Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 142

The planet's surface was colder than Kerubim had expected, its acrid chill biting into his cheeks and brow. The air was breathable enough to go helmed but there was a staleness to the air that hinted that it would not remain forever so. Light was dim and wan, casting no shadows among the buildings and looming towers. All was grey and bland, the sky, the ground even the metropolis itself. In conclusion Kerubim was far from impressed.

The tech-adept was exploring a derelict street in the urban blight that passed for a forge. The Amber Vipers had landed six hours earlier, in the most intact metropolis they could find and dispersed to explore. To Kerubim's surprise they hadn't headed straight for the centre of the cityscape but claimed the fringes. It seemed Coluber was wary of setting foot among the soaring skyscrapers that dominated the heart of the Forge, treading carefully among the ruins of the ancients. Still even the outer reaches of the city boasted many treasures.

Kerubim had explored several abandoned manufactorums, their production lines still and silent. It was baffled how any had survived thirty-thousand years of loneliness, plasteel and ferrocrete were non-oxidising but still exposure to wind and rain should have ground them down to nothing. Barring a stasis-field nothing lasted forever. True, many basic components had been fused while any silicon or chemical elements had decayed but it was miraculous anything remained. Kerubim reckoned the Amber Vipers could purloin much of the machinery and refurbish what had been lost the ravages of time. But before he reported such things he wanted to explain how any of this had survived.

Carefully he treaded down a side street, followed closely by Bane. The Vorax was in hunter-killer mode, alert and eager for threats. Kerubim kept his Adrathic rifle close as they tracked their quarry, an elusive blip on his auspex moving away from them. Kerubim had seen no evidence of anything living, so wasn't expecting a trap but the notion of operating machinery roaming free drew him on. There were secrets to be discovered, aspects of the Machine God's lore to be claimed and he ached to unravel the mysteries set before him.

A sudden screech of metal on metal made him tense and he pressed his bulk into the corner of a building. Carefully he leaned out and gazed down a wide boulevard, set between drab grey-faced buildings. What he beheld puzzled him. A large machine was staggering down the middle of the road, a tripod taller than a Space Marine with a spherical body. It was ringed by an omnidirectional visual sensor and mechandrites hanging from its body. Some form of maintenance automaton, in Kerubim's opinion, which explained a lot but it was under attack.

Surrounding the machine were a gaggle of smaller robots, feral things with creaking parts and ramshackle features. Their limbs jerked and twitched randomly and bits hung off their frames. They harried the taller robot, nipping at its legs as they tried to wrest parts free. Kerubim knew them well, rust-rats was the technician's slang, feral servitors whose doctrinal wafers had decayed and left them with only primitive urges to survive. They were a perennial problem in the Imperium and teams of hunter-killers routinely swept most Forgeworlds to cull their ranks.

Suddenly Bane bounded past him, rotor cannons spinning. Kerubim cried out for it to halt but the Vorax was obeying older programming than his. Sighting the rust-rats it leapt to attack, charging into the fray with eager relish. A spray of bullets hammered them, knocking several back. The rust-rats turned to engage but the Vorax was fresh and well-maintained, sleek and quick where they were jerky and slow. It bowled into the midst of them and sent them scattering in all directions. Whatever intelligence they retained recognised they were outmatched and so they fled, scurrying away like avians chased off by a yapping Mastiff.

Bane settled down with a smug aura as Kerubim paced closer. He had no interest in the rust-rats but the larger robot intrigued him. As he had surmised it bore many tools but nowhere could he see any organic components within. As the Cadmus automatons, it was wholly artificial, without the blessing of an organic cogitator. Ignoring its rescuers it turned to a large conduit suspended on the side of a building and began tending to it with showers of sparks.

Kerubim took out his auspex and muttered, "Conducting repairs, that explains how anything on this planet is still standing. But what's it working on? A power conduit… Carrying energy across the metropolis, but where's it coming from? Energy level is high, swiftly moving… this is not battery power, this is live current. Something is still generating Motive Force after all this time, but not of a type I recognise… the waveform is…"

His investigation was cut off as the vox barked, "Kerubim, where have you wandered off to? Get back here now."

"Coming Nathanal," Kerubim sighed.

Summoning Bane, the Marine set off for the landing ground. It took him a while to retrace his route but soon he found himself approaching a marshalling yard. It was an expansive stretch of Ferrocrete, large enough for Titans to parade and here the Amber Vipers had landed their shuttles. Everywhere he looked Space Marines and chattels roamed, conducting searches of the area. Transhumans were untroubled by the chill but the mortals were working in rubberised suits with rebreathers hung around their necks. Everyone was busy and nobody noted Kerubim slip back into the camp and make his way to his teacher, who was locked into an argument.

"I'm telling you those Vortex missiles are a priority!" Ferrac shouted.

"And I'm telling you we'd be idiots to touch them!" Nathanal snapped, "The manufactorums are the key!"

Ferrac looked angry as he spat, "Why else did we come here if not for weapons?!"

Nathanal retorted, "Did you not see the gaping craters all along the western perimeter of the city?! Those vortex bombs have become unstable. Many have already gone off and if we touch the rest we'd be blown all the way to the Golden Throne."

"I'll take that chance," Ferrac snarled.

"But I will not," intoned another voice.

From the shadows of a dropship stepped forward a pair of Space Marines. The first was Coluber, the other Kregulf the Cerberii. Kerubim suppressed a shudder at the sight of his helm with the bloody handprint and reminded himself that the order served a vital role, but still the vision of dishonour made him uncomfortable. Kregulf looked upon the arguing pair and said, "I have assessed those warheads and determined they are insanely unstable. Lay a finger on one and we all die. I have cordoned off the region; no one should muck about with ordnance more dangerous to the wielder than the target."

Ferrac rolled his eyes and grumbled, "Then why did we bother landing?"

Nathanal countered, "There's plenty of conventional material to harvest. The field pylons to the east could double the Wyvern's shield capacity. There's an orbital lance battery I could dismantle for parts to repair an emplacement or two on the Nest and we've found a power armour manufactorum in pristine condition."

"Parts and spares," Ferrac scoffed.

But Coluber exclaimed, "Power armour?!"

Nathanal hastily qualified, "Don't get excited, it's filled with those odd armour marks the ancients employed. No use to us but the engineering tools and Ceramite kilns can be repurposed for our needs."

Coluber eyed the Battle-Captain and said, "The ability to manufacture virgin power armour. Tell me that's not of worth Ferrac."

Ferrac sullenly muttered, "I would still prefer some missiles."

Nathanal sighed, "Shells and missiles have chemicals, explosives, silicon wafers… all decayed and denatured. Besides we're better off rebuilding our logistical capacity than grabbing finite munitions."

It was then that Kerubim interjected, "I found some active power transfer conduits. If we installed them in the Nest we could double the efficiency of our energy distribution network."

Nathanal scoffed, "Functioning for thirty-thousand years?"

"There's some sort of repair automaton maintaining this place, I saw only one but there could be hundreds at large. That's not the oddest thing though; the network is carrying Motive Force. There's a generator still running somewhere nearby."

"Impossible," Nathanal derided.

But Coluber mused, "Impossible or not it needs investigating. Kerubim, seek out this energy source and determine if it is something we can salvage. Take Kregulf with you, his evaluation will be needed."

Kerubim's hearts fell but he could not argue as the Cerberii stepped forward. The others returned to their discourse as the pair walked off. To his surprise the three Cadmus robots emerged in their wake, plodding along as they kept a distance from Bane. The group left the camp, heading into the metropolis at a brisk pace. Kerubim held his auspex before him as they walked, tracing the energy waveform he had detected in the conduits.

Kregulf followed silently, Fission-Blaster held ready. Kerubim eyed him warily and said, "So…."

Kregulf replied bluntly, "There's no need for chitchat. Focus on your duty."

Kerubim lapsed into grateful silence as they marched on. Deeper into the forge they went, passing manufactorums and storehouses galore. Kerubim saw tanks factories and small-arms plants, plane hangers and field-kit assembly lines. There were facilities to make plastek tents, comm-arrays, pre-fabricated medical suites and surveyor gear. Everything an army on the march could conceivably need, yet what he saw little of were places for humans to work. He was starting to believe this Forge ran almost entirely without human involvement, automated to a degree where it could almost run itself. To an adept of the Cult Technis that was disturbing and he knew the Forge Synod of Mars would greet such a notion as unforgivable Heresy.

Finally the energy signature led them to a five-story building. It was immense and yet felt squat, with armoured buttresses and reinforced doors that could have held back a regiment of enemies. It resembled a fortress, more than a power station, and yet this was where the energy was emanating from. Kregulf said nothing so it was up to Kerubim to lead them within, the Cadmus robots and Bane plodding behind.

Kerubim stepped through a thick doorway and found himself brought up short by a maze of pipes and conduits. Filling the interior was a complicated knotwork of machinery and tubing. Energy siphons, distribution nodes and cooling mechanisms filled every corner, making the place seem like the inside of a beehive. Kerubim recognised many parts from a plasma generator but many more he did not, components and devices that had no business being in a power station and yet seemed curiously familiar.

Kerubim tapped a pipe muttering, "Obsidian coating."

"So what?" Kregulf muttered.

"It's a psy-inert material but useless as insulation for power conduits. Only an idiot would use it to baffle energy conduits… or someone who knew something we don't."

"This tells us nothing; find a control centre or a cogitator we can use."

Kerubim nodded and led the Cerberii and the robots into the maze. Tangles of machinery came and went but there was a clear path through it. He proceeded nervously, feeling like he was vermin crawling into a Carnodon's jaws. Nothing surprising occurred, nothing attacked them and yet with every step he felt the shadow of doom looming and he knew he was in danger, the whole Chapter was.

Eventually the path widened into a platform, set in the heart of the building. Here the conduits parted, revealing a thick column that glimmered multi-hued lights through a thick viewportal. It ascended to the ceiling like a great tree and around its roots were staves of obsidian, ringing it like a fence. It felt wrong to look upon, a primitive impulse at the base of the skull making the hairs on the neck stand up in alarm. Kerubim had never seen the like, though it was clearly the source of the energy powering the Forge-fane, the secrets of its operation baffled him.

Thankfully there was a large control console off to one side, semi-circular and with glowing readouts. Kerubim stepped up to it and saw the language was proto-gothic, a tongue he had spent the last few years becoming intimately familiar with. He pressed a few runes and bent to examine the readouts, absorbing data with Transhuman speed. Such mighty technology, such priceless knowledge lay at his fingertips but nowhere did he find an explanation as to what this thing was. He supposed the operators assumed nobody would be allowed in here without knowing what they were doing.

He straightened up and sighed, "This is weird."

"How so?" Kregulf asked as he poked one of the obsidian staves.

"This is the source of the metropolis' power. Motive Force is flowing out of there… except nothing is there to generate it."

"You're talking gibberish, I can see it with my own autosenses."

"Not my point," Kerubim elaborated, "The Universal Laws tell us one cannot make energy, you can only move it around. To generate power one must expend matter. Burn it or break it, fission or fusion, it always requires matter to produce energy. Only this thing is making energy from nothing. Motive Force comes out but nothing is going in. It just produces energy constantly, that simply can't happen."

Kregulf nodded as he asked, "So… explain why they put it inside a Gellar field generator."

"What?!" Kerubim yelped.

"Those devices we passed, they are a Gellar field generator."

Understanding dawned as Kerubim realised why they seemed so familiar and the implications struck him like a hammer blow as he gasped, "Oh throne no… no… they didn't… they couldn't…"

Kregulf's helm turned as he asked, "What?"

"Those arrogant madmen, what were they thinking Frakking about with something like this?!"

Kregulf snapped, "Talk sense, tell me what this is!"

"It's a warp-energy tap!" Kerubim exclaimed in dread, "I thought it was only a theory, a fallacy at that. No one's ever made one, they'd have to be insane to even theorise its operation."

Kregulf gripped his rifle tight as he hissed, "Does that mean what I think it means?"

"If you think it means we're standing on top of a bottled warp-rift, you're right. The theory is if you open a stable door to the Warp you could draw energy out of it as a Psyker does. It's lunacy to even think of such a thing but the ancients did it. They plugged this Forges' power grid into the Warp like it was a hydro-dam. I'm aghast the ancients were reckless enough to Frak about with the warp, it should have blown up the second they switched it on."

Kregulf eyed the column and asked, "What sort of blast radius are we talking about?"

"Let's just say I'd rather not be standing on this planet if that happens," Kerubim retorted.

"Agreed," Kregulf uttered as he turned to leave, "I'm declaring this building Perdita, no Amber Viper is to touch this thing. Let's get the robots and…"

Kregulf trailed off in shock and Kerubim turned to see what had happened. What he beheld stunned him. Bane was standing all alone, with no sign of Brontes, Steropes or Arges. The Cadmus robots had vanished, departing without order or direction. The Cadmus had taken off on their own initiative, leaving no hint as to where they had gone.