Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 92
The tension on the bridge was an oppressive weight bearing down on every man. Chattels tended to their consoles with hunched backs and furtive expressions. Orders were passed via whispers, lest raised voices summon doom. Even the Space Marines were subdued, their faces grim and manner stiff. The mortals didn't understand what the danger was, they had never heard of Necrons, but if their lords were worried then that was cause for alarm in itself.
Coluber felt the same distress gnawing at him. He too was worried, his equilibrium upset and his brow furrowed with concern. That he had led his Chapter into the sight of the Necrons was a guilty mote in his soul. Many times he had debated abandoning his mission and fleeing back to the Warp-gate, leaving the Carnodon's den before it ate him. Yet he did not give the order. He was a Space Marine and it was not in his nature to abandon a mission before its culmination. Danger and death held no fear for him and he would continue until his last breath. He only wished that final exhalation did not seem so certain, or so soon.
Behind him Shrios muttered, "Look another warp-gate. What's that, four?"
Coluber glanced into the Hololith and stated, "Four indeed and probably more out there we haven't found yet. There's no telling where they lead, it could be anywhere."
"Explains why we've seen ships from places as remote as the Eastern Fringe and the galactic maw and the Halo Stars. They must be capturing vessels from every corner of the galaxy."
Indeed the Hololith was festooned with icons. Dead hulks stretching as far as the surveyors could tell. For hours the flotilla had been picking its way through the graveyard, searching for the heart of the Ghost Crusade. Deeper and deeper among the drifting hulks they had pressed, the passing craft of every race known and more of unknown species. Some hulks looked fresh kills, others older than Mankind itself, but all were dead. During their voyage they had encountered more Warp-Gates and Coluber knew this threat was far more widespread than he had ever dreamed, the Necrons were certainly awake and they were active.
He spoke quietly so none but Shrios could hear, "We have explained the mystery of the Masio Silentium. The Necrons must be responsible for all the missing colonies, fleets and convoys."
Shrios frowned as he replied, "But that means they are not just sitting here waiting for ships to drift through the Warp-gate. They are actively going into the Milky Way, attacking any world they find. There's no telling how many worlds they've overrun."
That hadn't occurred to Coluber and he mused, "The Masio Silentium may only be a small corner of their hunting ground. Think of accursed names like the Abyss of Juthor, the Whispering Reefs, the Ghoul Stars, the Dolorous Vortex, the Elusian Maze, the Burmarda Triangle. Are they also connected to this place? Are they all hunting grounds of the Necrons?"
Shrios lifted an eyebrow and asked, "What are these Necrons?"
"You don't know?"
Shrios sniffed, "I've been busy creating generations of recruits. I mean, I've seen the tactical reports and captured Astropathic distress calls. Worlds depopulated by metal men, rising from ancient tombs to slaughter the living. But there's no hard facts on who they are and where they come from. I don't know who built them or why."
Coluber lamented, "No one truly knows, save maybe the most learned Archmagi of Mars but we don't have access to their thoughts. The Necrons may be the detritus of forgotten wars, slaves of a dead Xenos race or Abominable Intelligences who exterminated their makers. They could be tools of an artificial civilisation or the seeds of a Xenoforming project, left to eliminate competitors so another race can return to reclaim the galaxy. We don't know anything concrete, save that after sixty million years of slumber they have awoken to cleanse the galaxy of life, and their technology is advanced beyond anything humanity can comprehend."
Shrios asked, "Has anyone beaten them?"
Coluber sighed, "Distressingly few and always at great cost. Armies have been obliterated, fleets destroyed, great champions laid low. Even the self-righteous Ultramarines could barely hold them at bay, and at such a cost as to make victory taste bitter as defeat."
"Let us hope they don't notice us before we get what we came for and get out of here."
Their conversation was interrupted as Ferrac called, "We've found something!"
"Put it on the Hololith," Coluber commanded.
The projection shimmered and then reformed, displaying an immense ship. It was a vast cathedral adrift in the void, with a hammerhead prow and a rising series of bastion keeps over the stern. The engines were baffled by ablative bulwarks and every inch of it was covered in thick armour, from the stacked ranks of the gundecks to the dappled drop-pod tubes and the gaping bombardment cannons on the dorsal spine. A Battlebarge, in the colours of the helm Coluber had confronted Schwift with. It was a ship of the original Amber Vipers and it was dead.
Midway up its length the Battlebarge had been neatly sliced in two, like a slab of meat on a butcher's chopping block. In the rent lay exposed corridors, pipes, transit tubes and munition lines, their edges so precisely cut that it seemed if one were to push the two halves back together they would fit perfectly and the ship would be whole. Only one thing marred this dream, a tangled spar of adamantium beams and plasteel girders in one corner, holding the prow and stern together. It made the eyes water to look upon, the connection between the titanic slabs of metal so gossamer thin and fragile. As the great ship spun one was convinced every second would see it snap and the two halves would go flying away from each other. And yet they never did.
"The Way of the Warrior," Coluber breathed in awe, "The Amber Viper's flagship."
Shrios muttered, "It must have died defending its homebase."
"Yes," Coluber concurred, "Implore the surveyors for more range, find the Serpens Rex!"
Furious activity arose as Chattels obeyed and every man bent to the task at hand. After a few minutes a great cry went up. Coluber looked eagerly into the Hololith as the image came into focus, excitement building within him, only to be cruelly dashed. Amid a gathering of Ghost Crusade ships hung a starfort, an immense bastion of armour and guns and engines. It was resolute and defiant in the black of night, its walls standing against the worst the universe could throw at it. The Serpens Rex, as proud and noble as he had imagined. Yet that defiance was a hollow boast, for the base was a wreck.
Coluber's eyes scoured the image and saw the base had suffered terrible wounds. The mighty bastion's walls were shattered, blown into rubble by weapons of dread power. Holes large enough to fly a frigate through drilled in one side and out the other of the base, leaving clear tunnels bored through its mass. The docking piers were snarled tangles of wreckage and the outer guns had been ripped from their braces. The four cathedral-drydocks, big enough to berth a Battlebarge, had been torn to splinters. The shield vanes were kindling, the engines cold and the holy shrines reduced to gaping craters. The central mass must once have been a forest of skyscraper towers, but now they were truncated stumps, only one tower in the heart of it left intact. The Serpens Rex looked like the fist of a god had pummelled it into submission, and then been kicked to death as it bled out.
"Fang-Rot," Ferrac breathed in dismay, "It's ruined."
Coluber's hope burned to ash as he saw the tangled wreckage that had once been a starfort and he sighed, "All this way, all those years of searching, only to find this."
"Maybe it's salvageable," Shrios pondered, "Nathanal?"
The mortal was staring into a console and mused, "Without getting in there to examine the superstructure I can't say. The surface damage is catastrophic but if the Adamantium bones are intact it may hold together. I will have to... oh, this odd… a faint power emission. It's barely there but there is a trickle of energy flowing. Perhaps one of the reactors is still ticking over, its not quite as dead as it looks."
Warily Coluber asked, "Assuming you can get it moving, how long will you need?"
"Days, weeks, months, decades," Nathanal guessed, "If the superstructure is sound, if the drives are intact, if the reactors can be awoken and if I can bodge some manoeuvring thrusters into alignment it might be possible to steer the base out of here."
Shrios turned to Coluber and said, "That's a lot of 'ifs'. Perhaps we should give this up as a lost cause and take a more modest prize. A couple of those Strike Cruisers we passed seemed repairable."
Coluber sighed, "I am loathe to admit it but you may be right. A single Strike Cruiser would still be the greatest advance we have known since Athelling. Two would have seemed a miracle only a few years ago."
Their debate was cut short as Ferrac suddenly shouted, "Horus' Blood! Contact! We have an active contact closing. It's moving under its own power and its heading this way fast, damned fast."
"Sound general quarters!" Coluiber shouted, "All hands to action stations. Raise shields, run out the guns, Primus Cohort to the launch bays!"
Furious activity broke out as the crew ran to obey and he knew across the Flotilla chattels would be loading macrocannons, stirring void shields to life and closing blast doors. The Amber Vipers themselves would be running to their posts, ready to defend their ships against boarding parties and Primus Cohort would be preparing to launch a counter-offensive. The full might of the Chapter would be readying itself but Coluber was keenly aware of how lacking their firepower was, everything he commanded was not a match for one Battlebarge.
Nathanal was wrestling with a surveyor and he muttered, "Come on, resolve the image. Omnissiah damn you… no, I don't care if you think it's not really there… show me what you've got."
"Nathanal?" Coluber asked as he gripped the rail of his Dias.
"One second," the chattel muttered, "There, I've got an image."
The Hololith flickered and cleared to show a vessel closing, bigger and more powerful than anything Coluber had ever dreamed. It was a colossus of black metal and dark stone, thickly armoured around the engine blocks and mounted by a serried Pyramid where the bridge should be. Its prow was a great arc of black stone threaded with golden veins, a crescent fifteen kilometres across, as wide as an Imperial Battleship was long. It could fit the entire flotilla into the space between its prongs with room to spare and the idea of confronting such a foe seemed laughable. Coluber felt dread as he had never known creep over him, the sight of the vessel like seeing a monster of ancient myth brought to life. A void-farer's tale of extinct horrors from the dawn of time closing upon him with terrifying alacrity.
"Tombship," Coluber breathed in horror.
Nathanal exclaimed, "Look how it moves! That monster could outrun a torpedo destroyer. It's like inertia isn't even a factor for them. Energy emissions like nothing I've ever seen before, some form of inertialess drive."
"Orders?" Shrios asked quietly.
Coluber set his jaw and commanded, "All vessels lock on target and prepare a coordinated broadside, I want the entire flotilla to fire as one."
Shrios leaned in and whispered, "You know all that will do is piss them off."
Coluber knew it but stated, "I am Astartes, it is not in my nature to die with unfired rounds in my guns."
With impossible speed the Tombship closed, crossing light-seconds at near luminal velocities. An Imperial vessel would have taken minutes to close but the Necrons covered the distance in moments. Coluber's eyes widened as he thought the enemy intended to ram them but at the last instant the Tombship decelerated. In one second it went from near light-speed to a relative halt just off the port bow. It was impossible, the inertial forces involved should have ripped the ship apart, spreading its wreckage over half the stellar system but the Necron vessel was completely untroubled. It ignored physical laws as if they simply did not apply, changing speed and direction with total disdain for the rules of space travel all lesser species must obey.
Coluber found himself confronted by a vast battleship sitting off his bow at point-blank range and he drew in a breath to give the order to fire. But before he could do so golden arcs of power surged out of the prow crescent of the tombship. Coruscating beams of blinding light intersected in the dead space of the middle, merging together to form a dazzling sphere of energy. Like a star in the night it blazed for a single second, painful to look upon, then it exploded outwards, expanding in all directions to engulf the Flotilla.
The Wyvern's bridge rocked wildly and chattels went flying as the whole ship lurched in space. Coluber held on for dear life as he roared, "What hit us?!"
Nathanal yelled, "Some form of Stella Pulsar, the cogitators think we've been struck by a solar flare. Shields are down, all ship's shields are down!"
"Return fire!" Coluber bellowed.
Before a single shot could be fired the Tombship glimmered greenly and then the Hololith shut down, every console plunging into darkness. Then they began flickering randomly, fitzing and shorting out with no rhyme or reason. Screams arose as chattels panicked and Coluber barked, "Report!"
"Remote energy drain," Nathanal hollered as he punched a flickering console, "We've lost main power, guns are unable to fire, engines dead, life-support coming and going at will."
"Launch Primus Cohort," Coluber snarled.
"No good," Nathanal cried, "The hanger bay doors aren't responding, we can't even open them."
"We're dead in the water," Coluber whispered, "And we didn't even get to fire a single shot. Not one shot."
"What do we do?" Shrios asked in dread.
Coluber had no answer for him, his ships were helpless and the Necrons could finish them off with a single volley. The Amber Vipers were at the enemy's mercy and he knew well Xenos had no mercy. Yet just as death seemed certain Ferrac's head snapped about and he called, "Intruder alert, decks fifty through seventy-five. We're being boarded!"
"Not just us," Nathanal added, "Every ship is voxing the same alert."
There was no time to ask why the Necrons chose to board, when they could kill the Amber Vipers from afar. There was only the fight at hand and Coluber drew Venom as he voxed, "All Brothers engage and repulse the invaders. Make the price of your lives high, if we are to die let us make sure the enemy knows they've been in a damned fight!"