Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 103

The Vox had gone silent, there was no more word from the Snakelet-scouts and that concerned Coluber. He barrelled down a corridor at full pelt, ceramite boots ringing in the echoing expanse. His helm's autosenses penetrated the darkness easily, sketching monochrome images in his vision thanks to a beam of stablight. He vaulted overturned munition trucks and ducked under fallen girders, not letting anything slow him down. Brothers were in danger and he would not abandon them.

Behind Battle-Captain Ferrac and Brother-Exemplars Vardat and Seyda kept pace, power armoured legs sending them bounding forward with great leaps. They had been touring the lower reaches of the Serpens Rex, making plans for future rebuilding and defence strategies for the Necron's return, when the distress call had come in. Brother-Sergeant Ashpen had reported a possible Necron construct, maybe some sentinel left behind in case of intruders, then there had been nothing but silence.

Coluber kept up a furious pace as he voxed, "Ashpen, come in. Report status."

Only silence returned and Ferrac snarled, "They've run into trouble."

Coluber snarled, "I shouldn't have sent them in so blithely, I should have expected a trap."

Ferrac rebuked, "You afford to can't start second-guessing yourself."

Coluber retorted, "Yes I can. I was too entranced by our new prize. Too busy dreaming of this place's glory to stop and think anything dangerous could be lurking in these depths. If those Snakelets are dead it's my fault."

One step behind Vardat interjected, "Anaxar squad are five minutes out, we should wait for reinforcements."

But Coluber snapped, "I'm not leaving my Brothers to die!"

They suddenly spied a wide door ahead and the four dove inside. Weapons were in hand as they raced through the entrance, only to pull up short when they emerged on the other side. Passing through a thick passage they emerged into a high vault, filled with rows of empty storage racks. One glance told Coluber this was an armoury for the most lethal of weapons, the wards and baffles lining the walls proclaiming how overdesigned this facility was to keep a dangerous arsenal secure. Yet what drew his eye was the cold body laid out on the ground.

Ferrac, Vardat and Seyda took up guard positions as Coluber knelt to examine the body. It was a Snakelet-scout, clad in carapace armour and with a respirator hanging under his chin. A shotgun lay next to his gloved hand, cold and unfired. Coluber reached out and rolled the corpse over, only to grimace under his helm as he saw it was Sergeant Asphen. One of the least promising and unimpressive of his generation, but still an Amber Viper. His face was limp and his eyes open, staring at something only the dead would ever see. A Brother in arms killed by an unknown foe. Self-recrimination rose in Coluber's gullet but he shoved that aside, Ferrac was right there was no time for second-guessing, they had to find what had killed the scouts and destroy it.

Coluber hissed, "Dead, but there are no signs of injury or weapon strikes. It's like he lay down to die."

Ferrac hissed, "I know of only a handful of ways to kill without leaving a mark… none of them good."

"Stablight's off, vox only," Coluber ordered as he stood up, "Search by pairs, flush the enemy out and converge."

Seyda and Vardat nodded and took up their Burst-lances as they went left and disappeared behind a row of shelves. Ferrac and Coluber went right and the darkness enveloped them. Autosenses described wireframe images of the empty racks but Coluber's hearing was more useful in the dark. Power armour was not famed for its quietness, armour purred as servo-motors flexed and his backpack thrummed, yet over the growling he heard a thumping beat, like something metallic striking a hard floor.

Over a closed vox link he said, "Something's in here with us."

Ferrac hefted his axe-rake and sledgehammer gun as he replied, "I hear it too. It's big, but oddly quiet. It knows the layout of this place and it's stalking us."

Coluber held Venom loosely in his grip as they advanced down a long row. He could still hear something moving in the distance but the noises were echoing wrong, muffled and distorted in a way he had never experienced. A mortal would have lied to themselves that they were imagining it, that the sound was only their fear manifesting, but Coluber knew better. He was in danger, they all were, a lifetime of war told him he was being hunted and he trusted his instincts. Yet for all his keen senses the foe was somehow masking its presence. It could be only one rack over and he wouldn't see it.

Suddenly he spied lumpy forms ahead, two Snakelet-scouts laying dead in the row. One had been electrocuted, the other affixed to a jagged spar of metal over their heads. The deaths were oddly crude for Necron weaponry and Coluber eyed the bodies with suspicion saying, "They made a fight of it, but a short one."

"Look how high up that one is, whatever did this was big," Ferrac hissed.

Coluber didn't know but asked, "Still got that melta-bomb?"

"Course I do," Ferrac scoffed.

"Good, we're going to need it."

Once more they set off, heading deeper into the vault. Coluber spied places where weapons of unspeakable power had once rested, now empty and void. Was there anything left in this vault he would have turned the entire place over to the Cerberii, but it seemed the contents had been used up. Virus-bombs capable of devouring all life, cyclonic torpedoes to set atmospheres alight, World-breaking magma-melta warheads designed to drive a molten core into catastrophic frenzy, all useless against the Necrons. The original Amber Vipers had unloaded everything they had and yet the Dyson Sphere was still here, a most troublesome truth.

Coluber forced his thoughts back to the here and now as the pair came to the end of the row and found a strange device before them. It was a pedestal, about a metre high and ringed by upright columns and sitting under the shadow of an overhanging projector. It was certainly Imperial in make, the snaking cables covering the floor and the purity seals and blessed cogs attested to that and it still flickered with errant lights as it powered down.

"Stasis-field generator," Coluber breathed, "Used to store the most lethal ordnance… or a lone watchman left to guard against intruders."

"This must be the source of the power drain," Ferrac muttered, "But why would the Necrons bother to use Imperial technology? They have their own devices."

"I'm not sure," Coluber demurred but at the back of his mind a nasty suspicion was starting to form.

Suddenly there was an almighty screech from the other side of the vault and the unmistakable crackling of contact Volkite fields flaring. Coluber's head spun about as he heard the Brother-Exemplars engaging something. He instantly leapt into a run as he heard mechanical grinding noises and cries of defiance from the Exemplars. Whatever they were fighting was large enough to trouble two of the finest blades in the Chapter and he was determined to get there before it was over.

"Vardat! Seyda! Come in," Coluber voxed.

"We've engaged the enemy!" Seyda roared, "It's not what we thought… its…"

The vox cut off and Ferrac snarled, "They need help," as he triggered his jump-pack.

"No wait!" Coluber barked but Ferrac was already leaping over the storage racks, soaring high on wings of fire.

Coluber gritted his teeth as he raced on, skidding around the next row and dashing up its length. It took an eternity to catch up and he cursed every step of the way. Finally he caught up and found Ferrac standing over Seyda and Vardat. The Brother-Exemplars were laid out on the floor, Burst-lances inches from their unmoving gauntlets, yet a faint blinking in his helm's display told him they weren't dead. They were down but their hearts still beat, unfortunately that still left Ferrac and Coluber alone against whatever had done this.

Ferrac was examining something on the floor and said, "Look, ice covers everything but it left a track. One footprint."

Coluber looked and commented, "I see it, that's no Necron."

"But it's as big as my chest!"

Coluber nodded, "But look at the shape. That's Imperial make, we're fighting something human-made."

Ferrac looked about suspiciously as he muttered, "Some form of servitor battle-automaton. Something the original Amber Vipers left behind in stasis, in case someone came poking around?"

"That's my guess," Coluber answered.

"Let's get after it," Ferrac snapped.

"No!" Coluber rebuked, "This thing has been leading us in circles. I'm done playing its game, I want to draw it to us. I'll expose it while you lay a trap. Climb that rack there and keep the Melta-bomb handy."

Ferrac nodded and pulled himself hand over hand up a rack, then lay flat on its top. Meanwhile Coluber strode to a T-junction and planted his feet squarely. He could see all directions clearly, nothing should be able to sneak up on him. He drew back his fist and slammed it against a rack, causing it to ring like a struck bell. Again and again he slammed his fist into it, then he drew his Volkite pistol and yelled, "I am here!"

Something stirred in the darkness, drawing nearer and nearer. Coluber gripped Venom in his right hand and his pistol in the left as he waited. Tension thrummed through him and he felt anticipation etching his nerves, lending him speed and strength to fight. He was on the razor's edge and he knew the enemy was close, so close now he could almost smell it.

Suddenly there was a scuffle to the right, a strange noise that made him want to turn and look. An impulse to gaze right nearly consumed him but he held true, too many Brothers had been taken unawares by this foe and he was not about to be deceived, so instead he turned and looked left. What he beheld was a confused medley of impressions, a giant warrior in plate armour, a monster with its jaws open, a winged serpent diving upon him, a tank driving at full speed. His eyes refused to focus, his brain fighting conflicting impressions, but he knew the foe was upon him and he yelled, "Ferrac now!"

With a roar of fury Ferrac leapt high, jump-pack flaring brilliantly in the dark. He held his axe-rake in one hand and the Melta-bomb in the other as he dove upon the blur, screaming like a banshee. It was a fine charge and his trajectory was perfect, it should have seen him land right on top the blur yet before he could touch it a red fist shot upwards and grabbed him in mid-air. Metal fingers the size of an Astartes' leg wrapped around his chest and then hurled him aside, flinging the Battle-Captain into an empty rack and causing it to topple over with a clatter of ringing bells.

Coluber saw Ferrac go down and instantly lifted his pistol and fired. A stream of ravaging energy shot forth but bounced off a glowing force-field, deflected away by arcane science. The shot had done no harm but it shredded the veil of deception and Coluber beheld his enemy truly. Arms and legs made of pistons held aloft a smooth Sarcophagus wrapped in beautiful iconography. Curved shoulders as broad as his breastplate were etched with serpents and a glowing sensor-dome lurked under a rising cowl formed into the semblance of a serpentine head. Thick armour bore ornate calligraphy, plates were burnished to a sheen and the Imperial Aquila stood proud over its frontage. One arm was a crackling power fist and the other a glowing Katana blade, longer than a mortal man and wide enough to cleave a tank in half. Coluber's jaw fell as he realised how utterly wrong they had been about the nature of their foe and he gasped, "Dreadnought… Contemptor-Dreadnought."

"Frakking die!" Ferrac roared as he bounded to his feet and leapt at the war machine.

"No!" Coluber yelled but the Dreadnought moved like lightning, faster than it had any business doing. The blade swung wide and caught Ferrac in mid-jump, the flat slamming into him and sending him skidding away in a tangle of broken bones.

Coluber spent a millisecond considering calling out their allegiance to Terra and pleading for the fight to stop but knew it was useless. This war machine, this ancient survivor of the original Amber Vipers, had spent millennia waiting for intruders to break in and would not listen to reason. No plea could turn him from his course and he would not stop until all he encountered were dead. So Coluber lifted Venom high and ran straight at the towering war machine as he cried, "Ave Imperator!"

He managed three whole steps before his charge was arrested. From nowhere chains of invisible force wrapped around his limbs, binding his arms and tangling his legs. Bonds he could not see wrapped around him and before he could process that fact he was hoisted off the ground, dangled helplessly in mid-air like a puppet on a string. He could not move, he could not fight and his armour was etched in ice as an aura of power crackled around the Dreadnought's headpiece.

Coluber had thought his shock could grow no deeper but he was stunned as he realised he was looking at a legend, no, the ghost of a legend. His throat convulsed as he whispered, "Osiron…"

The Dreadnought turned to glare at him as he dangled helplessly in the air and for the first time it spoke, a mechanical growl defaming, "Unworthy renegades, bandits and thieves in my house!"

Coluber could only stare in horrified amazement as he gasped, "Who are you?!"

The next words turned his world upside-down as the Dreadnought proclaimed, "I am Chief Librarian Maru Kysoto and you are trespassing in my home."

Coluber couldn't form a reply, his mind stupefied. He could only hang limply in the psychic chains and then telepathic knives sank into his brain and took him away from consciousness, dragging him into a dream world and all else was lost to his sight.