After endless minutes, the pressure shifted. “You’ve already done enough.”
He locked the core into his broken plate. The belt muffled it only slightly as the edges of the capsule stretched her farther than she thought possible. Her body was already tense. With no secure means of delivery, a vital power core was to be transported in the most covert and unthinkable way: hidden within the body of an unarmed Sister. One eye was swollen shut. “I am ready to die,” she whispered, the belt falling from her mouth. His chest was a ruin of ceramite and scar tissue. Nothing could prepare a body for this. Those who served with her never forgot. This tale does not seek comfort or triumph. She had prepared the core, anointed it, warmed it with sacred oils to ease the passage. “I carry the fire,” she whispered. Her will flickered — but never failed. They never suspected that deep within her, past layers of bruised and trembling muscle, pulsed the one thing that could awaken a Space Marine’s broken armor and turn
