NOVEL WEB Exigence Chapter XXII
PART VI: BOOTS ON THE GROUND
XXII: Our Fathers
Later, situated in a receiving chamber, lush with decoration, Luke steepled his fingers and asked the question he had been wondering about for a while.
“Tell me about your father,” he asked, eying the Primarch on his far grander lounge. Roboute’s eyes took on a faraway cast as he peered off through bulkhead and armor plate and stars. He took a moment before he spoke, as Luke studied him. In his moments of reflection, Roboute became statuesque, still and considering, contrasted to the worried knot of the Force that lingered always, just within Luke’s senses.
“The Emperor is singular,” Primarch Roboute said with certainty, like he was pronouncing something he’d thought but rarely said. “Numinous, I should define Him. As alike as I am to a mortal man, He is to all his sons.”
“Emperors,” Luke observed, “generally are.”
“You misunderstand. He is what he is by his nature, not his title. I am Primarch because I was made to be so, by His hands. This is nothing secret - ask any of my sons or citizen of Ultramar and they will tell you this too. Every Primarch was made by the Emperor to remake the galaxy and He made us fit for purpose. But Him? He was before everything and He will be the same after all of us.”
Luke fiddled with the stem of the slender flute Roboute had offered, with a dark, sticky wine he’d called Prandian. The Primarch shared an outsized version, more akin to a bucket of sculpted crystal, made normal in his own hands. Servitors, like those noted by Senator Shesh’s report and Kyp’s own disgust served them both, their blank eyes and empty minds unsettling but far from the worst affectation Luke had encountered. Compared to the accoutrements of a Hutt, they were distasteful at worst.
“It sounds almost deific.”
Roboute’s eyes, blue as Luke’s own, narrowed and his lips tightened.
“Ironic that you would say as much. He has been…spoken of…in such terms. He denies them all. No, the Emperor is a Man, but a Man unlike others. He reveals little, but what He reveals speaks of the ages he walked in secret among our kind, through the long history of Mankind.”
“Humans usually don’t live that long, you know.”
“Are you only human, Luke Skywalker? With your sense and your Force - your body was born of a woman, but you are not merely a human in mind or in ability. The Emperor is much the same, as am I, as are my own sons.”
“I am as human as anyone else.” To think yourself better than others, to imagine that being able to touch the Force made one better, greater, more worthy than others was a long, slow slide to the darkness. Sith thought themselves greater. Palpatine thought himself a god, of a kind. In his own readings, there were even some Jedi that suffered this unconscious bias, thinking themselves superior. A patronizing sort of superiority, dismissing those who couldn’t feel a hint of the Force as simpler beings, to be pitied and guided instead. Luke had, shamefully, heard this sentiment hinted at among some in his very Order, despite all his efforts.
“Are you,” Roboute murmured. “Are you indeed.”
“I am. Everyone is different. My niece is a better pilot than I am. My nephew connects with nature in ways I can’t understand. Anakin - my nephew here with me - will be better than I am with a lightsaber, I can see it already. Are they better than me? More than human, in some kind of way? I don’t think so, Primarch Guilliman.” Luke tapped his temple. “A genius isn’t more or less human than anyone else.”
“Perhaps I misspoke. I am still learning your tongue. My apologies if I offer offense.”
Luke shook his head.
“No offense taken at all. Actually, I think I misspoke too. I was interested to hear about your father, not the Emperor.”
Roboute took a long sip from his own wine, peering at Luke over the rim of the flute. Something like amusement glittered in his eyes.
“Who did you speak to?”
The Jedi smiled.
“You. You haven’t talked about the Emperor with any warmth. Respect, maybe, or admiration. Remember, my father was Anakin Skywalker, but I wasn’t raised by him.”
Roboute placed his wine aside, tugging at the breast of his robe. He smoothed hands across his tree-trunk thighs, shifted in his lounge, all while never ceasing his study of the much shorter Jedi.
“He was Konor, the last Consul of Macragge.”
Watching the way vapor huffed and formed little clouds of fog over the vong’s auxiliary chazrach slaves, Anakin thanked the stars for the thick and warmth-trapping bodysuit he was wearing. Obroa-skai might be warmer from the energy injected by plasma cannon and magma missiles, lighting fires across continents and turning ‘unimportant’ cities into cinders, but it was still a chilly enough world. At least the gusts of breath from the reptilian aliens made it easy to spot them as they patrolled around the ruined starport.
The port itself was a grand structure, sprawling across many kilometers with half-moon shaped bays set into the outer perimeters. Most of them held only the shells of burnt out craft, while others sat empty. Anakin hoped those meant the owners managed to escape the fall of the world, maybe with refugees aboard.
“This isn’t the only port,” Face whispered, eyes dancing across the map unrolled between the three of them.
“It’s the largest, though.” Anakin pointed out others, kilometers farther away, corresponding to thin streaks of smoke on the horizon. “There’s gotta be something left here.”
Zalthis, the third of their party, lay on his belly, propped up on elbows as he focused a clicking pair of macrobinoculars. As the sun had swung into the sky and Rhonabeq’s death still lingered in their minds, they’d split into three groups to pursue different goals. Anakin was to locate a functional transport off-world, even if the ship might not be in the best condition. There wasn’t much that Anakin couldn’t fix, given enough time, and even if they found a freighter half-slagged, as long as it had mostly the right bits intact, he could have it ready to fly. Colonel Loran had authority in their little group, with Zalthis along as their Imperial observer. Uncle Luke, Zev Veers and Solidian were off trying to locate and make contact with the local survivors, slave or otherwise, while Mei, Sergeant Ascratus and Bhindi Drayson were continuing on toward the ruins of the Institute.
Triple the ground covered, triple the objectives. It made sense, though Anakin couldn’t help but feel strangely vulnerable without the other two Jedi. Rhonabeq had him on edge, he figured, that was all. Just a friendly reminder of his own mortality at the worst possible time.
“We won’t need much.” Face, and it was Face because the NRI colonel scowled every time Anakin called him colonel, tapped Zalthis on his armored shoulder. “See anything?”
“A great deal,” the neophyte replied. “Chazrach patrols are frequent and regular. I see vong overseers guiding them. There are not enough to cover all approaches, however. We can pass unseen.”
“And ships?”
Zalthis pushed himself up, offering the macrobinoculars to Anakin.
“Look there,” the Ultramarine said, leaning close to Anakin and pointing. “Past that hab block and leftward. In the space between the towers.”
Putting the macrobinoculars to his face, Anakin spun dials and clicked in focus, frowning as he tried to find where Zalthis was pointing. A stretch of buildings, mostly collapsed, a few tall towers - there. One of the starport’s bays, half visible from their vantage point. Sunlight caught on dura- and transparisteel, winking and glinting.
“That’s a YT series of some kind, or I’m a bantha.”
“Oh, that’ll do just fine. Anakin, sense any slaves?”
Again he reached out, letting the macrobinoculars dangle from his fingers, eyes half-closed. Spots of life spread out, but all had the same simplistic edge, fuzzy and open. None of the anguished pain or dejected fatalism he’d felt before from those who were on the wrong side of the front lines.
“Just the chazrach,” Anakin confirmed. “Maybe a hundred of them? Zalthis, how many of them to each vong?”
“I observed patrols in what I would theorize are squad formations. Ten reptoids to a single master.”
“That’s ten vong,” Face rolled up his map again, tucking it away. “Barely an inconvenience, but they won’t know we’re here anyway. And you’re sure you can get a ship running?”
Anakin rolled his eyes and Face grinned.
“Just checking. Zalthis, you take point. Anakin, shout if you sense anyone getting too close. Zalthis, you too if you hear or see anything.”
The neophyte checked his pistol at his hip, then his long knife. Both looked simple but wickedly effective, judging by the bore on the former.
“A poor practical; shouting would compromise our mission.”
“Shout quietly then.”
They picked carefully down from the patch of evergreens, toward rubble strewn boulevards. Ascratus had been right - following the forested parks helped deliver the infiltration team nearly to their destinations, keeping them off the streets until the last possible moment. Right by the starport it swelled into what had been a curated arboretum, though short-lived forest fires had left one in five trees a charred husk and turned the undergrowth crispy and brown. Here and there were benches, covered with ash, perched off of chipped tone paths. People enjoyed peace and nature here and Anakin could imagine scribes and students in their off hours wandering through the trees, chatting animatedly.
For a moment the Force pulled taut around him and the forest wasn’t needle-clad trees and hearty ferns, but tall purple-barked trees and blue-leaved shrubs, blackened and scorched. It wasn’t students and archivists wandering around, arm in arm, but beings in robes and jumpsuits.
No. Not Yavin. Never Yavin.
Anakin pushed the mirage away, shaking his head clear. He had a mission to do; Uncle Luke was counting on him. Mei too. Daydreaming could be deadly and wouldn’t that just be the worst way to go, caught by a vong because he couldn’t keep his head out of the clouds. That he caught a glimpse of blonde hair among the massassi trees he pointedly did not think of.
It was simple enough to focus his mind, following Zalthis and Face. He never stopped being surprised all over again at how quietly the Ultramarine moved, easily matching the Wraith’s practiced, fluid movements. The Colonel more than lived up to the squadron’s name and Anakin found himself calling on the Force to muffle his footsteps and deaden the air. Chazrach patrols passed them none the wiser, the little reptoids loud and clumsy enough to hear coming from many, many meters.
Several times Zalthis held up a fist, halting the trio, while Anakin reached out and nodded confirmation as he sensed the chazrach. Between the Ultramarine’s natively enhanced senses - Anakin couldn’t quite tell how capable they were, as several times Zalthis heard a patrol that Anakin would later sense close to a fifty or more meters away - and Anakin’s command of the Force, Face groused now and then that he felt like baggage.
“Well, you’ll fly the freighter,” Anakin said. The Wraith raised an eyebrow, the three of them picking down a back alley.
“Han’s kid is really going to have me fly?”
“Jaina is the pilot. I’m okay, but I’m more for fixing the ship, not flying it.”
Zalthis paused a moment, cocking his head, eyes unfocused before he waved off Face’s questioning look.
“Nothing.” The Ultramarine waved them along, starport growing ever closer. “Your father is a pilot?”
“A pilot? He’s at least the third best in the galaxy. Behind Wedge and myself, that is,” Face answered for him.
Anakin smiled before he realized it, then smiled wider when he thought of his father in the Falcon, making the ship dance even while barely paying attention, telling some story or another to Anakin as he sat, wide-eyed, in the copilot’s seat. For once, his chest didn’t feel tight when he thought of his father.
“What about Baron Fel? Dad said he figured he could outfly him, but I know he respected his skills too. And Jaina was telling me about Jag and some of the maneuvers he can pull off.”
“Fel? Nah, he’s an Imperial. Doesn’t count.”
Anakin could feel Zalthis trying to follow the back and forth, utterly puzzled.
“So was your dad, you know.”
“My pardon, but your father was part of the former Empire? I have read the brief as the Primarch instructed, but it was general.” Zalthis’ surprise was evident even without the Force, the young man sounding positively floored at the idea. “He was a traitor?”
Face shrugged. “I kind of am too, if you count propaganda figures.”
Most of the New Republic were ‘traitors’ when it came right down to it. What did it matter? The Empire ruled the Galaxy, the whole Galaxy. It was hard to not be an Imperial, just by default. It was sort of in the name of the Rebel Alliance, wasn’t it? Rebel. You had to be part of something to rebel against it, otherwise it was just a war. He said so.
“Everyone is kind of a traitor if you think of it that way. My mom was a senator too, in the Empire.”
Zalthis actually stopped short, Anakin and Face turning to look back at him. The Ultramarine was aghast, nearly radiating shock, hands open and empty at his sides and eyes wide.
“I was aware the New Republic warred on this Empire, but it was a civil war?”
“Uh, yeah? Emperor Palpatine turned the Republic into the Empire, so the Rebel Alliance fought to bring the old Republic back again. It’s pretty basic history.”
“But they broke their oaths!”
Something was awry here, something Anakin couldn’t figure out. The way Zalthis looked, the disgust starting to creep into his voice had alarm klaxons ringing in his head.
“The Empire wanted them to do evil things. Oaths or not, if your orders are wrong, it’s your duty to deny them.” Face scratched at his cheek. “This isn’t really the place for it, but look - Zalthis - there’s moral authority and there’s governmental authority. Take Anakin’s father, Han. If I get this wrong, correct me kid, but - it was something like this. He was an Imperial officer and part of his job was to be the boot on the necks of a lot of slaves. The authority of the Empire told him this was right and to do his job, because that was the law. The moral authority? That was Han’s own heart, and it said ‘to the Sith hells with that’. He turned ‘traitor’ by saving a bunch of slaves, including Chewbacca. Not really treason to me, you know.”
It still hurt to hear Chewie’s name, but it wasn’t quite the same black hole around his heart that it had been. Whether that was good or bad, he wasn’t sure, but Anakin would take it for now.
“But that’s treason.” Zalthis said stubbornly.
“What if your Sergeant told you to kill your friend Solidian? Would you do it?” Face raised his hands at Zalthis’ darkening expression, cutting off the Ultramarine’s angry retort from boiling up. “No, not saying he would. Just imagine it. Would you do it?”
“There would…the Sergeant would have a reason.”
“If he didn’t?”
“He would.”
Face shrugged and unfolded his map again, letting the matter go.
Anakin couldn’t.
“What if he did? That’s what Palpatine did. He made people kill their own families. Their own children. My grandfather - he would’ve killed my mom and my uncle. His own children, all because the Emperor told him to. Palpatine had reasons too.” Anakin scowled. “Everyone always has reasons. The vong have reasons too. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight them.”
“But it’s treason,” Zalthis tried again, tone almost plaintive.
“Sure it is.” Face rolled his map back up. “Almost there. Moral lessons later, kids.”
The rest of the way to the starport and the waiting freighter - an old YT-1220 pockmarked with plasma scars and dents from falling debris - the Ultramarine was silent.
Servitors returned to ply more wine, though Luke had barely touched his. Alcohol wasn’t one of his vices and the Ultramarian vintage, though performatively watered, was tangy and dry. Roboute spoke at length, taking on a distant expression as he spoke of senates and intrigue, of Consuls and treachery and careful lessons in governorship. He learned names: Gallan and Konor, Tarasha and more. For all the Primarch held himself larger than life and for all Luke felt his careful wording even behind the veneer of offhanded candour, there was no hiding the spark that lit his otherwise stern and patrician face.
Love? Nostalgia? Both?
“I had the greatest respect for Konor. I owe him a great deal, as I do Mamzel Euten.” Roboute placed his wine glass aside, peering at Luke with newfound interest. “I have no spoken of him in some time, not since I favored a remembrancer with an recounting. You are peculiarly easy to speak with, Luke Skywalker.”
“Then I thank you for honoring me with your stories, Primarch Guilliman. Your father sounds like he was quite a figure.”
“He was - the last Battle King. Konor was not like the Emperor, but I would not judge one above the other. They each have their own virtues and vices.”
“What vices might there be for your Emperor?”
Roboute studied his hands, running thumb along his forefinger a long moment. The way the Imperials - the Astartes, at least - spoke of their Emperor, with near reverence, matched with tales relayed by some of Senator Shesh’s aides who had mingled with their counterparts to a mildly informal degree in those brief few days. With how the Primarch had described him: undying and beyond the concerns of ‘mortal man’, just mentioning vices alongside virtues was surprising.
“He is distant,” Roboute admitted. “My father, the Emperor. He is a man with infinite responsibilities and a galaxy to bring to heel. There is only so much time anyone can spare and His is so thoroughly allotted.”
“I see. And what would He think of us, then? The New Republic, the Jedi? I can’t fault your hospitality, Primarch Guilliman, but I’m curious.”
Surprisingly, the Primarch laughed. It emerged as more of a huff of air, from enormous lungs with a rumble of amusement, but a laugh, nevertheless. Luke couldn’t help but smile in return.
“I know your Republic has read the Articles of Compliance, enacted on Eboracum. There is your answer.”
“Banning of all religions and religious orders, education about Terra and the ‘history of mankind and the Imperium’, restrictions on any and all droids and even some kinds of computers, curtailing of some civil liberties and the real sticking point - all non-humans as second-class citizens.” Luke listed off, raising a finger for each point. “Hard commands. I stand against most of them, you know.”
“I am aware.” There was no threat in his tone, as best as Luke could tell. The warping pane of the Force left the Primarch’s actual feelings obscured, forcing the Master to rely on the basics of body language and expression, but after years of feeling the emotions of beings mundane and exotic, pairing those unconsciously with their gestures and motions left him with, he considered, a robust understanding of people.
If only he could speak with a Yuuzhan Vong, speak with one, like he did now with the Imperial Primarch. Sit across from one in, if not friendship, then at least peaceable dialogue. See their faces, listen to their words.
He put the wish aside. Elan made that an impossibility, the New Republic wouldn’t trust any Yuuzhan Vong captive or defector again. The Jedi wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
“Then what would your Emperor think?”
“What answer do you wish? Do you wish me to say that I break faith with my father’s commands by treating with you? Do you wish me to say that I am given great lenience and leeway to deal with circumstances as I see fit? That I and the 4711th are simply biding our time before seeking to impose our ‘barbaric ways’ on your galaxy?”
“I’m hoping for the truth,” Luke offered.
“The truth. Ironic - I am a servant of the truth as well. The Imperial truth. Have you heard it?”
“I’ve heard it mentioned.”
“It is an embrace of reason and rationality. A rejection of superstition, faith and idolatry. It is born of hard lessons, Luke Skywalker. A hard lesson you have learned, I think. Your Sith and your Jedi - I have read of them. Competing ideologies on your Force, turned into thousands of years of rivalry.”
“It’s a simplification, but close enough. So your Imperial truth would say that Palpatine’s Empire was evil, since it was led by a Sith?”
“Because it was founded on ideology, not reason. The Imperium stands for illumination of truth through the practice of science and rationality. That is my father’s dream. The Emperor’s dream, and it is mine as well.”
Things continued to make more and more sense. The wounded animal sensitivities of the Imperials, the way they reacted so drastically to Rhonabeq’s interruption, their distaste for aliens and droids. Even Thiel’s own vehement rejection of the Force, only hours ago. He wove an image in his mind as Roboute spoke on about the ‘empirical clarities’ the Imperium looked for. He thought of Ruusan, the calamities that befell the Galaxy when the Sith tried and tried and tried again to claw out their dominance. He could imagine, in a different situation, the way the Republic, shell-shocked and lashing out in agony after things done by, say, Exar Kun, might want to distance themselves completely from all thought of the Force.
Not that it would be right, since the Force was the Force and denying it didn’t change its flow, but he could see where the Imperium came from. The dark age alluded to and how it ravaged their galaxy and toppled whatever empire or nation came before the Imperium, if it had been led by zealots - no wonder the Imperials seemed to sneer at the idea of the Force and the way Luke spoke about it.
“You’ve talked about reason and avoiding faith, especially in gods, but the Force isn’t a god, and you don’t require faith in it.” To demonstrate, Luke gently reached out with a feather of his mind, lifting a silver decanter and pouring out wine into Roboute’s chalice. The Primarch managed not to frown at the display, but Luke could see the way his eyes narrowed.
“Extrasensory abilities are not unknown to the Imperium. We spoke already of the Warp.”
“Then tell me your concerns about me and the Jedi Order. Lieutenant Thiel rebelled against the very idea that he might have an aptitude for the Force. You’ve quizzed me for half this conversation about the Force.” Luke spread his hands. “Let me put your mind at ease. You’re worried about something, I don’t have to be a Jedi to sense that.”
Eyeing his chalice, but leaving it untouched, as if the wine was dirtied by Luke’s display, Roboute exhaled long. Very long, almost absurdly, like he was blowing all his doubts out through his lungs and given the size of the man, he must have been packed with doubts indeed.
“Your naivete. You claim that you serve your Force and oppose this ‘dark’ side. Yet your own Jedi have fallen beneath its sway. You spit at the memory of your Galaxy’s Empire and the Sith Emperor who ruled it. He wielded this Force, no different than you. Your Jedi, Kyp Durron, destroyed a star and you forgave him. Your father was a zealot who crushed worlds beneath his heel, but he too was a ‘Jedi’ once.”
Roboute lifted himself from his lounge, rising to his full height and pacing away to gesture toward bookshelves that lined the walls.
“Each one of these is a history. Each one of these is a world lost to superstition and violence, predations of aliens and the plague of the thinking machine.”
Luke looked anew at the shelves he’d ignored. They ran the diameter of the room, from floor to ceiling, lined neatly with gilt spines that caught the light. There had to be thousands.
“The former shipmaster of Samothrace made it a habit to collect accounts from as many expeditionary fleets as he could throughout the Great Crusade. They are all lessons, he was recounted as saying. A living history.”
“The Jedi should fade away, then? Let the practice of the Force die out and be forgotten, because of what a few evil men did?”
Roboute turned and stared down the Jedi Master.
“Yes,” the Primarch pronounced. “It should. You play with fire. It will burn you before the end.”
Luke nodded. It wasn’t what he hoped to hear, but it was what he had been growing more and more sure he would. The Imperials were frighteningly secular. Han once jokingly called the ways of the Jedi an ancient religion, and in some ways it was true, but in many, many ways it was not. Perhaps in the old Order it was closer, but in this new Order, he made sure to avoid hidebound orthodoxy. Mei was a shining example of this, as was Harlan and the Iron Knights, and Tenel Ka. No one tradition could ‘own’ the Force, they all followed it and learned from it in their own ways. The Jedi was the path he felt was the most correct, the truest, but how could he deny what the Fallanassi felt or the Ysanna knew?
How could he, when they taught him so much?
Some in the Senate felt this way too, like Luke was a relic of a bygone time. He had done his job in dispatching Darth Vader and the Emperor and it was time for the Jedi to be left behind like many other trappings of the Republic. Let the New be the New, and let the old stay the old. Thankfully it was a small minority, but they were there and they weren’t quiet.
“I appreciate your honesty, Primarch Guilliman. And your willingness to speak with me. But if you think my Jedi are a product of my naivete, I think your caution comes from fear, not the rationality you want.”
Roboute perused the shelves, running fingers along spines, tapping at tomes here and there. When he spoke, his voice was measured and level, but Luke heard the undertones. Anger.
“Fear? There is nothing to fear from the truth. That is the perfection of it.”
“The truth? The truth that the old Republic lasted for twenty-five thousand years with non-humans and droids and the Jedi standing as protectors? The truth that the Sith, in every form, have always been defeated? The truth that when the Republic finally fell after all those millenia, the Empire that replaced it didn’t even last half a century? That truth?”
Luke joined Roboute, reaching pointedly with the Force to pluck a book, delivering it into his hands and he tapped the cover.
“I can’t know what your galaxy went through. Maybe one day we can translate some of these and I can learn. That’s rationality, isn’t it? Learning? Taking new information, new experiences? This isn’t your galaxy, Primarch Guilliman. It’s mine. It’s ours. And we’ve strayed away from the point.” Luke slid the book back and Roboute peered down at him, unreadable. “Your Emperor. What would he do?”
“A crusade.” The words came instantly, without hesitation and Luke’s spine prickled. “Extermination of all ‘droids’ and the expulsion or liquidation of the xeno. These were his commandments and they have not led the Imperium astray, not once.”
“I see. And your father? Konor?”
Roboute Guilliman recoiled.
Luke almost staggered, cutting his eyes away from the Primarch, almost overwhelmed by the shift in the enormous man. The shatterpoint feeling, the tidal knot of the Force trembled and clenched, fractured new branchlines and that feeling of supreme danger swamped his senses again. This time he set his shoulders and pushed through the waves, splitting them instead of riding them, exerting control instead of letting the Force wash around him.
Tangles and snatches of images tugged at Luke as he peered at the Primarch, not with his eyes, but with the Force. It was like stepping out into a storm, a hurricane, battered left and right with hailstones made of emotion, myriad and bright and felt so deeply they were nuclear, kilned by the heat of a star, swamped by driving sheets of torrential rain that were memories, beyond vivid, beyond clarity, as perfect as a holo, as perfect as the now, memories that his mind couldn’t process, that he couldn’t even read, just snippets and scraps.
He rode it, he forged it, he plowed on ahead.
Because he had to know.
Luke had rarely received visions but they assailed him now, possible futures ripping away in zagging lines that branched and branched and cracked, moments where Roboute, hands bloody, stalked from this chamber, where Luke was blinded and overcome by radiant light as his lightsaber split flesh, where things happened and places spun past he couldn’t imagine. A brown and grey world, dry and tired, burning forever. A marbled world, blue and white and green, gasping for hope. Men twisted with horns and cloven feet, men in faceless, endless lines, men and women twisted into parodies, with three eyes and lolling tongues. He grasped none and let them all pass him by, too riotous, too confusing.
There was no light in Roboute Guilliman.
But there was no dark, either.
Luke burst free with a gasp, staggering back but the Primarch barely seemed to notice. His jaw tensed and muscle bunched as he frowned in thought, but only moments had passed. Hours in an instant. Breathing exercises kept Luke from panting, mind aspun, but he clung onto the briefest glimpse, the tiniest nugget buried beneath the webbed shatterpoints and twisting knots of confusing causality.
The sense of the man among it all.
“You don’t have to answer,” Luke managed to say. “Just think about it.”
Roboute entertained him for barely a quarter hour after that. The Primarch seemed distracted, distant, and went through the motions of relaying his wishes for a smooth and successful mission. Luke thanked him for his hospitality and willingness to talk, which Roboute countered that dialogue and debate was a classic tradition of Macragge. He tried to make a joke about how the two of them should make it a regular habit, but the Primarch seemed oblivious. Marius Gage returned to escort Luke back to the arming chambers, the older Astartes still as polite as ever. Drakus Gorod, of course, glared daggers at Luke as they passed, even as Luke offered a shallow bow and his compliments at the Ultramarine’s diligence.
It never hurt, after all, to be polite.