Aphone Ire
| Born | c. M30 |
|---|---|
| Active Period | M30 - ? |
| Species | Human |
| Type | Blank |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation(s) |
|
| Affiliation(s) | |
| Preceded by | Jenetia Krole (As Knight-Commander) |
Aphone Ire was the Vigil Commander of the Sister of Silence's Raptor Guard Cadre, during the Horus Heresy and took part in the Siege of Terra.[2d]
History
The birth name of Aphone Ire, or even if she had a birth name at all, was unknown to her. She was abandoned by her parents at birth, as they could not endure her nature as a Blank. Upon being discovered and taken in by the Silent Sisterhood, she received the name "Aphone", one of various names recycled by the order. She would subsequently rise in the ranks, never making friends either with regular humans or other members of the Sisterhood. Regardless, Aphone formed a bond of sorts with the Sisters of Silence's Knight-Commander, Jenetia Krole. After her first mission as part of the Talons of the Emperor, she was nicknamed "Ire" for her furious nature by Krole. This nickname became Aphone's surname, one of the few things she wholly owned.[3]
By the Siege of Terra, she was also second-in-command to Krole. However during the invasion, Krole would go to aid in the doomed effort to hold the Eternity Wall Spaceport from Warmaster Horus' forces. She left Ire behind despite her reluctance and Krole expected that upon her death, Ire would replace her as the Sisters of Silence' new Knight-Commander.[1]
Ire would eventually be among the Imperials who made it into the Inner Palace's doors, before they were sealed near the end of the Siege of Terra. Sometime later, the Primarch Vulkan ordered the Chosen of Malcador Khalid Hassan to take the captured Long Companions to prison cells[2a] and Ire was among[2d] the escort detail that aided Hassan in doing so. By then, though, the Warp had begun to infuse Terra and this allowed Warmaster Horus' forces to infiltrate past the Inner Palace's defenses. As the escort detail was then traveling down the Palace's Blaxis Interlink, an overwhelming number of Traitors suddenly appeared and began swarming the Imperials within it. In the slaughter that followed, the Long Companions escaped[2b] and Hassan and the quickly dwindling escort detail was forced to do the same. The Chosen's group then began to search for a safe area to regroup and eventually found it within the Tower of Hegemon, which was now being used by the War Court. However the escort detail had been nearly all killed by then, as beside Hassan[2c] only Ire, her fellow Sister of Silence Srinika Ridhi and the Custodian Ios Raja[2d] still lived.[2c] Their respite was short, though, as news reached Hassan that Vulkan had ordered that the prisoner Basilio Fo be located. Fo was genius who had been charged with building a weapon to kill the Warmaster and the Chosen took the mission to find him. A small number of Imperials would go to aid and protect Hassan, which included Ire, Ridhi and Raja, who had all immediately volunteered to do so.[2d]
After assisting in Hassan's mission, Ire began to stalk the Imperial Palace, fully expecting to die and just seeking a good place to do so. She eventually ended up assisting in the defense of a palace section by a remnant Imperial Army group, mostly consisting of the 24th Panpacific and Jorvionian Milguard. With loyalist defenses seemingly doomed, the desperate and downtrodden Imperial Army soldiers actually welcomed Ire despite her Null aura, thanked her for her aid and freely talked with her. Unused to human connections, Ire was happy to finally experience this kind of contact, even under the circumstances. She even bonded with the chief officer in the area, Emil Bleth, ultimately retelling her life story to him after he was mortally wounded in one Chaos attack on their position. Following Bleth's demise, Aphone mused that her own story would end in this section of the palace, forgotten and in silence, just as her life had begun.[3]
Aphone survived the Siege and was part of the Grand Council of Reconstruction, which ruled the Imperium in the chaotic period following the Heresy.[4]
Sources
- 1: Saturnine (Novel), Part 1, Chapter 5
- 2: The End and the Death: Volume II (Novel):
- 3: Fragments (All We Have Left) (Short Story) - Era of Ruin (Anthology)
- 4: Ashes of the Imperium (Novel), Chapter 18
