Lisha Yael'Ma

*"You all seem to think that I bear a mission, a divine quest for damnation. I don't, I just want to see how many cracks it takes to make your dreams shatter into a thousand pieces."*

## Origins

### **Birth and Early Life**

Lisha was born on the imperial Ice World of Cavua III to a Captain of an Imperial Guard Regiment: the 202nd Valhallan Ice Warriors. Renowned for their skill and expertise in snow and tundra, as their world is one of the worst examples of cold climates in the galaxy, the ice warriors were deployed in the snowy regions of planets and to ice worlds often, so Lisha learned to appreciate the cold from the day she was born. Her father was also a Valhallan, but as is customary in the Ice Warriors the regiments were segregated by gender, so she does not know which regiment he was from, as her mother was vague on the topic.

Experiencing the nature of war from a young age, even from the relative safety amongst the camp followers during actual conflict, Lisha became as hard as the Ice Warriors themselves, but she always softened when her mother returned from the front line and they could spend almost every free minute they could together.

#### The 202nd Valhallan Ice Warriors

As the years went by and the Regiment was never officially assigned to a specific war zone or crusade, they forged a path across the galaxy; fighting in conflicts from Ultramar to the Eye of Terror. The regiment slowly plodded across the stars lending aid to beleaguered ally forces, crushing rebellions and fighting for the Emperor's name, and found itself in an area of space that was renowned as unstable, being so near the madness of the halo stars: an area including the Ixaniad, Askellon, Scarus and, most importantly of all, the Calixis Sectors.

During the latter part of the 41st millennium an Ork Waaagh! led by a Warboss known as 'Ardskull Backbrekka began to coalesce in the regions between the Scarus and Calixis sectors, and the 202nd was dispatched to disrupt the formation of this potentially disastrous green menace. The Valhallans long history with Orks and their close proximity to the sector made them perfect for the job, and Imperial intelligence counted it as a victory that they were able to learn of this new Ork threat before it reached critical mass.

However, as is so often the case with The Imperium, the information leading to the formation of the small battlegroup that descended on the Ork planet of Bartus was inaccurate to the extreme. Instead of the 100'000 - 300'000 Orks that were expected the Imperial forces were met with a Green tide of over 2 million screaming and bloodthirsty Xenos almost as soon as the transport ships landed, with the 202nd leading the assault.

It is known that the Valhallans fought valiantly; holding the landing position atop a plateau in a mountainous region and using the snowy valleys as choke points to beat back the massing throng of death. For 3 months the 202nd held the position as reinforcements slowly trickled in from the orbit, however the limited supplies and manpower of the relatively small battleforce began to show. Even masters of attrition warfare like the Valhallans could not hold out forever. By the time the situation was made known to the Munitorum and relief forces could be dispatched, the Valhallans had lost over 60% of their troops and about 20% of the land they had laid claim to upon planetfall. Food and ammunition were dwindling, and with a large portion of the Imperial Guard forces spread out across the four continents of the world, it looked grim for the 202nd: they were simply not given enough men and supplies for such a large undertaking.

Communication was gradually lost with the other Imperial Forces on the ground as Guard positions were overrun and destroyed, the token escorts of the fleet providing the best they could in terms of orbital bombardment, but once again they were not equipped with the weaponry required for large scale incineration of surface targets. And the Orks, as they always do, had the advantage of and endless sea of numbers.

#### Relief and Reinforcements

Finally, after 6 months of absolute chaos on the ground, Imperial Navy ships arrived in orbit with reinforcements and an invasion force of the size that was required in the first place was underway. The last bastion of guardsmen on Bartus was the 202nd Valhallan Ice Warriors. With 80% losses and the entirety of the mountains lost to Orks save for the plateau the regiment was on its last legs, using guerrilla tactics to distract and lure the xenos away from the mountain stronghold. The regiment’s Colonel was dead, along with most of the command structure. The 202nd was being led by a Captain, the highest ranking officer left on the planet, by the name of Shae Yael’Ma. Captain Yael’Ma had survived the entirety of what was later known as the Bartus Massacre through sheer stubbornness and the willingness to change tact in response to shifts in the Orks fighting patterns, the most significant of her decrees after the regiments future was thrust into her hands was the breaking of entrenched positions (something rarely done in the defensively-minded Ice Warriors) to engage the Orks in hit and run tactics.

When the reinforcements broke atmosphere the 202nd breathed a sigh relief, thinking they would be pulled out. The defence of the mountain plateau was bolstered by the arrival of a detachment of the Scintillan Fusiliers, a noble regiment raised from the nearby Calixis Sector. They were informed however that the Valhallans had not received orders to retreat or withdraw to the voidships that carried them here. Instead they were to remain in the mountains and resume holding the valleys they had long ago abandoned in favour of the more effective and less costly guerrilla warfare. Outraged, but unable to question the Scintillan Colonel due both to his rank and his noble pomposity refusing all attempts at reason, she left the vastly understrength and depleted 202nd to petition the Commander-General of the Army Group in person. In the last blunder of the Bartus Massacre and generally considered to be the true beginning of Waaagh! Backbrekka, while touching down at the new Command HQ of the Bartus Liberation Force as it was known, Captain Yael’Ma was killed as a large force of Ork Kommandos initiated a large attack on the Imperial base. Slipping through the badly organised defensive positions around the camp, the Xenos wreaked havoc before they could be repelled. Amongst the dead included several Majors and Colonels of the various regiments that landed with the Fusiliers. The Commander-General of the invasion force, by the name of Wallace Tragan, was severely wounded in the attack and the fight for Bartus stalled once again. The 202nd was disbanded and its members dispersed amongst the new arrivals (although notably not the Scintillan Fusiliers). The transport that arrived with the Valhallans began to withdraw, transferring the personal effects it carried to the proper ship, sharing the remnants of Guard equipment amongst the rest of the fleet, as well as allowing any hangers-on to move to another vessel.

On hearing of the death of Captain Yael’Ma however, the Navy Captain of the transport realised he had one last duty to discharge before reporting to the Segmentum Fleet for reassignment. Stopping for resupply in the Josian Reach of the Calixis Sector the Captain made orbit at the Shrine World of Reshia to give his crew some spiritual shore leave before moving on to the capital for a full R&R assignment and then to rendezvous with the Battlefleet Calixis and re-join the Imperial Navy. While on Reshia, he found the Ministorum maintained a Schola Progenium in the southern frigid climes, and decided to deposit the young daughter of the late Captain Yael’Ma in to the care of the Ecclesiarchy, informing them of the status of her dead mother.

Lisha Yael’Ma then turned 9 years old in the care of the Drill Abbots.

#### Schola of the Risen Saint

Lisha spent the next decade studying at the Schola on Reshia, participating in classes alongside future Commissars and Adeptus Sororitas sisters. She was noted however to have a strong sway over her classmates even at such a young age, particularly over the younger or smaller classmates, most likely due to her jaded view of the world compared to some of the rather more pampered peers. Many of them were the children of Administratum adepts or Imperial Colonels and Generals, born and raised on their homeworld far away from the fighting on family estates or in the care of friends and colleagues. Growing up so close to warzones, meeting smiling soldiers one day and seeing their mangled corpse the next, instilled in Lisha an authority over the others of her class. Even some of the upperclassmen in her later years relented to her force of will. Those that did not and tried to take over her position of control within the ranks of the students found themselves faced with a ferocious fighter with a gang of younger Progena at her back.

These traits had Lisha ear-marked for service within the Commissariat, the Adeptus Arbites, or the Storm Troopers, however as her time within the Schola began to wind down and graduation loomed the Drill Abbots began to notice that her devotion to the Imperial Creed was not strong, despite the decade of indoctrination. Though it never amounted to any serious offence or cause for alarm, the relative lack of faith precluded her from becoming a Commissar and so her options were narrowed. For Lisha this served her rightly, as by her 15th year she had spent much time considering her position and what got her left in the Schola. She began to resent the circumstances surrounding her mother’s death, as unlike many of her classmates she was aware of how her mother died (and in fact nearby). An old, and perhaps inconsiderate, Guardswoman had given the young Lisha limited access and training in how to use the ships tactical displays, so she was able to watch the area erupt in red enemy ID symbols when her mother died. Coupled with whispers from the crew and some poorly secured tactical reports she, even at the young age she was, put together the picture of incompetence and failure that got her mother killed. The resentment kindled the doubt the burned in her heart for years to come, and served to limit her dedication to the Emperor at the Schola and beyond.

If not a love for the Emperor, her mother did instil in her at least a set of principles. While not quite honour in the truest sense of the word, Lisha held firm in many regards such as duty, fair retribution, and respect for your brothers (or sisters) in arms. She was taught that word given is sealed in blood, so long as the other party holds their own end, and honesty is preferable, but not always necessary. “Don’t tell the Commissar his new eye looks like an Ork peeking out of a Grox’s ass.” She was told once, which made sense to her young mind. Nearly all of these beliefs were advantageous in both the Storm Troopers and the Arbites, however they hewed closer to the Arbitrators and their methodology, and she was a bit too independent to operate effectively in the regimented Scions. Once again, this suited her, as she had seen too much of the military life.

At the age of 16 she was recruited into the Arbitrators of the Calixis Sector, and sent to the Capital of Scintilla with the lowly rank of Cadet, where her true character would begin to take shape.

### Service in the Adeptus Arbites

#### The Fortress of the Just

Prior to her acceptance proper to the Arbites she was taken to the Precinct Fortress of Scintilla, a massive slab of Rockcrete situated a short flight out from Hive Tarsus, to be fully trained as an Arbitrator. There she learned all the things not taught at the Schola such as studies and treatises on the Lex Imperialis, mob control, interrogation techniques, canvassing protocol etc. Aside from the scholastic learnings she studied under a gruff Proctor by the name of Alasdair Kayan; a man whose foul demeanour and sickly sadistic methods of beating proper drills into Cadets earned him a reputation amongst the upper echelons as an effective tutor. He was also universally despised by his students and alumni, a fact he was aware of and seemed to enjoy. Under him she studied battlefield procedure, retreading ground touched upon at the Schola, and trained daily with firearms and in close combat techniques. Lisha spent 2 years at the Fortress of the Just in order to complete her Cadet training, which frankly she felt was an excessive waste of time, as she learned the methods of the Arbiters quickly. It wasn’t until her second year under Kayan that she saw true combat for the first time.

#### Gunmetal City

Conducting raids in Gunmetal City was a common occupation for new recruits late in their training; the constant threat around every corner, the almost military engagements that occur regularly and the large quantity of firearms and enemies trained to use them was an effective proving ground for new arbitrators to test their mettle. As a result there was a high number of “dropouts” at this stage of a Cadets life, but Lisha was not one of them. The Gun ruled in the City and she knew how to use one. Until now her scores in academic subjects like Lex studies were low, barely passable in some regards, but her marksman scores were consistently top of her class and Gunmetal City was the perfect place to test her aim for real. The Cadet raiding teams rarely took the more high value targets, their inexperience considered too much of a liability for such important missions. Most of the action was against small fish barely even worth the notice of the Arbitrators and usually left to the local Magistratum, although their effectiveness in Gunmetal was dubious enough that the Arbites still sent the Cadets in. Common targets include tiny basement drug rings that are interfering with the output of a hab block, stolen production materials like ammunition and firearms, and the occasional cutter gangs. It was against one such gang that Lisha first tasted lead and lasfire on the air. Led by Kayan, Lisha and the rest of the cadets of her squad (nine Cadets in total including her, with Kayan making ten) met the cutter gang known as the Red Boys in the bowels of Gunmetal City during their third raid together.

The first two raids went smoothly and with (almost) no bloodshed, after which Proctor Kayan assigned Lisha as Designated Marksman; swapping her standard issue shotgun with a scoped autogun. As a Proctor he had spent much of his career raiding and suppressing mobs and so was in retrospect the best tutor for this kind of work, but Lisha still did not trust him. His acts of violence on his own students had seen to that. But taking advantage of her marksman skills did help her to respect him, at least as a competent commander. Leading the cadets into the slums just above the gang infested Infernis of Gunmetal City, Kayan took the squad on the most dangerous assignment he could find that day. It was not unknown that he chose the harshest jobs for his students to take on, more so than any other Instructor at the time at least. So on that day he decided to take them down as close to the Infernis as the Cadets status would allow to find the Red Boys and smoke them out. Intelligence had decided that while they were still small their quick growth may see them become quite a nuisance in the future and so had marked them for apprehension or termination while they could still be dealt with in one swoop.

The Arbites had gotten wind that the Red Boys were operating out of an abandoned hab block just on the edge of a depleted factory-mine in the slums of Gunmetal, venturing higher in to the city to snatch the middle class workers and dragging them back for harvest. Moving quietly during work hours when the cutters would probably be at their base waiting for the shift changes in order to get access to some hab worker, the squad began forming a perimeter around the block while Lisha took position in a similar structure opposite the Red Boys base. From her vantage point she would provide cover to the rest of the team as they breached the building.  Lisha's first taste of blood came when breach was called. Her allies kicked in the primary and secondary entrances, shouting for gangers to hit the floor. The first floor was clear in 20 seconds, an excellent display of efficiency according to Kayan's surprisingly generous report, and none of the Red Boys had managed to get a shot off. However, from Lisha's point of view it was immediately clear this was not indicative of the difficulty they were to face in the building. Every floor showed signs of gangers preparing to repel the raid violently, and through the windows she began to call targets even as her squad-mate's moved to clear the second floor. Her first ever kill ended up being some twenty-something junkie who, even as his friends scrambled around him tossing guns and ammunition, kept huffing from some  kind of inhaler every few moments, swaying slightly after every hit. Lisha took aim as he stood there. She could see his pupils dilate, the glazed stare that followed every puff, she could see the freckles on his face and the grin on his lips. Her crosshairs settled on his chest, She watched as sweat began to drip from his chin, betraying the fear he was hiding behind drugs and a brave smirk. She fired. Blood exploded from his breast and for a few seconds he stood there, not even knowing why his comrades were shouting and pulling at him. He looked around, the smile still upon his face. Then he fell back. And Lisha counted her first, but not last, kill.

Every time a hostile showed their face in the wide windows they lost it to the crack of shots from Lisha's autogun. Shifting from room to room Lisha kept return fire to a minimum while providing overwatch, gunning down emplacements and countering flanks for her teammates. The whole attack was over minutes after it started, the Arbitrators using their superior weapons, armour and tactics to sweep through the building and drop anything that moved.