Aboard the Endurance
The temporarily designated joint preparation area
A distinctive smell hung in the Endurance's spacious but starkly utilitarian armor preparation bay, mingling machine oil, disinfectant, weapon maintenance fluids, and a faint trace of sweat.
This was Death Guard territory, but dark gray figures of the Word Bearers now moved among the Death Guard warriors in their blue-gray and dull silver armor, making their final preparations for battle together.
The atmosphere was far from lively, yet it carried a silent, efficient tension.
On a maintenance platform in the corner, Company Captain Paulus of the Word Bearers sat cross-legged on the cold metal floor. He held a standard-issue combat Dagger, its blade simple and unadorned.
Head bowed in concentration, he worked a fine whetstone along the edge at a fixed angle, each stroke steady and firm.
The rhythmic rasp of metal against stone sounded unusually clear amid the background noise.
His movements were meticulous. Only when the blade reflected a sliver of cold light that almost seemed to sting the skin did he stop. He tested its sharpness with extreme care against the pad of his thumb, then slid it back into the sheath at his thigh, satisfied.
He had only just finished when a tall figure approached him.
It was Thorns, captain of the Third Chapter's Fifth Company, who had just endured a vicious fight during the boarding action on the space station.
Traces of blood, both xenos and their own, remained on Thorns's dark gray armor despite his efforts to wipe it clean. Several fresh scratches and energy burns were clearly visible.
He carried the Chainaxe damaged in the fighting. Nearly half the teeth along its blade had broken off, and the power unit's casing was visibly cracked, with occasional unstable sparks spitting from within.
Paulus looked up