Five aircraft were speeding through a rapidly darkening purple sky in delta formation; an Aquila lander escorted by four Lightning air superiority fighters hinted how important the personnel it was ferrying was as it cut through the air with haste to its destination.

Inside the passenger compartment of the Aquila lander were three senior members of the Adepta Sororitas. Seated in the middle was a hooded woman wearing an ornate set of power armour covered by an elaborated cloak. The woman had delicate yet stern features, she looked to be in her early forties but she had actually been serving her Order for more than seven decades. Deep in thought, the woman’s eyes were downcast while her right hand autonomously pushed on the beads of a set of intricate prayer beads with a shining symbol of the ministorum attached on a golden chain.

Seated beside her were two of the best celestian sisters the Order had to offer. One of the sisters was carrying a long object wrapped in silk cloth and sealed with a myriad of ancient-looking purity seals.

The hooded woman muttered in silent prayers as she moved the prayer beads with practised ease even with a gloved hand, at times her sight wandered to the object covered in silk cloth. Just half a day ago she had rushed back from the frontline to fetch it from their monastery after receiving the coded message from Welminah, the sister dialogus she had sent to accompany Sister Alicya to verify something very important after hearing her dubious report.

Young Alicya was very recently promoted to the rank of probationary palatine due to heavy casualties and thus in accordance with the tradition of their minor order, was briefed on the hidden legends of their Order’s founding and to be on the lookout for a certain prophecy.

The Order of the Shining Beacon was an Ordo Militant Minoris of the Adepta Sororitas founded from a small splintered group that originated from the Order Majoris of Our Martyred Lady around a thousand years ago.

Legend has it the founder of the Order was an unnamed celestian who ended up alone on the battlefield assaulting a stronghold during one of its many crusade wars. Cut off and surrounded by enemies, she vowed to sell her life dearly by making a last stand and fighting late into the night.

Long out of bolter shells, the unnamed celestian nonetheless fought on until even her chainsword finally broke. In the delirium of her supposed final moments, a shining figure with a sword appeared out of nowhere and fought by her side.

It was said the radiant stranger fought like death incarnate and swiftly cut down all the enemies surrounding them but yet more enemies approached. But the shining figure cared not, like vengeful lighting the figure went around and soon dispatched all of the enemies with contemptuous ease. After it was done with the grim task, the mysterious figure stood still and looked at the befuddled sister.

Even in her miserable state the celestian still remembered her mission, so she pleaded to her mysterious saviour for help to carry out the Emperor’s work. The figure contemplated for a while before asking her to fulfil a promise in return. The celestian considered her odd circumstances, putting her mission first she promised the mysterious figure she would do any future biddings as long as it does no harm to the Imperium and only after they took down the enemy stronghold together.

The shining figure nodded and agreed to her ridiculous proposal but asked her to rest citing her assistance was not needed. Wounded and totally exhausted, the celestian fainted while watching the figure walk towards the stronghold alone.

When she finally regained consciousness, the celestian found herself on top of the enemy stronghold with a mountain of slain enemies below her and a large master-crafted sword in her hands. After briefly returning to her Order as a celebrated hero with a mysterious sword, the unnamed celestian was soon receiving visions for the mission she had promised to fulfil.

She was instructed to leave and start her own Order at a faraway corner of the imperial frontier. Though she seriously doubted her capacity for such a monumental task, she kept to her promise and did her best by going through the proper channels and sent her request to found a new Order minoris at the far-flung corner her vision had shown, not expecting to hear anything back in her lifetime.

None knew what really happened in the bottomless pit that was the colossal bureaucracy of the Imperium but by the miraculous odds of less than a billion to one her request was granted by the higher-ups. In less than a decade after her application was submitted the approval had come with the blessings of Adeptus Ministorum, the official state church of the Imperium of Man.

So the unnamed celestian set off with faith, a nameless sword and the approval of the church and after many more years and overcoming more obstacles, finally founded the Order of the Shining Beacon in this world. The new canoness would receive many more visions during her life, the contents of which were mostly kept as secret prophecies by the higher-ranking individuals within the Order and their designated scholars.

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The founder was said to have regretted not being able to meet the prophesied figure that would one day “deliver them from their darkest hour” in her later years and decreed her own name was to be struck from the records for she “had done little but to fulfil a promise”, and as such was not worthy to be mentioned. In the end, the sister preferred to remain unnamed, like the nameless sword she received that started off her life’s incredible mission, leaving behind the holy daughter prophecy.

Hence when Alicya who was tasked with the protection of their monastery came to the frontline with an Adeptus Mechanicus arch dominus unannounced, it had surprised everyone and to top it off, the young lady had excitedly reported the possibility of the prophecy coming true. It had shocked them all since at this point in time after a thousand years the founder’s prophecies were becoming more legends than facts.

‘Canoness,’ a firm female voice called out in the confines of the compartment inside the Aquila lander, but lost in thought the hooded woman failed to catch someone addressing her by title. ‘Canoness Diadinah?’ the voice called again.

‘Ah, Sister Markeylla. Pardon me, I was spacing out.’ The hooded woman looked up and replied to the celestian who was not charged with guarding their relic.

‘You look tired,’ replied Markeylla Merett, the celestian superior. She paused before asking the question that had been on her mind since the sudden retrieval of their Order’s most sacred relic, the nameless sword. ‘So what did Welminah say in her report?’ Welminah Maeyer was one of the designated dialogus scholars allowed to study the prophecies of their founder in this generation, thus she was sent together with Alicya to verify the claims.

Diadinah closed her eyes and after a while, produced a dataslate and passed it to Markeylla. While the two women were separated by ranks, they had been friends in private for decades so Markeylla did not hesitate and looked into the report that was meant for the highest office of her order.

‘Match plausible, needs final verification.’ Markeylla read the short report softly, feeling her hair stand on their end and asked her next question. ‘Do you think it could be real this time?’

‘Only the Emperor knows,’ replied Diadinah, ‘but we are certainly at our darkest hour. As if this unexpected uprising is not enough to test us, there are some concerning reports in the last twenty-four hours about weird things happening in the warp and unusual psychic phenomena. As a matter of fact, I just received reports that even the light of the Emperor is now denied to us.’ The canoness retrieved her dataslate, conjured out different reports and passed it again to her friend.

As the celestian superior gasped at the grim reports, Diadinah looked at her companions and explained, ‘this matter for the moment is not public knowledge, keep it confidential for now.’ Both celestians nodded in compliance.

Markeylla read and reread the dataslate before asking, ‘does Inquisitor Thorn know of this?’ Diadinah retrieved her dataslate before replying, ‘of course, he had personally verified it with me on this matter. Speaking of which, the holy daughter candidate is actually under his care at the moment.’

Thaberus Thorn had just very recently arrived on the planet in hot pursuit of several suspicious cults and found himself in a civil war. Trusting neither side of the conflict, Thaberus had instead contacted the Sororitas to work with them and had been operating clandestinely for a while before just coming out to endorse the governor of her legitimacy.

‘To think, the rebels actually had renegade Astartes working behind the scenes for them,’ Markeylla remarked with great distaste, righteous fury blazing in her eyes.

‘It seems the arrival of the candidate had forced their hand but…’ said Canoness Diadinah before trailing off, unable to hide the grimace in her voice before continuing in a whisper. ‘...the most unfortunate thing had happened, a group of rebels led by renegade marines had successfully ambushed her and it is said she is suffering from amnesia now because of it.’

Even with her many decades of practised straight discipline in the Order, Celestian Superior Markeylla could not hide her shock upon hearing the terrible news and blurted out her thoughts, ‘Throne on Terra! Have we already failed when it counted the most?’

‘That… I am afraid I have no answer,’ Canoness Diadinah confessed, ‘the fortunate news is she is reported to be still coherent and functional as a person. Lastly, there is this mention that she had gained access to the inner sanctum and an arcane device believed to be a psychic beacon was activated. Inquisitor Thorn had also verified this with me but since most high functioning psykers had been bedridden of late this is still under investigation.’

Markeylla went quiet for a while before asking, ‘none of the founder’s legends and visions had ever mentioned of such a thing, but it bears an eerie resemblance to our Order’s name, could it be the true purpose of our Order is to protect the beacon the supposed prophesied holy daughter had activated? That this happened right as we lost the light of the Emperor could not have been a coincidence.’

‘Again I know not,’ replied Diadinah, ‘I can only pray to Him on Holy Terra this trip will grant us the answers to all these.’ The canoness involuntarily looked at the relic again and sighed softly. ‘Join me in prayer, sisters. Let us seek strength and guidance from the Emperor.’

Outside the armoured compartment of the Aquila lander, Fortress Endurance Sigma loomed on the horizon.