[Warhammer 40K - The Horus Heresy 29] - Vengeful Spirit by Graham McNeill

Author:Graham McNeill [Graham McNeill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Military Fiction, Science Fiction, Warhammer 40K
ISBN: 9781782515470
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2014-05-14T12:00:00+00:00

The floor of Noama Calver’s Galenus was awash with blood, spilling from side to side with every manoeuvre her driver was forced to make. Constructed from an extended Samaritan chassis, the interior of the Galenus was equipped with a full surgical suite and twenty casualty berths.

Every one of those berths was filled twice over. About a third of the soldiers they carried were dead. Kjell kept urging her to ditch the corpses, but Noama would sooner throw herself out the back than abandon her boys like that. Her surgeon-captain’s uniform was supposed to be pale green, but was soaked in blood from the chest down. Ruby droplets dotted lined mahogany skin that was too pale from too little sleep and too many long days in the medicae wards. Eyes that had seen too many boys die were heavy with regret and remembered every one of them.

The Galenus Mobile Medicus was a heavy tracked vehicle as wide and long as a superheavy. But unlike pretty much every other superheavy she knew, it had a decent kick to its engine. That could usually get the wounded out of harm’s way, but there were still plenty of things that could move faster than them.

Nothing she could do about that, so instead she concentrated on the matter in hand.

She and Lieutenant Kjell had pulled the soldier from the wreck of a Baneblade whose engine exploded ninety kilometres south of Avadon. Tags said his name was Nyks, and his youthful eyes reminded her of her son serving off-world in the 24th Molech Firescions.

Those same eyes begged her to save his life, but Noama didn’t know if she could. His belly had been opened by a red-hot shell fragment and promethium burned skin slithered over his chest like wet clay.

But that wasn’t what was going to kill him. That particular honour would go to the nicked coeliac artery in his abdomen.

‘He’s not gonna make it, Noama!’ shouted Kjell over the roar of the engines. ‘I need help over here, and this one might actually live.’

‘Shut up, lieutenant,’ snapped Noama, finally grasping the writhing artery. ‘I’m not losing this one. I can get it.’

The glistening blood vessel squirmed in her grip like a hostile snake. The Galenus rocked and her grip slackened for a fraction of a second.

‘Damn it, Anson!’ she shouted as the artery slid back into the soldier’s body. ‘Keep us level, you Throne-damned idiot! Don’t make me come up there!’

‘Trying, ma’am,’ said Anson over the vox, ‘but it’s kind of hard travelling at this speed and with all this traffic.’

Hundreds of vehicles were fleeing the carnage at Avadon, heading for the armed camp forming six hundred kilometres south around Lupercalia. Regiments from bases along the edges of the Tazkhar Steppes and the hinterlands of the east around the Preceptor Line were already congregating on Lupercalia, with more on the march every day.

All well and good. Assuming they made it that far.

Scuttlebutt from vox-fragments and the lips of wounded men said enemy Titans were pursuing them.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.