Sister Sinai
Sister Sinai
The slow grating clatter of the elevator fades away as you open your eyes from your gratuitous flashback scene, to see the empty, yawning cavern of the flight deck, the few personnel wandering around in the immobile background, specks against the vast grey speed painted siding with random cables and gantries spiderwebbed about.
"V-V-Vindicare?"
Before you can wonder how someone could possibly stutter the "vee" sound unintentionally, the squeal and clatter of poorly welded wheels alerts you to a presence at thigh level. It's Sister Sinai. Half her body burned, two limbs and most motor function lost, you recall her as a vague detail from the equally vague introduction you rapidly clicked through. Her remaining fingers on her lone arm (Currently shivering under her cassock which looked to be a collection of loose spiderwebs for all the good it was doing) caked in grime squeeze together as they match her eyes shutting, as she breathes in.
"They, they say that the bionics are wasteful an-and if I wish to serve the Emperor I would have to become a servitor," for a moment, her lone eye looks down, red lines still faintly visible to your enhanced eyesight, "I'm...I'm happy to serve the Emperor...But-" As you, the reader reach for the mouse button, skubitos dripping from your malformed, sausage fingers, she looks up with determination. "You were kind to me. You preserved me. So, I have to ask, while, while, while I can still feel..." She looks down again, curling in slightly, blush seeping her face, leaving the final words unspoken.
You consider for a moment, your finely honed body and mind taking in every possible detail of the girl bordering womanhood (she's totally in, like, junior sororitas college or something its totally legal dude), a gasp, increased heart beat, a nervous quivering, the Adeptus Mechanicus behind her giving a thumbs up and winking, you finally decide to:
- 1) "...Let me carry you to somewhere we can finish our communication."
- 2) "Your fear betrays a lack of faith. See the chaplain and leave me be."
- 3) Genuflect.
- 4) J-J-J-JAMMM IT IN
- 5) NEEEEEERD RAAAAAAGGGGEEEEEE
- 6) "This is not enough pylons."
- 7) "Just as planned..."
>Anonymous has chosen Option 1! You have to report to briefing. You always ensure keeping at least twenty four hours readiness open between you and your arrival at the briefing. This was what enabled your fast response to the pirate eldar attack.
However. Something acts within. Some impulse long buried.
"...Let me carry you to somewhere we can finish our communication," The enginseer behind her tries to catch your eye, but you pay no heed behind your visor. She smiles. Her teeth. She tries to cover them, quickly, stretching her lips over it, hiding it, looking down again in shame. She must have been having trouble eating.
She's so small, so light, as you reach down, carefully placing your hands at points to support her. It's awkward. You hesitate, and then she wraps an arm around your neck, whispering into your ear, "It's okay, you can hold me just like this."
She clings with strength greater than you expected. Carefully, you hold her, as you crouch, keeping her in perfect balance, to grab her cart.
"No, leave it," she whispers again, "By the...The conversion is soon. I...I won't need it again."
You note the insinuation that you would have to carry her to her final fate. She clings again, and you catch a shortness of breath. She wants this.
You turn, heading for your meditation cell, a strange, old, familiar emotion arising at the pit of your stomach: Uncertainty.
The Bloodied is empty, save for a few wandering servitors and naval personnel scuttering away from the prying eyes of their superiors. Some stop to look at the strange, combat ready soldier holding on to the small, half made doll. One goes so far as to ask where you are talking the servitor's organics.
She squeezes deeper, and a hot gasp of air is detected by your synth skin suit. The helpful HUD also informs that moisture is being two streams running across the armored sneaking suit.
"Attend your duties," you whisper as you move along.
The cell is small, true. It was not built for comfort. Still holding her with one arm, you, after a moment, reach for the wall, and set the cot down you had folded away, convinced it would never be used. It takes up the whole six foot length, and squeezes a third away of the six foot width, of the room.
"The...The lights are out," she whispers. It is to forget the world you see is different from theirs. You reach, flick a switch never before touched. A bulb buzzs, crawls to a gloom dispelling yellow glow.
You sit in the cot, as she looks around.
"Barren...Well, I. I guess it's at least all yours?"
You nod.
She purses her lip, and slowly relaxes her arm, slipping off your neck, as you ease her down, upon her lap. She is quivering again.
"You are cold."
"Mmm," she shakes her head, vigorously back and forth, "Mmmnmmm, no, no, I'm...I'm not...Hhhnn, I'm just..." Her eyes run, as her face crumples up, stitches stretching, "I'm...I'mmmm."
She weeps. She folds into you, your HUD, popping up, informing you her temperature, her height, weight, blood pressure, heartrate, armaments (None) and her threat rating, and starts weeping.
Your visor blinks complaints of warm, salt water running over your legs, as you stare down at the guidance system for the Imperium of Man's next weapon system.
Her fingers dig across your abdominals, her tears and sobs of stopped now, as she clenches her teeth together, soft grinding coming to your enhanced ears. It hurts her, to feel the nerves meeting raw behind the steel, but she can't help it.
She was only sixteen.
Do you...
- 1) Try to figure out how to comfort her.
- 2) Give her some time.
- 3) Ask her for what she needs.
- 4) ?????
For a moment, you think, you remember familiar scenes of this time and time again through the sights of your scope, the scenes playing out as the Emperor's wrath fell upon them, how the younger ones would panic. Fall to tears. How people comforted them.
For a moment, you reach for her. Then, you realize you have no idea how to do this. You would mimic displays watched from miles away.
"Be strong," you mumble, regretting as soon as you start it, "For the Emperor."
She quiets, a little. You wait. You give her time. She sniffs, looks up, her eye red, supported by her one arm, her face a sodden mess, "Forgive me my Lord, I," she whispers, "I just don't want, don't want this." She hesitates, looks at you. Whispers another apology, plucking at the hem of her shirt, she tries to wipe up the tears on your synskin. Carefully, you put a hand behind her, keeping her from falling.
You don't know what exactly she had done, to offend the Preachers of the Omnissiah. She was alone on this craft, a young apprentice of the Ecclesiarchy at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Pure luck, that you were there, seeing her mangled, torn near to pieces and almost as one with the machine as she was intended to be now. In truth, you had more pressing matters. But you were on your way anyway. She was crying out, and the enginseers were clamoring about her.
When you finally had reached her the recoil had torn apart her left side. She had been blinded by a piece of her flying femur. The tech priests were halfway to firing again by the time you tore her out of there. Running down the corridors, a shrieking package with bloody strings dangling off of it-
Truly generous medicae had saved her.
"But now, my cost outweighs my benefits," she whispered, "And I, I had damaged some systems. The Adeptus Mechanus lay claim to me, by right of treaty. There is no other way for me to repay my sins, they say. Father Martell agrees with them."
Her eye looked down, "I do not hate them, for they are right, and we are voyaging to blessed crusade; all are ready to be martyrs, for the cause. But," she bit her lip, "I, I, I, haven't lived. I wanted, I wanted to see Terra, at least once. To touch the Emperor's gate. To bend knee outside the chorus, or-" Her eyes travel up to you, then stop as she looks down again.
She lapses into silence for two, three minutes, before, with some effort crawling back onto the cot, touching the wall, leaning into you.
Do you... 1) What the fuck are you gonna say? Wait her out. 2) Say, "wait here", and risk death by trying to fix things for the better for her? 3) Hugzzzzzzzzzzzzz.