.

  The bulkhead dropped behind them with a heavy, reassuring clang.

  Mira sagged against the wall, chest heaving. For the first time since the chapel, there was nothing behind them.

  No footsteps.

  No roar.

  “Containment successful,” Skysword said automatically, already pulling up the next route.

  Mira tore his helmet off and dropped to his hands, retching dryly.

  Skysword sat beside him and patted his back, steady and deliberate.

  “Breathe, Shas’la,” he said. “Catch your breath. It is the most elusive prey in moments like this.”

  Then the door creaked.

  Mira looked up in time to see the reinforced plating bow inward—slowly, deliberately—as if something on the other side were testing it.

  Not striking.

  Measuring.

  The creak deepened into a tortured groan. Locking pistons screamed as they tried—and failed—to compensate.

  Skysword stared at the display.

  “That door is rated to withstand macro-impact,” he said quietly.

  The metal bent another centimeter.

  Skysword turned to Mira.

  “Run.”

  They were on their feet instantly. Mira slammed his helmet back on as they bolted.

  Behind them, metal shrieked as the bulkhead tore free.

  Something heavy crashed down the corridor.

  The impact traveled through the deck plates and up Mira’s legs, a dull, bone-deep shock that arrived before the sound did.

  Then the voice followed them.

  “HOOOOOORRUUSSSSS!

  Face me, you craven beast!”

  It echoed strangely—warped by distance, by ruptured bulkheads, by the ship’s dying geometry. The sound did not remain behind them. It slid along the corridors, bled through junctions, reappeared from vents and access shafts as if the ship itself were carrying it forward.

  It howled with pain. With rage. With something else Mira could not name.

  His legs begged him to slow. Muscles cramped and flared, each step a screaming protest. He must have faltered—because Skysword suddenly surged past him, seized a handle on Mira’s armor, and hauled him forward without breaking stride.

  “Come on, Mira!” Skysword barked. “Keep running. Not much farther.”

  Mira’s instincts screamed at him to stop.

  To hide. To make himself small. To find somewhere dark and wait for the predator to lose interest.

  It was an instinct older than doctrine. Older than training.

  If not for Skysword’s grip, he might have listened.

  Behind them, the footsteps changed.

  They were no longer heavy pauses followed by impact.

  They were faster now.

  Too fast.

  They burst through the final bulkhead into the hangar bay together.

  Aun’ui Ko’res turned at their entrance, her expression composed—serene, even—as if she had merely been interrupted mid-thought. Her honor guard reacted instantly, pulse spears snapping up and leveling on the pair.

  “Shas’nel,” Ko’res said evenly. “What is the meaning of this? Should you not be with the breaching teams?”

  “Honored Ethereal,” Skysword said, breathless now despite himself, “the situation has changed. We must evacuate you immediately.”

  “Evacuate?” Ko’res asked. No alarm colored the word. “As I understand it, the ship is secured. Only engineering and the command decks remain.”

  “We had the ship,” Skysword replied. “The Gue’la unleashed a Gue’ron’sha. It has decimated our ranks. This force can no longer hold the vessel.”

  Ko’res tilted her head slightly, considering this as one might consider a logistical discrepancy.

  “Then we call upon reserve cadres,” she said. “We came here to fight the Gue’ron’sha. Resistance was expected.”

  “Not this,” Skysword said. His voice dropped. “This one is different. Honored Aun—it killed Shas’O Longsun.”

  For the first time, Ko’res went still.

  The pause lasted barely a dec, but it was absolute.

  Her eyes flicked—once—to her guards.

  Then she looked at Mira.

  “What do you think, Shas’la?”

  The question struck him.

  Why him?

  But the memory would not stay contained.

  “Honored Aun,” Mira said, forcing his voice steady, “I have faced the Gue’ron’sha twice this action. The first time, a squad. They inflicted mass casualties—but we forced them to withdraw.”

  He swallowed.

  “This one does not fight according to logic. He screams words we cannot translate. He does not seek advantage—only destruction. He stops pursuing us only to kill more of us.”

  Mira’s hands trembled.

  “When I looked into his eyes,” he said, “it was like standing in front of a firestorm. Not hatred directed at me. Hatred that burned through me.”

  Silence hung in the hangar bay.

  Far behind them—much closer now—the deck rang again.

  Thump.

  Thump.

  The sound was clean. Centered. Direct.

  Ko’res exhaled slowly.

  “Doctrine states,” she said calmly, “that withdrawal must preserve initiative.”

  Skysword’s jaw tightened.

  “Doctrine does not account for this,” he said.

  Another thump echoed—close enough now that dust drifted from overhead struts.

  Ko’res nodded.

  “Prepare the shuttle,” she said. “We will withdraw. Set a time for departure, Shas’nel, and broadcast to our warriors to fall back. The Vespid auxiliaries will form the rearguard.”

  Skysword drew breath to argue—

  Then the ship screamed again.

  Ko’res’ honor guard tightened their grips on their spears.

  One moment the passageway was empty.

  The next, the monster stood there.

  Ko’res gasped.

  He filled the doorway, impossibly tall. His armor was scored and blasted apart, ceramite hanging in jagged plates. His body bore wounds in various states of healing. Blood drenched his face, pooling in the empty sockets where his eyes had been.

  And he was smiling.

  By the Tau’va—how awful that smile was.

  Ko’res’ guards surged past Mira to meet him, spears leveled for the monster’s midsection. He should not have seen them coming.

  He parried their strikes anyway.

  Skysword rushed past Mira, guiding Ko’res onto the Orca with as much dignity as the moment allowed. Mira remained frozen, watching the Gue’ron’sha clash with the honor guard.

  They lasted longer than they had any right to.

  They fought as they had been trained—one engaging in close combat while the other circled, pouring pulse fire into the monster’s back. Discipline. Precision. Sacrifice.

  Mira raised his pulse carbine with shaking hands.

  He knew his fire would be useless.

  Still, he made peace with the attempt—and heard Ko’res’ voice again, echoing from a half-remembered dream.

  See now how he dies. Watch how he avenges them.

  A hand seized Mira and dragged him backward onto the ramp.

  He was falling when he saw the first honor guard die—his torso opened by the monster’s chainsword in a spray of blood and light.

  “Go!” Skysword shouted. “Take off—now!”

  The Orca’s thrusters howled as the pilot applied full power. The craft lifted violently from the deck as Skysword hauled Mira clear. The ramp began to close.

  Through the narrowing gap, Mira saw the second honor guard lifted by the throat and hurled back down with brutal force.

  The ramp sealed shut.

  The engines roared as the pilots vectored thrust and carried them away from the dying ship.

  ***

  Admiral Fairwinds stood on the bridge of his flagship, reviewing the action reports as they streamed across the holodisplays.

  All enemy combat vessels had been disabled, boarded, and neutralized—save one.

  The Gue’ron’sha vessel still drifted among the wreckage, battered and scarred but stubbornly intact. Commander Longsun had assured him it was no longer combat-capable and would be taken within the next cycle.

  Fairwinds saw no reason to doubt the Fire Caste’s assessment. The boarding actions had proceeded faster than in previous engagements, casualties notwithstanding.

  Now it fell to his crews to clear the void lanes and prepare for the offload of the ground invasion forces.

  “Admiral,” an officer said, turning from his console. “Priority transmission on the Aun’s channel.”

  “Put it through.”

  Aun’ui Ko’res’ hologram resolved before him, her posture composed despite the circumstances.

  “Admiral,” she said evenly, “I regret to inform you that the Fire Caste will be unable to take the ship with the resources currently allocated.”

  Fairwinds inclined his head slightly.

  “I therefore authorize you,” Ko’res continued, “to take the honor of destroying it.”

  “As you command, Aun’ui.”

  Her image dissolved.

  Fairwinds turned back to his bridge crew.

  “Railguns to readiness,” he ordered calmly. “Target the Gue’ron’sha scout vessel. Full barrage. Armor-piercing caps, high-explosive yield, delayed fusing.”

  Officers acknowledged in crisp succession.

  “Stand by for my order.”

  ***

  The Captain stood on the bridge, his commissar patrol moving between stations. Some of the bridge crew had been wounded in the battle; they had been granted the Emperor’s Mercy. A few had seen their morale break and had received the Emperor’s Judgment instead.

  In the end, both were left slumped at their stations.

  The deck trembled beneath his boots—not with the violence of combat now, but with the deep, exhausted shudder of a ship that knew it was dying. Emergency lumens burned low and red, painting the ancient bridge in the color of sacrifice. The air tasted of incense and ozone, sacred oils and scorched circuitry.

  He rested his hand on the central lectern, feeling the faint vibration of the ship’s machine-spirit through ceramite and adamantine.

  Martyr’s Blood was old—older than the Chapter’s name. She had carried warriors to a hundred wars and borne witness to triumph and annihilation in equal measure.

  She had done her duty.

  Now, so would he.

  “Begin the Rites of Destruction,” he intoned.

  The surviving bridge crew began their tasks without hesitation, question, or protest. The machine-spirit answered at once with a sensation of grief, pride, and acceptance braided together.

  The Captain recited the catechism from memory.

  “By the authority vested in me by the Emperor of Mankind, by the blood of the Angel, and by the oaths sworn upon this deck, I consign thee to sacred annihilation.”

  He keyed the first sequence.

  Primary plasma regulators disengaged their safeties. Containment fields thinned by a single, deliberate margin.

  “Let no xenos hand claim thee.”

  Secondary power relays rerouted, overloading systems designed to fail only once.

  “Let no traitor defile thy bones.”

  The bridge groaned as internal bulkheads sealed themselves, locking the ship into a lattice of fire and pressure. Somewhere deep within the hull, prayer-engines began to chant, their binary hymns rising toward a final crescendo.

  The Captain closed his eyes.

  He thought—not of victory, nor of defeat—but of walls held long after hope had fled. Of brothers who had laughed on this bridge, who had bled on these decks. Of a Primarch carried away by sobbing sons beneath a dying sky.

  “Only in death,” he whispered, “does duty end.”

  A warning rune flared across the bridge.

  EXTERNAL TARGETING LOCK DETECTED

  He smiled.

  “Go ahead, xenos bastards.”

  He completed the final rite.

  A single rune turned from amber to red.

  SCUTTLING SEQUENCE ARMED

  The ship’s heart began to sing.

  Outside, unseen and uncaring, Tau railguns fired.

  The first impact punched through Martyr’s Blood like the fist of a god. Armor-piercing slugs tore through ancient ceramite, delayed charges detonating deep within the ship’s spine. Entire decks vanished in cascading fire, structure failing faster than the machine-spirit could compensate.

  The bridge shuddered violently.

  Men recited prayers at their stations, going to meet the Emperor with His name on their lips.

  More impacts followed—precise, merciless, mathematical. Each strike peeled the ship open further, venting atmosphere, shredding sacred spaces, unmaking history at the speed of mass and velocity.

  The scuttling sequence reached critical threshold.

  Plasma containment collapsed.

  For a heartbeat, Martyr’s Blood burned brighter than any star.

  Then she was gone.

  No wreckage remained large enough to be claimed. No relics survived to be defiled. Only expanding light and silent void marked where a fortress of faith had once stood.

  The Tau fleet recorded the kill.

  The Imperium was unaware of the action.

  ***

  The Orca lurched.

  Not violently—not like impact or evasive maneuvering—but with a deep, resonant shudder that passed through the deck, through Mira’s armor, through his bones.

  Someone screamed.

  Mira didn’t realize it was him at first.

  “What—” he gasped, clawing at the restraints across his chest. “What was that?”

  No one answered.

  Skysword was rigid beside him, hands braced against the bench, eyes fixed on the singular rear viewport on the Orca’s ramp.

  Mira saw the white bloom of light reflected in Skysword’s armor.

  He unbuckled his restraints and joined him at the viewport as the light faded.

  The space that should have held the ship—the place of his deepest terrors—was empty.

  It was gone.

  Not breaking.

  Not burning.

  Gone.

  Where the Gue’ron’sha vessel had loomed—vast, scarred, defiant—there was only expanding light and debris, a rapidly dispersing cloud of incandescent fragments tumbling into the void. Secondary detonations rippled through what little structure remained, like dying echoes.

  Mira stared.

  His mind refused to supply words.

  “That…” His throat worked. “That was—”

  “The fleet,” Skysword said quietly, his voice flat and stripped of inflection. “Railgun barrage. Delayed detonation rounds.”

  Mira’s vision blurred.

  The chapel.

  Eldi.

  Nirva.

  Korso.

  Commander Longsun standing alone in the smoke.

  The monster.

  A sound clawed its way out of Mira’s chest—half sob, half retch. He folded forward, leaning against the ramp, arms wrapped around himself as if he could hold his body together by force of will.

  “It’s over,” someone said. One of the pilots. Gently. As if the word itself might shatter if spoken too loudly.

  Skysword shook his head.

  “No,” he whispered. “No, it’s not.”

  He watched the planet below, knowing that every horror they had just faced on that wretched ship was waiting for them tenfold on the surface.

  Mira squeezed his eyes shut.

  Every time he blinked, he saw it again—the smile. The blood. The way the monster walked through fire as if it were rain.

  He slid down the ramp to sit on the deck, pressing his head against his knees, breathing in short, panicked bursts.

  The hunt was over.

  And for the first time in his life, Mira knew what it truly meant to be prey.