Void-anchored gun platforms painted Molech’s Enlightenment with so many auspex returns it would be comical if their macro-cannon weren’t about to destroy them. Hunter-killer mines locked on to the ship’s hull signature and fired their one-shot boosters.
‘Emperor’s mercy…’ whispered Sulaiman, and Alivia gave him a sidelong glance. Clearly the words of the Lectitio Divinitatus were not confined solely to the refugees.
‘Can we get back through the gate?’
Sulaiman didn’t reply, his augmetic eyes fixed on the campaign-scale of the fleet arrayed before him.
‘They’re launching!’ cried Cervari, and the surveyor station blossomed with scores of torpedo launches. Squadrons of bombers scrambled into the void, knifing through space towards them.
‘Captain,’ she snapped. ‘Can we get back through the gate?’
He squared his shoulders and shook his head.
‘A Cobra-class destroyer is fast, Mistress Sureka, but it’s not that fast,’ he said, his augmetics flickering as they tracked the numerous incoming torpedoes arcing towards his ship. ‘In any case, making another translation so soon would tear us apart.’
‘Then can we stay alive long enough?’
‘Long enough for what?’
‘For me to ask a favour.’
‘A favour from whom?’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ snapped Alivia, dropping the shot-cannon to the deck and trusting that Sulaiman wouldn’t take the opportunity to blow her away. ‘Just… don’t let us die.’
Sulaiman marched swiftly back to his command podium and cricked his neck, fixing his gaze upon the incoming torpedoes, myriad weapon locks and swarming packs of ship-killing mines.
‘I cannot promise such a feat lies within my power, but I will try,’ he said.
Alivia smiled and said, ‘I have faith in you, captain.’
She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing.
No time for fancy mental compartmentalisation.
+Okay, John, you win,+ sent Alivia, hurling her psychic call into the void. +I’ll tell you where you can find Oll.+
Alivia’s words echoed in her mind, but she heard nothing in reply, not even a whisper.
The mass of her body shifted as Sulaiman fired the ship’s engines, the reactor burning hot as he manoeuvred the vessel hard.
Molech’s Enlightenment groaned as its battle-stanchions shouldered explosive torsion and compression baffles endured stresses they hadn’t felt in months.
+Come on, when did you ever give up this easy?+
The staccato warnings of incoming ordnance were distracting, and she tried to shut them out. A klaxon sounded and binharic proximity alarms screeched from wall-mounted vox-horns.
‘Impact in thirty seconds!’ announced Magos Cervari.
+Please, John,+ she sent. +Help us. Call them off!+
+You’ll tell me where Oll is?+
The breath burst from her at the sound of John’s voice in her mind.
+I will,+ she said. +As soon as we’re safely on Terra.+
+Tell me now. That ship’s going to be burning void debris in minutes.+
+Then you’d better work fast,+ she sent, snapping off the connection between them.
‘Impact in twenty seconds!’ announced Magos Cervari.
Sulaiman sweated as he threw the ship into sharp turns, burning the engines and manoeuvring jets harder than its Jovian shipwrights had ever intended.
Alivia felt the terror of the thousands of people in the cargo decks and transit chambers. Their fear surged through her as they wept and held tight to their loved ones, not knowing what was happening.
‘Ten seconds,’ said Cervari.
‘I am afraid I can run no farther, Mistress Sureka,’ called Sulaiman. ‘So if you have any miracles to work, now would be the time.’
‘I’m sorry, captain,’ said Alivia. ‘I’m all out of miracles.’
‘Five, four, three, two…’
Alivia squeezed her eyes shut, awaiting the pain and horror of a ship-death. She expelled the breath in her lungs, awaiting a sudden and explosive decompression in the hard vacuum of space.
The moment stretched.
One by one, the sirens, klaxons and binharic alarms ceased.
Silence fell across the bridge, the only sound the angry hissing of overheated logic engines, the groans of settling metal and her own laboured breathing.
Alivia unclenched her fists and peered into the shimmering starfield in the viewing bay. She tried to make sense of the corkscrewing contrails of aborted torpedoes and fading smears of light, all that remained of the incoming hunter-killer mines.
Thank you, John…
A bark of static crackled from the vox, making her jump.
‘Molech’s Enlightenment, this is Captain Vihaan of the Cardinal Boras. You are ordered to assume a coreward heading and come abeam of us at dead slow. You will follow my ship back to Terra. Any delay or deviation will result in your immediate destruction. Indicate your understanding of this order or we will open fire immediately.’
Sulaiman stared in open-mouthed wonder at Alivia.
‘How did you do that?’
‘Never mind just now,’ said Alivia. ‘Answer him!’
Sulaiman swiftly signalled his assent to the Cardinal Boras, and Molech’s Enlightenment swung around as Magos Cervari complied with Vihaan’s order.
Alivia sank to the deck, resting her back against the warm metal of a cogitator bank. She lay her head back and released a long, relieved breath.
She looked up as Sulaiman stood over her. His eyes were augmetic, but she swore she could see reverence in them.
‘Now I know why the people call you a saint, Mistress Sureka.’
‘I’m no saint,’ snorted Alivia. ‘Far from it.’
‘Then how did you do that?’
Alivia closed her eyes and said, ‘I made a promise I can’t possibly keep.’
The skies of Terra were what Alivia remembered the most.
Now iron grey and laced with clouds, but at least it was sky.
She tilted her head back and drew in a deep breath of air that hadn’t been recirculated through ten thousand throats for months on end.
It tasted of metal and lightning.
She’d never tasted anything sweeter.
Behind her, the suborbital lander that had brought them down to the surface hissed and creaked as it cooled. Steam blistered from the blocky hull after its swift drop through the atmosphere.
Far, far in the distance, like ramparts against the sky, the endless edifice of the Emperor’s Palace held Alivia’s attention. Titanic and grotesque, it was a shrine to one man’s colossal arrogance and monstrous hubris.
Alivia felt a cold chill travel the length of her spine at the sight of that terrible place. To some, it was a wonder of the galaxy, but it held only bad memories for Alivia.
Vivyen and Miska stood next to her. Miska looked around in wonder, trying to take in the overwhelming sight and scale of an Imperial space port, and the fleets of landers, fuel tenders and darting skiffs criss-crossing the sky. Vast loader cranes swung overhead, carrying bulk containers of supplies, building materials or heavy blocks of reinforced permacrete.
Armies of servitors and augmented migou traversed the sprawling city-port, hauling crates of ammo, food and who knew what from depot to destination. Actinic blue sparks blinked and sputtered on the newly fortified walls surrounding the port as fresh sheets of armoured plasteel were shuttered to the outer defences.
The unimaginable scale of the place took Alivia’s breath away; it was not so much a port as a vast city unto itself, a colossal industrial sprawl of galvanic and atmospheric processors, and teeming districts of workers and supply cohorts.