本章概述：

????????????一位戰(zhàn)斗修女被要么是帝皇的意志，要么是別的更糟的東西救了下來。

????????????In which a Sister of Battle is saved by either the Will of the Emperor, or something far, far worse.

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正文：

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空。

在將爆彈槍磁鎖到腰間前，我瞪著顯示器上閃爍的符文狠狠地咒罵出聲。沒有彈藥的話這件武器只不過是一根受祝的大頭短棒，不過我不會如此輕易地把我的姐妹的神圣武器扔到一邊，在我的敵人有可能腐化它的機(jī)魂使之為己所用時(shí)不能這么做。

除此之外，我尚且有可能找到一處彈藥補(bǔ)給點(diǎn)，即便它只是從一名安菲特里亞（Amphitria）的守軍的尸體上拿來的半空彈匣。

況且，這里有好多的尸體。

我低姿穿過這條小巷，耳朵對著東南方向上的槍聲和來自這個(gè)世界的掠奪者的混亂的嘲笑聲和呼喊聲。確實(shí)，它們近到可以聽見，但它們明顯正在交戰(zhàn)中，盡管沒法辨認(rèn)在是跟帝國衛(wèi)軍戰(zhàn)斗還是為了贓物在跟自己人打架。

對于獸人來說，兩者機(jī)會相等。

普瑞萊克斯五號（Praelex V）上最大的巢都安菲特里亞的死亡氣息是我在過去接近10個(gè)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)日中唯一能聞到的東西——由于更短的晝夜循環(huán)所以以這個(gè)星球上的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)是14天。我至少在過去兩個(gè)晝夜里沒有合眼，我一直在躲藏逃竄，自從…

我閉上眼睛，將回憶中的尖叫聲驅(qū)趕出去。

其中一些人可能還活著，但我沒有指望這個(gè)。綠色的入侵者們不以仁慈聞名，如果任何一名姐妹活了下來都極不可能是件好事。

不，她們就算以帝皇之名戰(zhàn)死，被埋葬著綠皮尸潮下，也好過活著被野蠻的異形雜種奴役。

溜進(jìn)一條小巷，又進(jìn)入一個(gè)被暴力的炮火摧毀的預(yù)制房屋住宅區(qū)，我得以清點(diǎn)自己的補(bǔ)給。

少量的食物，如果我小心處置的話能撐上幾天，而且我的動力甲能回收水，所以我或許能在過濾器壞掉前維持多于一個(gè)星期的時(shí)間。

一把沒有爆彈的爆彈槍，一個(gè)我從安菲特里安第五龍騎兵團(tuán)的帝國衛(wèi)軍那里拿到的充了一半電的激光手槍。我沒有額外的充電包，拿著一把有缺口的戰(zhàn)斗刀，穿著一件破損的動力甲就進(jìn)入了戰(zhàn)場。

我的左臂無力地垂著，不過并不是因?yàn)閭麆?。我的護(hù)甲中高貴的機(jī)魂已因在一陣可能致命的沖擊中保護(hù)了我而嚴(yán)重受損。顯然這場沖擊本會切下我的胳膊，但這件護(hù)甲已經(jīng)完全扛下了這一擊，我的手臂因而只受了瘀傷。

然而，這件護(hù)甲的情況要遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)更糟，且因沒有一名歐姆彌賽亞的神甫來主次修復(fù)儀式，我實(shí)際上已經(jīng)與殘廢無異。

我發(fā)現(xiàn)了一扇通往一處居所的半開的門并用肩膀一路擠了進(jìn)去，對著廢墟做了個(gè)鬼臉。感謝帝皇，這里沒有尸體，且獸人明顯還沒到過這，不過這種情況不會維持下去。

我重重地坐到了地上并用體重把卡住的門帶回原位。這花了些時(shí)間，并發(fā)出了我不想要的噪音，但它最終還是嵌了進(jìn)去，我在休息片刻時(shí)如釋重負(fù)地發(fā)出了無聲的嘆息。

我身上很疼，我的注意力在流逝，而我?guī)缀鯚o法在除了喘下一口氣外的事情上集中精神。

我沒有絕望下去，而是轉(zhuǎn)到跪姿，放下爆彈槍，拿出我護(hù)甲的小型儲物層里的一小套清潔工具。我一邊拆卸著武器一遍低聲念著戰(zhàn)爭禱言，一邊贊頌帝皇的奉獻(xiàn)一邊小心地用圣油擦拭每一個(gè)零件。祂自然本不會把我的姐妹和我送來絕望地送死，我知道…我在此的存在和我摯愛的姐妹的死亡有著更重大的意義。

一定有的。

“帝皇庇佑，”我在將撞針復(fù)位并插回空彈匣時(shí)喃喃道。“帝皇…庇佑。”

感到更放心了些后，我站起來檢視這個(gè)小小的住處。這里很樸素，與一名帝國的卑微仆人相配，適合一個(gè)謙卑的靈魂。以我的假設(shè)，這里的設(shè)施都已停擺，但我還是設(shè)法找到了些我存放的口糧條和一小瓶清水。

我盯著這瓶水，在存下它，喝光它，和拿它擦去身上的些許污垢間糾結(jié)。

我將為帝皇和帝國奮戰(zhàn)至死，但，呃，我倒不會為變得更干凈些就用掉這些水，哪怕就用一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)。

好吧，普莉希拉大修女再也不會在身旁責(zé)怪我浪費(fèi)補(bǔ)給了，她在我們著陸后不久就被其中一頭巨獸斬首，于是我從一邊的柜子上拿起一張看上去相對干凈的衣物殘片，仰起頭來往臉上滴了一點(diǎn)水。

清涼、提神的水濺在我的臉上，帶來了一種解脫感，我甩了甩那塊落灰的布，隨后小心地擦拭臉頰、鼻子和額頭。

這布幾乎成了黑的，在把它丟到一邊前我看向了一面破碎的鏡子，它歷經(jīng)破壞后依舊有些殘片頑固地附在上面。

見習(xí)戰(zhàn)斗修女亞歷桑德拉·阿圖斯（Alessandra Artus）回望著我，以這個(gè)詞的某些定義來看。我看上去既憔悴又疲憊，我平時(shí)呈現(xiàn)暗淡的橄欖色的皮膚現(xiàn)在因營養(yǎng)不良和缺乏日照而變得蒼白。

我和我的其他姐妹們同樣蒼白的頭發(fā)濕漉漉地粘在我的臉上，我從自己的容貌上移開視線。

我知道，這就是戰(zhàn)爭，這些事情并非意料之外，可我長久以來都習(xí)慣于盡量保持整潔，而現(xiàn)在離我還是個(gè)新人的時(shí)候并沒有多久。虧我這倒霉的運(yùn)氣，這場滅絕戰(zhàn)應(yīng)該是我獲得戰(zhàn)斗修女的職銜后的初試，盡管我覺得自己還是比我的小隊(duì)的其他人稍幸運(yùn)點(diǎn)的。

我再次無聲地向帝皇祈愿：如果她們還活著的話能夠免于綠皮之手，抑或是已經(jīng)光榮地戰(zhàn)死，甚至已經(jīng)屹立于祂的身側(cè)。

“WAAAGH！”

一聲響亮的獸性嘶吼劃破空氣，我條件反射地下蹲、抽出激光手槍，并深切地想念起我破碎的鏈鋸劍。即便是普通的獸人也是血肉和毀滅的引擎，我也曾親眼目睹它們有多難殺。

我曾目睹一個(gè)被爆彈的持續(xù)射擊轟成兩截的獸人拽倒并掐死了奧莉莎姐妹。

高階修女卡莉昂射斷了其中一個(gè)的胳膊，又用鏈鋸劍捅穿了它，結(jié)果它用剩下的一只手抓住了她的頭顱并將之像熟透的瓜果一樣碾碎。

用一把充了一半電的激光手槍去試圖放倒一頭獸人，這個(gè)念頭幾近可笑。

那個(gè)無能的衛(wèi)兵本可以完整地留下他的激光卡賓槍。

我仔細(xì)地傾聽著，獸人幾乎不可能做到隱蔽行事，我能聽到它們在住所走廊的遠(yuǎn)端破門而入，撕開房間。

我看不到它們是否沖我而來，但這聲音表明它們確實(shí)在這么做。我考慮過撤退，但我根本不可能在不驚動它們的情況下打開房門，如果我試圖用跑的，它們能輕易地瞄準(zhǔn)我的后背。

即便是獸人也不會射失一個(gè)在直線走廊上奔跑的穿動力甲的目標(biāo)。

事已至此。

它們到達(dá)我藏匿的處所門前時(shí)，我已然是個(gè)死人。我死時(shí)只會帶著一把刀子，而我可能做到的無非是給那個(gè)殺死我的獸人添一道傷疤，以作它日后一邊在護(hù)甲上掛著我的顱骨一邊對著自己的殘暴同類吹噓的資本。

“地球之主呵，垂聽我禱，”我詛咒著我祈禱時(shí)顫抖的四肢，“賜我力量以尊行您的旨意。除我恐懼，以您的不屈意志充盈之；除我軟弱，以您的無上偉力引領(lǐng)之；除我疑慮，以致畏怯無從蠱惑之?！?/p>

這些話語在獸人逼近的同時(shí)從我口中傾瀉而下，它們興奮的嚎叫在我耳邊恐怖地作響。

“帝皇呵，執(zhí)引我的手，”我繼續(xù)念著，聲線隨著咸淚滑過嘴唇而顫抖，我試圖將之想象成恐懼正離我而去，“仇恨為劍，以吾之憎惡洞悉異形之不可理喻，”我更緊地握住戰(zhàn)斗刀，“蔑視為盾，以吾須穿行于烈焰賜怪形予橫死；信仰為甲，因承蒙帝皇庇佑?！拔翌A(yù)備著用戰(zhàn)斗刀捅穿第一個(gè)進(jìn)門的綠皮的眼睛。如果它個(gè)子太高，我或許也能將刀片猛擊進(jìn)它凸出的下顎來刺傷其大腦。

當(dāng)然，我并不知道腦損傷是否足夠讓一個(gè)獸人停止活動。

出于某種原因我懷疑這一點(diǎn)。

“帝皇庇佑，”我顫抖著重復(fù)道，“帝皇庇佑，帝皇庇佑，帝皇…”

毫無預(yù)兆地，一聲獸性的狂吼“WAAAAGH”劃開空氣，我認(rèn)出來這個(gè)語調(diào)，這是獸人的戰(zhàn)吼，只震耳欲聾地回響了片刻，隨即整個(gè)住所都被某種類似皮革撕裂的可怖巨響和一種像是工業(yè)高壓清洗機(jī)洗刷石墻的噪音充盈。

這種揪心的噪聲只持續(xù)了幾個(gè)心跳。

然后便是一片寂靜。

我等著，聽著，最后鼓起勇氣將一只耳朵貼到門上，并屏住呼吸試圖捕捉一些聲響。

什么都沒有，除了模糊的，“嘀嗒，嘀嗒，嘀嗒”的液體滴落聲。

我用力地咽了口唾沫，戰(zhàn)斗刀的皮革刀柄隨著我將之愈發(fā)攥緊而嘎吱作響。我站起身來，堅(jiān)定地用肩膀推開房門。

一小股血潮涌進(jìn)了房間并沒過了我的腳踝，隨之是獸人的肚腸、鮮血和黏液的惡臭。我的肚子在這股難以言喻的氣味如雷錘般擊中我的臉時(shí)發(fā)起了抗議，我踉蹌著后退了幾步，隨后便嘔出了胃里僅存的一點(diǎn)內(nèi)容物。

我搖晃著站起來，深呼吸了一下，然后…

這是個(gè)錯(cuò)誤。

我跌撞著重回房間，并因臭氣和污物緊緊附在鼻腔和舌面上而一次次地劇烈干嘔。我的內(nèi)臟痛苦地收縮、痙攣，疼痛的淚水滑落我的臉頰。

又過了一會兒，我找回了對自己的控制。我羞愧難當(dāng)，沒有其他人在場是我唯一的慰藉。

這一次我淺淺地呼吸，盡可能少地感知到獸人的殘骸的同時(shí)完全進(jìn)入了走廊。

那里已經(jīng)沒有能被稱為獸人的東西了，只有迥然不同的…碎片。破碎的肢體灑滿了整條走廊的過道。就像是一陣剝皮抽脂的狂風(fēng)刮過了門廳，將異種們撕成小到?jīng)]法用來估算之前有多少綠皮的碎渣。

任何獸人身上都沒有哪怕一個(gè)稍微完整的部位，走廊成了一條冰冷的尸塊凝成的小溪。

我慢慢轉(zhuǎn)身沿著走廊看去，轉(zhuǎn)向獸人進(jìn)來的路，以及我假定的那個(gè)制造了這一切的東西過來的路。

我的心臟幾乎僵在了胸腔里。

這條走廊…太美了。

獸人噴濺的動脈血以完美的猩紅色弧線畫出了一副以走廊本身為畫布的三維杰作。我謹(jǐn)慎而緩慢地后退著，以求將這被難以形容的暴力清晰又超乎常理地刻印在墻上的畫像連接起來。

“神皇啊…”

在我注視著這自不潔之物身上撕下，描繪著由在我看來正放縱地向著敵人沖去的天使般的人物們揮舞出的刀刃颶風(fēng)的美景時(shí)，新一輪的淚水自我臉頰上流下。

“帝皇庇佑，”我跪在死綠皮造就的緩慢流動的小河中喃喃道，“千真萬確，是帝皇庇佑。”

原文：

Empty.

I cursed viciously as I glared down at the blinking rune on the display before maglocking the bolter to my hip. Without ammo the weapon was little more than a blessed bludgeon, but I would not so easily cast aside the sacred armaments of my sisterhood, not when my foe could pervert its machine spirit to serve them.

Besides, I might yet find a cache of ammunition, even if it was no more than a half-empty magazine taken from the body of one of Amphitria’s defenders.

And there were so many bodies.

I ducked through the alleys, my ears trained to the sound of gunfire and chaotic hooting and whooping of the world’s despoilers to the southeast. They were near enough to hear, true, but they were clearly engaged in combat, although whether that was with Imperial defenders or with themselves over loot it was impossible to tell.

With Orks, it was even odds.

The charnel stink of Amphitria, Praelex V’s largest hive city, was the only thing I’d been able to smell for close to ten standard days, fourteen by this own world’s reckoning thanks to shorter day and night cycles. I hadn’t slept in the past two cycles at least, I’d been on the run or in hiding since…

I closed my eyes as I shut out the screams in my memories.

Some of them might still live, but I did not count on it. The green invader was not known for its mercy, and if any of my sisters did live then it was deeply unlikely to be a good thing.

No, better that they died in the Emperor’s name, buried under a tide of Greenskin corpses, than to live in servitude to the bestial xenobreed.

Slipping into an alley, then into a prefab hab complex that had been cracked open by crude artillery fire, I took stock of my supplies.

A small amount of food, which would last a few days if I were careful, and my power armor recycled water so I could sustain that for better than a week before the filters spoiled.

A bolter with no bolt rounds, a half-charged laspistol I’d taken from an Imperial guard of the Fifth Amphitrian Dragoons I’d entered battle alongside with no extra charge packs, a chipped combat knife, and damaged power armor.

My left arm hung limp, though not from injury. The noble machine spirit within my armor had been gravely wounded protecting me from what might have been a mortal blow. Certainly the blow would have severed my arm, but the armor had taken the strike so totally that my arm had been left little more than bruised.

The armor, however, was far worse off and without a priest of the Omnissiah to work the rites of repair over it I was left effectively crippled.

I spied a half-open door to a hab and shouldered my way in, grimacing at the ruin. There were no bodies, thank the Emperor, and the Orks clearly hadn’t gotten in here yet, but that wasn’t likely to remain the case.

Slumping to the ground, I levered the jammed door back into place with my weight. It took a moment, and there was more noise than I liked, but it eventually lodged and I sighed quietly in relief as I rested for a moment.

My body ached, my mind was slipping, and there was very little I could focus on beyond my next breath.

Rather than despair, I shifted until I was on my knees, laid out the bolter, and took the small kit of cleaning tools stowed in the small storage apparatus of my armor. I repeated the Litany of War as I dismantled the weapon, taking care to wipe each piece with sacred oils as I murmured my prayer to the Emperor for deliverance. Surely he would not have sent my sisters and I here to die a hopeless death, I knew… there was a greater purpose to my presence here, and to the deaths of my beloved sisters.

There had to be.

“The Emperor protects,” I muttered quietly as I clicked the firing pin into place and racked the empty feed. “The Emperor… protects.”

Feeling more assured, I stood and began examining the small hab. It was modest, as befitted a lowly servant of the Imperium, and suited to a humble soul. Per my assumption, none of the utilities work, but I managed to find a few ration bars, which I stowed, and a small bottle of clean water.

I stared at it, torn between saving it, drinking it, and using it to wipe some of the grime from myself.

I would fight and die for Emperor and Imperium but oh, what I wouldn’t give to be clean again, even just a little.

Well, Canoness Priscilla wasn’t around to admonish me for wasting supplies anymore, she’d had her head sheared off by one of the enormous brutes shortly after we landed, so I grabbed one of the cleaner-looking scraps of cloth on the counter, lifted my head, tilted my face up, and dribbled some of the water over my face.

The cool, refreshing splash hit me like a wave of relief, and I shook the dusty cloth out a few times before wiping carefully along my cheeks, nose, and brow.?

The cloth came away nearly black, and I tossed it away before turning to look into a shattered mirror which still had a few stubborn fragments clinging to it after the devastation.

Battle-Sister Novitiate Alessandra Artus stared back at me, for certain definitions of the word. I looked haggard and weary, which I was, and my skin, normally a dusky shade of olive, was blanched from malnutrition and lack of sunlight.

My hair, as pale white as the rest of my sisters, fell damp over my face, and I drew back from my appearance.

This was war, I knew, and such things were expected, but I’d been drilled to keep myself as neat as possible for so long, and it hadn’t been so long ago that I was no more than a true novice.??Trust to my foul luck that this war of extermination should be my first foray after attaining the rank of Battle Sister, although I suppose I was a measure more fortunate than the rest of my squad.

I lifted another silent prayer to the Emperor that if they lived, it was free of Greenskin hands, and that they otherwise had died in honor, and even now stood by his side.

“WAAAGH!”?

A glottal, bestial roar split the air, and I hunkered down, drawing the laspistol on reflex and dearly wishing for my now-shattered chainsword. Even an average Ork was little more than an engine of meat and destruction, and I’d witnessed firsthand just how hard they were to kill.

I’d watched Sister Orissa be dragged to the ground and throttled by an Ork blown in half by sustained bolter fire.

Sister Superior Kalion shot the arm off of one before running it through with her chainsword, only for it to seize her head with its remaining hand and crush it like an overripe ploin.

The notion of trying to kill one with a half-charged laspistol was almost laughable.

The useless guardsman might’ve at least left his lascarbine intact.

I listened carefully, the Greenskins were hardly stealthy, and I could hear them at the far end of the hab’s hall beating down doors and tearing apart living quarters.

There was no way for me to check if they were coming my way, but the sounds suggested that they were. I considered falling back, but there was no possible way to open the door to this hab without alerting them, and if I tried to run for it, they would have a clear shot at my back.

Not even Orks could miss a power-armored target running down a straight hallway.

This was it.

The moment they reached the door of this hab where I was cowering, I was dead. I would die with nothing more than a knife, and I probably wouldn’t do more than give the Ork that butchered me a new scar to brag to its bestial fellows about while it hung my skull from its armor.

“Emperor on Earth, hear my plea,” I cursed my shaking limbs as I prayed, “give me the strength to do your will. Take my fear, that your indomitable will may fill me, take my weakness, that your unimpeachable might may guide me, take my doubt, that no thought of retreat should come to me.”

The words tumbled from my lips as the Orks grew closer, their whooping, gleeful snarls grating horribly on my ears.

“Oh Emperor, guide my hand true,” I continued, my voice shaking as salty tears crossed my lips. I tried to think of it as fear vacating my body. “Hate is my sword, let my hate pierce the xeno to its unnatural heart.” I gripped the knife tighter. “Contempt is my shield, so must I stride through fire and flame as their vile forms fall before me. Faith is my armor, for the Emperor protects.”

I braced myself to put my combat knife through the eye of the first Greenskin to enter. If it was too tall, I might still puncture its brain by ramming the blade up through its jutting, prognathic jaw.

Of course, I had no idea if brain damage would be anything like enough to stop an Ork.

Somehow I doubted it.

“The Emperor protects,” I repeated shakily, “the Emperor protects, the Emperor protects, the Emperor-”

Without warning, a bestial roar of ‘WAAAAGH’ split the air, and it was a tone that I recognized. It was an Orkish battlecry, and it was echoed deafeningly for a brief moment before the whole hab was filled with what sounded horribly like leather being ripped on a monstrous scale, and a noise not unlike an industrial pressure washer spraying a stone wall.

The harrowing cacophony persisted for no more than a handful of heartbeats.

Then there was silence.

I waited and listened, finally working up the courage to press an ear to the door, and I held my breath as I strained to hear any sound at all.

There was nothing. Nothing but the faint, drip-drip-drip of liquid.

I swallowed hard, the leather grip of my combat knife creaking as I gripped it tighter, stood, and determinedly shouldered the hab door open.

A small tide of gore flooded into the hab up to my ankles, followed by the utter stench of Ork bowel, blood, and viscera. My guts rebelled as the unspeakable smell struck me across the face like a blow from a thunder hammer, and I staggered back to vomit out what little my stomach contained.

I stood, shook, took a deep breath, and-

That was a mistake.

I stumbled back into the hab and dry heaved again and again as the stink clung to the inside of my nostrils and coated my tongue in filth. My gut clenched and spasmed painfully as I spat and hacked, while tears of pain dripped from my cheeks.

After a few moments, I mastered myself. Shame filled me, and my lone consolation was that no one had been present to witness that.

This time I took shallow breaths, trying to perceive the remains of the Orks as little as possible as I stepped fully into the hallway.

There were no Orks left worth the name, only disparate… fragments. Limbs, split and ruined, littered the entire run of the hallway. It was as if a flensing wind had swept through the hall, tearing the xenobreed to pieces such that I could not have put a guess to the number of Orks that had been in the hallway prior to whatever occurred.

No part of any Ork was even remotely intact, and the hall was a cooling and coagulating creek of gore.

I turned slowly to look down the hall, back the way that the Orks had come, and the way from which I would assume whatever did this must have come.

My heart nearly stilled in my chest.

The hall was… beautiful.

The arterial spray of the Orks had painted, in perfect arcs of arterial crimson, a three-dimensional masterpiece using the hallway itself as a canvas. I stepped backward, slowly and carefully, trying to align the image that was clearly and impossibly imprinted on the walls by an act of unspeakable violence.

“Oh, God-Emperor…”

Fresh tears trickled down my cheeks as I beheld such beauty, torn from the bodies of the unclean, to depict a hurricane of blades wielded by angelic figures that, to my eyes, seemed to be charging with abandon down the hall towards their foes.

“The Emperor protects,” I muttered as I dropped to my knees in the slowly flowing river of dead Greenskin. “Truly, the Emperor protects.”