'Still,' continued Pasanius. 'Perhaps we need not be the best any more, perhaps we no longer owe the Chapter anything at all.'
Uriel's head snapped up, shocked at the very idea and shocked at the ease with which Pasanius had voiced it.
'What are you talking about?'
'Do you still feel that we are Space Marines of the Emperor?' asked Pasanius.
'Of course I do. Why should we not?'
'Well, we were cast out, disgraced, and are no longer Ultramarines,' continued Pasanius, staring vacantly into space, his voice wavering and unsure. 'But are we still Space Marines? Do we still need to train like this? If we are not Space Marines, then what are we?'
Pasanius lifted his head and met his gaze, and Uriel was surprised at the depths of anguish he saw. His former sergeant's soul was bared and Uriel could see the terrible hurt it bore at their expulsion from the Chapter. He reached out and placed his hand on Pasanius's unadorned shoulder guard.
Uriel could understand his friend's pain, once again feeling guilty that Pasanius shared the disgrace that should have been his and his alone.
'We will always be Space Marines, my friend,' affirmed Uriel. 'And no matter what occurs, we will continue to observe the battle rituals of our Chapter. Wherever we are or whatever we do, we will always be warriors of the Emperor.'
Pasanius nodded. 'I know that,' he said at last. 'But at night, terrible doubts plague me and there is no one aboard this vessel I can confess to. Chaplain Clausel is not here and I cannot go to the shrine of the primarch and pray for guidance.'
'You can talk to me, Pasanius, always. Are we not comrades in arms, battle-brothers and friends?'
'Aye, Uriel, we will always be that, but you too are condemned alongside me. We are outcast and your words are like dust in the wind to me. I crave the spiritual guidance of one who is pure and unsullied by disgrace. I am sorry.'
Uriel turned away from his friend, wishing he knew what to say, but he was no Chaplain and did not know the right words to bring Pasanius the solace he so obviously yearned for.
But even as he struggled for words of reassurance, a treacherous voice within him wondered if Pasanius might be right.
Uriel and Pasanius made their way back down through the bullet-riddled training building and the mangled remains of thirty-seven servitor-controlled opponents, their plastic and mesh bodies torn apart by the Space Marines' mass-reactive bolter shells. Exiting the training building, they made their way through the packed gymnasia, heading towards one of the vessel's many chapels of veneration. With their firing rites complete, their rigidly maintained routine now called for them to make obeisances to their primarch and the Emperor.
The lights in the gymnasia began to dim, telling Uriel that the starship was close to entering its night-cycle, though true night and day were meaningless concepts aboard a starship. Despite that, Captain Laskaris enforced strictly timetabled lights out and reveille calls to more quickly acclimatise the passengers of Calth's Pride to the onboard ship time. It was a common phenomenon that many soldiers had trouble adjusting to life aboard a space-faring vesseclass="underline" the enforced claustrophobia along with dozens of other privations caused by ship-board life resulting in vastly increased instances of violence and disorder.
But the regiments currently being transported within the ship's gargantuan hull had been raised in Ultramar, and those Uained within the military barracks of the Ultramarines' realm were used to a far harsher discipline than that enforced by the ship's crew and armsmen.
The gymnasia was a vast, stone columned chamber, fully ninety mettes from sanded floor to arched ceiling and at least a thousand wide. An entire regiment or more could comfortably train in shooting, close-quarter combat, infiltration, fighting in jungle terrain or the nightmare of city-fighting. These dedicated arenas were sectioned off throughout the gymnasia, fully realised environments where thousands of soldiers were receiving further training before reaching their intended warzone far in the galactic north-west. Row upon row of battle-flags hung from the ceiling, and huge anthracene statues of great heroes of Ultramar lined the walls. Stained-glass windows, lit from behind by flickering glow-globes, depicted the life of Roboute Guilliman as looped prayers in High Gothic echoed from flaring trumpets blown by alabaster angels mounted on every column.
'Good men and women,' noted Uriel as he watched a group of soldiers practising bayonet drills against one another.
Despite their discipline, Uriel could see many of the training soldiers casting confused glances their way. He knew that their armour, bereft of the insignia of the Ultramarines, would no doubt be causing endless speculation amongst the regiments billeted within the ship.
'Aye,' nodded Pasanius. 'The Macragge 808th. Most will have come from Agiselus.'
'Then they will fight well,' said Uriel. 'A shame we cannot train with them. There is much they could learn and it would have been an honour for us to pass on our experience.'
'Perhaps,' said Pasanius. 'Though I do not believe their officers would have counted it as such. I feel we may be a disappointment to many of them. A disgraced Space Marine is no hero: he is worthless, less than nothing.'
Uriel glanced round at Pasanius, surprised by the venom in his tone.
'Pasanius?' he said.
Pasanius shook his head, as though loosing a quiet unease, and smiled, though Uriel could see the falsity of it. 'I am sorry, Uriel, my sleep was troubled. I'm not used to having so much of it. I keep waiting for a bellowing Chaplain Clausel to sound reveille.'
'Aye,' agreed Uriel, forcing a smile. 'More than three hours of sleep a night is a luxury. Be careful you do not get too used to it, my friend.'
'Not likely,' said Pasanius, gloomily.
Uriel knelt before the dark marble statue of the Emperor, the flickering light from the hundreds of candles that filled the chapel reflecting a hundredfold on its smooth-finished surface. A fug of heavily scented smoke filled the upper reaches of the chapel from the many burners that lined the nave, smelling of nalwood and sandarac. Chanting priests, clutching prayer beads and burning tapers, paced the length of the chapel, muttering and raving silently to themselves while albino-skinned cherubs with flickering golden wings and cobalt-blue hair bobbed in the air above them, long lengths of prayer paper trailing from dispensers in their bellies.
Uriel ignored them, holding the wire-wound hilt of his power sword in a two-handed grip while resting his hands on the gold quillons. The sword was unsheathed, point down on the floor, and Uriel rested his forehead on the carven skull of its pommel as he prayed.
The sword was the last gift to him from Captain Idaeus, his former mentor, and though it had been broken on Pavonis - a lifetime ago it seemed now - Uriel had forged a new blade of his own before departing on the crusade to Tarsis Ultra and his eventual disgrace. He wondered what Idaeus would have made of his current situation and gave thanks that he was not here to see what had become of his protege.
Pasanius knelt beside him, eyes shut and lips moving in a silent benediction. Uriel found it hard to countenance the dark, brooding figure Pasanius had become since leaving the Fortress of Hera. True, they had been cast from the Chapter, their homeworld and battle-brothers, but they still had a duty to perform, an oath to fulfil, and a Space Marine never turned his back on such obligations, especially not an Ultramarine.