Old Wounds, New Scars

by Graham McNeill

  ‘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?’

  ‘The one that keeps calling my name.’

  ‘A voice is calling to you by name?’

  Alivia heard the note of wariness in Sulaiman’s voice and replayed the last few moments in her head.

  ‘Ah, yes, I see how that might sound, but don’t worry – I’m sure it’s just translation ghosts.’

  ‘I think that perhaps you need to rest, Mistress Sureka.’

  ‘Look, I’m okay,’ insisted Alivia. ‘I’m just worn a bit thin, that’s all.’

  ‘I must insist,’ said Sulaiman, nodding to the two armsmen.

  They hesitated, knowing how beloved Alivia was among the crew and refugees.

  ‘Remove her from the bridge,’ said Sulaiman. ‘That’s an order.’

  Alivia backed away from the table.

  ‘I’m telling you, I’m okay,’ she said. ‘But you have to listen to me. If we come out of either of those gates, we’re going to die. Do you understand?’

  Alivia, listen to me… I can help.

  ‘I told you to shut the hell up!’ she shouted.

  The racking of a shot-cannon brought Alivia back to the present.

  ‘Please, captain, you have to believe me,’ Alivia pleaded. ‘I understand this has been a long voyage, and it’s asked more of us than we knew we could give. We all want to see Terra, but this isn’t the way home. You have to trust me.’

  Sulaiman snapped his fingers and the two armsmen stepped forward. Hesitation or not, Sulaiman was their captain.

  ‘Mistress Sureka, you have been a great help in getting us this far, but Molech’s Enlightenment is my ship. I flatter myself that I know the void better than a mere civilian. We will translate through the Elysian Gate, so let that be an end to the discussion.’

  ‘Just think about what I’m saying, captain. We’re a ship that’s probably been declared lost with all hands, suddenly appearing without warning in the Solar System from a world that’s just fallen to the Warmaster. How does that look? Would you trust a ship with that baggage?’

  ‘Remove her from my bridge,’ ordered Sulaiman.

  The captain’s men took Alivia’s arms and marched her towards the bridge entrance. She’d fought her share of up-close-and-personal brawls, but this wasn’t the time to break bones.

  The armsmen marched her beyond the bridge, and stationed themselves to either side of its entrance as the armoured door closed and internal bolts slammed home within its reinforced frame.

  Nothing short of multiple melta charges would breach it now.

  Let me help…

  The maddening voice felt like it was right next to her.

  Another angry shout died on her lips as she now heard the specific inflexion of tone, the sardonic undertone and the easy familiarity.

  She turned from the bridge and whispered under her breath.

  ‘John, is that you?’

  VII

  Alivia found a cramped maintenance conduit and squeezed herself inside, crouching in the lee of heavy ductwork. Her heart beat like a jackhammer, and her mouth was sour with the taste of bilious memories.

  Deep breaths. Calm yourself.

  Find a place of serenity within.

  She closed her eyes and carefully erected a series of mental barriers, compartmentalising areas of her consciousness and walling off a quarantined mindspace.

  She couldn’t know for certain if this was truly John or some malicious warp entity.

  ‘Whoever you are, tell me something only John would know.’

  For a moment she wasn’t sure the voice would answer.

  I’m sorry I didn’t reach the Khyber in time.

  VIII

  Alivia opened her eyes and was back on the mountains of her youth. She took a breath of the wild air, no less refreshing simply because it was conjured from memory.

  John was here, sat on the grass by the edge of a steep cliff overlooking a port town where masted ships were moored to a series of int
erconnected jetties. A castle of black rock stood on a jutting promontory, where the lord of the isles held his court.

  ‘I always loved coming here with you,’ he said.

  She sat on a boulder a safe distance from him.

  ‘I thought you were a city boy.’

  He grinned. ‘I am. Doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the beauty of the great outdoors. Especially now it’s gone.’

  ‘It’s been gone a long time.’

  ‘Is that why you’ve held on to it so clearly?’

  ‘This is where I’m from,’ said Alivia. ‘This place shaped me more than anywhere else. I come here when I need to remember the good times.’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t remember too many of them. All the lives we’ve lived, all the things we’ve seen? Can you honestly tell me the good times outweigh the bad?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘You can only hold on to so much, you know?’ said John, throwing a pebble from the cliff and watching it start an avalanche of scree. ‘Not all of us have held to the same identity as long as you, Alivia. I admire that about you.’

  ‘Spare me the flattery, John. Why are you here?’

  He smiled and said, ‘You always did like to cut to the chase.’

  He made to stand, but she waved him back.

  ‘No, stay down. Just tell me, and don’t try playing me like one of your marks.’

  ‘I swear I’d never do that to you.’

  ‘Not again, you mean.’

  ‘Well, yeah. Again. Sorry.’

  ‘So tell me what you want.’

  He nodded and looked out to sea, as though he were trying to figure out how best to ask. An act, she knew; John was never unprepared.

  ‘I need to find Oll,’ he said.

  That wasn’t the simple answer she’d been expecting.

  ‘I seem to remember Oll Persson telling you he wanted nothing to do with the rest of us in no uncertain terms.’

  ‘At Béziers, I remember,’ said John.

  ‘So why would you think he’d want to see you now?’

  ‘Actually, I’ve already seen him since then. On Calth.’

  ‘In the Five Hundred Worlds?’

  John shrugged. ‘Maybe not as many as that now, but yeah. He’s mellowed in his old age.’

  ‘Old age?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘You still haven’t told me why you’re looking for him.’

  ‘He’s needed.’

  Alivia laughed. John scowled, and that only made it funnier.

  ‘Needed? By who?’ she asked, though there could be only one answer.

  ‘The Emperor. I know Oll told us he was done, but the universe decided otherwise,’ said John with a lopsided grin Alivia remembered from all the times she’d kissed it. ‘Funny how often that happens, isn’t it? Almost like we don’t get a say in how things turn out. I mean, look at the three of us, all heading to Terra just as the Warmaster tightens the noose. You think that’s an accident? You think there isn’t some grand scheme at play?’

  Alivia shook her head and moved to sit next to him.

  They looked at the sun, dipping beyond the horizon and turning the cold northern ocean into a rippling expanse of gold. Dark clouds threatened where the ocean met the sky, and a cold wind began to blow, rippling the grass on the hillside.

  ‘After all that’s happened and all you’ve done, why would you ever think I’d tell you where Oll is?’

  ‘So you know where he is?’

  She sensed the urgent need in him.

  ‘Of course,’ she lied. ‘But I’m not going to tell you. And if you dare ask why, I’ll push you off this cliff right now.’

  John looked over the edge to the jagged rocks below.

  ‘Would it help if I told you I could get you through the fleet blockades to Terra?’ he asked. ‘I’m the prodigal son now, back in the fold so to speak.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said.

  ‘It’s true. Mostly true, anyway, but the part about getting you and everyone aboard this ship safely to Terra? That part’s definitely true.’

  She searched his face for any hint of a lie. She saw only sincerity, but that meant less than nothing. John Grammaticus was many things, but first and foremost, he was a liar.

  ‘You must be desperate to come to me for help.’

  ‘I am,’ he replied, and to see him so nakedly honest and stripped of subterfuge was so shocking she almost blurted out that she had absolutely no idea where Oll might be found.

  But then she remembered all the pain he’d caused her, all the lies he’d told and, finally, how he’d left her buried under the ruins of the Khyber. She desperately wanted to ask why he hadn’t dug her from the ruins, but wasn’t sure she’d like the answer.

  ‘You hurt me, John,’ she said at last. ‘More than anyone’s hurt me. And I’ve known a lot of pain in my time.’

  ‘We all have, Liv,’ he said, reaching to take her hand.

  She snatched it back.

  ‘Don’t call me that,’ she said. ‘That name’s not for you. Not any more.’

  ‘Is it for your husband?’

  ‘Yes. And my daughters.’

  ‘Daughters? Those girls?’

  Anger touched Alivia, and she said, ‘Yes, those girls. I know they’re not my flesh and blood, but they’re mine. I’m their mother, because I’ve raised them. I’m their mother because I’ve kept them safe and because I love them. And that makes them my daughters just as much as if I’d carried them inside me.’

  John nodded and pushed himself to his feet as a tremor vibrated up from the ground.

  ‘You’re right, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Keep your apology,’ she snapped. ‘Just go.’

  ‘So you won’t tell me where Oll is?’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Alivia.

  IX

  Alivia’s head snapped up, and the real world swam back into focus as she felt a swell of nausea climb her gullet. She swallowed it down, and pushed herself upright.

  ‘Shit, we’re translating.’

  She emerged from the maintenance conduit and ran back to the bridge. As she’d expected, the armoured door was closed, and the two armsmen still stood guard.

  They tensed as she approached and she raised her hands to show she was no threat. She saw herself reflected in the gloss black of their visors, and smiled.

  ‘I need to see Captain Sulaiman,’ she said.

  One of the armsmen stepped forward and said, ‘Your bridge privileges have been revoked, Mistress Sureka. Captain’s orders.’

  His name was Burraga. She knew his name and that he had lost friends in the fight to escape Molech. Thirty-four years old, a career Navy man. Tough and by the book. She knew him, but not as well as she’d have liked, which made manipulating him difficult.

  But not impossible.

  John would have simply dominated the minds of both men with brute force mental coercion, but Alivia’s abilities were more suited to flanking.

  ‘Listen to me very carefully, we don’t have time for this,’ she said, weaving empathic manipulation into every word. ‘If we’re translating through the Elysian Gate, this ship is going to be an expanding cloud of radioactive metal and bodies soon. If I can’t convince the captain to alter his plans, then everyone aboard this ship is going to die. Do you really want that on your conscience?’

  It wasn’t fair to put that on him, but it would provide the leverage she needed to get inside his head. Alivia exerted more pressure, once again wishing that the ability push came more naturally to her.

  ‘I know it’s not fair to put that on you, Burraga,’ she said, carefully enunciating his name, ‘but that’s where we are. You have to let me in. And you have to let me in now.’

  ‘I… I don’t… think that�
��s–’

  ‘We’re so close,’ she continued, carefully modulating her tone and drawing out his deep sense of honour. ‘We can’t die with Terra within reach. All the people we saved, the men, women and children? Don’t you want to help them? Don’t let them die in the void, killed by our own people.’

  She reached deeper into his mind, a place of hard angles and unbending discipline wrapped around an honourable core. Alivia had felt his hesitation before he and his comrade marched her from the bridge. She amplified that feeling, helped it grow and swell, touching everything around it.

  Alivia channelled the nascent hope and the desire to live she’d nurtured in everyone aboard Molech’s Enlightenment.

  She let it pour into Burraga.

  He nodded and made a quarter-turn to his right.

  The butt of his shot-cannon hammered into the belly of his comrade. The armsman doubled up, and Burraga’s armoured knee cannoned into his face. The visor of his helm cracked and he collapsed to the deck with a groan of pain.

  Alivia retrieved his fallen shot-cannon as Burraga entered the access code to the bridge door. The gun felt absurdly heavy, and though she was no stranger to weapons, she didn’t like the finality of them.

  ‘You’d better be damn sure about this,’ said Burraga as the door opened.

  ‘I am,’ promised Alivia.

  X

  To his credit, Captain Sulaiman seemed wholly unsurprised at Alivia’s reappearance. He sighed and shook his head in exasperation as she and Burraga swept inside.

  ‘I should have known you’d find a way to get back onto my bridge,’ he said.

  ‘What can I say? I’m persistent.’

  ‘And clearly persuasive,’ said Sulaiman, nodding towards Burraga.

  ‘I explained exactly what was at stake, and Armsman Burraga happened to agree.’

  ‘So what is your intent, Mistress Sureka? Is this a mutiny? Do you intend to replace me as captain?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Alivia. ‘But we can’t translate through the Elysian Gate.’

  Sulaiman turned to the viewing bay at the far end of the bridge and said, ‘Then I am afraid you have arrived a little too late.’

  The wide bay displayed a riot of colours and maddening static.

  Translation was messy; flaring warp corposant all but blinded a ship until it was fully clear, and immaterial energies clinging to the ship’s crenellated spires and gothic bastions kept its shields from immediately igniting.