Barros Keir held a deep scowl on his face, hidden behind his black Astartes helmet as he fired away at the incoming wave of greenskins. His weapon spat out thick blasts of plasma, incinerating the unarmoured flesh and bones it came across with little effort.

It would have sparked a malicious joy in his heart any other time to smell the scent of burning flesh, to hear the dying screams of the Emperor’s enemies. 

That treacherous joy that had landed him in the Deathwatch, dishonoured, disowned and among the rest of the discarded wretches. 

It was notably absent now, his two hearts beating heavily in his chest as he watched yet another Guardsman fall. An Ork had thrown a machete, impaling the poor trooper through the chest with such strength that it sent the body flying.

Keir engraved the look of defiance on the young man’s face, and how it morphed into astonishment, pain, realisation and then terror before his form got lost among the rest. 

Another soul Keir had failed to save, another young man who would never get to go home, or build a family. 

The heavy-set Space Marine felt a grown tumble in his chest as he let his Melta fall to his side. Bringing up his heavy flamer instead, he pulled the trigger with vengeance in his heart and watched the thick plume of flame explode out of the weapon. Unlike most weapons, flamers were not loud weapons, and the hallway transforming into fiery hell on earth was accompanied only by the flamer’s characteristic sharp hiss.

Then of course the screaming started, and Keir had to throttle the malicious glee he felt blooming in his heart. He couldn’t let his twisted enjoyment guide his actions, not now, not again. He had people to save, to protect. 

Keir had thought, once upon a time, that the Deathwatch was a road to redemption for those who had failed to live up to their Chapters’ standards.

He had long learned just how wrong he was. The Deathwatch was a recycling bin, squeezing out all the use it could from faulty tools. He would not earn his true Brothers’ forgiveness, but he could still be of use to the Imperium.

And he could still work towards making up for his mistakes, even if none of his true Brothers were there to see it. 

He was a son of Vulcan, and his duty was to protect the people of the Imperium. Today, here and now, every pull of a trigger was in service of that duty. 

Though he started to feel that he was alone in that, among the ‘Brothers’ of his Kill Team. Tarn’s grin was too wide, the son of Russ laughing as he tore apart the Orks and Keir didn’t even want to acknowledge the young man following in Sigismund's footsteps.

Killing the enemy was secondary to saving lives. There was no point in killing the enemies of the Imperium if the Imperium was reduced to ruin.

That

was the lesson he himself had decided to devote the rest of his life to internalising. 

It was no use though, not with this lot. Tarn would never listen, Varran thought it shortsighted, Cassius saw it as suboptimal strategically and Drekk? Keir wondered sometimes if the ex-Iron Hands Matine was even capable of experiencing any emotion besides aloof disdain.

The Techmarine’s heart had long since gotten replaced by one of cold metal, both physically and metaphorically.

“Conserve ammunition,” Watch-Sergeant Varran chastised him through the comm with his usual bored-to-death tone. “We might be forced to hold this position for hours.”

Keir nodded, ignoring the judging look sent his way by the Techmarine who no doubt looked down upon him for his perceived emotional weakness and ‘obvious inefficiency characteristic of organics’.

If he didn’t know better, Keir would think Drakk was a blasted Abominable Intelligence hiding inside that metal body. Nobody would know even if he was, not this far away from any Mechanicus Archmagi or other Marines of his kind.

“Incoming transmission!” One of the Guardsmen taking shelter just behind a bend in a hallway shouted, the weathered communications specialist’s voice not even quivering despite having heard the death cries of hundreds in the past few minutes. “From the Lord Militant! It seems the other Astartes managed to dislodge all but one of the boarding pods, but … but … now there is a giant Void Beast coming our way?”

“Is there a reason you are telling us that besides attempting to cripple our own morale, trooper?” Brother Cassius growled from nearby, the old ex-Ultramarine taking only a moment to turn his helmet towards the Guardsman before returning his crimson visors towards the corridors. 

“Y-yes, My Lo- Sir,” the trooper stuttered, likely experiencing the full weight of a Space Marine’s disapproval for the first time in his life. Keir had heard before that the inhuman dread is a terrible thing to experience, made worse by the source being truly angry at the recipient, making them feel suffocated and weighed down. “I have a message for one ‘Watch-Sergeant Varran, encrypted and high priority. May I put it through?”

“Send it to me,” the Watch-Sergeant said without turning. “The next wave of our foes approaches, keep the Orks at bay while I see what this is.”

Keir nodded, inwardly frowning as he heard the echoing Orkish war cries grow louder and louder. Shouldering his Bolter, he prepared to hold the line with his life.

Varran returned only moments before the first greenskin turned the corner, a massive beast covered in tribalistic bone armour and stitched-together scrap, wielding a massive power-claw. 

Keir didn’t waste any time and opened fire, not in the mood for some dramatic speech or whatever else the maybe-Warboss was trying to have by making an appearance. 

Of course things can’t be that simple, as the lumbering green monstrosity moved with a speed that belied its size and managed to bring its mechanical claw up just in time to have the bolt explode against it. 

The shockwave knocked the creature back, but it didn’t keep it down for long and a roar of rage reverberated through the corridor, quickly joined by another dozen voices from further back. 

“Kill it posthaste,” Varran ordered in a grim tone, his voice sounding over the Squad comm-link. “We have new objectives, we’ll need to carve a path forward. Again. Ignore my previous order, pull out all stops. Let’s slaughter these beasts.”

Must have gotten a new high priority mission for us,

Keir thought with a deep frown under his helmet, levelling his Melta at the incoming foes. Just minutes ago, holding the corridor they were in was a high priority objective, and now they were ordered to abandon it?

Whatever they were ordered to do, must have been important. More so than the life of the Lord Militant holding the entire Fleet together with his authority. 

Which probably meant something had gone to shit hard.

With that in mind, he put his all into making quick work of this group of Orks, which proved to be on the smaller side. Keir’s Melta and Drakk’s autocannon combined handled the horde well enough, the Orks unable to make use of their overwhelming numbers in the tight corridors and so they ended up mowed down like chaff.

“Onwards,” Varran ordered gruffly, an uncharacteristic sense of hurry in his otherwise bored tone. “We will collapse the corridor behind us.”

“Lots of good that’ll do against a group of determined Orks,” Tarn retorted, giving a glance at the troopers behind them, all of whom looked quite put upon seeing that the Astartes were preparing to leave. 

“We could leave behind one of our bio-bombs,” Brother Corian spoke up, patting a cylindrical canister at his hip. “It would leave the corridor impassable for a while.”

Keir grimaced, knowing that what the Deathwatch called ‘bio-bombs’ were in truth miniature virus bombs, a WMD that could devastate planets. The smaller bio-bombs had a localised effect, but they came from Mechanicum engineering and not an STC … so they were imperfect, meaning, the containment sometimes failed and unleashed the flesh-eating plague upon the surroundings. 

“We’ll collapse the corridor with a plasma-charge, melt it shut, then leave the bio-bomb on our side of it and tied to a proximity sensor,” Varran said, nodding mildly, “Cassius, take care of the Guardsmen and make sure they are useful somewhere else. Keir, handle the plasma-charges. Drakk, Corian, prepare the proximity-triggered bio-bomb and make sure it does not go off prematurely. The rest of us will keep watch and take care of any stragglers.”

The work took less than five minutes, the members of Kill Team Varran working together like a well-oiled machine despite their varied origins and mutual dislike for each other. The troopers were sent away, assigned to posts that needed them more with only a single platoon remaining behind to watch over the corridor and report a breach if it happened. The charges were set, detonated and then were followed by the bio-bomb hidden under some rubble, with the proximity sensor tucked away behind a ceiling plate.

“So what’s so important that we left the Lord Militant out to dry?” Tarn questioned in his usual brusque manner once they wore on their way. 

“ … see for yourselves,” Varran said after a moment, and Keir’s comm-link buzzed in his ear, alerting him of the arrival of an audio-recording.

Making sure to keep his focus, Keir gave the recording the mental go-ahead and had it play out in his ears.

“This is Watch-Captain Sidriel speaking to all Squad-Leaders,” a gruff, older voice buzzed in Keir’s ear between ragged gasps, making the ex-Salamander’s thoughts grind to a halt. Watch-Captain Sidriel was ancient, having led the Deathwatch of the Jericho Reach for the last three centuries and served in it for another two beforehand if the rumours were to be believed. Keir had never heard the man sound even slightly out of breath, worried or bothered. Now he caught signs of all three in the man’s voice, along with resignation and defiance. “I have failed in my mission, the last two boarding pods remain and my strength has failed me. The Warboss of these Orks is a … an abomination

. I cut it in half, tore off its hand, bashed in its skull and yet it stood back up with a laugh every single time.”

A wet cough interrupted the recording, one Keir knew all too well as a sign of the speaker’s lung filling with blood. When the Watch-Captain continued, his voice was noticeably weaker, though his inner strength shone through like a brilliant beacon of light. “For the success of The Mission, avoid the Ork calling itself Throgg, it claimed to be a servant of the one we are hunting, and the beneficiary of its powers. There may be others like it, take care. This is my last transmission, I’ll attempt to take the beast down with me along with the pod, my squad is already dead, make no effort to save us. My final order is this: follow Protocol B-8-slash-1. Sidriel, out. May the Emperor grant us strength … for we will need it.”

Keir stayed silent, keeping his focus while he let the recording play out in his mind again, the information settled in as he thought of the consequences. 

The Watch-Captain was dead at the hand of the Rogue Psyker’s errant pet Ork. He had once thought a whole Fleet combined with nearly all Kill Squads of the Deathwatch in the Sector not preoccupied with essential tasks was absolutely overkill for a lone Psyker, no matter how strong … but not anymore. The mission just went from ‘doable but troublesome’ to ‘a pyrrhic victory at best’.

Tarn started cursing under his breath a second later, likely realising the same while a forlorn silence settled on the older members of the squad. Many of their brothers were dead, and many more would join them to see The Mission done.

“Should we know anything about whatever that protocol was?” Tark asked testily, swinging his axe about at an Ork that thought itself sneaky by hiding behind a bend. It only earned the Greenskin an axe to the face. 

Keir noticed that both the temperamental Merek and the Techmarine Drakk were paying careful attention to their Watch-Sergeant. Good, he wasn’t the only one left out of the loop on that one then.

“It means our current objective is to recover a pair of relics,” Varran said. “Or make sure they are still in the hands of those who should have them. It also commands that we shift our bottom line. Everything in this fleet has just become expendable. Only the success of the mission matters.”

“Oh, relics, is it?” Tarn said, and Keir could hear the bloodthirsty grin in his voice, though he himself only felt a sense of relief and reassurance, knowing the Mission might be less hopeless than he had thought. “What kind.”

“The kind we don’t talk about,” Watch-Sergeant Varran said sternly. “The walls have ears, and they do not belong to the Imperium. Know that we need those relics to succeed. The specifics are hidden even from me.”

*****

“I fucking knew it those bastards had some bullshit relics up their sleeves!” I exclaimed, making my poor blue guest jolt and step away from me like I might explode or something. I rolled my eyes at him. “There is no hiding from The Big Sister though … hmmm, it doesn’t quite have the same ring to it that ‘Big Brother’ does, does it?”

I mean, ‘Big Brother is watching you’ is ominous, while ‘Big Sister is watching you’ just … Ara~ara, what are you hiding there, onii-chan?

Yep. Totally different vibes. Or maybe my mind had just rotted away while my soul languished in the void of the afterlife. The brain rot had followed me all the way to the 42nd Millenium, truly there was no curing it once it had set in. 

My newest pet Tau — cough I mean valued assistant and warfare consultant — just stared at me with a strange look, but I ignored him. His kind rode goddamn Gundams into battle, so he should keep his trap shut about my ‘eccentricities’ if he knew what was good for him. Don’t throw rocks while living in a glass house, and all that.

“Now then, I wonder just what goodies they have tucked away and where,” I hummed aloud, smiling thinly as my eyes narrowed meanly. There isn't going to be any heroic hail-Mary or pyrrhic victory here. Not on my watch. The Watch-Captain’s dead as hell, but there are still many ‘unlikely hero’ candidates that could be the ‘protagonists’ of this ‘story’.