The Fourth Scion - Part 2

"Those valiant of heart die but once. Cowards die once too. Difference being I shoot them myself."

- Commissar Alban of the Laisian 5th

Hal understood the need to keep him restrained—he could and would have made another run for it, but the wide-eyed stares that he drew were still mortifying. He did his best to glare at anyone whose gaze lingered more than a couple of seconds, but it was difficult to project any sort of menace when he was slung over the shoulder of an eight-foot-tall super soldier. It took over ten minutes to reach the Spire's landing pads, and by that time Hal was almost glad that he'd probably never see Lais again.

The guard at the hermetic gates that led to the landing pads did a double take as they approached, but the sight apparently wasn't the strangest thing he'd ever seen since indifference returned to his face within seconds. Armyn lowered Hal to the ground and made a silent gesture at his head, conveying a clear message without uttering a word: "Don't even think about running."

Out of principle, Hal made a break for it anyway, only to feel his feet lifted a few inches off the ground. He let out a heavy sigh as he finally gave up the struggle. The gate's guard bowed low, reaching onto the rack beside him and handing over a pair of peculiar masks.

"For the Lady-Captain and the Young Lord," the guard said.

Malterro pulled the mask over her face, taking a deep breath as the seal hissed shut. Hal looked down at his, unsure of what the contraption even did.

"What is this thing?" he asked.

Malterro pulled the mask from his hands and smacked it forcefully against his face, cutting his protest short as the seal formed.

"It's a disposable rebreather to prevent you from suffocating," Armyn said. "The tip of this hive sits over ten miles above the surface, and the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere is already unpleasant for you runts even on the ground."

Hal cocked his head. All of this was news to him. He'd never actually gone outside.

"Where's yours?" he asked after noting that Armyn's face was completely bare.

"I'm an Astartes, boy. I may once have been a man, but no longer."

That was all Hal got in the way of an answer.

"Must be nice," he said conversationally.

Armyn's expression soured. "Nice, he says…"

The hermetic seal hissed as the gate opened, and a long, dimly-lit tunnel came into view with a faint trace of sunlight at the far end. At the same moment, an unpleasant feeling hit Hal like a ton of bricks. His skin crawled as if the very air was biting at any bit of exposed flesh it could find. He hissed and pulled his raiment close.

"What is this?" he blurted out.

Malterro chuckled, taking the lead down the tunnel. "Seems the Young Lord's never been anywhere that isn't pressurized and climate controlled. It's a bit chilly, that's all."

"This is what cold feels like? Only ever read about it," Hal said, rubbing his hands to get some feeling in them. "I don't like it."

"You'll find plenty out here that you won't like very much," Malterro said as they reached the end of the tunnel. "But it's not all bad. Just look."

As they emerged into the open air and stepped onto a winding catwalk, Hal's breath caught in his throat. Miles below where he stood, the light of Lais' setting sun shimmered and danced among the mists and cloud tops, painting them in reds and golds and pinks and other colors Hal had no name for. The expanse spread out toward the horizon like an endless sea before being consumed by the curve of the world.

For all the money his father spent on hand-woven tapestries and golden statues, he could never hope to replicate the simple majesty of something like this. It was the most magnificent thing he'd ever seen, and it had been just a ten minutes walk his entire life.

Malterro leaned against the rail beside him. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

Hal nodded, unable to find the correct words.

"Those clouds are the result of millenia of toxic waste and emissions pumped into the atmosphere by this world's factories," Armyn said. "The two of you would be liquified from the inside with so much as a breath. Even an Astartes would feel some discomfort."

"Must you ruin everything, Armyn?" Malterro said.

The Astartes shrugged, and Malterro tugged Hal away from the rails. "Come along. They're waiting for us."

"Who's they?" Hal said as he trailed after her. They turned the corner, and Hal yelped as he was momentarily blinded by the sight of an Arvus shuttle so shiny and silver that it could have been weaponized.

Four soldiers stood at the base of the shuttle's ramp. They had nothing in common with the soldiers that Hal was used to. Spire guards all smelled of freshly laundered uniforms and boot polish. They bowed their heads in his presence and had probably never drawn the laspistols at their belts in their lives. These soldiers stood unnaturally still in their silver carapace armor and fully enclosed rebreather helmets, and the barrels of their hellguns were charred with use. They stared him down through burning red lenses, seeming more machine than man.

"What is it with you and silver?" Hal said as they moved to the ramp.

Malterro's eyes glowed the same color as the soldier's lenses in the fading light as she smirked. "It's a family thing."

"All aboard!" Armyn said.

The four soldiers stepped aside and hoisted their hellguns against their shoulders. Hal followed Malterro aboard, with Armyn and the others trailing along to make sure he didn't make a last minute break for it. As the last one boarded, the ramp closed with a metallic clank.

The inside of the shuttle was cold, unadorned steel. Cramped and windowless, the ceiling was low enough that Armyn had to move through with an awkward, hunched shuffle. Hal watched as the others found their seats, unsure of what to do.

"No going back now, then," Hal sighed. He'd just have to escape once aboard the ship, when Armyn wasn't there to watch over him. He'd already come to terms with the fact that he was leaving the Spire behind, but there was a strange feeling bubbling in his gut. He didn't know what to make of it, but to his surprise it wasn't entirely unpleasant.

"Take a seat and strap in, boy. Lest you wind up a smear on the bulkhead." Armyn called from the back, where he sat alone in a cluster of four massive seats that were obviously installed especially for Astartes.

He did as he was told, hopping into a seat and trying to strap on the harness. The clasp gave him trouble, but he hesitated to ask any of the others for help. They all looked so… disagreeable, with their oversized weapons and soulless helmets and thick armor.

So he was surprised when the largest of the soldiers stood up and plopped down at his side. The man stood nearly a head taller than Hal did, placing him at close to seven feet tall, but he had the broad shoulders and sturdy limbs of someone that got enough exercise. A rare trait in the Spire.

"Having trouble?" the soldier asked, the vox-speaker in his helmet making his voice harsh and unemotional.

Hal nodded, and the soldier reached out and clicked the clasp of his harness into position. "You have to jiggle it in."

The soldier reached out again, this time tapping the side of the rebreather still attached to Hal's face. The gadget hissed and fell onto his lap.

"Thanks," Hal said, still having trouble meeting the burning lenses of the helmet.

"Ah, sorry," he said, reaching up to take his helmet off. It hissed as it came free of his head.

The soldier was a man in his prime. Approaching his thirties, his thick, mousy hair and scraggly beard framed a slim-featured face that was so well-defined and casually handsome that Hal almost found it offensive to his senses. His eyes were clear and blue and held a wonderfully impish twinkle. Despite his immediate feelings of inferiority, Hal knew that he'd come to like the man.

"I'm Artur," he said as he began buckling his own harness. His real voice was friendly and resonant, with a barely perceptible drawl that was common among agri-worlders in the sector.

"I'm-"

"I know who you are," Artur said. "Halphorian Granbard, fourth son of the fourth Lord, yada yada. The Lady-Captain went through a lot of trouble to find you, you know. You're scrawnier than I thought you'd be."

"Malterro said something about that before. About finding me, not the scrawny bit. Well, she said that too, but..." Hal scanned the compartment for her. "Where'd she go, anyway?"

"The Lady-Captain—" Artur said, placing a lot of emphasis on the word. "—is probably in the cockpit. She likes to fly the shuttle. Unfortunately for everyone else…"

"Unfortunately?"

Artur was pensive for a moment. "There's not really a kind way to say it. She's not a very good pilot, but she doesn't like being bad at something, so she'll practice where she can."

"Exactly how bad are we talking?" Hal said.

The Rosarius around Hal's neck bounced against his chest as the shuttle lifted off, and for a moment he felt like his body had left his soul behind on the landing pad.

"Is this your first time flying?" Artur said.

Hal didn't trust himself to speak as the shuttle accelerated, instead simply nodding as he questioned whether the sensation of his stomach rising up into his throat was normal.

"Emperor's Mercy," Artur hissed. "If you're gonna puke, aim the other way."

"Please don't," one of the other soldiers who was sitting the other way said.

"No promises," Hal grunted, then clenched his mouth shut as he tasted bile.

The three minutes it took to escape Lais's atmosphere were some of the longest of his life. He thought of many things, most of them inconsequential now that he'd left behind everything he'd ever known, but anything to keep his mind off his heaving stomach. And then, just as quickly as it had come, it ended. The shuttle broke through the atmosphere, and the rattling of the bulkhead subsided.

Artur was the first to breathe a sigh of relief. He grinned and clapped Hal over the shoulder. "Nice. That's the first test over with. You're already doing way better than Atreia. She threw up all over Armyn's boots on her first launch."

Armyn grunted, grimacing at the memory.

"Don't let him fool you," Artur said. "He's one of those gentle giant types. Unless you're a heretic, mutant, traitor, witch, malcontent, Navy officer, Tech-priest, Marine Malevolent, Inquisitor, Arbitrator, or a scion of House Leber. Are you any of those things?"

Hal shook his head, relieved that he was—in fact—none of those things.

"Then you'll get along with him."

As the shuttle rumbled on, Hal's curiosity got the better of him. "So, how does a Rogue Trader manage to get a Space Marine on her payroll?"

Artur glanced at Armyn from the corner of his eye and lowered his voice to a whisper. "Space Marines. There's four of them, the Silver Harbingers they call themselves. Story goes her father had a run-in with them near two hundred years ago, but I don't know the specifics and I'm not gonna be the one to ask."

He sat up straight and pounded a fist against his chest. "Besides, the real muscle aboard the Sojourner's the Silver Legion. We're the ones that actually get stuck in, the Astartes are mostly for show when the Lady-Captain does her rounds."

"Nos Avance," one of the other soldiers said.

"I can hear you, you know," Armyn said, smiling faintly as Artur pretended to be embarrassed.

Hal rolled his eyes. "What's with the obsession with silver around here?"

Before anyone could answer, the shuttle jolted again, and Artur's face went white. He closed his eyes and began to mutter a prayer under his breath.

"What's happening?" Hal asked, but everyone else was too caught up in their own prayers to respond. Only Armyn seemed unfazed.

"We're landing."