Dak’ir’s response to the Apothecary’s sudden presence was less than genial.

‘What are you doing here, brother?’

Fugis did not answer straight away. Instead, he scanned a bio-reader over Dak’ir’s body.

‘Captain Kadai asked me to visit. Examinations are best conducted before you’re armoured.’

Fugis paused as he waited for the results of the bio-scan, his blade-thin face taut like wire.

‘Your arm, Astartes,’ he added without looking up, but gesturing for Dak’ir’s limb.

Dak’ir held his arm out for the Apothecary, who took it by the wrist and syringed off a portion of blood into a vial. A chamber in his gauntlet then performed a bio-chemical analysis after the vial was inserted into its miniature centrifuge.

‘Are all of my brothers undergoing such rigorous conditioning?’ asked Dak’ir, keeping the annoyance from his voice.

Fugis was evidently satisfied with the serology results, but his tone was still matter of fact.

‘No, just you.’

‘If my brother-captain doubts my will, he should have Chaplain Elysius appraise me.’

The Apothecary seized Dak’ir’s jaw suddenly in a gauntleted fist and carefully examined his face. ‘Elysius is not aboard the Vulkan’s Wrath, as you well know, so you will have to endure my appraisal instead.’

With the index finger of his other hand Fugis pulled down the black skin beneath Dak’ir’s left eye, diffusing its blood-red glow across his cheek.

‘You are still experiencing somnambulant visions during battle-meditation?’ he asked. Then, apparently satisfied, he let Dak’ir go.

The brother-sergeant rubbed his jaw where the Apothecary had pinched it.

‘If you mean, am I dreaming, then yes. It happens sometimes.’

The Apothecary looked at the instrument panel on his glove, his expression inscrutable.

‘What do you dream about?’

‘I am a boy again, back on Nocturne in the caves of Ignea. I see the day I passed the trials on the Cindara Plateau and became an Adeptus Astartes, my first mission as a neophyte…’ The Salamander’s voice trailed away, as his expression darkened in remembrance.

The burning face…

‘You are the only one of us, the only Fire-born, ever to be chosen from Ignea,’ Fugis told him, eyes penetrating as he looked at Dak’ir.

‘What does that matter?’

Fugis ignored him and went back to his analysis.

‘You said, “We were only meant to bring them back”. Who did you mean?’ he asked after a moment.

‘You were there on Moribar,’ Dak’ir uttered and stepped off the brazier-cauldron, hot skin steaming as it touched the cold metal floor of his isolation cell. ‘You know.’

Fugis looked up from his instruments and his data. His eyes softened fleetingly with regret. They quickly narrowed, however, sheathed behind cold indifference.

He laughed mirthlessly, his lip curling in more of a sneer than a smile.

‘You are fit for combat, brother-sergeant,’ he said. ‘Planetfall on Stratos is in less than two hours. I’ll see you on assembly deck six before then.’

Fugis then saluted, more by rote than meaning, and turned his back on his fellow Salamander.

Dak’ir felt relief as the Apothecary departed.