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Specialist Funeral was admiring the deep night sky from the cockpit of her aircraft, fifty thousand feet above the ground, when the call came in.
"We have sensor contact, Specialist," said the General, gravely. "Three Behemoth-class battleships hooked the stele thirty seconds ago. They're making an orbital approach at point five C. We just launched defense squadrons"
"I understand. What are your orders, Ma'am?" Funeral replied, years of practice draining the emotion from her voice.
"They've taken the bait, Specialist. Mission is go. You know the plan. You have my every confidence."
"Yes, Ma'am. For Humanity."
"For Humanity."
Funeral tapped the comm button, closing the line. She turned to the woman in the seat behind her.
"Ready, Frankly?"
"Ready," said Frankly, nodding soberly. Funeral turned back and hit the throttle.
It was little more than a fighter jet, with a few modifications. The cockpit was barely big enough for two pilots, Funeral at the controls in the front and Frankly at the nav console behind. The two woman were forced hard into their seats by G-forces as they blasted from cruising altitude up into planetary orbit.
The battle had already begun. Several waves of defensive drone squadrons had engaged the gigantic, skeleton-festooned necromancer battleships that had come to demolish the planet. As usual, the drones were little match for the barrage from the Behemoths. They were programmed to shoot down the larger thanergy missiles destined for the planet's surface, but this left them vulnerable to the osseo-torpedos from the ship's main batteries.
Following Frankly's radar-guided flight path, Funeral ducked and weaved their modified aircraft among the chaos of explosive weapons exchange. Frankly gave a little cry of victory as she found what they were looking for: an Empire shuttlecraft, one of a dozen or so positioned around the battleships to assist with missile guidance.
This is what it all came down to. Their plane had been equipped with experimental stealth technology to evade detection, helping Funeral advance close enough to the shuttle that she could see the inlaid skulls and ribcages in the steel hull. Tapping the maneuvering thrusters ever so gingerly, she lined up the targeting sights, and fired the weapon.
This too was experimental, and Funeral had always privately doubted it would do its job. But she was thrilled to be proved wrong as the focused EMP from their nosecone shorted out every system on the enemy shuttle, its cockpit windows instantly going dark.
"Doesn't feel right to disable rather than destroy," muttered Frankly from behind, as Funeral nudged their plane forwards and engaged the docking mechanism, latching onto the drifting shuttle's roof.
After achieving a hard seal, the mechanism swiftly lasered a hole in the hull, and Frankly dropped a flash grenade into the shuttle below. Both women leapt down after it, stunners outstretched, immediately electrocuting the two Empire officers manning the vessel. Without exchanging a word, Funeral began to strip the unconscious combatants of their uniforms, while Frankly went to the front of the craft and rebooted the controls. She'd studied the enemy systems from previously captured vessels, and was soon in control of the shuttle.
Funeral couldn't believe how smoothly the plan was going. Together they piloted the hijacked necromancer ship back towards the centremost of the Behemoths, the one with the word Patala written on the hull. The lights of the battle were already far behind them. By the time they arrived at the primary cargo bay, they had changed into the uniforms of the shuttle's previous crew and stuffed their bodies in a storage compartment. They'd also uncoupled their stealth jet from the roof, setting it adrift in space, and re-sealed the opening they'd cut.
As expected, the shuttle's transponder codes worked perfectly, and they had no trouble entering and landing on the floor of the enemy hangar deck. They'd drilled for this part the longest. They had to look like they belonged as they set out into the belly of the beast. Cohort officers and deck personnel swarmed around them; it was terrifying, but also what they'd hoped for. No one would notice two more uniforms in such a large crowd of moving bodies.
Repressing shudders of revulsion at the sight of real necromancers in such close proximity, the infiltrators left the cargo bay and advanced into the labyrinth of hallways and transporter lifts beyond. Luckily, the battleship was well signposted, and it took only ten minutes of walking to reach their destination: Secondary Diagnostics.
They found it at the end of a corridor in the bowels of the Behemoth, a dark square room containing a dozen racks of electronic hardware, two technicians squinting at tablets, and a trio of uniformed soldiers with swords at their hips.
"Can we help you?" asked one of the cavaliers, looking up from a table where they were obviously in the middle of a card game.
"We don't often get Third House down here," chimed another, squinting at the gold and purple stripes that Funeral hadn't even noticed on their shoulders. "Did you get lost on your way to the command decks?"
"Routine maintenance," grunted Funeral, stiffly, correctly assuming that military language is universal. "We'll need access to your - to the relay units. Should only take a moment."
The third soldier, a rather imposing swordswoman with a long scar down one cheek, got to her feet and eyeballed them.
"So where's your paperwork, then?"
They stared at each other - two infiltrators with sweat beading at their temples, three cavs with their hands moving slowly to their hilts. And the techies glancing nervously between them like spectators at a prize fight.
Then Frankly shot the nearest guards in the face, using the bolt gun she'd pulled while standing behind Funeral.
One of the technicians screamed, and the other fainted on the spot. The second guard swore loudly and dropped for cover under the game board, only for the big woman to grab and hurl the entire table at Funeral and Frankly.
Funeral took the blow, staggering back. Before she could recover, she was shoved hard again as the same scar-faced woman came bellowing and charging behind the table, using its square surface as a massive shield, pushing with amazing strength in an attempt to squash Funeral flat between table and wall. In the distance she could hear Frankly discharging her weapon repeatedly, each shot an explosion. She strained to reach her own gun, but she couldn't breathe, and it felt like her spine was about to shatter. The world turned red as a blaring alarm began to sound. Lights burst behind her eyes; she could hear an unsettling popping noise at the base of her skull. The pressure kept growing - until with a final blast from Frankly's gun, it fell away.
Funeral staggered up from behind the table, gasping pathetically, to witness a scene of devastation. Frankly had turned Secondary Diagnostics into a bloodbath, five gruesome corpses sprawled under dark red lighting.
"One of them hit the alarm before I got 'em," muttered Frankly, who was breathing hard and leaning against a server bank. Her right leg was drenched in blood from a deep blade wound. The sight jolted Funeral out of her shock, and she quickly went to her comrade, tearing a strip of fabric from her own uniform to use as a tourniquet.
"Forget that - we don't have much time now," Frankly snapped. Funeral ignored her, finishing the knot she was tying. Then looked her in the eye.
"Good work, Specialist. We're almost done. Can you hold the door?"
Frankly nodded. Funeral took a deep breath and extracted the Priority Packet from her jacket pocket. This was their Doomsday Device. This could end the Empire for good.
She approached a bank of processors and plugged the Packet in among the wiring. There was a banging on the door, which Frankly had already barricaded with heavy equipment. People were shouting on the other side.
"I need thirty seconds!" yelled Funeral.
A particularly loud thud forced the door open an inch, and a skeletal arm reached through. Frankly pushed it shut, and the arm snapped off, only to blossom into an entire skeleton.
"We got necros!" growled Frankly, voice dripping with loathing. She was punching the ghoul repeatedly, but there were already two more of them. And the blows to the door were getting stronger.
"Almost done! Just need a monitor to activate-" Funeral turned to reach for one of the tablets the technicians had been using. But there were things blocking her way. Shambling, moaning things, the corpses of those they'd already slain, now shuffling towards her, arms outstretched.
In the dark red emergency lighting, Funeral felt herself gripped by the raw terror of necromancy. Frankly couldn't help her - she had her hands full with an exponential skeleton situation. Funeral forced herself to remember her training. She drew her weapon and unloaded bolt after bolt into the nightmares, until she had knocked them back far enough to create an opening. There was a massive boom as the door was smashed to dust - she could hear Frankly screaming - and she dived forward, grabbed a tablet from the floor, and rolled onto her front to protect it. The zombies fell on her as she typed the final commands, and with a desperate last flurry, hit "execute".
The clammy fingers at her throat relaxed and she rolled back over, crying out in dismay. Frankly hung limply in the demolished doorway, impaled through the sternum by a massive spike of bone and gristle that had burst through the floor, the debris of smashed up skeletons littered all around. The corpses had returned to dis-animation, but even as she watched the troop of necromancers advancing on her, she felt tendrils of flesh seize her wrists and ankles, wet tendons binding her tight and bloody.
They took her away and strapped her to a chair in a new room. Or rather, the chair strapped itself to her, the bone shards embedded in the frame erupting to seize her limbs and cover her eyes, leaving her in darkness. Despite this predicament, she wasn't afraid anymore. She had completed the mission. It was over.
"What in God's name did they do, Lieutenant?" A woman's voice, near at hand.
"Looks like they uploaded a packet to the central comms. They sent it throughout the local fleet. It's in every system, sir."
"And?! What does it do?"
"It's mainly text, sir. The analysts are still going through it. Looks like it's... propaganda."
"Explain yourself, man!"
"The packet claims to offer proof of the origins of God and his role, uh, prior to the Resurrection, sir. It claims the Emperor was, well, responsible for genocide. It offers quite considerable details."
The voices paused at the sound of soft, gurgling laughter. Funeral realised it was coming from her.
"At last, you learn the truth," she grimaced. "We've finally taught you what really happened. Everything he told you was a lie."
She heard a snort.
"That's it? That was all you came to do, to get yourselves killed over a few lines of enemy drivel? No one will believe a word of this."
"No one?" Funeral found herself cackling again. "I'm sure you people prize your close-mindedness, but even among devils there are some who recognise the truth. And once the flame of truth is lit, it cannot be extinguished. It only takes a few honest minds to spread the word, to dissect the evidence. Your Empire will crumble under insurrection. You cannot stop it now. And then you will come crawling back to us, and beg our forgiveness, and lend us every aid in the final assault on the monster himself."
"I didn't realise you insurgents were so melodramatic. This is perfectly simple. Lieutenant, distribute a memo that the smuggled files are strictly prohibited to all personnel. Anyone caught reading them will face-"
"No." A new voice cut her off. Older, rasping, hard as granite. "Thank you, Commander, but I'll take it from here."
"Admiral?"
"I'm afraid this creature is correct. She has introduced a poison. We cannot risk it spreading to the wider fleet."
Suddenly Funeral could see again, the boney blindfold falling away. A crone of a woman in an admiral's uniform was peering at her with an expression of disgust. She grabbed Funeral's chin in a withered hand.
"Speak your name," said the aged woman.
"I am I Felt A Funeral In My Brain With Great Vengeance And Furious Anger, sworn protector of humanity and enemy of necromancy."
"My name is Lucinata Segundarius, scion of the Second House," replied the crone. "I want you to look me in the eyes and know that you have failed. I want you to understand that every drop of belief and dedication you may have for your cause, we have tenfold for ours. Because we have a God who loves us, and that gives us something you will never have. Devotion."
Before Funeral could react, the Admiral stepped back and turned to the Commander. "Listen carefully. Your orders are to continue operations here until the planet is scoured clean. At that point I want you to send your most trusted staff to the Requisitions hangar and secure the orbital radiation missiles we seized on the previous operation. Use code-black transports to send one each to the Youdu and the Niflheim. When the missiles are in position, I will give the signal, and we will detonate all three battleships. Do you understand these orders?"
The Commander's face was ashen, but she nodded. "Sir, I must ask you to reconsider. We have eighteen thousand souls in this fleet."
"I will not allow my command to introduce an enemy contagion to the Empire. No matter how small the risk, our entire future is at stake. We will destroy the tumour here and now, before it can spread. And the Kindly Prince of Death will know nothing more than that the enemy resorted to nuclear strikes to murder his beloved warriors. Will you pray with me?"
Funeral felt her body fill with ice from the pelvis upwards. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. She felt her consciousness fading from sheer shock at the realisation: these people would rather blow themselves up than hear the truth. It was a level of evil she had not contemplated in even her most appalling nightmares.
The last thing she heard before she fainted was a litany of voices, chanting:
"Let the King Undying, ransomer of death, scourge of death, vindicator of death, look upon the Nine Houses and hear their thanks. Let the whole of everywhere entrust themselves to him. Let those across the river pledge beyond the tomb to the adept divine, the first among necromancers. Thanks be to the Ninefold Resurrection. Thanks be to the Lyctor divinely ordained. He is Emperor and he became God: he is God, and he became Emperor."