Editing Marcius Flavius (section)

==Story 7:==

"Commander Flavius?"

Flavius sighed heavily. THIS conversation again.

"Sir? Did you consider my request?"

"One does not REQUEST to be a space marine, boy." Flavius did not turn around to face the 'acting ensign.' "One is offered the chance to serve the Emperor, and you are not worthy."

"Why not?!" he whined in an adolescent voice so that even the battle-hardened warrior cringed. "I'm an expert engineer, I'm a scientist, I'm--"

"Useless in a fight. How old are you? Fifteen? Sixteen? When I was sixteen I had already killed four orkz with an autogun and a machete and been in the Planetary Defense Forces for three years, and I was considered to be a weak recruit. And you consider yourself worthy?"

"But sir--"

"Not another word." he said flatly. "Now return your post as helmsman, and be glad this is not an Imperial ship. The helmsmen there need to interact with the navigators--"

"What's so bad about that?"

The child's endlessly inquisitive nature may have been acceptable to Brother-Captain Picard... but Flavius doubted it. "What's so bad about that is that the Navigators are psykers. Every moment they live is not just a slap in the face to the fabric of reality itself, but they are in constant danger of tearing a hole in reality and allowing a daemon to climb out of their corpse and consume the crew. Every navigator is exposed to the glory of the Emperor's true form for an instant, burning out his or her eyes forever, and instead forcing him or her to view the Warp, the endless sea of emotion itself, filled with bloodthirsty daemons it takes twenty normal men to kill the least of. They are forbidden to speak of what they see there, though, because merely the mention of it has been known to drive men mad and into the embrace of Chaos worship, wherein their souls will be damned eternally."

Flavius hadn't meant to, but he was now less than two inches from the ensign's face, bending down to head level. "Now back to your post." he whispered as much as a space marine could.

"Yes sir." he replied quickly, and sat down. He wouldn't be resubmitting his request to be an Imperial Fist.

Brother-Captain Picard punched a few buttons on his arm chair, and a message flashed on Flavius' console.

GOOD WORK

Flavius smiled, though no one could see it through his helmet.