The infestation of Rylork IV by the forces of Chaos was a nasty bit of work. By the time the Inquisition had sent a force of Grey knights and Battle Sisters in response to the plea for help the civilian population were either all dead or deep into hiding. This was just as well since the Inquisition has never been very concerned with civilian casualties as part of the collateral damage for purging Chaos. It would not concern them at all to destroy an entire building with civilians inside it just to also purge the Chaos taint. Collateral damage to the munitions factories was a different matter. They were more valuable than the workers that ran them and so had to be cleared by forces on the ground.

It was amid the noise, fury and confusion of battle in one such factory that Brother Gaigan fought his way near to another of his Brother Knights and opened a personal com link.

"So Brother Lorgian, I saw you give a flower to Sister Zanin before the assault."

"So, what of it?" Brother Lorgian glanced over to where Sister Zanin was fighting. She had just tripped a Traitor Marine and had jumped on his chest and was emptying the clip of her bolter into his face.

"That is a rather unusual thing for a Grey Knight to do and I was wondering why." Brother Gaigan proceeded to blast away the kneecaps of an attacking Chaos Marine and then used his power glaive to butt stroke him as he fell. The traitor hit the ground with his helmet bent to an angle the it was never meant to be bent to. He did not get up.

"She is the sole survivor of her detachment. I thought she should have a special recognition." A Raptor screamed down from overhead as it dove at him feet first with its blade in a 2 handed grip over his head. Brother Lorgian extended his left arm and activated the wrist mounted stormbolter and stitched a line of bolts up the Raptors body from groin to chin. The Raptor broke in half when it impacted on the ground.

"Brother, a special recognition is a formal salute. Giving a woman a flower can lead to things not allowed by the chapter by-laws." He sidestepped a chainaxe swing from a Khorn Berserker and landed the midpoint of the shaft of his power glaive between the uprights on the Berserker's helm. He gave the glaive a forceful spin to the left and the Berserker's helm at point became a large wing nut with the Berserker's neck playing the part of the bolt. Brother Gaigan retrieved his glaive after one complete rotation.

"Well, I like her. She's spirited" He glanced again over to where she was fighting. She had just taken a chainaxe from a Berserker and was raking it back and forth across his abdomen. "Besides, I checked the by-laws; I did a keyword search on 'celibacy' and did not get any results. Apparently it's just assumed."

Brother Gaigan shook a dead Chaos Marine off his glaive. "You're joking! No, you're not; we don't have a sense of humor. But we're not supposed to have feelings either." He looked over to where Brother Lorgian's object of affection was. I'm not sure 'spirited' is the correct word to use to describe her either."

"Oh, why?" He leveled his left arm at shoulder height and loosed a burst of fire into the unprotected face of another Chaos Marine. "It still amazes me that some of them don't wear helmets."

"Well, she is choking a Berserker to death with his own intestines. I don't know what the right word is, but spirited isn't it. Speaking of helmets, you might want to ask her why she doesn't wear one. The left side of her face looks like she took a bolter shell and then had an Ork Painboy do the reconstruction." He swung his glaive in a flat arc at waist level and cut a Chaos Marine in half.

"Beauty is only skin deep as they say. You have to look for the finer, inner qualities in a woman. You know like, deadliness, ferocity, ruthlessness towards the Emperors enemies, those kind of attributes." He turned slightly and caught a charging Khorn Berserker on the end of his glaive and used the momentum to lift him in an arc over his head and fling him off the weapon behind him. This left him directly facing Sister Zanin. She was beating a helmetless Chaos Marine about the head with a rectangular metal object about the size of her forearm.

Brother Lorgian turned back to enemies close at hand and discovered a traitor was just about to pile into him. He reached out with his left arm and caught the marine on the collar and activated his stormbolter. The traitor's head disappeared in a flash of metal, bone, and blood. "Here's a question, does her power armor have to be shaped that way because of her figure, or is there an element of vanity involved? Am I a heretic for wanting to know the answer?"

Brother Gaigan grounded his glaive because there were no longer any enemies nearby. After glancing to where the Sister was engaged, "A better question Brother is, does she like men? She's beating a man to death with his own codpiece."

Having no enemies near, he turned to watch. "That's a codpiece? Unless he has a Chaos mutation, I'd say he was overcompensating." Soon enough another Chaos Marine learned why it is a bad idea to go helmetless on the battlefield.

No more enemies were in sight and it appeared that the battle in this building was over. Sister Zanin retrieved her bolter from where she had dropped it earlier and walked through the debris and bodies to join the two Grey Knights. As she came up to them, "Well, that was invigorating. It certainly got the blood pumping." She gave Brother Lorgian a very frank look while touching the flower he gave her, and a smile that, if the left side of her face had not been disfigured, would have been called inviting. Instead, combining the fair half with the fane, it was more than a little disturbing. "I was wondering something. The Sisters' codes do not say anything about celibacy, it's just assumed. I was wondering if the Knights codes were set up the same way?"

"Ward your codpiece Brother," Brother Gaigan warned. "I don't think she is going to take 'no' for an answer."

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