Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 88

Into the searing light of a Class-A blue star slipped a tiny vessel, sliding down the gravity well like a thief in the night. She was tiny by void standards, barely two kilometres long and sleek around the gunwales. Her mass was not encumbered by stacked ranks of weapon batteries nor laden with heavy armour. Yet her rear half was entirely taken up by bulbous drive units and plasma-injection boosters, lending her an acceleration curve a torpedo destroyer would be hard-pressed to match. By human standards she was almost graceful; a lithe dancer of the void, intended to avoid trouble via staggering speed. She was a ghost on the Auspex, a blur on a surveyor, a ghost glimpsed only fleetingly as she sped away from her hunters. She was a blockade runner and the Amber Vipers called her Peregrine.

Glord looked about the cramped bridge of the Peregrine, taking in the close confines. A ship like this did not boast the vast cathedral-spaces of a line cruiser nor the ostentatious décor and ancient murals of the Imperial Navy. The walls were bare and unlovely with a hundred or so crew jammed together in sweating rows before their consoles and the roof low enough for him to bounce a ball off, should he so desire. There were no chanting tech-priests circling the room or clerics reading aloud soothing binaric psalms, only random Engineseers applying sparking tools to fritzing mechanisms and loudly cursing Servitors as they drooled inanely in their sockets. The entire space was hot and loud and noisy and the air recyclers were doing a spectacularly bad job of clearing the smell of body odour and fused wiring from the environment.

Standing at the back Glord leaned on a wall and waited. Along with him was the bulk of the squad, minus Sergeant Reddam and their guide Yohan Schwift. For weeks they had steered the Peregrine into the heart of the Masio Silentium, running ahead of the Amber Viper's flotilla following the smuggler's recollections. The journey had been rough but no unexpected threats had arisen, save for the choppy warp-jumps and random gravitational surges. Glord was glad of it, the Peregrine was basically unarmed, if they ran into something they couldn't outrun it was certain they wouldn't have the firepower to survive for long.

Glord tapped the back of his skull on the metal wall and then blew out a breath and asked, "Are we there yet?"

Tebes rolled his eyes at that and retorted, "Patience is a virtue Brother."

"Patience can kiss my behind!" Glord snorted, "I didn't come all this way to wade through this soup."

Kazao interjected, "I can't believe I'm agreeing with Glord but he's right, we should have seen something by now."

Larus added, "That star is putting out an awful lot of radiation, it's cutting surveyor range to nothing."

It was true, the Peregrine's readouts were hashed with static, the consoles constantly resetting as cursing chattels struck them in the liturgically-approved fashion. The Hololith looked like a snowglobe, its edges touching both roof and floor in the cramped bridge. The shipmaster kept calling for it to be cleared but the mortal's cries were having no effect. As far as Glord could see they were almost flying blind. They may as well have opened the Oculus, would it not have permanently blinded every mortal present.

As the crew struggled to make headway Joffel leaned in and asked, "Do you really think there's a Warp-gate out there?"

Tebes sniffed, "If the smuggler is to be believed, it should be somewhere nearby."

"And the other thing?" Joffel mused, "Do the Old Seventeen really think we'll buy this bunk about looking for the lost Monastery of our forefathers?"

"Sounds silly you calling them that," Kazao deflected, "There's not seventeen of them anymore."

"Name's stuck," Glord sighed, "But he's right, they have no idea we know the truth."

The squad lapsed into silence as they dwelt on that. Little did the founders of the Chapter realise but the younger Amber Vipers were well aware that they were fighting under a dead man's banner. The Old Seventeen hadn't been as careful as they supposed, a slipped word here, a careless conversation there and a few relics that had no business existing had been enough for the younger generations to figure out their origin story was pure fabrication. Many details were still a mystery but Glord had once dragged a delirious Sergeant Reddam through a forest and in his fever-dreams he had let slip far more than he realised.

Glord still didn't know how the band of renegades had gone from a few battered survivors to leading a resurgent Chapter but he did know three things. Firstly the oldest members of their Chapter would not react well if they uncovered that their younger brethren had deduced their secret. Secondly none of his generation cared about the past; it was the future they looked to, not bleak and morbid history. Thirdly the Old Seventeen were passing and when they fell any past misdeeds would be expunged, the Amber Vipers could do whatever they wanted after that.

It was Kazao who said, "Best not complain, Reddam will only get all worked up."

Joffel agreed, "Let's focus on finding this Warp-gate. If what Reddam told us about what's on the other side is true we are about to grasp the greatest glory our Chapter has ever known. Think of what we can do with a base like the one he showed us, think of the power it will bring."

Larus ventured, "We could go anywhere, do anything we wanted."

The words sounded good but Tebes snapped, "In service the Emperor and His Imperium you mean!"

There was an awkward pause as everybody reassessed their words and Glord abashedly said, "Yes, obviously."

"That's what we all meant," Kazao deflected.

"Goes without saying," Joffel shamefully demurred.

"For His glory, naturally," Larus added.

Suddenly the shipmaster began shouting something at the crew and Glord opened his vox to send an alert to Sergeant Reddam. They watched on as the crew fought to clear the surveyors and slowly something odd began to emerge in the Hololith, very odd indeed. In the hazy swamp of the star's radiation hung a mottled shell, bathing in the solar winds. It totally out-massed the Peregrine, some four thousand kilometres long and a thousand across. It was roughly cylindrical in shape, though its surface was pitted and scarred by void impacts. The nearest end was covered in overlapping plates like a Carnodon's crest and a mouth big enough to swallow a Battlebarge whole was hanging limply open. The other end was sleek and finned, forming a sinuous tail. One flank was lined with hundred kilometre long tentacles, that glimmered with solar-collector fronds. The other was gnarled and whorled, like a crustacean's shell, but it was spilt in many places by vicious wounds that exposed fleshy entrails below. It was unlike any lifeform Glord had ever seen but it was certainly dead, the terrible rents down its spine attested to that.

Glord gasped in amazement, "What is that?!"

"A Tyranid!" Larus exclaimed.

"No," Tebes countered, "It's too big, even Hive Ships don't grow that massive."

"Then what is it?" Kazao breathed, "Where did it come from?"

Suddenly a thin voice cried, "That there's a Void Whale!"

Glord glanced over and saw Schwift entering the bridge, followed closely by Sergeant Reddam. Their guide had washed and shaved and was wearing fresh overalls but he still looked burdened by age and starvation. He had been helpful enough charting a course through the Masio Silentium but Glord found his manner off-putting. He was too covetous and sly, always looking out for himself first and last. Every time Schwift strolled by Glord found himself wanting to count his bolt shells, to make sure he hadn't been pickpocketed, he certainly wouldn't buy a second-hand ground cab off the man.

Reddam strode up to the projection and commanded, "Report!"

Joffel answered, "We're scouring the coordinates we were given, when we found this… thing."

Reddam turned to Schwift and hissed, "You didn't warn us about this."

Schwift scratched his ear as he replied, "Weren't here the last time I came by, must have swum into the system, recent like."

Glord was still staring at the image as he inquired, "What manner of beast is this?"

Schwift grinned toothlessly as he explained, "Void whale, as in a whale of the void. It's all in the name see. They swim through space sucking up gas clouds and nebulas, sometimes sailing the Immaterium itself, though none can say how. Voidfarers have hunted them since the earliest days, mining their nerves for superconductive fibres, bones for Adamantium-hard ivory and fat for chemicals richer than you can believe. Even the stomach acid is worth a fortune, to the right buyer."

"You've seen them in the nebula?" Joffel asked.

"Didn't know any were in here," Schwift commented, "Saw the tapped out remains of Void Whale over in the Xinara sub-sector. Mining its bones supported three planet's economies, till they exhausted it. Mind you, that were a full-grown one, not a little spat like this."

"That's a baby?!" Glord exclaimed.

"Mother's likely three times as big," Schwift chortled, "Probably got lost from its pod."

"I have a better question: what killed it?" Kazao interjected.

Schwift sniffed, "Nothin' good. Say, I don't suppose there's time to stop and do some prospecting?"

"No," Reddam growled, "This isn't what we came for, we press on."

The Peregrine edged around the dead Void Whale, diving into the soup of the star's radiation. Glord watched as the corpse slid out of the projection and eyed its wounds. It was a distressing sight and the implications worried him. Whatever had killed it had inflicted wounds more terrible than his Chapter's flotilla combined could achieve. Even firing together they couldn't produce a single gash like that, and the Void Whale had been pierced many times. He spent a second calculating the forces required and concluded that the Peregrine couldn't survive a single hit from whatever had done that. If they ran into the killer they best pray they could outrun it, or they were dead.

Slowly the Peregrine moved on and all eyes scoured the surveyors. Minutes crawled by and then there was a cry from the crewmen. Glord glanced at the Hololith and saw two planets emerging from the haze. Locked together by mutual gravitational forces they eternally spiralled around each other as they orbited the star, a dance as old as time itself.

Yet the sight made Glord's eyes water and he hissed, "What's wrong with them?"

Tebes answered, "They're smooth, perfectly smooth. Look at the readouts, each one has been scoured of all texture. The hills and valleys and craters have been erased, leaving them featureless."

Kazao breathed, "According to the cogitators their curvatures are perfectly exact to pi. Precise beyond the ability of the Logic Engines to calculate."

"Who could do such a thing?" Glord exclaimed, "Why would they do it?"

"Dunno," Schwift cackled, "Someone with too much time on their hands. But this is the place, two planets smooth as cue-balls. Look between them, in the Lagrange point, and you'll find what you seek."

"Move in closer and scan those coordinates," Reddam ordered.

Glord watched as the Peregrine chugged onwards, looking for their objective. The Hololith hazed again then cleared, revealing a strange sight. Hanging in the Lagrange point was a ring-shaped object as big as a fleet. Unlike the two planets it lacked any symmetry, all misshapen lumps and odd bulges and elongated off to one side to give it a melted appearance. It was roughly flat, though ten kilometres thick and the open space inside the ring was a hundred kilometres across at its narrowest point. The entire thing was formed out of dark stone, shimmering with reflected light which revealed strange glyphs and alien letters carved into its surface, each several kilometres long.

It resembled no language Glord had ever seen but the sight made him long for his Heavy Bolter. The entire edifice was foreboding and grim, a warning sign left for the universe to see and know this place was off-limits. There was an odd sense of watchfulness about it, like it was aware of the Peregrine's approach and it was only waiting for them to drift nearer before it gobbled them up. Everything about it made Glord want to either open fire or turn and retreat, anything would be better than drifting nearer as they were.

Reddam however was barking orders, "Full scans, I want to know everything about that Warp Gate. Keep us ten thousand kilometres away at all times, I don't want to trigger it prematurely. Record everything for analysis and get close up images of those glyphs, when the flotilla catches up well see if Nathanal can find a linguistic match in our archives."

Glord's palms were itching with alarm as he said, "Sergeant, are we sure we wish to proceed?"

Kazao concurred, "I have to say, this might be more than the Chapter can handle."

Reddam scowled as he snapped, "Where is your courage Brothers?! We have not come all this way to turn back at the last hurdle."

Glord lowered his head in contrition but Schwift argued, "No shame in admitting when you've bitten off more than you can chew."

Yet Reddam only lifted his head and declared, "Space Marines do not shrink from the dark, it quails before us. No matter what travails await us we shall overcome them and force the universe to bend to our will. Remember our creed: Cold hearts and fast blades!"

The crew let out a brief cheer and the squad joined them. Yet in his hearts Glord was worried. This was far more than they had expected and he could not help but feel they were about to walk into the Carnodon's den, like baby-grox to the slaughter.