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Redemption Through Blood – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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REDEMPTION THROUGH BLOOD

John Sollitto

The cogitator beside Sister Marcella shattered as a stray round struck it, shrapnel clattering against her crimson armour. She slammed another magazine into her boltgun. Scanning the factorum, she hunted for whoever had fired the shot.

The heretics of Hagen Maxima were in their element, darting between the machinery and conveyor belts that they had once manned so diligently for the God-Emperor. Marcella frowned as one of the cowardly apostates ducked out of sight before she could put a bolt-round through his skull. She repositioned herself atop a nearby platform, overlooking a cluster of servo-arms. Crouching behind the control consoles there, she took in the battle from her new vantage point.

She took aim, and a satisfied grin stretched across her lips as each shot struck its intended target. The remaining heretics in her line of fire scrambled to cover. To her left, the main force from the Order of the Bloody Rose surged forward alongside their Astra Militarum allies. The sight of her Sisters wading farther into the factorum, bolters raised with prayers on their lips, made her soul glad.

Their foes continued to backpedal towards the massive metal doors that blocked this section of the building from the assembly wing beyond. Initially, the enemy had attempted to pen them in this room, creating a killing field among the apparatus and workstations. At the opposite end of the room, a yawning archway led to a landing platform that ended in a sheer drop, barring escape. However, in the ensuing fight, the forces of the Imperium had swiftly pushed the heretics back on the defensive.

‘Focus fire on the observation deck,’ said Sister Superior Palea over the vox. ‘Sisters Marcella and Oshira, continue flanking.’

To her left, Marcella watched as weapons turned upwards to the foreman’s station perched almost a hundred feet above the factorum floor. Behind its armaglass windows the heretics barked orders, attempting to rally their troops. When they were sufficiently distracted, Palea would give the signal. Then Marcella and Oshira would visit appropriate judgement on the foul blasphemers.

However, Marcella was not yet in position. A few yards ahead of her, she saw an opening near a bank of cogitators that would provide her with enough cover to approach unseen. There were few heretics in her path, and she would be able to move swiftly without attracting attention. Picking the appropriate line over and around the machinery, she began traversing the factorum floor.

As Marcella passed the forgotten workstations she scowled at the foul evidence of Chaos’ influence. Mangled half-mechanical bodies of servitors were gutted, flayed, and speared to their operation platforms. The heads of faithful workers had been removed, their discarded corpses littering the floors. Camnet Ful, the leader of the planetwide rebellion, had whipped the population into a murderous frenzy that had spread throughout the many facilities of Hagen Maxima like a virus.

To her right she heard a bellowing cry, and saw a crowd of heretics burst through a doorway armed with pilfered weapons, massive maintenance tools wielded like cudgels, and makeshift knives fashioned from shards of metal. Each wore the wreath of bullet casings that signified their loyalty to Ful. What little armour they sported had been looted from the skitarii warriors who had died in the defence of the Adeptus Mechanicus facilities on the planet. Marcella could see that their target was a squad of Guardsmen firing onto the observation station above, unaware of the danger fast approaching them.

Without pause, she rushed headlong towards the incoming heretics. Suddenly aware of her presence, they attempted to change course to intercept her, but they were too late. Her boltgun spewed holy judgement, and when she was within range, Marcella rammed her shoulder into the nearest heretic at full speed. In the midst of the melee she heard screams of terror as some of her foes attempted to flee. Reacting instinctively, she gunned them down for their cowardice as well as their sins.

Sizzling las-fire cut through the air as the Guardsmen now turned their weapons on Marcella’s adversaries. Only a handful of the heretics remained alive, and she stood still to allow the soldiers easier targets.

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ one of the Guardsmen said shakily. It was clear he understood how close they had come to an ignoble death. Marcella did not respond, and instead began surveying the bodies of the zealots.

She surmised that even this small contingent must have prepared for their attack at some nearby position. Her eyes found the doorway they had entered from.

She turned back to the squad of Guardsmen and called out roughly, ‘With me!’

There was a momentary pause as the soldiers exchanged unsure glances, but the Guardsman who had thanked her rushed to her side.

‘Come on!’ he shouted. Following his example, the rest scrambled to Marcella’s position, then followed her closely as she led the way through the door.

The sounds of battle quelled as they passed into the corridor beyond, and the Guardsmen immediately slowed their pace to keep from alerting their quarry. Marcella had no such concern, and left the soldiers behind in her wake.

In the next chamber, a massive pile of flame-scorched skulls lay beneath a nauseating array of blasphemous runes painted in blood. Ful’s cultists barked orders, preparing for another assault as they distributed weapons. One hefted a plasma gun, testing the weight of it in his hands with a malicious grin. The sight of the heretics, brazen in their rejection of the God-Emperor, enraged her.

As soon as one of the Chaos worshippers turned towards her, Marcella sent a quick burst of fire from her bolter, shredding the man’s torso. The Guardsmen caught up soon after, adding their fire to her own. The screams of the dying filled the sacrilegious fane, and the harsh reports from Marcella’s weapon were thunderclaps that signalled her righteous fury.

‘Sister Marcella, can you hear me?’ said Palea over the vox. Marcella could just make out her words in the din.

‘Yes, Sister Superior,’ she replied.

‘Where are you? You did not join Sister Oshira!’ Frustration and concern wrestled for control in Palea’s voice, and Marcella realised that in her haste to punish the reviled heretics, she had lost sight of her mission.

‘I have located a cultist stronghold and a squad of Guardsmen are assisting me in annihilating it.’

‘You will return at once!’ Palea shouted.

‘Yes, Sister Superior.’ Marcella loaded a new magazine into her boltgun and chastised herself for straying. It wasn’t until she looked up from her weapon that she saw a small hatchway that had previously escaped her notice. To the right of the skull effigy was a storage room the heretics had fashioned into a makeshift barracks. A veritable flood of Ful’s followers spilled forth from it like maggots from a rotting corpse. Marcella’s weapon was enough to keep any from reaching her, but the Guardsmen were not so lucky.

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