Two Terras

Chapel

Brother Chaplain Aarros stalked the pews of the chapel, he looked down his nose at the mortals who cowered before his sight. After a few more rounds he announced he was satisfied by their piety. As the mortals filed out Aarros kneeled at the massive aquila at the front of the chapel, threaded between his armoured knuckles were the beads of his rosary. He began to pray until a sound cut through his concentration. It was low and somber, melodic in tune and soft in tone. Aarros finally grew impatient and stood, fury bubbling. "Who dares interrupt my prayers? Show yourself!" He shouted at the top of his lungs, the sound inflated by his vox. The singing only continued. Aarros growled and began to stalk to the point where his battleplate registered the sound emitting. After a minute of navigating the halls he found himself staring down at a mortal, she was clad only in rags and he imagined smelt like a corpse. "You dare to interrupt my prayer to the Emperor?" The girl said nothing only staring ahead and continuing to sing. Aarros was about to chuff her with his hand when he heard the lyrics to her song.

And lo the cursed fleet did sail,

Engines a burnin and hearts awoken,

lo the cursed fleet did sail,

Guided by the hand of the first awoken,

lo the cursed fleet did sail,

So their guns will wake something nare to be awoken,

lo the cursed fleet will sail,

So the tune continued, Aarros stood silently by. The melancholy in the voice of the girl left him speechless. Finally when the lyrics repeated did Aarros interrupt. He placed a hand on her shoulder, grimacing at the lack of any muscle below her torn clothing. The Girl registered this and looked to the side. "I've never met an Astartes before." She said, no fear or reverence in the tone. Just flat inhumanity. Aarros scanned her for corruption or sickness but found nothing. "I've never met someone who could sing as well as you." He replied, it was no lie. He had never heard a voice as beautiful as hers. "Thank you, angel." she looked up at the skull helm Aarros wore, staring right into the rounded red eye lenses. "You don't look like the statues." she looked at him with such innocence, not knowing what things his hands had done. Aarros felt himself be lost in a deep spiral, he saw the things his brothers had done in the name of mankind. He watched from above as he executed hundreds of refugees escaping a trawler caught in the Halo Stars. He felt his bolt pistol buck as he fired and felt the vibration of his crozius as it swung from left to right. So the dreams continued, the helpless eyes of a boy as his siblings were dragged away because of an illness that had to be kept secret. The twisted face of a mother and the horrid form of her baby as Aarros's brothers dragged her out from beneath a damaged warp drive. He still remembered the way her hands melded with the flesh of her child. And the wails of both as they were incinerated by flamers. 

Aarros snapped out of it. He looked at the girl, no longer seeing the form of a malnourished mortal. But a shifting form that took on the shape of every person he had killed. His lips curled and the fury rose again to boiling point. "Every life taken is another hundred saved, you cannot torment me with this, xenos." Before the thing could react he pulled an ornamented bolt pistol from its holster and fired. A single shell was enough to see the thing gone and dead. It true body left mangled on the floor. Aarros shook his head and opened a secure vox channel. "Chapter Master? Have we entered the Halo stars yet?" The response took a minute as vox traffic between the ships was heavy but eventually a response came through. "Affirmative. Is there an issue?" Ustalvar asked, Aarros looked back at the hallway and formulated a response. "Minimal xenos contact, handled, advise caution on all vessels." Ustalvar paused and his response was equally hesitant. "Understood, do you have positive identification?" Aarros chuckled and looked down at his holstered pistol. "One could say so."