The moment passed, and Alivia straightened.
Travelling through the warp, you learned to accept the odd muttering shadow or sourceless whisper. This certainly wasn’t the first time she’d heard her name being called in an empty corridor.
Such harmless phenomena often indicated a ship was about to translate back into real space.
Alivia reached out and rapped her knuckles three times against the nearest bulkhead and said, ‘Going to have to do better than that if you’re trying to spook me.’
She moved on, turning into the approach corridor that led to the bridge.
Behind her, three answering knocks echoed from the bulkhead.
The bridge of Molech’s Enlightenment was hot, coolant fluids being a carefully controlled substance now. Much to Magos Cervari’s chagrin, the cogitators were forced to run close to overheating before their machine-spirits were appeased by a carefully rationed burst of cooling balms.
He’d predicted a binharic revolt within the logic engines, but thus far it seemed the spirits within were accepting this sacrifice to keep the ship running.
Captain Sulaiman stood at his command podium, immaculately dressed as always in his white frock coat, and flanked by two black-carapaced armsmen carrying shot-cannons. Once, the soldiers had bristled at the informality of her entrance to the bridge, but Alivia had earned her place here.
‘Captain Sulaiman,’ said Alivia. ‘Am I right in thinking I just heard translation ghosts?’
Sulaiman turned to face her, his caramel-coloured skin clean shaven and immaculate. His augmetic eyes danced with barely contained enthusiasm.
‘Mistress Sureka,’ he said, ignoring her question. ‘How are you?’
‘Tired, hungry and looking forward to seeing some sky over my head for a change.’
‘You say that every time.’
‘Then you should know not to bother asking.’
Sulaiman cocked his head to the side, giving her a curious look. Or was it concern? The augmetics made it hard to be sure.
‘You’re testy today,’ he observed.
‘Are you surprised?’ she responded, exhaustion fraying familiarity into a lack of respect for Sulaiman’s rank. ‘We’ve been transitioning for nine months now. Who knows how long has really passed or what’s happening in real space? For all we know Horus is already sitting in the Palace and drinking the Emperor’s favourite wine.’
Sulaiman flinched as if she’d struck him.
‘I could have you shot for saying that,’ he said.
Alivia bit off a caustic retort.
She and Sulaiman had a cordial working relationship now, but it hadn’t always been that way. It had taken time and effort for her earn a measure of his respect, though she suspected he still thought of her as little more than a jumped-up civilian with delusions of her own importance.
This was, after all, a proud vessel of the Imperial Navy, and Sulaiman would never believe that she too had captained ships of war in equally dangerous times. She remembered the Straits of Artemisium, commanding warships of another man people foolishly called a god-emperor.
Sometimes she had to remind herself of what men of war in this turbulent age saw when they looked at her.
A wife. A mother. They didn’t see the warrior beneath.
‘I apologise, captain,’ she said, rubbing the heels of her palms against her eyes. ‘I’m not sleeping properly, and I keep hearing warp-whispers around every corner.’
‘Anything I should be concerned about?’
She shook her head. ‘No, just the usual nonsense. Anyway, how are we doing up here? You look like the cat that’s got the cream.’
He stared at her blankly, her meaning lost on him.
‘You and your curious expressions,’ he said. ‘Regardless, we have some good news at last. Magos Cervari?’
The Mechanicum adept looked up from his table-console, though he had no need to in terms of eye contact, for his chromed, circuit-patterned skull was devoid of anything resembling human sensory organs in appearance or placement. His robes fluttered and hissed with venting gases and the sound of straining fan mechanisms, for he too was subject to coolant restrictions.
‘Indeed. Captain Sulaiman is correct,’ said Cervari, unrolling a faded relic of celestial cartography across his console.
‘An actual map?’ said Alivia. ‘Are you ill?’
‘Negative, I am fully functional within the rationed parameters I have set myself. Why do you ask?’
‘I’ve never known a single Martian who’d take a physical object over a noospheric representation of it.’
‘I am not from Mars,’ said Cervari. ‘I was born in the sub-aquatic geo-therm stacks of Europa.’
‘Oh, well do continue,’ said Alivia, studying the map.
Truly, it was a thing of beauty – hand-painted on gilt-edged wax paper, with warp contours picked out in vermillion pigment and the Gordian knots of stable transit routes marked with careful strokes of a fine brush. Estimated journey times were lettered in gold cursive that spoke of meticulous attention to detail.
‘Navigator Mehlson deserves the credit,’ said Sulaiman. ‘She caught a riptide that carried us into a stable route that skirted the extreme edge of the Katar warp storm. She skimmed its axial rotation and cut weeks off our projected travel time.’
‘What does that mean in real terms?’ asked Alivia. ‘How far are we from the solar boundary?’
Magos Cervari answered. ‘We have already passed it.’
‘We’ve passed it already?’
‘Indeed,’ said Sulaiman. ‘Navigator Mehlson believes we will be in position to translate into solar real space within the hour.’
‘An hour? Throne!’
Alivia found the black rose of the warp storm on the map, a furious tempest that had been raging for over five hundred years. Her fingers traced the route the manoeuvre Sulaiman had described would likely have taken them. She followed it to the Trans-Uranic Gulf, where a silver gate was lovingly rendered in flaking metallic pigments.
‘You’re going to bring us out at the Elysian Gate?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ replied Sulaiman. ‘Our luck has finally turned.’
Alivia shook her head. ‘No. We can’t use either of the old gates,’ she said.
‘Why not?’ demanded Sulaiman. ‘They are the most stable routes into the home system. They’ll bring us weeks closer to Terra.’
‘Yeah, but they’re known. By us and the traitors. Like I said, we don’t know how much sidereal time has passed since Molech. I’d be surprised if the Solar System isn’t a giant void fight already.’
‘You cannot know that for sure,’ said Cervari.
‘You’re right, I can’t,’ agreed Alivia with increasing certainty, ‘but regardless of how much time has passed, whoever is directing the defences of Terra will have layered space around both gates with deep shoals of mines, star forts, battery-plates and entire fleets of ships.’
‘Molech’s Enlightenment will not re-enter its home system like an intruder,’ said Sulaiman stiffly.
Alivia let out a breath of frustration.
‘Listen,’ she snapped, feeling her temper fraying. ‘Anything that comes out of either of those gates is going to be destroyed before it’s even halfway translated.’
Alivia…
She flinched and hammered her fist down on the map.
‘And you can shut up too!’ she yelled to the air.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Sulaiman.
‘Not you,’ said Alivia. ‘That damn voice.’
‘What voice?’