Lionel's Arc

Chapter 3 of 6

Lionel let his eyes adjust to the dark. The vault sank deep into the earth. Strange stone framed the passage, ridged and slick, more grown than carved. Purple veins glowed faintly in the walls. He moved down, one hand on the cold surface, listening for the click of metal legs. None came. But something else breathed in the black ahead. He found his brothers first. A cluster of dead marines lay heaped against the far wall. Their armor was cracked and burned. Faded chapter marks still showed on their shoulders. Lionel knelt among them. These were his kin. He had come for what they carried inside. Then a voice rasped from the shadows. "Stop there. I've been watching the door for three days." Lionel froze. A man sat propped against the stone, half hidden behind a fallen slab. Human, not a marine's size, but armored in scavenger plate. Dried blood streaked his face. A heavy pistol rested in his hand, aimed steady at Lionel's chest. "I heard the spiders come," the man said. "Then I heard them stop. That means you killed the beacon. Only a fool or a marine does that." Lionel did not move. He could not tell if the pistol was real threat or a xenos trick. The vault twisted the mind. Shapes crawled at its edges. "Lower the gun," Lionel said. "I came for my brothers' seed. Nothing else." The man laughed, dry and cracked. "Marcus Varro. I came for the same thing. Different masters." He nodded at the dead pile. "Been trapped down here since the fight. Leg's broken. The seed's still sealed. I couldn't carry it out alone." Lionel studied him. A trap would strike now, while he hesitated. But Varro only winced and shifted his weight off the bad leg. The pistol dipped. Real pain, real weakness. No xenos wore that. "Prove it," Lionel said. "Put the gun down." Varro looked at him a long moment. Then he set the pistol on the stone and slid it away. "There. Now help me, or leave me to rot. But you'll want my hands. The carrier takes two to unlock." Lionel crossed the floor and crouched beside him. Behind the dead marines sat a sealed case, white and clean against the filth. A sterile carrier, built to hold living seed. Inside lay the pod, green and veined, alive. His chapter's future in one small shell. "You're bleeding out," Lionel said. He pressed a seal on Varro's leg to slow it. Varro grunted but nodded. "Get me standing," Varro said. "I'll open the carrier. You carry it. We both walk out, or neither does." Lionel gripped the wounded man's arm and pulled him upright. The choice was made. He had found the seed and a living ally in the same dark. But the vault ran deeper than he'd thought. And somewhere below, he heard a new sound. Not spiders. Something larger, dragging itself toward the light.