Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 93
The Peregrine rang with alarms, tinny blares of distress filling the corridors. Lighting flickered erratically as power was drained from systems, then restored, then drained again. Air recyclers spluttered and fitted as they struggled to keep the crew alive and servitors spasmed with seizures as their brains were robbed of Motive Force. Through it all came the screams of the Chattels, filled with dread and the conviction that their doom had come.
Glord sensed the panic in the air as he jogged past the wailing mortals, leaving them in his wake as he ran towards danger. In his hands he bore a drum-fed Heavy Bolter, his customary weapon. It was a bulky and awkward weight but he bore it stoically as he ran. A pair of mortals would have struggled to lift it, let alone walk, but Glord was Transhuman and he hefted the awkward weight without complaint. He wasn't about to leave it behind, by all accounts they were going to need it.
Before him ran the rest of the squad, bearing their weapons in tight grips. He knew them all well, each weapon complementing the wielder's fighting style. Larus and his poisoned knives, Kazao and his Krieg-pattern grenade launcher, Joffel and his chitin bonesword. Tebes hefted a doughty mining pick and Sergeant Reddam held his shining power spear aloft, leading the way. With such weapons had the squad bested heretics and rebels and Orks on a dozen worlds, proving their superiority each time. Yet never had they been tested against a foe as alien as the Necrons and Glord was troubled that they may not prove enough.
As they ran he called to Larus, "How are you going to poison them? They're some form of automaton."
Larus brandished a glistening knife and spat, "I was planning on ramming this into an eyesocket, poison or not that should do the trick."
"Automatons?" Tebes asked, "Like the Cadmus Robots?"
"Not nearly so warm and cuddly," Reddam snarled.
"Any chance the Cerberii will deploy?" Larus enquired.
"You'd call on them to fight?!" Glord exclaimed in surprise.
"Right now I'm feeling kindly disposed to having some Fission-Blasters at my back," Larus muttered.
Reddam spat in vexation, "Forget them, we'll confront these Necrons with the weapons we have and destroy them!"
"I hope so," came a breathless voice from behind. That was Schwift, the old smuggler running behind them. For a withered ancient he had a surprising turn of speed and had managed to keep up with the Amber Vipers, though his breathing was becoming ragged. He carried a pair of laspistols in his hands and by the looks of things the mortal knew how to use them.
"I thought we told you to stay on the bridge!" snapped Joffel.
"Ain't staying all alone," Schwift gasped, "Reckon safest place is right by you lads."
Glord was annoyed but Reddam barked, "Stow the chatter, boarders are three decks down. We have to get there before they slaughter the entire crew!"
The Peregrine was only a small ship and the squad make quick work of the journey. They descended cargo ramps and crew stairwells, dropping within the bulk of the ship. Ahead came terrified screams, the sounds of men and women dying in unspeakable agony. It was the wail of the damned and Glord knew the scene was being repeated across the flotilla, on every ship the Amber Vipers owned. The Necron ship had disabled the entire Flotilla as easily as switching off a lumen orb, leaving the humans helpless. He could not do anything about the situation though, all he could do was fight.
The squad burst out of a stairwell only to encounter a rushing stream of humanity, chattels desperately fleeing from something behind them. Glord felt impacts crash into him as rioting people fled for their lives. The impacts would have bowled over a mortal man but Glord braced his feet and held firm, standing against the tide. Fearful Chattels fought each other to get past him and one man slammed bodily into him, dazing himself with the impact. Glord was about to throw him aside but before he could move there was a flash of green light and the mortal was struck by something from behind.
Glord has never heard of Gauss weapons but he was about to witness their horrific effects firsthand. Time seemed to slow before Glord's eyes as he beheld the man starting to unravel. First his hair began to crumble, falling off his head even as it flaked into dust. His clothes followed suit, fraying apart as green light ripped their atomic bonds asunder, scraps of cloth falling off as they dissolved into nothingness. Skin and muscle followed next, offering no more resistance than the clothes had. Perfect anatomical details were revealed as the outer layers of the man boiled off, ripped away one atom at a time. Capillaries, nerves and sinews were exposed, only to vanish a second later, blood evaporating in mid-air so not a drop touched the floor. Then all that was left was a screaming skeleton, standing upright before Glord as it crumbled into ash and blew away like smoke in the wind. Where the man had stood was nothing, absolutely no trace he had ever existed remained and all this had taken two seconds to occur.
Glord's jaw dropped in horror and beyond he caught his first glimpse of the Necrons. Hunch-backed forms of glistening silver stood in a wide corridor. There was no trace of skin or muscle anywhere upon them, only metallic bone was evident. Ribs and pelvis and vertebrae were visible and their faces were blank metal masks with grim slits for mouths. In their hands were black rifles fitted with glowing green crystals, with curved blades handing from the barrels to give them a scythe-like appearance. They looked like skeletons dipped in silver but in their eyes burned a spark of intellect, cold and cruel and filled with hatred. To look upon them was to feel the ancient malice of a race that had ruled the stars while humans still swung from trees and their arrogant disdain had not lessened one jot since.
The Necron warriors saw the Space Marines arriving and glowing Gauss rifle swung to bear but Glord was faster. He mashed the trigger of his Heavy Bolter and opened fire. Thunderous booms let rip as the weapon spewed Mass-reactive shells, filling the corridor with fiery contrails and exploding rounds. Bolt shells struck silver bodies and burrowed deeply within, detonating in sprays of liquid metal. Ribs were penetrated and blown outwards, limbs shorn free and hips demolished and the ten Necrons staggered under the onslaught, many falling to the ground. Glord held on to his juddering weapon, the recoil shaking his bones and making his teeth rattle in his jaw as he bellowed, "Die Xenos scum!"
Ceaselessly he fired, drowning the Necrons in shells until at last the drum ran dry and silence fell. Warily Glord looked upon his handiwork, yearning to know how many he had killed, but to his horror the Necrons weren't dying. As he watched liquid metal shimmered across their bodies, tendrils of mercury reaching across gaping holes to close wounds. Craters disappeared, bones reformed and dented skulls righted themselves before his eyes as the Necron regenerated. He even saw an arm extend liquid tendrils towards the shoulder it had been blown from, joining together as if nothing had ever happened. Glord couldn't believe his eyes, he had emptied an entire drum of ammunition at the Necrons and failed to kill a single one. They were all rising to their feet, and bringing their dread weapons to bear.
Glord stood aghast but Reddam suddenly leapt last him, spearpoint flying as he roared, "Take them in melee!" The Sergeant dove in among the undying foe, spear flashing as he disappeared into the press of enemies. The squad followed suit, yelling defiance as they closed. Joffel was first to strike, his bonesword cleaving a viscous gouge down a Necron's flank. Again he struck and again, each time tearing long furrows into the metal body but each time they closed over a second later, leaving no impression. In return the Necron swung its blade at him, forcing him to dodge lest he be gutted.
Larus threw himself at a Necron, knives stabbing deeply into the chest. Hissing wounds were left as the poison on the edges ate at living metal but the wounds were no slower to close and toxic chemicals that had laid low hundreds were shrugged off like raindrops. Meanwhile Kazao reversed his grip on his grenade launcher and clubbed a Necron about the head with a blow that would have staved in a human skull. The Necron merely paused for a moment as the dent in its head corrected itself, then it tried to cut off his legs with a low sweep. Behind them Schwift proved worse than useless, firing wildly into the air and hitting nothing but wall.
It was Tebes who was having the greatest success, the flat side of his mining pick catching a Necron in the side and making broken ribs sag inwards. A reverse swing sank the pointed side into its heart and made it stagger, limbs trembling with vibrations like it had palsy. Tebes roared in anger as he gathered his strength and came at it with a roundhouse blow, smashing the head clean from the shoulders and making it fly away. The Necron collapsed to the floor and as it did so it shimmered with green light, a strange rippling passing over it like wind on a still pond. Then it faded away, phasing out to nothingness like it had never been there.
Joffel desperately parried a scything blade and shouted, "Frak, these things don't die right!"
"Herd them to me!" Reddam yelled.
Glord twisted to look and saw the Sergeant was indeed inflicting fierce wounds. His blazing power spear was rending through metal limbs and smashing bodies apart, showers of sparks flying from every blow. The spear's crackling energy field seemed to be countering the Necron's regenerative effect, not negating it by any means but inflicting such gaping wounds that it took much longer for the Necrons to undo the damage. The wounds slowed their motions, leaving them limp and disabled, vulnerable for a follow-up blow. He took full advantage of their injuries to plunge his spear tip into eyes and hearts, or places hearts should have been, and when he did so Necrons would collapse and phase out completely.
He had already eliminated two Necrons and the squad changed tactics, herding the Necrons into a confined space and keeping them distracted so Reddam could finish them off. The tide seemed set to turn but suddenly Glord saw a pair of green eyes fix upon him as a Necron lurched at him. The heavy weapon trooper had been hanging back, looking for a shot as he reloaded but was forced to throw himself backwards as a silver blade passed inches from his head. The Necron was slow compared to a Space Marine but Glord's hands were full and he could not engage properly. Plus the Necron had a ponderous inevitability to its motions, a sense that nothing would stop it until it had ended his life. Worse than that was the silence, it made no battlecries or hisses of anger, it was implacable and unspeaking and all the more terrifying for it.
Glord threw himself aside, then twisted right as the Necron hacked at him, chasing him with relentless determination. He tried to kick its legs from under it but his boot made no impact, the shining knee joint as rigid as power armour. In return the scythe blade came at him again and Glord only saved himself from having his heart ripped out by lifting his Heavy Bolter to block.
The silver blade smashed through the casing of the honourable weapon, cleaving deeply within and cracking the barrel. Glord's eyes went wide at the offence to the Machine's Spirit and he heaved back, trying to wrest it free. The Necron tugged against him, resisting his efforts and the pair wrestled back and forth for supremacy. Something had to give and it turned out to be the Heavy Bolter, ripping apart as the scythe blade sheared through the barrel completely. Glord was left holding two shattered halves of his weapon and his anger surged at the death of his noble weapon. Without thought his hand flew to his belt and he ripped free his knife as he charged at the Necron shouting, "Raaagh!"
The Necron tried to block but was too slow as Glord barrelled into its mass and drove his knife into its eyesocket. Green lenses shattered as the knife plunged deep and then his finger found the trigger rune. Inside every fang was a micro-compression coil, used to eject aerosolised gas from the tip. A vial of concentrated acid was emptied as the gas flew forth, spraying corrosive chemicals straight into the Necron's brain and the warrior's head blew apart, sending dissolving chunks of metal in all directions. Glord hissed as splatters of acid painted his bare arms but the pain was worth it to see the foe shimmer and vanish, passing out and returning from whence it came.
Glord looked about and saw the squad had driven the rest of the Necrons into submission, leaving the corridor clear of foes. The last of them phased out before his eyes and then there was only silence and blood, the many wounds the squad had taken clotting over as their genhanced bodies made good their injuries. Kazao in particular had a terrible wound in his left arm, the flapping fibres of his scout-plate stained with blood and parting to reveal the scaly mutation of his skin that set him apart from his Brothers.
Glord deliberately averted his eyes and felt cuts he did not remember taking stinging as he gasped, "It's over."
Yet Larus snorted, "Ten down, Emperor alone knows how many billions more to go."
Glord looked down and lamented, "My noble Heavy Bolter…"
"Mourn later," Reddam declared, "This has barely begun."
Suddenly Schwift appeared from nowhere and asked, "Is it over?"
Glord snapped angrily, "Fat lot of good you were!"
But Reddam snapped, "Leave him, we have more reports of intruders on the next deck. Far greater in number and more are appearing every minute. Gather your strength, we will destroy every last one of them or die trying!"
With that Reddam led them to the next fight and Glord followed, vowing to exact vengeance for his lost weapon.
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