Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 116
Far below the battle the strike force sped onwards, bikes roaring with the throaty growl of promethium engines and their fat tires whirling. Six bikes, racing through the maze of the Dyson Sphere, seeking their target. They were focused and ready to fight, but so far had seen no opposition, the diversion seemed to be working.
Sitting in his sidecar Glord was amazed at how quiet the ride was. Always he had sat with one ear pressed to a growling engine, deafening him in one side and it was remarkable the way his helm's autosenses screened out the distraction. His vision was another matter, a blizzard of icons and readouts obstructing his gaze whenever he looked at anything. Reddam had reassured them it was all useful and they would get used to it, but they had not had sufficient time to learn. In the end Glord found it easier to turn them off and rely on his simple eyesight.
Power armour was remarkable in many ways, he was stunned by the real-time sensations fed to his nervous system, the boosts in strength, endurance and protection but there were downsides. Their combined weight was dragging the attack bike down hard on its suspension, making for a rougher ride. Without identifier runes turned on he was getting confused as to which Brother was which and was relying on the familiar dents and scars of their machines to tell them apart. Worst of all was that he could not feel the wind on his face, something he had never realised he enjoyed until now.
A blinking rune flashed before his eyes and he frowned. He had no idea what that meant and decided to ignore it. Unfortunately it flashed again and again and in exasperation he blink-clicked it. Instantly Larus' voice came through the internal vox, "Glord… Glord wake up!"
Glord was astonished how clear and crisp his voice was thanks to not having to shout over the engines, and he replied, "Don't shout so loud, you're on vox."
"Were you asleep?" Larus snapped.
"Still getting used to this," Glord replied.
Reddam cut in icily, "Now we're all listening, report status."
Glord gripped the Fission-blaster before him and stated, "All good."
Larus added, "Smooth and steady."
Joffel called, "Ready, willing and able."
Kazao affirmed, "My rad-counter won't stop clicking but I'm with you."
Tebes stated, "The machine spirit tolerates this offensive weapon."
Finally Berio intoned, "I stand ready to fight."
Reddam was leading their formation, his bike thundering ahead of the pack as he voxed, "Stay with me, this place is a maze and it would be too easy to get separated. We have a long way to the objective and not much time. The battle has started and Brothers die every minute we dawdle."
Glord looked about and saw the depths of the Dyson Sphere laid bare. They were passing through a vast cavern, running along a ledge sticking out high up its flanks. In those depths eldritch machines loomed, silver devices glowing with green light. Strange towers rose, black slabs of stone gleamed ominously and squatting mechanisms pulsing in disturbing ways. Glord had no idea what any of this did but he sensed the power flowing through this place, a feeling that they were vermin crawling through the rafters above some Hive World Manufactorum.
Kazao drifted closer on his black bike and called, "Is the Eye of Discord secure?"
Glord could hardly turn his head about to look over his shoulder but retorted, "Everything is in order."
"Are you sure?" Joffel probed.
But Berio cut in, "Trust me, if the containment sphere was breached we would all be dead already."
"How reassuring," Glord scoffed, "Remind me how we're going to get away before this thing blows."
Reddam growled, "A simple timed charge should suffice, then we race to the surface. The Thunderhawk Poisoned Fang is standing by to extract us."
"And if we don't get out in time?" Joffel asked.
"Then we die gloriously," Reddam declared, "Death is nothing to an Astartes when set against the success of the mission."
Glord we heartened by the declaration but then Tebes shouted, "Contact ahead!" All eyes swivelled ahead and Glord saw a lurking form hovering in the distance. It was a hunched arachnid, with many legs hanging from its bulk. It had a head with many eye-lenses and a pair of heavy arms that bore glowing energy projectors. A Canoptek Spyder the briefing slates had labelled them. It was doing something to the wall but its bulk filled the ledge end to end, there was no way around, they would have to punch through.
"Weapons hot!" Reddam ordered, and all activated their Fission-blasters. Glord stirred his heavier version with a flicked switch and grimaced at its evil whine and the red light that leaked from its charging coils. Similar in practice to plasma weapons but operating on a principle of fission energy, rather than cold-fusion, the weapons were potent but toxic implements that sprayed radiation everywhere.
The squad were hurtling towards the Necron construct at top speed and Glord lined up his sights as he whispered a chant to the Omnissiah for forgiveness in using so tainted a weapon. The distance shrank to nothing and the Spyder sensed their approach, turning to engage the invaders and bringing its glowing projectors to bear. Then Reddam barked, "Fire!"
Across the line Fission-blasters spat incandescent fury, seven crackling bolts crossing the distance in an instant. Every shot slammed home and punched deeply into the living metal, melting through the outer layers and wreaking havoc on its internal mechanisms. Necron science could repair any damage but the radiation soaked blasts seemed to interfere, leaving it struggling to cleanse the fallout left in the gaping wounds. The construct collapsed with gaping holes blown through it, reduced to a pile of slag that hit the ground and rolled over the edge to topple into the chasm.
The squad's first kill was confirmed but Glord was disgusted at the way blow-back from the Fission-blaster spread up his arms. The proud Amber colour denatured under the touch of filthy radiation, black veins crawling up his arms like cancer. He knew to continue to use these weapons would turn his plate as black as the Cerberii's and he vowed to return these guns to their vaults as soon as the mission was over. The armour he would gladly keep but there was no way he would use Fission-blasters long term.
The road took a sudden turn to the left and disappeared into the wall. The Squad zoomed around the bend and found themselves rushing through a midnight tunnel. Black stone whisked by on each side and Glord found his autosenses struggling to understand what it was seeing, the augurs unable to find any weak spot in the material. He furiously blinked the icons away a second before they shot out into another place.
This was a vast plaza, perfectly flat and smoother than glass. The distant walls were marked with strange runes, each ten-stories high and glowing faintly with internal energy. This place was far from empty, for odd machines hung in the air. Some form of glistening black obelisks, a hundred metres tall and ten to side. Strange motes of light danced under their surfaces, like fish spied under the surface of a lake, vanishing the second one tried to look at them. The Obelisks had no visible means of support, hanging ten metres off the floor in impossible stillness.
Glord opened his mouth to ask what this place could be but before he could speak an actinic green blast fell from above, ripping away a section of floor in a deep furrow. Glord's head snapped up and he spied three forms falling from above, machines unlike any he had ever seen. They were like upright circles, with a gap at the front for a Necron rider to sit within. Shimmering dimensional energies fluttered the air behind them and under their bulk hung twin gauss-cannons, glowing with latent power. They were as fast as jetbikes but their motions were crazy, random corkscrews that made them dance through the air in a state of utter bedlam.
"Scatter!" Reddam yelled and the squad veered off, tires screeching as they sought to evade. Glord was thrown aside as Larus slammed their bike to the right, diving into the shadow of one of the obelisks. The attacking Necron raiders pulled up, breaking formation to dart in separate directions. Glord had never seen anything like them, they obeyed no physical laws he understood. Their drives pushed them through the air with no regard for inertia or momentum, randomly changing angles and directions without warning, jumping up and down and sideways in ways that would have left an organic pilot dazed and sickened.
Glord fired a random blast into the air but hit nothing as he yelled, "What the Frak are these things?!"
"No idea," Reddam snarled, "These are new."
The raiders shot overhead, their pilots seemingly unfazed by their wild evasions. Fission blasts chased them as the squad tried to hit anything but every shot missed, unable to compensate for their random movements. In return green blasts tore at the black stone, leaving gaping furrows in every surface. All the squad could do was evade, darting in and out of cover, even running under the obelisks to avoid being hit.
Glord tracked another raider but before he could squeeze the trigger it shot upwards, escaping his aim with ease. He gritted his teeth but as he did so another dove from the left, blasters flaring with discharge. Glord was suddenly thrown to the side as Larus was hit, layers of his left pauldron being stripped atom by atom to expose the skin and bone beneath. It must only have been a glancing shot for his arm did not drop off but his steering wobbled as fountains of blood ran down his left flank.
"Larus!" Glord cried in alarm.
"It's nothing," Larus lied as he fought to bring the steering back under control, "Pauldron took the worst."
Glord knew his Brother was in unspeakable agony but his will was iron and he held true. It was a good job too for the raider that had hit them was coming about, corkscrewing through the air to bring its weapons to bear. Glord tried to track it but it kept dodging, its movements wild and random and completely… no, wait.
Time froze as Glord saw something, a repeating pattern to the Necron's movements. It was subtle and impossibly complex but the raider's motions weren't random, they were following a fractal equation, a computational model that was designed to appear unpredictable. No human could have discerned the pattern, the finest lexmechanics of Mars would have required hours in their cogitator stacks to deconstruct it but Glord was a Space Marine. His brain had been gene-sculpted to become the ultimate war-cogitator, able to process tactical data with the speed of Skitarii Secutor but married with the fundamentally human capacity for intuition. Glord saw the pattern unfold and knew what he had to do.
"Steer right at it!" Glord yelled.
"Do what?!" Larus hissed through gritted teeth.
"Trust me," Glord barked.
Larus obeyed, bringing them head to head with the raider. It tore at them, weapons glowing evilly and the distance shrank at terrifying speed. Glord held his fire as the Necron closed, he held back as it weaved up and right and down again, he held until sweat poured down his brow and his soul screamed at him to the pull the trigger before it was too late. But his vision was pure and his mind was set as impossible calculations ran in his subconscious, then he pulled the trigger.
The Necron was nearly upon them, its weapons flaring with imminent discharge. The crackling ball of fission-energy shot upwards but veered right, too far right, it was going to miss. Yet at the last instant the Necron suddenly jumped left, its motion to evade bringing it straight into the path of the blast. Corposant energies slammed into the rider's chest just as it was about to fire, smashing through its armour and blowing out the back of its spine in a spray of silver parts. The machine went wild, flying straight into an obelisk and exploding in a bloom of fire and shrapnel that shimmered as it phased away.
"We got one!" Glord yelled in elation.
"One down, two to go," Larus hissed in pain.
Glord looked about but saw the rest of the squad had engaged. One machine was surrounded, Brothers Tebes, Joffel and Kazao closing from three directions, firing blasts up at it. The Necron evaded wildly, dodging their shots as it flew in the open fourth direction. Little did it know this had been their intent, for Sergeant Reddam was waiting. He closed at top speed but did not fire, instead his arm flashed as he threw his spear high. The power weapon soared clear and true, smashing into the side of the rider and sending it careening to the ground. Reddam roared past, snatching up his spear from the wreckage before it shimmered and phased away.
Elsewhere Berio was chasing the last machine, his Fission-blaster spitting death. He was firing ceaselessly, filling the air with reddened death, a flurry of bolts impossible to evade. He was pushing the weapon to the limit, firing shot after shot without care. Glord flinched at the radiation Berio must be subjecting himself to but the Cerberii cared not. He fired relentlessly until a lucky shot clipped the Necron raider and made it stagger in the air. Then two more blasts brought it to an end, destroying it once and for all.
The field was clear and Glord sagged back, glad to have survived the encounter. But Reddam waved them on shouting, "Hurry, we've lost too much time!"
The squad raced on, clawing for speed but Glord glanced at Larus and asked, "Are you able to continue?"
"It will take more than this to stop me," Larus hissed.
Glord could sense his pain but there was no option other than to continue. The objective awaited and time was against them. For the sake of all Amber Vipers nothing could be allowed to slow them down. No matter what they must reach their goal and finish this.