The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit

Molech’s Enlightenment stood ready to evacuate refugees and survivors of the Warmaster’s invasion. The window of opportunity was narrow and shortening by the minute. Enemy ships would even now be lighting their reactors to break orbit and intercept it.

If Molech’s Enlightenment didn’t get away soon, it never would.

‘Coming up on the Windward Platforms,’ said Anson from the driver’s compartment. Alivia heard the anxiety in his voice. He wanted nothing more than to halt the Galenus and go get his girl, but Alivia didn’t have time to indulge him.

The Warmaster’s army would be here soon and she was already risking far too much by coming here first. But mission be damned, she wasn’t going to let her children die on Molech.

She smiled. Her children.

‘Don’t worry, Anson,’ said Alivia, clouding his anxieties and imparting a sense of wellbeing to him. ‘I’m sure Fiaa’s waiting for you here. She wouldn’t leave without you.’

‘No, she wouldn’t,’ said Anson, sounding relieved.

She justified the lie by telling herself it would keep him alive.

The Galenus rumbled to a halt and Alivia hauled open the side door of the vehicle. The smell of the city hit her first, warm spices and metallic smoke coming down from the fires burning beneath Mount Torger.

That and the smell of the thousands of shouting people mobbed before the gates to the landing platforms. The mood was ugly and ranked units of Dawn Guard were doing their best to keep a riot at bay. The mix of emotions was potent. Alivia did her best to shut them out, but there was only so much she could do.

She stifled a sob and leaned back into the Galenus.

‘Jeph, bring the girls,’ she said. ‘Noama, Kjell, time for you to get out too.’

She banged the driver’s door with her palm.

‘Anson, get out,’ she said. ‘I need you too.’

Jeph clambered out of the Galenus, his mouth dropping open in wonder at the scale of the city around him. Noama Calver and Kjell helped the girls down and kept them close as the press of nearby bodies closed in.

‘What about us?’ asked one of the wounded soldiers who’d hitched a ride with them back to Lupercalia.

‘You all stay put,’ she said, adding an emphatic push to her words. ‘I’m going to need you all. You, what’s your name?’

‘Valance. Corporal Arcadii Volunteers.’

‘Ever driven a Galenus before?’

‘No, ma’am, but I put some time in on a Trojan,’ said Valance. ‘Won’t be that much different.’

‘Good, get up front and keep the engine running. When I’m done here, we’re going to have to move fast to get to the Sanctuary. Are we clear?’

The man nodded and went forward into the driver’s compartment.

Alivia turned to the others and said, ‘Hold hands, and don’t let go for anything. Not for anything, you understand?’

They nodded, and she felt their fear. They linked hands and Alivia held hers out. Vivyen took one hand, Miska the other and with the adults trailing behind her in a narrow V, she pushed into the crowd.

The gates to the landing fields was perhaps a hundred metres away, and with every roar of struggling engines lifting off the mood of the crowd was souring further. She didn’t know what criteria the Dawn Guard were using for deciding who got through and who didn’t, but she guessed that most of the people here wouldn’t meet it.

Hostile stares and curses met her as she pushed forward, but she turned them all aside. The effort was draining. She’d never found this sort of thing as easy as John seemed to. Her talents lay towards empathic, less overt, means of manipulation. It took real effort and each calming touch took more out of her than the last.

But it was working, the crowds were moving aside for her.

She had her Ferlach serpenta loaded and tucked in the inside pocket of her coat should things get really ugly. She didn’t want to think what might happen to the girls if things got that bad.

Angry voices came from the gates. Querulous demands, pleading entreaties and desperate attempts at persuasion. Most were falling on deaf ears, but the occasional clang and clatter of a postern told her that at least some were getting through.

Alivia pushed her way to the front. A man in a richly-embroidered frock coat turned to berate her, but stepped aside with a puzzled expression.

‘No, after you, miss,’ he said.

Alivia nodded and turned her attention to the gate guards. She’d have to work fast. The man beside her might be accommodating enough to let her past, but the people behind him wouldn’t be so understanding.

The guard through the gate had a slung rifle and held out a data-slate and stylus. A list of approved personnel, quotas? It didn’t matter, it was her passport into the landing fields.

‘We need to get through,’ said Alivia, using a blunter form of persuasion than she would normally employ. ‘We’re on the list.’

‘Name?’