by John French
She had…
They should not have been there…
‘It’s not your fault.’
The voice froze her. Her eyes fastened on the dead refugees. She heard the thump of her heart. Then she laughed, the sound echoing and then collapsing into tears. It was her voice, of course it was. Hers. The words had come from her thoughts into her mouth without her realising.
‘It’s not your fault, Zadia Koln.’ She heard herself speak, and felt the words puff into the air, cold and glittering with frost.
‘It’s not your fault…’
She heard the footsteps then, slow and deliberate, walking towards her across the deck.
She tried to look up.
She could not look up.
She could not move.
The beat of her heart had stopped. The frost of her breath hung in the air, glittering dust hanging before her eyes.
‘You had no choice then, and you have none now…’
There was a shape at the edge of her sight, a shape like the shadow of something that walked like a man. She wanted to close her eyes, she wanted to look away. Her eyes stayed open as the figure stopped just next to her.
‘But you did have one choice…’
She could smell burnt meat, and something that brought to mind the incense they had burned in the temple on Miranda. A temple… a temple that was just a room with some candles, and marks scratched on the floor, and bowls set under a flow of water from a broken pipe.
‘You all have a choice of which angels to listen to…’
Frost was creeping over her limbs and up her neck.
‘You can listen to those voices that you know are true, and which will keep you safe, even if it means that you must be just a small flame, rather than the light of eternity…’
Blood… She could smell blood, and… and water…
‘Or you can listen to all the hate, and rage, and resentment that you carry like a parent does a child…’
The thing shifted, and she could see it now.
‘And all of you humans always make the same choice…’
Something sharp hooked under her chin and pulled it up. Two yellow eyes looked down at her.
‘You always choose to listen to the bitter angels of your hearts…’
She could not draw breath to scream.
‘And we listen.’
‘You are from Terra?’ asked the boy.
‘Yes,’ replied Mersadie. ‘I was born there.’ She moved the glass tile across a slot in the metal game board. The boy frowned at it. His sister sat curled on a chair, eyes sunk in a sullen face, listening. She was older than the boy by at least half a decade, maybe a little more. She was called Mori, and he was Noon. They were Vek’s children. They had found their way into the room she was sleeping in two days ago, and seemed to have adopted her as a curiosity – a distraction from the situation they all found themselves in. She had told them a story, and the boy, at least, had come back for more. Vek had let them, and the bodyguard, Aksinya, had come with them, a cold-eyed shadow at the edge of the room.
Mersadie talked and told stories as the Antius plunged on through the dark of the gulf between Uranus and Jupiter. Apparently, the gas giants were at a stage in their orbital cycle that put Jupiter on a direct course between Uranus and the inner system. There were no explosions now, no rush and boom of sudden events, just the slow, grinding passing of moments as the pressure rose inside the thoughts of all those on board.
‘What’s it like, the Throneworld? What’s it like?’ asked Noon.
Mersadie shrugged, and smiled.
‘I don’t know what it is like now. I haven’t been there for a long time. But do you want to know the truth?’ She leaned across the board of coloured tiles, and lowered her voice to a stage whisper. ‘I always thought it was ugly. There is this haze in the sky. There used to be seas once, longer ago than anyone can remember. Now there is just dust and stink. Lots of buildings grown too high. And there are people, more people than you can imagine.’
‘Where did you go?’ asked Mori from across the room. Mersadie looked around at the girl, who had barely moved but was looking at her with a sharp gaze. ‘If you were away from Terra for a long time – where did you go?’
Mersadie held the girl’s gaze, thinking about how to answer.
‘I went to see the Imperium being made.’
‘What does that mean?’ asked the girl.
‘Enough questions,’ said Aksinya, from the corner.
Mersadie looked at the bodyguard, then back at the coloured tiles on the board, then up at Noon. ‘I think you might have won,’ said Mersadie to Noon.
Alarms screamed out all around them.
The assault pod struck the Antius on its spine. Claws snapped down from the pod’s flanks, dug in and pulled its bulk close against the hull. Rings of drill teeth began to rotate. Melta-beams fired at point-blank range. The skin of the hull bubbled and oozed orange. Shaped charges in the pod’s base fired. The blast punched into the blistering metal and turned it into a jet of white-hot liquid. The pod rocked, but its blade-legs dug deeper, pulling the spinning teeth of its maw down into the glowing wound.
The second set of charges fired and tore through the last inches of the ship’s hull. A shock wave ripped down the passageways near the breach. Half-sealed hatches ripped off their hinges. A lone crewman close to the impact point was slammed into the wall and became a broken doll of crushed meat and shattered bone.
An iris hatch set between the pod’s drill teeth snapped open. Figures dropped through. Crimson void armour bulked their forms. Pressure hoses snaked from the canisters on their backs to their domed helms.
In the staterooms towards the ship’s stern, Mersadie came up off the floor to standing as the breaching blast sent a shiver down the hull.
Aksinya was already in motion, scooping up the two children and making for the door in a blur. The bodyguard had a long-barrelled pistol in one hand.
‘Aksinya,’ called Mersadie. There was something wrong, something blurring at the edges of awareness that Mersadie could not focus on. The skin on the back of her neck and arms was prickling. In her mind’s eye she could see the dream image of the wolf, smiling at her with its sharp, bloody teeth. ‘Don’t go. There is something–’
The bodyguard turned, keying the door.
‘I need to reach Master Vek.’ The door opened, and she glanced back at Mersadie, the mask of control slipping for a second to show only contempt. ‘You brought this down on us. They can have you.’ She turned. Noon’s eyes were wide as he looked back at her from beside Aksinya’s grasp.
‘No,’ called Mersadie. She was shaking, the tremor running out from her core like a charge searching for a way out. In her mind the image of the symbols she had seen in the dream with Keeler rose, planets and signs, symbols and meanings. The marks had changed, had shifted; they were glowing with heat, weeping smoke. And as clearly as if it had been shouted in her ear, she knew that it was a warning. ‘There is something else… something coming… Don’t go!’
Aksinya looked like she would not even pause. Then she stopped, pulled a compact laspistol from inside her robes and threw it onto the floor at Mersadie’s feet.
‘Consider that the limit of my kindness.’
Then she was gone, pulling the children with her into the flashing lights of the corridor outside. Mersadie looked at the gun for a second, swaying as the sense of danger and threat poured through her. Then she hissed a curse, bent down, picked up the gun and ran after the bodyguard.
Vek was already running as the assault pod detonated its second charge. The jolt ran through the deck. Shouts swallowed the alarms. Some of the bridge crew were reaching for sidearms they had drawn from the Antius’ weapon locker. Vek had a lasgun. His hands fumbled on the arming stud as he went for the door off the bridge. Sweat poured fro
m him. Breath sawed from his lungs. His bulk shook beneath his clothes. Someone might have called after him, but he did not hear or stop. All he could think of was the children. The children he had left two decks down. Close to the breach.
‘The Emperor protects.’ That was what Sadia, his wife, had said when she had first introduced him to the Temple of the Saviour Emperor. ‘He always has and He always will.’
He went down the spiral of stairs from the helm platform. He saw a guard, but the man turned and fled as Vek shouted at him.
‘But how can that be true when billions die?’ he had asked. ‘How can there be a war if He protects?’
His wife had shrugged.
‘If there were not the dark, and the chance of loss, what need would there be for Him to protect us?’
Another jolt shook the deck. The walls rang like a struck gong. He was panting, the sweat pouring into his eyes.
‘He protects, He protects…’ he panted, and echoed in his head. Please let Him protect them.
He reached the door of the bridge. There was shouting behind him, the machine burble of the tech-priest.
The doors blew apart in a spray of shrapnel. Vek was blasted backwards.
Something struck him in the gut. He tumbled. Air rushed from his lungs, and he was falling, dimly aware of his hands still clutching the lasgun. Another blow followed, to his ribs, as he collided with a support pillar and tumbled to the floor.
There were figures around him and above him. Armoured figures pouring through the opening. Red armour, domed helms with black slots for eyes, squat guns fuming static. Beams of light flashed out. Vek tried to rise, tried to move forwards, tried to bring the gun up…
‘You should trust more,’ Sadia had said.
None of his limbs would move. Nothing felt like anything.
‘That is the root of faith – not just belief but trust…’
The armoured figures moved up, firing with every step, swift but steady. Vek thought that the screaming was fading, but the world was soft and fuzzed and leaking red at the edge of his sight.
‘There is a plan, and He watches all of us…’
‘Cleared,’ came a machine-distorted voice from somewhere out of sight.
‘All you need to do is trust…’
Vek could see Noon and Mori’s faces in his mind, more clear than the red shadows that moved close.
‘This one is alive,’ said a voice from close by. Vek suddenly realised how quiet everything had become. The lights still blinked, but there were no alarms, no shouts…
‘Just trust?’ he had asked. ‘That does not seem like much.’
‘It is everything,’ she had said. ‘It is everything, my love.’
He was looking up into a black eye-slot set into a crimson-lacquered helm.
‘The Emperor…’ he managed, hearing the gurgle and rasp in his own words. The barrel of the gun eclipsed the sight of the room. He could see the scorching inside its muzzle. ‘The Emperor p–’
Mersadie saw the gunfire from around the corner. She slowed, crouching low against the wall. She gripped the gun tight. Rounds were whipping past, shot pellets sparking off pipes and grates. She was breathing hard. A bitter taste filled her mouth and nose. She looked back at the way she had come. Blast doors had sealed behind her. Could she open them? If she could, where would she go? What about Nilus? Where was the Navigator?
A child’s cry jerked her head up. Another blast of shot. Another cry. The thought of going back vanished. Mersadie snatched a look around the corner.
The next door was only twenty paces away. It was a small, ovoid opening. The two children crouched behind a projecting pipe halfway between Mersadie and the door. Mori hugged her brother close as a shot sparked off the wall above their heads. Aksinya was beside the open door, pistols in hand, shooting through the hatch as guns barked from the dark beyond. She crouched back as a fresh squall of shot ripped up the corridor. Mersadie caught her eye, and thought she saw a curse form on the bodyguard’s lips. There was a deeper boom from beyond the open hatch and a bolt-round ripped down the corridor and exploded on the wall opposite the corner. Mersadie saw the gleam of red armour in the muzzle flash just before she ducked back. There were figures advancing on the other side of the hatch from Aksinya. The bodyguard and the children were trapped.
‘Mersadie!’ shouted Aksinya.
‘I hear you,’ she shouted back. Another bolt burned down the corridor. Mersadie heard the chattering bark of Aksinya’s pistols.
‘Your shuttle,’ shouted the bodyguard. ‘It’s two decks down. Key command override for the launch doors is “Juno”.’
‘I understand,’ Mersadie shouted back. And she did.
‘Get the children and then get to the shuttle.’
Mersadie nodded. All thoughts of Nilus, of greater purposes and of final ends had become very distant. A high ringing was rising in her head and ears. Her limbs were suddenly shaking. Aksinya held her gaze for a heartbeat more.
‘Get ready!’ she called. Mersadie nodded again, her mouth and throat dry. ‘Now!’ shouted Aksinya and half rose, pistols blazing through the hatch. Mersadie started up. She made it two strides. A trooper in heavy red armour was already at the hatch. Whether Aksinya had not realised how close they were, or if they had simply waded through her fire to reach the door, Mersadie would never know. She ducked to the side of the passage as the gun in the crimson trooper’s hands boomed. A round tore a hole in the floor where she had been.
Aksinya did not pause. Her first shot hit the crimson-clad trooper in the chest. The second hit the same mark a second later and punched through the red armour. The trooper tumbled back. Blood flared bright. Aksinya twitched aside as a beam of light stabbed through the doorway. Mersadie heard the air hiss as the beam pulsed. Aksinya was turning, spinning low with the momentum of her dodge to kick her heel into the crotch of the next figure through the door. Aksinya came up, a blade in hand. The crimson trooper brought its hand up to block the thrust, but the point of the blade slid up under the chin of its helm. Aksinya activated the blade’s power field, and the trooper’s skull exploded in its helm. The corpse began to fall. Aksinya let go of the dagger, yanked the pins from the grenades hanging from the trooper’s bandolier, and kicked the corpse back through the doorway before it could hit the floor. She ducked to the side, scooping up the knife as she moved. Beams of light snapped through the door at her.
Mersadie met the bodyguard’s gaze. There were scorch marks on Aksinya’s clothes and a spreading dark red stain on her stomach. Rage burned in her eyes as they met Mersadie’s.
‘Get the children to the shuttle!’ she shouted.
An orange blast wave punched through the open door. Pieces of burning fabric and broken armour scattered across the decking. Smoke clotted the air. Mersadie yelled in pain as the pressure broke over her. Beams lit the smoke pall, strobing out of time with the red pulse of alert lumens. Aksinya snapped a shot off through the hatch. For a second, in the red flash of light, Mersadie saw pain contort the bodyguard’s face.
‘Go!’ Aksinya shouted, and fired around the door again.
Mersadie pushed up from the wall and ran to the two children huddled beside the pipe. Noon was weeping, wet tears pouring down his cheeks. Mori was wide-eyed and breathing hard as she looked up at Mersadie. The girl said something, but the ringing was still filling Mersadie’s ears, blurring into her skull. She felt like she was going to vomit.
‘Come with me,’ said Mersadie, reaching for Mori. The girl flinched back. ‘We need to go, Mori.’ The girl hesitated, then nodded and was up, grabbing hold of Mersadie’s hand and pulling her brother up with the other. Aksinya fired through the door as Mersadie and the children ran for the turn in the passage, back the way Mersadie had come. They came round the corner. Behind them, energy beams snapped through the air. Mersadie could see the blast door at the end of the passage. T
hirty paces. Thirty paces and then…
The lights on the distant door’s lock blinked to green. Mersadie’s stride faltered. The blast door began to open, pulling back into the passage walls. She heard a snarl of pain from back where Aksinya was crouched beside the other door out of the corridor. Energy beams were smacking the passage walls. Mori was still running forwards, her hand now pulling on Mersadie’s. There were figures on the other side of the door ahead, their gloss armour red.
Mersadie yanked back on Mori’s hand as the first crimson-armoured trooper stepped into sight, gun rising. Mori saw, her mouth opening wide to scream. The trooper fired as Mersadie pulled them down behind a wall bracing. Hard shot rang off the walls and floor. More troopers poured into the passage from the other end. From their only way out.
Mersadie could see back to where Aksinya now sat on the floor beside the hatch. The dark stains had spread across the bodyguard’s torso and a wet chunk was missing from her right upper thigh. She was reloading her pistol, face set and hard. Mersadie felt the weight of the pistol in her own hand, and fired two shots off. The snap of recoil jerked the shots high. The world was roaring with gunfire, closing in, pressing closed like a vice. Mori was shaking, her brother howling.
And in her mind, all she could think of was the moon on water, of sharp teeth and a pair of yellow eyes. Words hissed in a dream blew into her thoughts.
We are coming for you… We know… We are here for you…
Panic punched through her, flooding her with adrenaline. She needed to run. She needed to get away.
She half rose. Mori yanked her back.
‘What are you doing?’ shouted the girl.
Mersadie tried to shake her off. She needed to run, the instinct so pure and raw that it left her other thoughts shouting in its wake.
‘They will try to stop you,’ said Keeler’s face in the dream. ‘Old friends and enemies alike. They will come for you.’