Tales of the Amber Viper Chapter 109
Doom scythes fell screaming from above, crescent-shaped wings blocking out the light with their bulk. They howled like the souls of the damned, their repulsor drives tearing air apart with piercing shrieks. Armies had collapsed in terror at the noise of their passing, primitive brains wracked by hypersonic assaults of noise that reduced the bravest to quivering tears. Under their flanks hung tesla destructors and Death Rays, weapons that had shattered fortresses and brought down the mightiest of enemies in ages before Mankind had dropped from the trees of Terra.
Glord saw the blizzard of icons in the auspex screen and responded by ramming the throttle wide open. Doombringer roared as the plasma drives ignited, throwing the cumbersome craft into the sky. They left the tower in their wake as he jammed the levers into the red, imploring the Machine Spirit for more speed. In his hands the control stick jumped as stubby control surfaces creaked under the strain of acceleration, yet he held true as he fought for altitude. He was pressing Doombringer to the limit but the distance in the auspex was shrinking, the Necron fighters were faster and far more manoeuvrable, they would overhaul the lumbering craft in under a minute.
From the rear turrets Joffel shouted, "Can't this tub go any faster?!"
Glord snapped irately, "This thing flies like a brick in the atmosphere!"
From the port side turret Reddam called, "Jam them again!"
In the co-pilot's seat Brother Berio was working the operations systems, managing the baffles and weapons arrays with practised skill, and he explained, "The Cadmus-robot is attempting to infiltrate their Binaric processes but is denied system access. The Necrons have a countermeasure to the Scrapcode and locked us out."
"That was bloody fast," Glord growled as he wrestled for more speed.
"We're not dead yet," Reddam barked, "Get ready here they come!"
From behind Necrons struck, the first wave falling upon them with flashes of lightning spitting from under their wings. Glord felt the controls leap in his hands as Doombringer was struck multiple times, the thick armour on the dorsal side gouged by eldritch energies. He rolled and turned, trying to evade the worst but had no idea if he was succeeding. Meanwhile the las-talons thrummed, spitting back at the attackers.
Glord heaved the nose about, wrestling with the ponderous inertia of the dropship and as he did so a Necron ripped past. Glord had a perfect view, the dark hull sweeping forward like a claw and the rear shimmering with dimensional drive energies. The cockpit was completely exposed, leaving the pilot without any form of pressurisation or protection from the freezing wind. But then the Undying Necrons had no requirement for niceties like oxygen or heat.
It flew out of sight in an instant and Glord yelled, "Did we hit anything?!"
Tebes was firing the starboard tas-talon as he shouted, "Auspex is going haywire, they're confounding the Spirits of the targeting arrays."
"Launch chaff!" Glord bellowed.
"I just did," Berio retorted as bursts of glittering particles bloomed around them, "It's having no effect, nor the Auspex baffles, nothing works against Necron technology."
Frantically Joffel snarled, "It's worse than fighting bloody Eldar!"
Yet Reddam bellowed back, "Switch off your targeting arrays and aim manually. Keep firing and fill the sky with las!"
As the turrets blazed Glord rolled the dropship right and he snarled, "I'm lining up for a shot."
"Ready," Berio stated as he gripped the controls of the laser destroyers.
Glord saw flurries of crescent wings fill his view, enemies darting everywhere. He focused on one and set it right before the nose. The fighter jittered in his view but he heaved the stick back and forth as he sought a clean shot. Twin lances of las fire speared from under the wings, shearing straight through a curved flank and sending the foe tumbling away. It spun as it fell, disappearing from view and making Glord's heart soar, but his elation was short-lived as a half-dozen more fell from on high, weapons blazing.
The dropship shuddered as hit after hit carved over its back and Glord threw the controls wildly about as he snarled, "Our armour's thick but we can't last forever."
Calm as ice Berio stated, "Incoming three o'clock high, massive energy spike."
Glord threw the stick left and the nose heaved over, turning them away just as the Necron fired its Death Ray. The collimated energy shot past a hairsbreadth from their hull and plunged into the metal plain below. The weapon was designed to lay low armies and break open city gates and it punched through the floor like it was nothing, and ten levels below that, leaving a gaping hole in the plain that dripped molten metal.
"What was that?!" Glord yelped.
"Unknown," Berio stated, "But we cannot survive one single hit from that weapon."
Glord knew it was true and desperately looked for an escape route but it was too late. Swarms of fighters circled overhead, cutting off the sky and the void beyond. They seemed content to block any escape, denying the Amber Vipers a means of getting free while a score of Necrons darted in and out, picking them apart one shot at a time. The dropship was trapped between the sky and the plain, unable to run or fight. Her hull streamed las-fire but it was only delaying the inevitable, they were done for.
"We're trapped!" Joffel yelled.
"I know that," Glord snarled.
"Keep firing!" Reddam shouted, "Don't stop firing no matter what!"
Then Berio stated, "We've got one on our six, closing fast."
Glord saw only one chance so he heaved the dropship left and pushed the drive to maximum as he flew towards a metal wall. The barrier swelled in his sight, becoming a mountainside that they were flying straight towards. The Auspex chimed as the enemy closed nearer and he growled, "Come on, closer, closer."
"What are you doing?!" Larus shouted from the back.
"Shut up and let me fly," Glord hissed as the wall loomed ever nearer, promising certain death.
For another second they flew on, trailed by enemy fighters and Glord thought they would slam into the wall and die. Yet suddenly the auspex screamed an alert. Before Berio could speak Glord's hand slammed onto the anti-grav controls and cut the power. Doombringer dropped like a stone, losing altitude at the exact moment the Necron fired. Glowing green energy shot over their heads and struck the wall, chewing through it in moments. The exterior wall of the Dyson Sphere was punctured and air howled out of the breach, blown into the cold void of space.
Glord instantly threw the anti-grav back to full power and heaved back on the controls. The dropship's nose rose but slowly, too slowly. The hole was too high for them to reach and their rate of climb was too slow, they were going to hit the wall regardless. Glord gritted his teeth and pulled back hard, standing Doombringer on its end and blasting the plasma drive to maximum in a desperate attempt to avoid death.
"Come on, climb… climb damn you," He snarled through his clenched jaw and watched the hole inching nearer. Each heartbeat stretched out to eternity as he fought the controls and he sweated as he saw the edge of the gap slicing towards them. Closer, so close he couldn't tell if they would make it or not. Then with a second to spare the outrushing air grabbed the dropship and yanked it upwards, granting them two whole precious centimetres of clearance. The slab-like walls flashed by and then they were in open space.
Glord breathed out in relief as he beheld the stars once more, backlight by the blazing corona of the red sun they were hanging over. It lay behind them and Glord hurriedly flicked switches as he declared, "Shutting down aero-systems, engaging void thrusters."
"May the Omnissiah look upon these humble supplicants and grant us the blessing of spaceflight," Berio intonded solemnly as he secured the systems.
There were gasps of relief as Joffel called, "That was too close."
"I thought you were going to kill us," Larus accused.
"So did I," Glord exhaled, "Thankfully the Emperor Protects."
It was a moment of relief, but then Kazao's head rose up a ladder and he cried, "Don't be stupid, they'll never let us go so easily. We're not safe yet!"
Glord's eyes jumped to the Auspex and he saw blizzards of Necron Fighters rising from the Dyson Sphere. They burst from the false sky and soared into the void, their dimensional drives even faster in the vacuum of space than they had been in atmosphere. Glord's jaw fell but his hands returned to the controls and he pushed the dropship to the maximum. In the void it was far more responsive but still totally outmatched by the Necron fighters.
"Frak!" Glord cursed, "Nobody said those mother-loving Grox-fondlers could fly in space!"
"What in the name of sanity made you think they couldn't?!" Kazao snapped.
Glord fought for more speed as they inched out of the Gravity well of the star but one glance told him the Necrons were closing faster than they could fly. Yet suddenly Berio ordered, "Turn our rear to them and fly straight."
"What?!" Glord yelped.
"Do it," Berio commanded.
Glord obeyed instantly and flew away from the Necrons as Berio hit a control. There was a loud clunk as something detached from the right wing and fell behind, coasting on inertia as the dropship thrust away. Glord watched in puzzlement as the object fell behind, shrinking into the distance as they flew on. The Necrons overhauled it in moments, sailing past without pause. Hundreds of them were closing on the Astartes' craft in a hurricane of curved wings, a wave of death that would end them once and for all. Glord saw the Amber Vipers had seconds left to live and that was when the object exploded.
Light, heat, radiation and electro-magnetic hurricanes were born, engulfing the bulk of the Necrons in a nucleonic detonation. Caught in the heart of an explosion that could level a city living metal liquefied and dissolved. Even Those further out suffered, wings deforming and hulls shattering as their systems were overloaded. As one they shimmered and vanished, phasing out to return to their vaults for repair.
The dropship was far away but not distant enough to escape the blast. Glord felt the controls jerk and the nose spun as the rear armour melted, the plasma drives spluttering as they fought to stay functional. His left hand danced as he fed power into them, muttering curses under his breath and his right fought the control stick. After agonising seconds the nose righted and he spat, "What was that?!"
Berio calmly restarted the auspex as he stated, "A little token of Imperial esteem: an Atomonic charge."
"He set off an Atomonic bomb on our arses!" Joffel howled, "You're mad! The Cerberii are mad!"
"Shut up, it worked," Reddam snapped, "Look alive we're not clear yet."
Glord saw more fighters closing, coming in from further afield. Fresh enemies, eager for the kill. Yet Berio ordered, "Head for the nearest hulk." Glord was past asking why and steered for the nearest wreck. Any meaningful distance in the void was measured in tens of thousands of kilometres and Glord sweated every second of the way, sure that the enemy would catch up before they got there.
The hulk swelled into being, some strange conurbation of dead spheres and rods, held together by spindly wires and cables. It looked like a spider's web set adrift in the void, so delicate and frail compared the dense armour covering human spacecraft. Glord had never seen any race that built in this fashion and he could only guess who its makers were and how they sailed the stars. It certainly didn't look robust enough to endure the nightmare of the Warp.
Berio pointed an armoured finger into the heart of the web and said, "Get us right in there. Everybody in the hold, get out if you want to live." Glord glanced at the auspex and saw the Necorns would be here in under a minute but complied, steering them into the maze of shafts and broken cables at a glacial pace. Shorn debris slapped on the hull, leaving wet trails of lubricant, still liquid in the cool void and microscopic debris rattled like rain on a window.
His nose wrinkled but Berio said, "There, right under that cleft plate, turn us about and set us down." Glord was baffled but he did as bid, steering them under the overhang until the battered rear clanged against tangled wreckage. Then Berio hurriedly cut the drives and the Auspex, silencing all signs of life.
Glord floated weightlessly in his restraints and hissed, "Hiding here won't fool them."
"It's not supposed to," Berio stated, "Be quiet."
Glord clamped his mouth shut and waited. A few moments later the wreckage around them heaved, struck from beyond by Necron weapon fire. The whole structure swayed like a leaf in the wind, moving under the impacts of hostile energy blasts. A girder swung down and smacked into the dropship's top, ringing the hull like a bell and Glord felt his hearts leap into his mouth. This pathetic camouflage would never fool the superior technology of the Necrons. This was madness, utter madness.
"Whatever's you're doing you better do it fast," Glord hissed.
"Patience," Berio stated, "Wait for it…"
Suddenly the whole structure leapt as something big smashed into it and Berio hit a series of controls saying, "Sealing hold, opening bay door."
Doombringer rocked back into the wall as the ramp opened, spraying atmosphere into the void. The evacuating air took the piled metal in the hold with it and the bodies stored within. Tangled plasteel and ceramite mixed with cleaved body parts and frozen limbs spilled into the void, spreading out in a diffuse cloud. The debris mixed with the spinning web of alien architecture, bouncing off shattered spars and knocked further out into space.
"That's your plan?" Glord breathed, "I don't know whether to laugh or cry."
Berio affirmed, "It should look like we broke up under their fire, there's enough debris to fool them."
Glord squinted as he said, "Those are Astartes bodies, you dumped honoured Brother's remains as a decoy!"
"It had to look realistic," Berio sniffed, "Now we wait."
Glord bit down on an insult and muttered, "This will never work."
Yet from outside the cockpit Kazao interjected, "Actually it might, the common Necrons don't seem too smart. It's only the lords who showed intelligence. If those pilots are common rank and file, then they might be fooled."
Joffel added, "If it looks stupid but it works, it isn't stupid."
Glord sank down in his seat and sighed, "No Auspex… I guess we wait as long our air allows. Then shuffle out to have a look to see if they're gone."
With that Doombringer went dark, waiting for the Necrons to pass over and trusting that their ruse would work. Only time would tell if the Undying had been fooled, until that moment came to pass all they could do was wait.