Wonderful writing, with a narrative that was perfect for the word limit of the contest. I felt like the vocabulary used at times was clinging on a bit too closely to that of 40k, and certainly could have used a quick pass over to revise those terms out. I also didn't see too much adherence to the theme, though I had also felt the theme itself was rather vague, so I'm not judging that area too harshly. Overall, I loved your work!