Scatos eyes were popping out of his skull, his face was pale and his mouth was downcast. He could not believe what he was seeing, he would not believe it. The images broke his small mind and shattered the fixation that the stars were merely the Emperors light. The stars were swirling giants of fire and he could see other planets, worlds that looked like Athena. When the Astartes had marched him and the other three aspirants upon the huge flying ship, with its massive yawning innards which swallowed the humans. Lord Valoran seemed at home, a smile across his misshapen but handsome features. This must be common place for him, Scato thought and it truly warped his perspective of the mighty warriors who protected his peoples. The legends were true, they did come from the stars. He couldn't help but stare around the inside of huge vessel, its engines destroying all sound inside the hold. Mikahil stared out of the porthole, his brows low set, his teeth bared. He seemed to be having a hard enough time dealing with what he saw.
However for the other two, that wasn't the case. Drummel was shouting animatedly at Lord Captain Valoran, spitting out questions until his voice became a garble of words all mashed together. Srala, a boy from one of the desert tribes was slack jaw and trying to stare out of everyone's viewing ports, speaking in his odd barbarian tongue.
Mikahil turned and sneered at the sand dweller, shifting to block his port hole, his eyes fixed down towards the surface of Athena and the blue haze that surrounded her.
Drummel Viskos squealed loudly and almost jumped out of his harness. They all spun to see what he was pointing wildly at and their faces were again smashed with shock. Valoran laughed, his deep voice wrestling the roar of the engines for supremacy. Scato felt his chest tighten and he found it hard to breath. The thing they were staring at was epic, vastly impressive and further destroyed his rather primitive view of the Astartes. It was a city, colossal and black, a huge blood red eagle spread across the impossibly massive ramming prow. Millions of tiny flecks of light glittered along its gargantuan length and when he squinted he could just make out scores of tiny space ships gliding in formation around it, like a shoal of fish around a massive torca in the toxic oceans of Athena. There was a humming that built in the air and the craft they were in began to vibrate. The vibration became a keening so vicious it nearly made their ears bleed. Scato clasped his hands to his head and stared as a massive circular opening upon the top of the ship began to glow with a bright red light. In the moment before it was painful to continue staring all sound was ripped away from the singular roar of the discharge. It was so deafening loud inside the craft that all hearing was silenced, his vision struck white from the glare of the weapon.
He blinked furiously and once his vision had returned he could see, what must have been millions of miles in the distance a flash that rivalled the massive star they had seen upon leaving Athena. He turned his head up in the viewing portal and he lost his breath once more. There were four other of the massive vessels arrayed in a formation above them and the craft he resided in was on an intercept course with the nearest above them, heading forward to a huge black opening that winked with distant lights.
He heard a clamour of noise behind him and strained round to see. Valoran had disengaged his harness lock and rose to a stand in the central corridor between benches. He gripped the overhead rails and pulled himself up the fuselage.
" HARKEN! Young aspirants! We make ready to dock with The Errant. You will keep silent at all times unless spoken to, understand. "
It wasn't even a question, but he did not doubt that once inside the mighty structure above them that they would all lose their speech.
His head began to swim the closer they got to the insanely vast ship and his vision greyed slightly. He could tell he was on the verge of passing out and he knew it was simply from the shock of what he was experiencing. He realised this ship was larger than any city-state upon Athena, and if this was a ship for the Astartes like the ships back on Athena were for his people, then he was truly terrified by the sheer scale of what else must be among the stars.