Miriya grimaced. She had lost women under her command before, in circumstances much worse than this one, and yet the simple and utterly brutal manner of Lethe's murder weighed her down with guilt. It was all the Sister Superior could do to hold back the tirade of inner voices that would willingly blame her for her error aboard the Mercutio.

In her mind's eye she saw herself again, in that moment when she placed the plasma pistol against Vaun's capsule and threatened to kill him. Why didn't I do it? Then Lethe would still be alive, Iona would still be one of us... But to do so would have been to disobey a direct command from her church. Miriya had often been called to account for her frequently 'creative' interpretations of instructions from her seniors, but she had never defied a superior; such an idea was anathema to a Sororitas. Her gaze dropped to the stone path beneath her feet. Sister Dione had warned her not be complacent, and she had not fully heeded that warning until it was too late. .’ will make those responsible pay, she vowed.

An oval slot in the stony path of the garden was open to the air, revealing a vertical silo a few metres deep. Reiko brought the Litany of Remembrance to a close, and the white-clad servitors tipped Lethe's body into the space and filled it with earth. As the

Nevans did with all their dead, they buried her standing up with her face tilted back toward the sky. It was for the deceased to see the way back to Terra, and to the path that led them to the right hand of the Emperor, so their clerics said.

'In His name, and by the sanction of Our Martyred Lady, we commit our Sister Lethe Catena to the earth. There to rest until the Divine One calls upon His fallen to rise once more.' Reiko bowed her head, and the others did the same. Miriya hesitated for a second, catching the eye of a young Sister wearing the robes of a different order. She gave the Celestian a look loaded with pain and anger.

'Praise the Emperor, for in our resolve we only reflect His purpose of will,' intoned Reiko. 'So shall

it be.' 'So shall it be,' they chorused.

Drawn inexorably to the place where Lethe lay, Miriya approached the woman kneeling there even though part of her knew only ill could come of it. Closer, and she recognised the unbroken circle symbol on the girl's robes, the mark of the Order of Serenity. Like the Order of our Martyred Lady, the Sister Hospitallers who served in the name of Serenity came from the Convent Sanctorum on Ophelia VII. Hospitaller orders were, by Imperial law, non-militant, but that by no means meant their ranks were filled with weaklings. These women were chirurgeons and nurses of expert skill and great compassion, serving the warriors of the Imperial military machine on countless thousands of worlds.