The light blinded him as he came to, a bright golden glow that slowly dimmed. His vision was hazy, but he knew where he was. His time had come. The fuzzy, gold-gilded walls around him told him everything he needed to know. His life had left him, his time had come to join The Emperor in his golden halls. To be rewarded for his sacrifice for the imperium. He sat upright, feeling a gentle cloth fall from him as he looked around. He saw something in the corner of his eye, a black figure, fuzzy, outline wavering as it seemed to approach him.

The golden glow of the walls faded as they came to a steely gray, the black figure approached. Closer and closer with each passing second. The things lips parted into a grin, revealing a wide mouth full of jagged yellow teeth, the only discernible feature that stood out from its utterly black silhouette.

He knew it didn’t belong in these beautiful halls. Its presence was corrupting. Carrell fumbled for his lasgun.

His weapon was absent.

The figure closed in, he felt a cold hand on his chest as the fuzzy outline pressed against his chest and pushed him back down as he weakly struggled. He felt his head press against something soft and fluffy, but he continued his struggle. Finally, the figure pressed down violently on his chest, sending a violent shock of pain through his body as Carrell held back a howl. Quickly, his vision sharpened. And he saw the dark figure pressing down on him. It was no vile daemon or otherworldly outsider that had infiltrated his afterlife. No, he saw the thing, short blonde hair and pale skin.

It was Martha. A creature potentially worse than his initial assumptions.

His mouth suddenly felt unbearably dry, as if filled with sand and salt, his words cut against his throat as he spoke. “You dead too?”

Her response came in a smile, not warm, it was a smile more akin to a beast looking upon it’s injured prey. Full of confidence and awfully self-satisfied. “Nope, but I wish I was.”

Carrell’s attention went back to the wound in his chest, it had been cleaned and stitched, but he knew it would leave a scar. “Me too”

“Unfortunately for the both of us, you can’t die just yet, we’ve got work to do”

“Work?”

“Yeah, Adol said that the boss was looking for us”

“Inquisitor Hargrave?”

“Mhmm, and he apparently isn’t exactly pleased”

“Because you beat the target within an inch of your life or because I got stabbed?”

“Because I used-” Martha’s hands flew up as she spoke her next words whilst making quotes in the air “-excessive force”

“Isn’t excessive force just regular force for you?”

“That is… correct. Anyway, you’ve been in bed for a week and you smell like groxshit, it’s time to get up and go get punished by the Hargrave”

“You’re assuming we’re going to be punished?”

“Aren’t you?”

“…”

Martha grabbed Carrell by his waist and yanked him off the bed, forcing him to stumble to his feet, having to lean against the closest bulkhead wall to keep himself steady. Now fully upright he realised that the garb he had been changed into whilst he was being treated was uncomfortably revealing.

Martha stifled a laugh as he span around to cover his bare rump, she seemed unable to restrain her laugh as she pulled his clothing proper from a locker at the base of the bed and held it aloft. “Looking for something?”

“By the Emperor, Martha I’m not doing this.”

“Doing what?” She smiled back at him.

“Fighting over my clothing. It’s unbefitting.” Carrell took a quick step forward, ignoring the slight pang of pain in his chest when he took the hurried movement.

“Well guess you’ll be seeing the inquisitor in your wonderful gown then, unless you’d rather see him in your birthday suit instead. Show off that sword of yours that I’ve overheard you being so talkative about after you’ve got a stiff drink in you around those guardsmen friends of yours.” Her grin widened as she shrugged her soldiers “Though it’s really not particularly impressive in my opinion.

“I’ll have your head for this.”

“Not before Hargrave has yours for your clear perversion if you have to stroll through the ship with your arse exposed.”

“Martha.”

“Hiverat.”

The slight extra twinge of annoyance that came from Martha’s words aggravated the man far more than her actions might, he threw himself at her, intent to recover his clothes from the bestial woman-thing. He swiped forwards to clutch at his clothes, but quickly found them pulled from within an inch of his grasp as the sister stepped away, yanking her arm high. Carrell leaped up, feeling the fabric of his flak long coat against his fingers as it was quickly pulled from him again. He threw himself at her again, slamming into her and sending the two of them tumbling into the curtains around his bed, both crashing to the floor in a tumble of flak, flesh and fabric.

For once, Carrell had come out on top. He wrenched the clothes from her hands and struggled off her, keeping his apparel tight in his grip. He heard the distinct whir of gears and spinning saws as a red-robed Tech-Priest peered at him from the medical ward’s corridor, the curtains blocking them from sight now having been brought to the ground.

The Tech-Priest merely remarked the two acolytes before allowing himself a simple shrug, his mechadendtrite’s stained bone-saw whirring to life as it seemed to turn to the two of them before snaking back to it’s the Tech-Priest’s shoulder as he plodded away.