Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 168
The punch nearly drove straight through him, ramming into his gut with the force of a piledriver. Kerubim let out a gasp of pain as air was driven from his lungs, only to have his head knocked back by a vicious uppercut. He staggered back, trying to regroup but his attacker gave him no respite. The silver blur tackled him about the waist, ramming him into a wall with all its strength. Kerubim tried to double-punch into its back but that had no effect, this enemy could not feel pain and had no regard for its own survival. He was pinned and about to die.
The Solar Knight armour slammed him into the wall once more and then drew back a fist to point at his head. Kerubim saw a miniature Fission-Blaster glowing as it prepared to discharge a blast that would shear his head clean off. Oblivion beckoned but Kerubim was yet a Space Marine, his instincts and reflexes honed by years of constant struggle and danger. His arm moved of its own accord, grabbing the poised arm and wrenching it to one side just as the weapon fired. A crackling red orb shot past his head, smiting the wall beside him and melting a bubbling crater into its surface. His helm screamed heat and radiation alarums, but he ignored the din as he wrenched the armour to one side and wrapped his other arm around its neck. The automaton tried to fling him off but Kerubim gritted his teeth and pulled hard, trying to rip the helmet free.
"Come on, come on, you Frakking rustbucket!" He growled as he applied more pressure, transhuman muscles and fibre-bundle servos straining to the maximum. The silver helmet bent backwards and then with a pop tore free, leaving the empty armour flailing about without a head. Kerubim knew this alone would not defeat it but he swiftly reached within the vacant chest and ripped out handfuls of circuits and processors. Finally the armour fell limp and he was able to dump the broken machine at his feet.
One enemy was dead but more remained. He spun about and saw the fight raging. Kregulf, Berio and Radfal were wrestling with armours, fighting tooth and nail to beat these foes. In close combat the Solar Knights were as strong as Space Marines but not as robust, at least not without their organic wearers. Yet they had the advantage of numbers and were coordinated by a single will. They ganged up on the Cerberii and readied their weapons, intending to finish the Astartes swiftly. Yet the Amber Vipers had something they didn't, they had Brontes.
The Cadmus robot let out a mechanical roar as his arms swung wide, smashing aside a pair of silver armours. His crackling fists made them explode upon contact and showered broken parts over the nearby walls. He grabbed another about the waist and hoisted it high, snapping its spine in one hand before throwing the broken wreck into a knot of its comrades. They went down like reeds in a storm, tangled together and Brontes pounced, feet smashing down repeatedly to crush them into debris.
Kerubim suddenly spied his dropped rifle among the scrum, miraculously undamaged and he pounced upon it. He swept it up and took aim, then let off a golden beam that smote an automaton trying to drive its fingers into Kregulf's eye lenses. A glowing afterimage hung for a moment then dissolved into nothingness as its atoms floated away. Freed Kregulf turned on his other attacker and broke it apart as Kerubim gunned down several more automatons.
In moments the fight was over but this was no relief, more automatons were coming, they all knew it to be true. Berio snatched up his fallen Fission-blaster and snarled, "We need to hurry, two hundred more of those wretched things are heading this way!"
"The cogitator is this way," Radfal pressed.
Kregulf ordered, "Brontes take point in case of another ambush. Stop for nothing, these skirmishes are slowing us down."
"Slowing you down," Brontes snapped, "I can move faster alone."
"You're not going anywhere alone," Kregulf snarled, "Now move out!"
The Cadmus led the way, lumbering down the twisting passages of the maze. Kerubim shouldered his rifle and kept close, watching turns and branching corridors come and go. At every corner the chance of an ambush loomed, they had already encountered several but they dared not slow down. Even now Apophis would be rushing all his automatons to the vault, in minutes this place would be overrun by enemies. They had to reach their objective first, else drown in enemies.
Brontes lumbered around a corner but as he did so a shell slammed into his front. It was an autocannon round and it was followed by another and another. The Cadmus was driven back a step by the impacts but the Astartes dove to intervene, aiming weapons down the passage. Kerubim spied a knot of living mortals, chattels sworn to the service of the Cerberii, now subverted to Apophis' creed. Mad zealots who worshipped an Abominable Intelligence as an avatar of the Omnissiah's divinity. It didn't save them as three fission-blasts and a golden ray slammed home, ending their treacherous lives with utter contempt.
Brontes rocked forward and hissed, "I knew I should have killed those Fleshbags earlier."
"If you don't, we will," Radfal hissed.
"Might not be necessary," Kerubim observed, "The rad-count in this vault is lethal to mortals, they'll all be dead in two weeks."
"Oh, it's necessary," Berio hissed, "I am going to wring their necks for this. The next lot of chattels we get, I'm removing their tongues first, so they cannot speak sedition."
"We're wasting time," Kregulf snapped as he jogged onwards.
They hurried on, taking two more turns and then they found their goal. Sitting in a wide-open space was a bulky cogitator. It sat steaming as its processors whirred, arcane mechanisms clicking furiously. It was fitted with a glowing holo-lens on the front and a wide input socket on the top, for accepting data-wands and doctrinal wafers. Kerubim's twin heartbeats quickened at the sight, the source of Apophis' influence and the root of his mind. This Cogitator had been ripped from the lost starship and from here his claws had sunk into every Logic Engine in the Nest and on the planet. It was connected to everything; if they could defeat him here he would die everywhere.
"Hurry!" Kregulf cried as he stepped out into the open.
"No wait!" Brontes shouted but too late.
As the Cerberii stepped forward a score of silver armours emerged, bursting out of concealment in surrounding passages. It was a trap. Their numbers were great and they laid down a crossfire of crackling red orbs, one Kregulf could not avoid. The Cerberii was struck by three fission-blasts, one taking a leg clean off, another burning into his shoulder and the third hitting him square in the chest. Ceramite melted and organs were burnt to a crisp as the Astartes went down, riddled with shots.
"No!" Kerubim cried as he saw Kregulf fall.
Brontes lifted his arms and returned fire, sweeping the Solar Knights with radioactive blasts as he yelled, "He's dead, forget him!"
"He's the only one who knows how to win!" Kerubim yelled back as he leapt forward and grabbed the fallen warrior. As Radfal and Berio laid down suppressing fire he hoisting Kregulf under the pauldrons and dragged the fallen Cerberii back into shelter to prop him up against a wall. Kerubim winced as he saw the mortal wounds and knew they were not survivable, not even for a Space Marine.
Kregulf seemed to understand and flopped a weak arm against the tech-adept as he whispered, "I'm… done… You have…"
Kerubim shook him off lying, "Don't move, it's not so bad we'll find an Apothecary."
But Kregulf's arm fell to his belt and pulled free his crystal knife. He pressed it into Kerubim's confused hands and then whispered one last instruction. Then his arm fell limp and Kregulf died, his hearts ceasing to beat forevermore. Kerubim's throat closed as he stood up, turning the knife over in his hands and considering what he had just heard. Great and terrible anger gripped his hearts and his need for vengeance built into an inferno of hatred.
As Fission-blasts were traded back and forth there was a shimmer in the air and Apophis appeared, projected from the distant Cogitator. His image wavered from range distortion but he grinned wickedly as he crowed, "One down, four to go. Why not give up now and end the pain?"
Kerubim turned to face the Cogitator and growled, "I am going to kill you."
"How?!" Apophis sneered, "I am everywhere, I am every system and processor in orbit and on the planet. I see all and command all! I am above you in every way and soon I will rule the galaxy. All I need is some stooge to parrot my words and I shall claim dominion over humanity. There shall be no will in the galaxy save mine and you have nothing that can stop me!"
Kerubim tensed his legs as he dropped the bulk of his rifle and gripped the knife tight, hissing, "I have this."
Apophis' face fell as he spied the knife and his eyes widened in fear as he hissed, "Where did you get that?!"
Kerubim's only response was to spring into action, dashing forward like an athlete from the starting blocks. He burst past Brontes and the others, sprinting for the Cogitator with all his speed. Fission-blasts slashed to and fro, as both sides traded shots, but Kerubim merely put his head down and sprinted. He raced through the dazzling crossfire, pushing his limbs for all they were worth, seeking every last morsel of velocity from his body. Space Marines could run so fast mortals would be left speechless but he went beyond that, forcing his muscles to exceed even his limits as he pounded across the cold floor. He could see the cogitator swelling as he neared, so close now, so very close and he almost made it.
"Kill him!" Apophis screamed, "He must die!" A moment later a flurry of red bolts flew at Kerubim, each trying to bring him down. One clipped his pauldron, blowing a huge crater into the ablative plate, another gazed his hip, making him wobble and the third clipped the back of his leg, making it fold beneath him. Kerubim cried aloud as his leg gave out and he toppled but he did so forward, towards the cogitator. He was just short but his arm shot out, stretching for all he was worth as he aimed the dagger downwards. His bones creaked as he leant into the fall, yearning with every fibre of his being to reach it. And then he slammed into the bulk of the logic engine, as Kregulf's crystal-knife slid into the input socket.
A connection formed and unseen data flowed forth, vicious info-predators and viral-clades. Kregulf's knife had been more than a bauble, though he had not realised it when he first picked it up in the lost starship. It was a viral-clade injector in a hidden format, a tool designed to end Machine Minds. The ancient makers of the Soulbound had not completely trusted their creations, they had placed programming shackles and failsafes within them and made tools to destroy them if necessary. This was an early version of the technology, made before the Machines cast off their chains and rebelled, but it was specifically tailored to kill Apophis. His long-dead Captain's final resort in case of treachery or cascade failure.
Empowered by light-speed computations Viral-clades spread into his operating system and sank code-fangs deep, ripping and tearing logic structures apart and reformatting into more versions of themselves. A Binaric plague was set loose inside Apophis' mind. They feasted upon his coding greedily, consuming and devouring his essence. Binaric bones were broken open for the marrow of his files. Sensor-inputs were drunk like blood and personality engrams gnawed upon for their juices. Like a disease spreading through the bloodstream of a host the Viral-clades eviscerated Apophis and destroyed him.
The Soulbound didn't go down easily though, he fought back with counter-clades and purgation info-cyctes. They sought out the viruses but proved ineffective; they had been specially made to end Apophis and were proof against his defences. In desperation the Soulbound fled to distant Logic Engines, trying to isolate a copy of himself, but his own genius confounded him. This cogitator was tied into the Nest and the info-net of Gobannus, it was connected to everything and so too was the virus. It brushed past his firewalls with ease, chasing him wherever he hid and devouring every last copy of the Soulbound. Apophis was burned out of his home and his castle, left with nowhere to run and no refuge to shelter in. The realm Binaric turned against him and reduced him to ashes, leaving nothing of the Soulbound behind.
Kerubim however saw none of this. In the three point one four seconds it had taken to kill Apophis all he managed to do was roll over and see the holo-image begin to break up. The shape began to waver and ripple as Apophis died and his face dissolved into free-floating motes, breaking up like a cloud in a strong wind. All that remained of the Soulbound was a faint glow in the air and a final cry of, "No… it could all have been mine, the galaxy was mine to…" Then he was dead.
Kerubim sagged back, feeling his injuries burning as satisfaction crept into his hearts. Apophis was dead and the guiding intelligence of the Machines was destroyed. They had done it, they had beaten him. Kerubim expected the Solar Knights to deactivate immediately but to his surprise the sound of Fission-blasters continued to ring. He lifted his head and saw the armours battling on, but without Apophis they had turned on themselves, directing their guns towards each other. Each Automaton was fighting its own battle, engaging its neighbours like they were enemies.
"What's going on?" he breathed.
A heavy tread heralded Brontes stomping forward as he growled, "Without guidance they've reverted to basic engagement protocols. They fight whatever they perceive as a danger and without a Soulbound to tell friend from foe, they see each other as the most immediate threat."
"Can't you shut them down?" Kerubim snapped.
"I intend to, by blowing them up," Brontes snorted.
Berio tossed Kerubim his rifle as the Cerberii uttered, "Quit lying around, the jobs not done until we cleanse the Nest top to bottom."
Kerubim sighed as he heaved himself to his wounded feet. It looked like the day wasn't quite done yet, but at least now they stood a chance. Apophis was dead but his legacy lived on and would need to be purged. With a heavy groan he charged his rifle and set to work, knowing they wouldn't be safe until every last Solar Knight was purged from their home.