Editing Story:ROAD TRIP! (Warhammer High)/Part Two (section)

===Message in a Bottle===


Alex sat down to breakfast a few hours later, dataslate gripped in hand.  His knuckles were white.  “Son of a bitch can’t tell when he’s not wanted,” he growled.

The doorknob rattled.  Alex quickly tabbed to a different page.  “Hey, baby, how you feeling?” he asked aloud.

“Our love can never be,” Jake replied, sticking his head in the door.  “Morning, man.”

“Fuck you, I’m fine,” Alex said.  Jake nodded once, man law upheld.  “You want to hit the gym?”

“No thanks.  This gravity is really getting to me.  I think I might just go for a run before the sun comes up.”  Jake appeared in the door to the tiny kitchenette of Alex and Freya’s more modest apartment.  “Are you all right?  You look pissed,” Jake said.

“I am pissed,” Alex snarled.

“Sorry, man.  You want to talk about it?” Jake asked carefully.  He had come to like the older man quite a lot in the preceding four months, but sometimes Alex’s temper got to him.

“Might as well,” Alex sighed.  “Look.”  He passed his slate to Jake, who spun it around to read.  “My father’s ‘passing by.’”

“So…he’s going to be here?” Jake asked.

“Oh yes.  The stupid son of a bitch,” Alex said darkly.

“Man, why do you hate your father so much?” Jake asked.

“Hate?  I don’t hate him.  I think he’s an insensitive, brutal, selfish whoremonger,” Alex said coldly.

Jake shifted uncomfortably.  Alex sighed.  “Man…do you remember meeting him at graduation?”

“Uh…briefly.  He was talking to you the whole time, so I didn’t really meet him,” Jake said.

“Do you remember meeting my mother?” Alex asked.

“No, he wasn’t with her, I don’t think.  He was with your sisters.”

Alex grimaced.  “I’m an only child.”

Jake was quiet for a few moments.  “…ew.”

“The man brought hookers to my fucking graduation.  With Primarchs’ daughters, a Space Marine or fifty, and an army of Treasury agents in the room,” Alex said with contemptuous disgust.  “He can go fuck cats.”

“Man…what do we do?” Jake asked.

Alex’s voice was ice.  “‘We?’”

Jake stood there silent.  Alex slowed his eyes and slowly ran his hands over his face.  “Sorry.  Let’s…let’s hit the gym.  I have bad feelings to burn.”  Jake nodded and fetched his gym bag.  He followed his friend down to the gym, wondering if there was anything he could do, and deciding that there really wasn’t.

The boys walked in as the girls were making off to the showers.  “Hey, guys,” Remilia said brightly.  “How are you?”

“Enraged,” Alex groused.  Remilia stared.

“Why?”

“Because my imbecile father, Lord Trader Joseph Kimball-Carlin himself, is at the edge of the system, having conveniently ‘arrived’ a few hours ago,” Alex said.

“Oh for fucks’ sake, didn’t you specifically tell the asshole to leave us alone on our road trip?” Remilia groaned.

“Yes, yes I did, a warning to which he paid precisely zero heed,” Alex said.

Venus walked up, towel slung around her neck.  “I can put paid to him if he does something stupid, Alex.  Trust me.”

“I know you will, Venus, and I’m sure it won’t come to th…what the fuck am I saying, he’s a Rogue Trader, he gets what he wants,” Alex said wearily.

Venus’ fingers tightened on the towel.  “Not in the sight of Prometheus, Alex,” she said softly.  Alex winced.

“I don’t want to cause trouble,” he said.

Venus grinned.  “You aren’t.  If he does…well, you’re hardly responsible.”

“Good,” Alex said.  Jake walked up behind him, eying the impressive gym.

Venus walked up to him as Freya and Alex continued discussing Lord Carlin with Remilia, trying to work things out.  With a deft flick of her towel, she snagged it behind his neck and pulled him into a kiss.  “Glad I got to see you before I left for the Hall of Deathfire,” she said.  “I’m off.”

He slid her towel off, smiling warily.  “And what pleasant and safe activities does one partake of in the…Hall of Deathfire?” he inquired.

“Forging molten gold in a volcanic stack-fuelled smelter,” Venus said happily.  “Home sweet home.”  Jake stared.


Several hours later, Venus was standing in the closest thing to her basement she had seen in two weeks.  The Forgedaughter was aptly dressed, as well, with short leather pants and a normal forge apron on.  A few other Salamanders were at work in the dark caverns, too, and all had paid her respectful heed.  Even serfs weren’t allowed here.

Venus was tapping a few tiny pieces of gold into shape at that moment.  Though her skin was a hundred times more sensitive to heat than that of the Salamanders beside her, she was far less vulnerable than a baseline human, and the sweat on her brow was exertion, not heat.

A few of the gene-modded warriors around her had cast approving looks her way as she worked, which cheered her considerably.  Approval was something she didn’t seek from many people, but never found unwelcome.  And the Salamanders, of course, were hardly strangers to her.

“Princess, you do us proud,” a voice beside her murmured.  She glanced up to see a towering Devastator passing by.

“Thank you, warrior,” she replied in Old Nocturnean.  The Salamander blinked.  She switched to Gothic.  “Sorry, force of habit.”

“I think you will find that aside from the Council, the Librarians, a few Chaplains, and about half the Drakes, none of us speak the Old tongues fluently,” the Devastator said, halting at her side.  “A shame, I know, but it’s just not needed much these days.”

“Hmm.”  Venus shielded her eyes as she poured a tiny drop of gold into a set.  “What brings you by, Brother?”

“Upgrades.  I need a new rail for my shoulder mount,” the Devastator explained.  “Diligent repair prevents ruinous failure, after all.”

“Wise words.  My Father’s?”

“They are the words of T’kell, the Artificer Lord, your father’s first Forgemaster,” the Devastator said, tapping his fingers on his cracked shoulder rail.  Venus peered at the metal pieces and saw where a chain-fed stubber would be mounted.

“I see.”  Venus returned to her labors, flicking a speck of ash off of the work surface.  “My arrival was either announced in advance, or Dad learned a few tricks of timing, because no sooner do I arrive than lo and behold, the smallest forge is available for use,” she said drily, gesturing at the forge at which she worked, which was, indeed, miniscule compared to the ones on either side of her.

“I think that was put there for Scouts who received their Carapace before their Plates,” the Devastator said.

“Whatever, it works,” Venus said.  She pulled the yellow Catseye from her pouch on the floor and measured it carefully.  “Hmm.  Bigger than it looks…”

“A new work of art, your Highness?” the Devastator asked through his helm’s speaker.

“No.  A gift.  Jake’s birthday is today.  I saw this in the markets the other day and thought of him in an instant.”  She ran some quick numbers in her head, deciding how much gold she would need.

“I see.”  The Devastator was silent for a moment.  “May I inquire as to the circumstances of your meeting, your Highness?”

“School.  Farah Manus introduced us,” Venus said.  “Cogitator Design class.”

“Is that right?  I didn’t know.”

“You disapprove,” Venus observed.

“I didn’t voice a single complaint, your Highness,” the Devastator pointed out.

“But you harbor them,” Venus said, still avoiding his gaze.

“…A few.”

“Name them.”

“It is inappropriate.”

“Doubting your leadership is always inappropriate, Devastator, I would hear your justification rather than assuming the worst,” Venus said.  She poured a few more drops of gold into the caster’s set and waited for it to cool, just a bit.

“He is not Nocturnean, your Highness.  We are.”

“The first batch of Salamanders were all Terrans.  So is the Emperor.  I lived there for fifteen years.  What’s your point?” Venus asked evenly.

“He can not know the Nocturnean way of life,” the Marine said.

“Why do you think I brought him to this hell-world on our vacation, Marine?  I want him to see it.  Not to give him a chance to back out – though he would if he truly thought it beyond him – but because I want him to understand a bit of my past, and my nature.  I will stay with him for years thanks to the educational arrangement we’ve made.  Is it my taste in men or my father’s judgment you question?” she asked, turning to meet his eyes at last.

The Devastator recoiled.  “I…Princess, this isn’t a slight against your choice.  I just want to have it elucidated.”

“Then what’s the issue?”  Venus gingerly pushed the mold away from the simmering, molten rock.  “You think my father didn’t make him jump hurdles?”

“I suppose he did.  I won’t pry.”

“Hmph.”  Venus set the mold aside to cool and pulled another from the pile on the left.  “Too big for a ring…he doesn’t wear necklaces…ooh, I know.”

The Devastator noted a streak of gray on her bare back in the flare of light from the volcanic forge; it was only faintly visible in the dim light, but it was unobscured by the apron’s tie.  “Are you injured, your Highness?”

“Injured?  What?” Venus risked him a glance.

“Your back is scarred, your Highness.”

“Ah.  Yes.  There’s a branding shrine in the house on Terra.  What you see is a product of misdirected zeal I will discuss no further,” Venus said flatly.

“Understood.  I apologize for my intrusion.”

“Indeed.  See you around, Devastator,” Venus said, putting the discomforting conversation firmly aside.

“Your Highness,” The Salamander said, backing up a respectful pace, before moving to another forge elsewhere in the volcanic labyrinth.

Venus shook her head, setting her ponytail sliding over her back.  “I suppose I can’t blame him,” she said under her breath.