Editing Eternity (Warhammer High) (section)

=== Vacation Time ===


Jake Seager, Lord and Bond Prince of Nocturne, crossed his legs on the manicured sands of Carshim and watched his son play in the surf.  N’bel, it seemed, was deciphering the myriad nuances of fluid dynamics, deliberately building a little sand castle at the top of the waves’ reach and intently studying the way it crumbled when the waves tore it down.

His wife, Crown Princess Venus, was sitting beside him, relaxing on the blanket.  The beach was nearly deserted at that moment, fortunately enough.  Then, it was the crack of dawn.  In a few hours, the place would be swamped with tourists.  Until then, they had a modicum of privacy.

N’bel giggled happily as the waters collapsed his creation again.  Venus glanced over at him and smiled to herself.  “Glad he’s having fun.”

“It was a good call.”  Jake yawned and stretched his arms, popping them behind his back.  “Me, I’m glad they rebuilt that weak gym here.  No pool or cyclic lifters here last time.”

“Mmm.”  She glanced up at him, curious.  “You okay?  You look tired.”

“Little bit,” Jake admitted.  “It was damn loud last night.”

“Eh.  Someone celebrating a wedding,” Venus said.

“Probably.”  Jake fell silent as N’bel rebuilt his little fort.  “Persistent, isn’t he?”

Venus chuckled.  “Takes after his grandfather.”

Jake rose to his feet and brushed off the sand.  “I think I’ll show him the correct means of skipping rocks,” he said.

Venus set her head back down and closed her eyes behind her sunglasses.  The sound of her husband’s voice and that of her son mingled with the sound of the gentle waves, and the distant rumble of passing boats.  Carshim’s massive in-land seas weren’t very saline, and were kept clean with almost obsessive vigilance by the world’s casino-boss owners.  It felt a bit manufactured to her, but N’bel was having the time of his six years of life, and that was good enough for her.

It had been thirty-four years since the end of the Great Crusade.  Jake and Venus had been married for thirteen years now.  Twelve years of rulership over Nocturne, ceded to them by Venus’ father Vulkan while he retook leadership of the Salamanders to lead them on the Solar Expansion.  It had been six years since she and Jake had brought little N’bel into the world, to the overwhelming support of the entire Royal Family and the populations of Terra and Nocturne alike.  He had been the first of the great grandchildren of the Emperor, and though his eyes matched his mother’s endless, radiant red, the rest of his physical appearance was so close to his father’s that Jake had joked it was only a matter of time before they were mistaken for each other over the vox.

He was growing up.  No latent psychic talent, Magnus had discreetly informed her, but he had a quick mind and strong, healthy physical development that nobody needed psychic power to see.  He was a voracious reader, and so far his favorite hobby was sitting in his father’s lap, listening spellbound as Jake paged through the colossal archive of holos he had taken of Terra before moving to Nocturne.

Venus smiled up into the cloudy sky.  She had been a bit hesitant to accept motherhood into her life, despite her words to the contrary to her own mother, Misja.  Since N’bel’s birth, however, she had been enjoying nearly every day of it.  It wasn’t a series of momentous occasions, like the holos had had her believe.  The little things – the joy on N’bel’s face when they took him out for a night of fun in Clymene, the pride she felt when he eagerly displayed his newest alchemic concoction – were nearly as memorable.

The sound of shuffling feet from up the shore caught her ear.  A pair of tourists were making their way down to the water.  Carshim graciously allowed the members of the Royal family unlimited stay in their luxurious hotels and casinos, thinking that the presence of such classy and important people would increase their draw more than any advertising campaign ever could.  They were probably right, too.

The tourists froze dead solid when they spotted Venus’ distinctive appearances.  She was idly wondering whether they were going to do something she’d have to make them regret when their hurried conversation reached her ears.

“It’s her!  Princess Venus herself!” a man whispered.  “I…I can’t, I don’t want to bother her,” he said.

“Just go ask!  The worst she can say is no,” the woman said back.

“The worst she can do is sic that Treasury sniper over there on me!” the man said back.

Venus rolled her eyes.  He just wanted an autograph.  Whatever.  If he got close enough to ask, she’d give him one, if not, his own fault for being spineless.  She’d certainly signed a ton of shit since she arrived.  She was toying with the idea of just flat-out refusing to sign things after a few more days, just to mess with the prices of autographed merchandise on the black market.

She sat up and rolled her shoulders as the two squabbling tourists moved farther down the beach and spread their own blanket.  The clouds were growing deeper, she noticed.  She didn’t smell rain, but it wasn’t out of the question, either.

Jake knelt at his son’s side and showed him the rock in his palm.  “Do you know why this is the best kind of rock for skipping?” he asked.

N’bel thought for a moment.  “Because it’s small?  So it’s easy to throw?”

“Good answer.”  Jake lifted the flat stone and pressed it into his son’s hands.  “Now…throw it juuuust above the water’s surface, nice and level.

N’bel chucked the stone.  It landed in the water with a *splash*.  Jake grinned at his son’s disappointment.  “Here.  This time,” he said, lifting another.  “Watch.”  N’bel stared as his father skipped the stone off the waves.

“How did you do that?” N’bel demanded.

Jake picked up a third rock.  “The way you throw.  Don’t toss it out…” he mimed his son’s throw.  “Skip it away.”  He drew his arm back and flexed it like he was cracking a whip sideways.  The stone skipped twice before slamming into a wave and sinking.

Jake reached down and hefted a spherical stone.  “How well do you think this one will skip?” he asked.

“Uh…it’s round, so it would probably skip…” N’bel said.  His glimmering red eyes widened as realization struck.  “But all of yours were flat!” he said.

“Smart kid,” Jake said fondly.  He drew his arm back and skipped the little pebble, and it sank on the first impact.  “See?  Flat is more important than small.”

“Let me try!” N’bel said, grabbing another flat rock and hurling it out.  It skipped once before falling into the waves.  “Aw.  Why didn’t it work?” N’bel asked.

“Practice!” Jake said.  “Here.”  Jake grabbed another little rock from the sand.  “Try this one.”

N’bel accepted it and threw it, aping his father’s movements.  The rock skipped once before an unlucky wave swallowed it whole.  N’bel turned a sad face to his father.  “It didn’t work!”

“The waves worked against you.  Just keep trying.  No rocks to skip on Terra!” Jake reminded him.  “I learned here.”

“You’ve been here before?” N’bel asked.

“Sure have.  Mom and I came here for our honeymoon,” Jake explained.

“What’s a honeymoon?” N’bel asked.

Jake smiled.  “It’s what people do after a wedding,” Jake said.  “They go have fun for a while before they go live together.  We waited a while, though, since I wanted to finish university.”

“I thought you lived with Mom before you got married!” N’bel said.

“I did.  But we weren’t Prince and Princess until after that,” Jake said.

N’bel turned back to the water.  “So you came here after you got married?”

“Yep.”

“Is that when I happened?” N’bel asked, all innocence.

Jake raised his eyebrows a bit.  His own brilliant red eyes didn’t glow anywhere near as much as his wife’s or son’s, but they were still utterly inhuman.  He had grown to like them, though he toyed with the idea of having them altered to look like they had before the surgery had made him more than he had been.  “No, N’bel, you happened many years later,” he said truthfully.  “But hey.  You hungry?  I’m hungry,” he said, dodging that verbal bullet.  “Let’s go see if your mom is up for a snack, huh?”

Venus heard the entire exchange and sighed, though she couldn’t suppress a smirk at her husband’s verbal redirection.  She sat up as her family approached.  “I could go for a snack, sure,” she said, knowing full well that the other two could hear them at that range.  N’bel scampered up to her and eagerly showed off the collection of beach glass he had found.

His mother looked down at him with a curious grin.  “What do you have there?”

“I found these on the shore!  Is it crystal?” N’bel demanded to know, the light from his eyes scattering on the glass.

“Nope.”  Venus cocked her head.  “Well, technically.  It’s just ordinary glass.  See how it’s all smooth?  That’s because it gets worn down against the rocks and sand.”

“Where’s it from?” N’bel asked.

“People throw garbage over the sides of their boats.  This was probably a drink bottle once,” Jake said, walking up behind his son.

“TOO COOL!” N’bel squealed, holding the little glass pieces up to his glowing eyes.  They scattered red over the sand.  “Can I keep them?”

“Sure, if you find a place for them back home,” Venus said.

“I will!” N’bel promised.

The trio rose to their feet and donned their sandals.  Jake packed up the towel and they headed off to the little concession stand at the far end of the sandy beach.  As they passed the pair of tourists, the man scrambled to his feet.

The uniformed guard at the end of the long strip of shady sand raised one finger, but a glance from Venus halted him.  The man hesitantly approached her as she waved the boys along.  “Let me hazard a guess,” Venus said as the tourist approached.

“Get asked to sign things a lot here, do you, your Highness?” the man sheepishly asked.  “I don’t mean to intrude.”

“Eh.  You get used to it.”  Venus took the proffered pen and scribbled her name on the little paper stub the man offered her.  “Here you go.”

“Thanks so much, your Highness,” the man said.  He probably wasn’t even twenty five years old.  The ring on his finger said ‘engagement getaway’ to Venus.
“Having a pre-wedding getaway, pal?” she asked.

The man blinked.  “Er…yes!  How did you know?”

“Just a guess.  We had our honeymoon here ourselves,” Venus said idly, hiking up her bag.  “Right.  Goodbye.”

“Yes, goodbye, and thanks!” the man said, before scurrying back to his companion with the paper stub thrust forward like a trophy.

Venus caught up to the others.  “Autograph hunter?” Jake asked.

“Yep.”  Venus grabbed some coins from her bag to buy a cup of lemon ice for N’bel.


That evening, as N’bel fell asleep in his room, his parents retired to their own.  Jake started up the hot tub and climbed in.  “Is this the same suite we had before?” Jake asked.

“Sure is,” Venus said.  She pulled her bathing suit back on and clambered in with him.  She tugged her hair free of its simple tail and sank into the bubbly water up to her neck.  “Mmm…that’s nice,” she said contentedly.  Jake switched the water off and let the jets swirl the water about.

“So…day one!” Jake said, squeezing her knee under the water.  “N’bel’s having fun.”

Venus slid sideways until she was resting against her husband’s side.  “We should show him the islands, that was the best part of the honeymoon,” she pointed out.

He slung his arm behind her shoulder and she squeezed his hand.  “Maybe we should,” Jake said quietly.  Beyond Venus being only inches from his ear, N’bel’s hearing was nearly as sharp as his mother’s.  “Do you want to try tomorrow?”

“Well, I promised to make a quick appearance with Overlord Lysander tomorrow evening, but after that, sure, we’re here for four months.”  Venus closed her eyes and slid her hand over the one Jake was resting on her shoulder.  “I forgot how nice the beaches are here.”

Jake leaned his head on hers and closed his eyes two.  The Prince and Princess sat in the tub for a while, just letting the faint sound of the water jets fill the room.  At length, Venus let the light from her eyes flood the water with red again.  “So…what do you want to do with him tomorrow?” she asked.

“We can decide tomorrow,” Jake said softly.  Venus glanced to the side to see his lips curled in a faint grin.

Venus smiled back.  “Do you have something else in mind for tonight?” she asked innocently.

Jake opened his eyes and gestured broadly.  “You bet.”  He flicked the fingers on the hand he had draped over his wife’s back and her bikini top fell away.  She tilted her head to the side and accepted Jake’s hungry kiss, as his other hand slid up her leg to her crotch and pulled the rest of her suit away.  “Fuck, you feel good,” Jake growled, palming her warm, firm breasts.

Venus pulled his swim trunks away and ran an approving hand over his shaft.  “You know…somehow, I don’t think I ever really appreciated how hung you are as a girl,” she murmured.

Jake grinned proudly as he reached out of the tub to grab a condom from his pants pocket.  “Not like you had others to compare it to.”

“True, but a few minutes on the net proved illuminating,” Venus giggled.  She rose from her seat on the tub bottom as Jake let out a bit of water.  She took the rubber ring from his hands and slid it down over him.  “There…” she let her hands fall away and leaned up, biting her lip with a sultry grin.  “Ready for me?”


As his wave crested, he slumped back against the marble wall of the tub, smiling happily at her from millimeters away.  “…Outstanding, baby,” he murmured, pecking her on the lips.

She followed him back, resting her head on his shoulder.  She leaned her forehead on the stone side and whispered softly in his ear.  “Any time, Jake, trust me.”

After the glow faded, Jake awkwardly extracted himself, tossed the condom, and dried up a bit.  Venus, her clean-up simpler, was already curled up in bed when Jake wobbled out of the bathroom.  He flopped down next to her on the massive mattress and immediately started raining playful little kisses on her shoulder.

Venus giggled tiredly.  “What’re you up to?”

“Nothing.”  Jake lingered on her neck, tracing his tongue along her ear line.  “Just feeling great.”

“Mmm.”  Venus watched his dark brown hair bob over her head as he moved up her face to her lips, and planted a slow, satisfied kiss.  “Remember when we tried that technique first?” she asked with a faint laugh.

Jake groaned as the memory returned.  “Fuck, I nearly broke my arm on the stone.  You were laughing so hard we had to stop.”

“Well, I’m happy to report that you did much, much better this time,” she said happily, sliding a warm hand over his stomach.

He grinned and sank down on his side next to her.  “I didn’t feel you come.”

“I didn’t.  It’s always good when you’re really taking the initiative, though,” she said.  His hand moved down to the neat little arrow of black fuzz over her clit, but she paused him with a request.

“No, thanks, baby, I’m not there.  It’s okay…we have a while,” she reminded him coyly.  His eyes slipped shut as he leaned in for one last kiss.

“All right.  Night, baby.”  He settled down on the mattress.  “Remember when your body temperature was so high we couldn’t do this?” he asked, indicating the few inches between them with a wave of his hand.

Venus snorted.  “It still is high, you’re just warmer too.”

“True.”  Jake yawned.  “…Hope N’bel didn’t hear us.”

“He did, I’m sure, but with any luck he has no idea what we were doing,” Venus laughed.

“…He did ask if he ‘happened’ while we were here the first time…” Jake recalled with trepidation.

Venus’ eyebrows rose.  “Oh.  Right.”  She paused.  “Eh.  We’ll see.”

Jake rose from the bed and silently moved to N’bel’s door.  He pressed his ear to the wood panel and listened.

His son was sound asleep, his breaths slow and shallow, his heartbeat steady.

Jake sighed in relief and made the classic ‘sleeping like a baby’ gesture to his wife.  She nodded and closed her eyes as Jake padded back to the bed.  “All’s well,” he reported.

“Good.”  Venus said sleepily.  Jake slipped on next to her and closed his eyes, and she idly listened as his biorhythm slowed into the quiet of sleep.

The following morning, Jake was sitting on a small rise of sand overlooking the endless blue of the sea.  His son was down in the surf, continuing his hydrodynamics experiment.  Venus was out in the placid water, swimming back and forth between two rubber buoys the casino put out.  Jake himself was watching the little waves lap at the sand and rock, just enjoying the sun on his skin.

A faint shuffling noise behind him drew his ear, and he looked over to see a woman in her early thirties walking up to him with a bag in her hand.  The thick shirt she had stretched over her ample belly was decorated in a motif that said ‘hormonal purchase’ to Jake’s eyes.  A pregnancy shirt, perhaps?

Yelling from the beach drew his attention.  Venus was splashing up to the shore where N’bel was building his sandcastle, and N’bel was furiously blocking his mother’s waves, protecting his fortress with his body.  Venus crouched down behind him and menacingly filled a bucket with water, as N’bel watched with terrified eyes.  Odd how he had gotten so much better at reading emotions in those glowing red eyes after his had started to resemble them; it’s not like he could see his own face.

The pregnant woman, meanwhile, had spread out a blanket on the sands above them, and was gingerly sitting down.  She was well on her way, Jake realized, with probably only four months left on her timer.

He realized he was staring and looked away, to where Venus and N’bel had apparently agreed to a non-aggression pact, and were busily building a moat.  Venus was explaining how making the edges of the moat deeper than the middle helped with draining, which struck Jake as perhaps a bit advanced for the beginner’s course, but his son was loving it.

A shadow fell over the sands near him.  He looked around to see a man he didn’t recognize standing beside the pregnant woman, lowering a cup of something down to her.  She took it gratefully, sipping at it through a straw.  As the man turned, he made eye contact with Jake.  Most people, when they did that, recoiled at the alien sight.  Others watched for a moment, distracted or mesmerized by the hypnotic movement of light and darkness around the tiny retina.  Even more ignored them in favor of watching his wife’s or son’s utterly startling eyes instead.

This man, however, hesitated, and slowly removed his own sunglasses in surprise.  He took a few steps closer, as a few of the Treasury guards at the edge of the beach tensed up.  The man muttered something under his breath.  “No…fucking way.”

Jake’s memory kicked into motion, spurred on by the man’s voice.  The pregnant woman was looking back and forth between him and the man, not seeing what was going on.  As Jake looked up at the tourist, his mind finally placed the voice.

“Alex Carlin?  What are you doing here?” Jake asked, rising to his feet.

“It…Jake?  Is that you?” Alex asked, astonished.  The two men crossed the distance and stared at each other.  “You…you look like you fell asleep in a tanning bed set to ‘pulsar,’” Alex said, flabbergasted.

“Hah!  Alex!  It is you!” Jake said, drawing the slightly shorter, but much broader man into a hug.  “How the fuck are you?”

“Awesome, actually, yourself?” Alex asked, pulling free.  Jake stepped away and looked over his friend from arm’s length.

“I’m good, I’m good…you look like a million credits, compared to the wedding,” Jake said.

“Hah!  More, actually,” Alex said with blatant false modesty.  “Hell, it’s great to see you again.  You here on vacation?”

“Sure am!” Jake said.  He glanced over at the woman on the towel.

Alex shook himself.  “Right.  Vanessa, this is a high school friend of mine, Jacob Seager,” Alex said.  Jake walked a few steps closer and held his hand low for her to shake, rather than force her to climb up.

She took and it and shook, then gingerly levered onto her feet anyway.  “Nice to meet you,” she said.  “You said you went to Imperator?”

“I did,” Jake confirmed.  “My family is here on vacation.  We’re here for four months, then back home so my son can start grade school.  He just turned six.”

“Wow, he’s that old already?  Man, all I have is holos,” Alex said, shaking his head.

“Well, shit, if you want to say hi, they’re right over there,” Jake said, jerking a thumb over the rise of sand obscuring his sight of the others.

“Yeah?  Think I will.  Wonder if she even recognizes me,” Alex chuckled, walking over.

Jake sat down next to the blanket as Vanessa eased back to join him.  “So, Vanessa, where are you from?” Jake asked.

“I was born on Shardenus, but I grew up all over.  Traders, you know,” she said.  She fanned herself with a broad paper fan, adjusting her hat.  “Alex and I worked together on Cordeline’s Wake.”

“Cool.”  Jake nodded.  “My wife and I went to high school with Alex, together.”

“That’s cute.”  Vanessa looked over to where her husband was disappearing behind the sand drift, already cupping his hand around his mouth to holler down to Jake’s family.  “If you went to high school in the same class, you must have been in the same class as the Royal Daughters.”

“Yep.”  Jake felt the opportunity for a prank arising and quashed it.  If he was lucky, Venus had already thought of it.

“We ran into Lady Primarch Freya at a dinner last year on a void platform over Dorrmammu,” Vanessa said.  “That was quite a reunion.”

Jake chuckled.  “I imagine.  Did she do the thing where she picks you up?”

“What?  No…though she did hug me so hard I bruised,” Vanessa said.  “That was a shock.”

Jake laughed.  “She didn’t mean anything by it.”  He looked over at the sand rise, from behind which Venus’ delighted voice was echoing.  “Sounds like Alex found them.”


“Alex!  Hahah, come here!” Venus squealed, wrapping her arms tight around the taller man.

Alex did so, fondly hugging her back.  “Venus, you look fantastic.  How have you been?”

“I’m great…but what are you doing here?  Just taking a break?” Venus asked.

“Well…sort of,” Alex said.  “Business isn’t as good as it was back when we had low standards, but it’s tolerable.  Frankly, I found it hard to work while Vanessa’s expecting,” he said.  “I keep dropping what I’m doing to go check on her.”

“You’re married?  Wow, good for you!” Venus said.  “And you have a baby on the way?”

“Yep.  Well, my wife does,” Alex chuckled.  He looked down to where N’bel was trying not to be seen behind his mother’s leg.  “So…are you Prince N’bel?” he asked, smiling.

“Yes,” N’bel said, somewhat cautiously.

Alex squatted down next to him and stuck out a hand.  “My name’s Alex.  I went to school with both of your parents,” he said.

N’bel gamely took his hand and shook.  Alex grinned.  “Wow.  You know, I bet you don’t think so yet, but you are just gonna be identical to your dad in a few more years.”

“Everyone says that!” N’bel grumbled.  His radiant eyes painted Alex’s face red as the much older man smiled knowingly.

“Well, sorry, kid.  How old are you now?”

“Six Standard, four Nocturnean,” N’bel said proudly.

“Wow.  Time flies,” Alex said.  He stood up and gestured over his shoulder.  “Want to meet Vanessa?”

“Sure,” Venus said.  She paused to slip her sandals back on and followed him over the rise.

Vanessa was applying sunscreen to her arms when Alex came back with Venus and N’bel in tow.  Jake watched with a hidden grin as she slowed, a few puzzle pieces falling into place.  She looked over at him.

Jake shrugged.  “We’re just civilians here.  And N’bel and I both dislike formalities among friends.  Strongly.”  He winked.

She shook her head and set down the squeeze bottle.  “Alex sure has had interesting friends.”

“He’s lucky that way,” Jake said drily.  Venus walked right up to Vanessa and crouched down.

“Hello…Vanessa, yes?  Pleasure to meet you,” she said, casting a knowing glance at Vanessa’s stomach as she did.  “I’m Venus.”

“Hello, Princess…Venus.  Sorry.”  Vanessa shook the proffered hand, though she didn’t manage to conceal her flinch at the warmth of it.  “And…you must be N’bel,” she said, stumbling a bit on the very non-Gothic name.

“Yes, hi,” N’bel said.  He looked at the two Rogue Traders and cocked his head, but didn’t ask anything.

Venus sensed her son’s entirely reasonable desire.  “N’bel, if you want to go rebuilt the fort, do so,” she said in Nocturnean.

N’bel took off for his crumbling sandcastle, leaving Vanessa stunned at his speed.  With his genehanced muscle, he was easily as fast as a career track and field athlete, at six years old.  Alex nodded at the display.  “That takes me back.”

“I know, right?”  Jake clapped his friend on the back.  “How’s the business?”

“Eh.  We’re not robbing graves any longer, so that’s something, but our profit factor is…unenthusiastic now,” Alex said.  “I mean, shit, who am I to complain, but still.”  He sat down on the towel as the Nocturneans settled down on the sand beside it.  “Things are improving now that the new Solar worlds are calming down.  Lots of call for haulers.  We’ve taken to buying cheap freighters, hiring Navigators from the Rogue houses, and sending them to haul along the new colony routes for pennies.  Not making any money now, but give it ten years and we’re the only ones already working the new lines when they open for general trade,” Alex said.

“Crafty,” Venus said.

“Yep.  And it doesn’t smell like tombs.  The older Navigators hate that we’re willing to hire exiles, but screw ‘em.  They’re not the ones getting their hands dirty.”  Alex chuckled.  “How about you two?  What have you been up to?”

“Well, getting settled on Terra and Nocturne, of course, but I’ve been getting my way into the Nocturnean leadership roles I’m expected to fulfill, too,” Venus said.  “I didn’t realize just how much No’dan was actually doing.”

“Did he retire from active duty when you claimed your throne?” Alex asked.

Venus shook her head.  “No, he simply rejoined the Fire Drakes as a field commander.  We built a home in Themis.”

“Cool.”  Alex nodded.  “We technically have a home on Hernreith, but I don’t think we get back there more than once every other year.”

“We also have a house on Terra that we stay in when we’re home, but I think when N’bel is old enough to go to high school, we’ll send him to Imperator,” Jake said.  “Nothing against Nocturnean high schools, but it’s the best school in the galaxy for political families.”

“Yeah, it was pretty great.”  Alex leaned forward over crossed legs.  “So, N’bel, that’s a Nocturnean name.  Is it a family name?”

“My father’s adoptive father,” Venus supplied.  “A tribal blacksmith.”

“Hmm.  Think N’bel will want to learn smithing when he’s older?” Alex asked.

“‘When he’s older?’” Jake chuckled.

Alex blinked.  “He’s six.”

“He’s a Primarch’s blood.  He can already handle simple welding tools,” Venus said.  “He insisted.  I was so proud,” she said with a smile.

Vanessa shook her head.  “That sounds really dangerous.”

“It is.  But he’s careful, and smithing is the oldest and most sacred art on Nocturne,” Venus said.  “And I’m always in the room with him.”

Vanessa shrugged, unwilling to argue the point.  “If you say so, ma’am.”

Venus uncrossed her legs and lay down on her back, letting the sun soak into her night-black skin through her rust-colored swimsuit.  “Mmm…you two been here long?”

“Yesterday,” Alex supplied.  “We’re here for about a month and a half.”

“Nice, isn’t it?  You know, we went on our honeymoon out here,” Venus said.  “It’s a great place to unwind.”

“Is it?  Never been before,” Alex said.

“We’re here the next four months,” Jake said.  “Then we go home to send N’bel off to first level school.  Then I go back to getting the way at the Castle,” he grumbled.

“Oh, hush, you’re not that bad,” Venus scolded.

“What do you mean?” Alex asked.

“I always feel like I’m getting in the way of the professionals when I’m in the Castle in Themis.  Like the PDF guys are worse off for my being there,” Jake said with a sigh.  “I mostly just stick in the Royal Quarters now.”

“Well, that’s silly.  Trust me, the military on Nocturne has no problem telling people when they’re in the way,” Venus said.

“I guess.”  Jake glanced over at the Rogue Traders.  “How do you two handle security on your ships and such?  Mercenaries?”

“Lifer mercs and crew offspring,” Vanessa said.  “Mostly.  Some ex-Navy, too.  The background screening on most group hires is pretty heavy, but we have to prevent problems from within.”

“So I imagine,” Venus said.  “The issue being attempted infiltrations?”

“Yeah.  It happens.  Gotta keep sharp,” Alex said.

“Who’s running your organization while you’re here?” Jake asked.

“We have a group of adjutants.  And they can always contact us by the Astropath on the ship if they need to,” Alex said.


N’bel knelt on the sand at the water’s edge and felt the water run through his fingers.  It felt like any other kind of water, except it was sort of grainy.  Was it the sand getting disturbed or the salt in the water?  He couldn’t tell.  He tasted the water on the tip of his finger and made a face.  “Ugh.  Too salty.”

The wind was dying down, and the tide was falling too.  He grabbed a small pebble from the sand and stuck it in the sand just above where the waves were washing up, and lay down in the sand next to it to watch.  The water licked up on the tiny stone, pulling a few grains of sand it has just pushed up back into the sea, and partially burying the stone…then another wave washed it clean.

He retrieved it and let it roll down his palm, though its asymmetric shape prevented it from rolling off completely.  He cradled the stone as he rose to his feet.  He glanced over the calming water and drew his hand back, hucking the rock as far as he could.

Some fifty meters away, the little stone splashed down.  N’bel smiled.  “Hah.  I can finally out-throw Dad.”

He turned back to where his parents were sitting.  Mom was lying next to the pregnant lady, while Dad was talking loudly with the man he didn’t know, Alex, about something to do with Navigators and pay scales.  He sighed.  That was so boring.  They were on a beach with real oceans!  Why did they just want to talk?
He wandered back up to where they had dropped their stuff and grabbed his sunglasses, turning them over in his hands.  With his eyes – Mom called them superhuman, but he didn’t feel like they gave him powers – he could see things normal people couldn’t.  At least, Dad said they could.  He said he, Dad, was born with normal eyes, but the Emperor had given him better ones, ones you usually had to pay the Mechanicum to get.

He slid the glasses on and put his hands in the pockets of his swim trunks, walking back down below the rise to the water.  He wasn’t supposed to go in the water when Mom or Dad weren’t there, just like the pool back home, and he could kinda understand why: it got pretty deep in a real ocean.

The water’s glimmer vanished behind his glasses, and he crouched at the water’s edge again, staring into the deep blue mass.  His eyes followed some tiny fish through the polarized lenses, and he felt a funny sense of longing.  The oceans back home were just too acidic for swimming.  The pool was great, but he sensed that this was something special, something he wouldn’t get to see too much.  He resolved to make the most of it.


Venus laughed as Alex finished his story.  “I can’t imagine operating a void platform for profit.  Overhead would just be so damn high…”

“It’s a bitch, yeah, but you gotta recognize a niche market.  When you control the market, you control the pricing on both ends.  Vertical control, and all that,” Alex said with a grin.  “I’m trying to be nice, though, I know pricing on atmo controls on the station was so low before I bought it because they basically cut corners in payroll and safety wherever they could.  I had to cut a thin margin out, trying not to let the whole station fall apart during the transfer.”

“Where’s N’bel?” Jake suddenly asked.  He rose to his feet and looked around.  “Oh…there he is.”  He held his hand over his eyes and watched as his son wandered down the beach, hands in his pockets, just kicking rocks into the water.  “What’s the region the guards have staked?” he asked his wife over his shoulder.

“Two hundred meters gold, four hundred green,” Venus said.  Gold being the area the guards had under total lockdown as far as any sniper setups would go, green being an area under near-total control but with no guarantees.

“All right, he’s fine,” Jake said.  “He’s just out for a stroll.”

Venus looked away from her husband over to Vanessa’s swelling tummy.  “So…little guy or little girl on the way?” she asked.

“Girl.  We haven’t picked a name,” Vanessa said.  She rubbed her stomach.  “I’ll take a year off when it happens, then stay at home long enough to get a sense of school options…but we’ll probably just hire some private tutors for the first several grades.”

“Might send her off to Imperator?” Jake asked as he returned.

“Doubtful.  It’s not a boarding school,” Alex pointed out.  He reverently caressed his wife’s hand over her belly and smiled happily.  “Either way…I’m looking forward to it.”

“It’s an adventure, certainly,” Jake said.  “The first nine months…seven if you’re lucky, they’re the hard ones.  After that though…there’s this process of re-constitution, where they stop being this hot lump of shit and start being an actual person,” he said.  “You never forget it.”

“‘Hot lump of shit?’” Alex asked, eyebrows raised.

“Human babies produce more shit per minute than an entire herd of grox.  True science fact,” Jake said solemnly.  Venus laughed.

N’bel ambled down the yellow sands to a little depression in the ground, heading down to the water.  He stared into it, his mind piecing things together.  The trench looked artificial, he realized, looking up towards the dry end.  He could see the faint marks of tools up there; shovels and hands.  It got blurrier as it went below the level where there wasn’t any beach debris scattered around, until it was just a smooth curve in the sand where the water started.  So…someone had dug a trench, left it there overnight, and it had eroded when the tide came in.  He nodded in satisfaction.  Mystery solved.

He glanced from side to side.  Nobody was on this stretch of beach.  He hopped down into the little trench and sat on the packed sand, planting his hands on the sides like armrests in a chair.

In an instant, he was sitting in the cockpit of a Lightning Harbinger.  He raced over the hills that the waves before him had become, glancing at a phantom ground-effect radar every few moments as he did.  The Hrud menace was lurking around somewhere, and he meant to find them.

Chatter came in from the invisible radio beside him.  He looked over and frowned.  The sand was blank, unfeatured.  He paused his mental simulation and scratched a few little buttons and knobs in the sand to represent radio controls.  Much better.

He returned to his flight, soaring over the barren glacial hills of the unnamed world below, following an orbital feed on his target.

N’bel blinked.  Wait.  Harbingers were for intercepting torpedoes.  Which Lightning model was ground attack?  He thought for a moment…was it the Lightning Strike?  Or the Lightning Storm?

He shrugged.  Whatever.  It still had two wing-mount lascannons.  He resumed, fingers tightening on invisible firing studs as the bendies came into range.  In an instant, he pulled up, missiles away.

The Strike!  That was it.  Two lascannons, six Hellfuries.  The Hellfuries raced down, their airburst warheads scattering phosphoric doom on the hapless Hrud.

“What are you doing down there?” a voice asked.

N’bel glanced over his shoulder.  A girl he didn’t recognize was standing over him in the trench, staring down at him.

“At the moment?  Vaporizing a Hrud pack,” N’bel joked.

The girl seemed unfazed.  “What’s Hrud?” she asked.  She looked about his age, but she had skin the color of that strange citrus candy Mom liked.

“Aliens.”  N’bel stood up in the trench.  “What’s your name?”

“Michalina,” the girl said.  She was staring at his skin.  N’bel, who was slowly growing used to that, stifled his impatience.  At least she wasn’t staring at his eyes.  “Who are you?”

“N’bel,” he offered.  He wondered how she would react if she knew who his great grandfather was, and resolved to keep that one in reserve for select trolling later if the need arose.

“Bell?” she asked.

“No, N’bel,” he corrected.  “Pronounce it like there’s a silent ‘a’ in there.”

“N…N’bel,” she managed.

“There you go.”  He crossed his arms over his chest.  She was shorter than his four foot one, but then he was tall for his age.  Apparently Dad had been too.  “Where are you from?” he asked.

“Kolscyky,” she said.  He knew the name, a massively underpopulated mining world in Obscurus somewhere.  Grandpa Vulkan had conquered it in the Crusade’s final century.

“That’s…uh, Obscurus, isn’t it?” he asked casually.  She nodded, surprised.  He beamed in delight at her acknowledgement.  “I’m from Nocturne,” he said.

“The Salamander homeworld?” Michalina asked.  “Cool.  Is it really a Death World?”

“If you’re not careful,” N’bel joked.  She didn’t seem to get it.

“What is it like, growing up on a Space Marine world?” she asked.

He shrugged.  “It’s interesting.  The Salamanders are pretty easy to talk to,” he said, not adding that that was the case because he was technically related to all of them.  “But it’s not a very safe world.  The volcanoes are everywhere.  Whole villages get wiped out every fifteen years.”

“What?  Why?” Michalina asked.

“Because our moon is so huge, it causes tidal earthquakes when it gets too close in its orbit,” N’bel explained.

The girl looked at him funny.  “The moon doesn’t cause tides.”

“Sure it does,” N’bel said.  “Its gravity is strong enough to pull water up to it.  That’s high tide.  Low tide is when it’s on the other side.  On Nocturne, the moon is so strong it can pull lava around too.”

N’bel was starting to really enjoy the look of awe on her face.  “How do you know all this stuff?” she asked.

He shrugged, awash with six-year-old modesty.  “You just kinda learn.”


Vanessa struggled to her feet with her husband’s help.  “I’ll be right back,” she said, wobbling over to the restroom at the top of the beach.

Alex watched her go with a wistful grin.  “Five months pregnant, and still the cutest little butt I ever saw,” he said.

Jake chuckled.  “What’s her story?”

“She was working for one of my dad’s less profitable branches a while back.  When I liquidated it, I had her team transferred to one of my other departments.  We met and, well…here we are,” Alex said.  “I love her to pieces.  And she took meeting Freya really well,” he added.

“Oh, she did, huh?  Well, I’m glad you could find someone, too, Alex,” Venus said, smiling up at him from the sand.

“Yeah.  I had a few flings after I got my shit straightened out, but Vanessa was the only girl who actually cared about me, and didn’t just want to hang off my dick or my wallet,” Alex sighed, in the voice of the long-suffering.

“Uh huh,” Jake said drily.

“Well, that, and she actually likes tagging along on my crazy acquisitions trips,” he said.  “I can see why the life of a piratical Rogue Trader appeals to so many people, but that’s not me.  I’m perfectly happy plying the well-travelled trade lanes and making twice what those glory-hounds make.”

“Probably for the best,” Venus said.  “Otherwise you couldn’t take a month off and go for a vacation.”

“Yeah.  Was Freya okay, by the way?  Her own childbirth?  She was only one month in, when I saw her last year,” Alex said.

“She’s fine.  The baby was a boy, Thangir named him after his own father, Olev.  Freya went along with it because she liked that it anagrams to ‘love,’ in Gothic,” Venus giggled.  “He’s a cutie.  His hair and eyes are a dead match for Uncle Leman.  Ever see a ten-foot tall killing machine turn to protoplasm?  Let Leman Russ hold a baby with his eyes.”


N’bel stomped the last of the grooves in the trench flat and placed the plastic sheet they had dragged from Michalina’s family’s dump site over it, pinning it down with rocks.  He stood at the top and nodded.  “All right, now for the water.”  Michalina dumped the bucket of mixed water and suntan lotion they had labored to create – when her parents weren’t looking, of course – over the sheet to create their very own water slide.

“Yay!  It’s ready!” Michalina said, clapping her hands together.

“Moment of truth,” N’bel said, and launched himself feet-first down the trench.  The air rushed by as he slid down the impromptu slide and skidded into the water in a tangle.

He surfaced, blowing water out of his nose and laughing his ass off.  “Success!” he shouted, waving at where the girl was standing at the top.

She gingerly sat at the top and pushed herself down, and he scrambled out of the way as she splashed into the water.  He doubled over laughing as she came up in the surf, wiping salt water out of her eyes.  “Excellent!” he said through peals of laughter.  “My best invention yet!”

He climbed back up to the top of the three meter slide and launched himself down, glad he had put his glasses on their strap before putting them on.  He cannoned into the water again, launching white spray high.


Venus observed the spectacle at a distance.  “What in the hell is he even doing?” she asked aloud.  She watched as he vanished into the sand rise and surfaced, soaking wet, several seconds later.

“Want me to go check it out?” Jake asked.

“Please,” she said.  Jake rose to his feet and walked over, though he was mindful of the fact that the snipers he had watching his son would have acted if there was a real threat to his life.

N’bel watched his father approach out of the corner of his eye, a sinking feeling forming in his stomach.  He wasn’t really ‘swimming,’ per se, but he may well have been violating the spirit of the law, if not the letter.

With the mental equivalent of a shrug, he turned back to his slide and propelled himself down again, splashing into the water.  His suit was riding up a bit, but other than that, it was the best time he’d had since arrival.

Michalina raced past him as he reached the top, where his father was standing with his hands on his hips.  N’bel paused in front of him, feeling like he was in for a lecture at best.

Jake looked down at the sandy deathtrap the boy and his friend had created.  He looked back at where the pair of Salamander Legionary auxiliary snipers were concealed, over to where his wife was chatting with Alex and the newly freshened Vanessa, and over at where a pair of middle-aged people he assumed were the little girl’s parents were sunbathing.

He looked back down at his son and sighed, all mock reluctance he knew his son could see right through.  “Carry on.”

“Hahahah!  Thanks, Dad, you’re the best,” N’bel proclaimed, then threw himself down the tunnel again.  Jake gave the A-OK signal to Venus and sat down to watch the display.

Michalina surfaced with a cough.  That last one had sent some saltwater down her throat.

N’bel paused before he went down, himself.  “You all right?” he asked.

“Ugh, yeah, I just swallowed some seawater,” she said.

He shrugged.  “Okay,” he said, and launched himself down again.

Michalina sank to her haunches and coughed up the water, wiping her mouth.  “Gross.”  She looked over at where Jake was observing his son splash about in the water, trying to get to his feet.  “Are you N’bel’s dad?” she asked.

“Yep.  Jake’s my name.”  Jake smiled at her behind his own shades.  “Do you think we look alike?” he asked innocently.

“Yes, you do look like him,” she said, just in time for N’bel to come within hearing range.

N’bel glared molten daggers at his father, who had to clamp a hand over his mouth to hold in his gleeful snigger.  He had felt the same way about being compared to his father at that age too.  N’bel stomped up to the others and grimaced angrily, before sliding back down again in silence.

He splashed into the water once more, and just as he was standing, he slipped on the sand, falling flat on his back.

“You okay, son?” Jake called from above.

N’bel blew his nose into the surf, blinking back the sunlight.  “Y-yeah, just slipped,” he said.  He felt something tap against his foot and looked down, to see his sunglasses floating in the water.  “Oops.”

He scooped them up and slid them back on as he turned to climb back up.  Above, Michalina’s eyes went wide.  As he reached them, she stopped his progress.  “Wait…N’bel, can you take those off again?” she asked.

He blinked, but pulled his glasses free.  She gaped at his completely inhuman eyes: solid orbs of burning, bright red light, with no iris, corneal coloration, or retina.  “W-wow…does that hurt?” she asked.

“Hurt?  What?  My eyes?  No, they’ve always been like that,” N’bel shrugged.

She stared into the featureless red spheres.  N’bel sighed under his breath, but didn’t look away.  “They’re really pretty,” Michalina said.

Jake hid a smile as N’bel flushed.  “Pretty?  Better than ugly, I’ve had people say that before they knew who I was,” he grumbled.

“Who you are?” she asked, suspicious.

He shook his head, chagrined.  “Never mind.”  He launched himself down the slide without another word, leaving his father to scoop up the glasses.

Michalina glanced sideways at Jake before turning away.  Jake smiled.  “It’s all right,” he said, pulling his glasses down the bridge of his nose.  She peeked over to see that his own eyes were quite different.  They were the same color, but they weren’t glowing at all, and the irises were swirling circles of patterned red, constantly shifting and changing, while the rest of his eyes were completely normal.  “Our family just looks this way.”

“Oh.”  She looked a moment longer before sliding down the waterslide again.

Jake allowed himself another smile.  N’bel, for all his disquiet around adult strangers, shared his paternal grandmother’s talent at instantly making friends.

Michalina climbed up to the top again, and noted in surprise that her mother was nearly running over to her.  She paused before she could get back in the slide, panting from exertion.

N’bel clambered back up behind her, staring at the delay.  “What’s up?” he asked, not even a little out of breath.

“Mom’s mad,” she said.  Her mother came to a halt right next to her.

“Michalina, we’re leaving,” she said angrily.

She wilted.  “But Mom, this is a lot of fun!”

“You can use the slide in the pool, but we’re not staying here!” the woman insisted.

Jake rose to his feet.  “Is there a reason you’re yelling in front of the kids, ma’am?” he asked.

“You be quiet!” the woman snapped.  She reached out for her daughter’s hand, and the girl hung her head, starting to trudge away from her newfound friend.

To Jake’s surprise, N’bel spoke up.  “You forgot your tarp,” he said, grabbing the plastic sheet with one hand and ripping it free with a single tug.  The woman recoiled from the display of strength, but shook it off and accepted the sheet with a look of disgust.  “Michalina, you wanted to know who I am, right?” he asked loudly.  The girl hesitated as her mother grabbed her hand.  “I’m Lord Vulkan’s grandson,” he said, glaring up at the woman pulling his new friend away.

Both of the paler females looked over at him.  Michalina’s face remained puzzled, while the other woman just stared, aghast.  Jake smiled proudly, standing back to let his son direct the show.  N’bel looked up at his father.  “Dad, do you have a pen on you?”

“A pen?  No,” Jake said.

“Mmm.”  N’bel walked up to Michalina and gave her a quick hug before marching straight back to where his mother was waiting for him.

“…Why was his skin so hot?” Michalina asked, clearly very confused by all of it.

“It’s how the Emperor made him,” Jake said, and he turned to follow his son.

Venus smiled at N’bel as he unceremoniously dropped down on the sand next to her.  “You made a friend.”

“Yeah, and her mom was mean to her,” N’bel grumbled.

“Well, some humans don’t like people who look like mutants,” Venus said.  “She’s just narrow-minded.”

N’bel sighed, sadness replacing anger.  “Why do people do that?  If they know who I am, they grovel or…or…what’s the word?”

“Patronize,” Jake said, crouching behind his son and passing him his glasses.

“Yeah, patronize.  And if they don’t, they treat me like a heretic,” N’bel sighed.

“Because some people replace common sense and the love of their fellow humans with two things called ‘vitriol’ and ‘haughtiness,’ things you don’t have,” Venus said.  She slid her own sunglasses off and stared into her son’s eyes with her own identical red gaze.  She smiled gently.  “You know we both love you very much, right?”

“Yeah, I know, Mom,” he grumbled awkwardly.

“I thought you were really brave, just walking up to that girl and hugging her,” Jake said slyly.

“Can we pretend I didn’t do that?” N’bel said, blushing again.

Alex and Jake both laughed as Venus smiled conspiratorially.  “I promise,” she said.

N’bel sighed again.  “All right.”  He struggled to his feet.  “I think I’m just gonna go back to the hotel and get dry,” he said.  “Can I go?”

“Sure, if Dad goes with you,” Venus said.  “You know the way?”

“Yeah, it’s just down the street,” he said.

“All right.”  N’bel waved awkwardly to Alex and Vanessa as Jake led him back up the sandy beach.

Vanessa propped herself up with an effort.  “Smart kid,” she said.

“He certainly is,” Venus said happily.  She sank back down on the sand and brushed her hair out of the way.  “Takes after his grandfathers.  Both of them.”


N’bel slid his sandals on at the top of the beach and walked up the road with his towel slung over his shoulder, staring at the concrete path.  He was lost in thought, turning over what had happened in his mind until his stomach grumbled in discontentment.  His father heard, but let him keep his silence.  The two of them reached the hotel and entered the spacious lobby, where N’bel ducked into a bathroom to slide his shirt on before ascending the elevator to the penthouse.

The beach-side lobby was a riot of activity, with many of the tourists just passing through on their way to the luxurious casinos and theaters, or porting baggage carts worth of clothes and suitcases up to counters for check-ins.  Jake noted Michalina and her parents near one of the lifts out of the corner of his eye.

As N’bel emerged, Jake diverted him.  “N’bel, what did you want a pen for, before?” he asked.

“I wanted to give Michalina my autograph, since she was nice enough not to ask for it,” he said.  He scoffed.  “It sounds stupid when I say it aloud.”

Jake nicked a note pad and a pen from the little refreshment station and map kiosk next to them.  He passed the pad to his son.  “Quick, write your name in Nocturnean,” he said.

N’bel stared, but did as he was told.  Jake ripped the note free and jogged over to where the girl and her parents were still waiting.  “Michalina,” he said as he approached.

The little brown-haired girl turned around and stared as her parents tensed up.  Jake quickly passed her the note.  “N’bel wanted you to have that, call it a souvenir,” he said.  “It’s his name in Nocturnean.”

“Uh, thanks, sir,” she said, accepting the note.  Jake didn’t linger, instead walking back to his son, who was watching, bemused.

“Why did you just do that?” he asked.

Jake grinned.  “It was a nice thing for you to do, that’s all.”