Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 170
The flaming wreck of the Aquila burned fiercely, doused in fuel and blazing brightly. Smoke arose from the tangled plasteel and ceramite, choking and thick as it sent a black trail into the sky. Nothing moved in the crash site, no sign of life emerged and none would have believed any could have survived such an impact.
Suddenly the armourglass panels of the observation cupola were shattered by a Ceramite fist. A hand emerged, the armour scorched bare in many places, with only scraps of orange hue left to proclaim the identity of the warrior. Coluber emerged slowly from the shattered wreck of the Aquila, each motion painful and slow. He reached out with his hand and dug fingers into the Ferrocrete of the road, then heaved his body out of the burning wreck. He had to drag himself across the ground for his legs were limp and his hips broken. He could feel every wound and tear within his frame, cracked bones, severed muscles and tendons and a pierced right lung. Trying to move in this state was torment and his head swam as purple hues danced in front of his eyes, yet he persisted. The fires of the crash were growing and he had to get clear before it consumed him. Even Ceramite plate had its limits.
Again Coluber reached out and pulled himself along. Every inch he shifted was torture to his ravaged frame but he did not relent. Pain was no stranger to an Astartes, genic ascension and a life of war invested them with an ability to push through the worst agony imaginable, to continue when all others would lay down and die. "Pain is an illusion of the mind, weakness an illusion of the body," Coluber hissed through bloody lips as he dragged his body along. Somehow the old mantra wasn't having quite as much effect as usual. Red hot spikes of anguish buried themselves in his lower body with every motion, piercing his flesh and setting nerves alight. Being set on fire would hurt less than this.
Coluber was lost in a world of pain, blind to the universe as he pulled and pulled, heaving his broken bulk away. Then his helm smacked into a toppled repair-bot and he finally relented. Coluber rolled over and gasped for air, his multi-lung taking up the burden of the right lung. He lay propped on his backpack and stared at the wreck, trying to determine if he had travelled far enough away. Thankfully he seemed to have reached a safe distance but he was the only one. Clad in Ceramite plate he had been protected from impact and fire but the snakelets had only scout-plate to shield them, they had all perished. A dozen more lives claimed by this misbegotten planet, another dozen lives to add to Coluber's guilt.
Coluber realised he was wallowing in self-pity and forced himself to focus. A Space Marine could not give in to despair, not ever. He turned his attention to his body and found a glowing heat spreading through his legs. His Emperor-granted implants were already beginning their efforts to rebuild his frame. An Astartes could recover from almost anything, but it would take time, minutes and hours he may not have. His armour was hardly in any better state, battered and broken. The vox was smashed, the backpack erratic and his autosenses blurring. He was puzzled that his autopharmacia wasn't dispensing pain-balms and stimulants but then a blinking icon informed him the armour already was. That was troubling, the pain he felt was breaking through enough anaesthetic to put down a Rhinox.
Coluber rolled his head back, determined to wait until his body rebuilt itself but he hadn't the time. A shadow moved against the sky, a bulky humanoid form leaping over buildings and heading this way. Coluber reacted on instinct, heaving himself among the tangled legs of the repair-bot to hide. His legs screamed in protest but he ignored them, though the taste of blood in his mouth told him that had been a bad move. Seconds later a pair of angular legs slammed into the road, as a Crisis Suit dropped from above. The Tau commander had come to confirm the kill.
Coluber ducked among the concealing legs as he watched the Tau stalking towards the wreck. This close he could see the burn marks coating the enemy's front. They appeared to have suffered as baldy as Coluber had and there was a limp to the walk that spoke of internal damage. Of the ever-present drones there was no sign. Yet those weapons looked functional and he knew their lethal power. He was in no condition to take even one shot from that deadly gun.
The Tau lurched closer to the wreck and kicked at a burning panel, checking to see if anyone within lived. Nothing moved and Coluber dared to imagine the Tau would be satisfied with the kill, but it seemed not. The Tau leaned over to examine the shattered canopy and saw traces of blood smears upon the ground, evidence someone had survived. Coluber cursed silently as that boxy head snapped about, searching the area. There were only a handful of places a being could lurk and Coluber knew his cover would fail in seconds.
Yet in the distance was a faint chance of escape. Looming nearby he saw the Castigator Titan striding along, moving roughly in this direction. Its arms crackled with lightning as it prepared to fire again. Coluber lifted his chest off the ground and tensed as he prepared to move. Agony shot through his limbs as his injuries sank knives into his soul but he whispered, "Pain is an illusion of the mind, pain is an illusion of the mind…"
Suddenly the Titan fired a beam of scintillating colours from its stained-glass cannon. Reality shuddered as thunder rolled and the world erupted into rainbow hues. In that instant Coluber was up and running. He broke out of cover and dashed to the nearest building. His legs screamed as if hot screws were being driven into his joints but he overrode them with force of will. His will unbreakable and the closeness of death lending him strength. He almost made to the waiting door, but before he could dart inside an ion bolt shot over his head and a tinny voice yelled, "You can't escape me!"
Coluber threw himself into the darkness of the doorway, knowing only the disruption of the rainbow distortions had thrown off the shot. Inside he found a dormant Manufactorum, a conveyor line ringed by Mechandrites, all waiting to be activated. With only a moment to choose a hiding place he grabbed a dangling tendril and pulled himself up hand over hand, climbing above the horizontal. His legs were on fire but he pushed on, slinking into the darkness above.
A moment later the Crisis Suit lurched through the door, weapon arms raised. Coluber looked down from above as the Tau swept the Manufactorum, seeking his hiding place. A feral growl echoed as the pilot snarled, "You can't hide from me! I know you, I saw you from afar. You are the leader of the Gue'ron'sha and I have marked you for death! I am Alohvar and I shall end you, for my comrades and all Tau everywhere, revenge shall be mine."
Coluber ignored the rant as he drew Venom one-handed. The Tau was stepping forward, moving under his position as it searched for him. By some miracle it didn't think to look up, vision narrowed by anger and hate. Coluber waited a moment more, then let go of the Mechandrite and dropped straight down. The Tau surged in his vision as he fell and he swept Venom about, aiming for that boxy head. Unfortunately he missed, his weakened state pulling his arm off balance. His relic blade swept past the sensor by a millimetre, but it did cleave an oval protrusion off the shoulder joint.
"My targeting module!" Alohvar wailed, "Is there no end to your perfidy?!" Coluber ignored the cry as he landed and bounded into a sprint. Fiery fingers of agony wrapped around his hearts but he persisted in his run, leaping over the conveyor to shelter behind. Wild shots blew past him, slamming into the walls and machinery and he knew he had damaged something important. Tau's lethal accuracy was reduced to random blasting and he grinned at the sight.
He drew his Volkite pistol and darted up, letting off a ravening beam of energy. The ray clipped the shoulder of the Crisis Suit and bored a tiny hole into it, yet it was not enough to slow the foe in the slightest. Alohvar bounded forward and slammed a doughty fist into the conveyor, shattering it into pieces. Flying metal slammed into Coluber and a jagged shard neatly sliced the barrel of his pistol, leaving it a sparking mess. He grimaced at the sight as he threw himself backwards, narrowly avoiding being crushed by a follow-up blow.
Coluber staggered backwards as he hissed, "Filthy Xenos, the Imperium should have wiped out your kind while you were still squatting in caves!"
Alohvar stalked after him, fist wreathed in lightning as he snarled, "And we should have wiped out every Gue'La world we encountered. It was a mistake to allow your debased kind into the Empire."
Coluber sneered, "So much for your Greater Good. Your feeble dreams of inter-species harmony collapse at the first taste of the brutal reality of the galaxy."
"It is your kind who breaks the dream. Your race is despicable, all of you. Look at this world, the travesties your ancestors created. Your species has always been cruel and dishonourable. We should have marked humanity for destruction, as we did the Orks and the Hive Fleets."
"Such hatred is almost admirable," Coluber growled, "Were it not coming from a vile Xeno."
"I do hate you, I hate all of you kind. I feel its fires lending me the strength to end you. When I return to the Empire I will make sure the Ethereals understand the Gue'La must be driven into extinction!"
Suddenly Alohvar surged forward, reaching out to grasp Coluber. The Chapter Master tried to evade but his wounds were too great and his body weakened by injury. That doughty fist wrapped itself around his torso and lifted him high as Venom clattered upon the ground. Were Alohvar to wish it the power field could torch Coluber but the Xeno seemed to want to savour this kill. He lifted Coluber's struggling form to eye-level and then set his tri-barrelled rifle at his head. Coluber understood the hatred behind that move, the Tau wanted to watch his life being snuffed out.
Coluber braced himself for the end, but then the far wall of the Manufactorum exploded. A moving wall of metal burst through the Ferrocrete surface, spraying tons of masonry into the interior as a leg as tall as a building smashed through. It was the Castigator, continuing its mad rampage. It strode through the manufactorum with all the difficulty of a man kicking over a sandcastle, uncaring for the ants squabbling at its feet.
Tons of masonry rained down, slamming into broken machinery all around. A piece of debris struck the back of Alohvar's suit and knocked it off its feet, sending him toppling into the dirt. Coluber's world spun as he was wrenched along but the grip holding him faltered and he broke free with a cry. He slammed into the broad chest as the suit came to rest upon its back and quick as a flash he dug his fingers into the rim of its front plate. Resistance fought back but he dug deeper and heaved back, cracking the seals on the hatch and ripping the front of the Crisis Suit away. Inside he found Alohvar, curled in a ball within his cockpit. The Tau looked so small and frail, a feeble thing to threaten him, but the silver wires buried in the scalp made the Xeno a lethally skilled pilot.
Coluber reached inside and tore that connection, leaving the suit powerless, then he wrapped both hands around Alohvar's throat. The Tau's eyes opened blearily as he was forced out of his connection and his prosthetic face could not hide his fear and dismay. Thin hands beat at Coluber's arms as the Chapter Master lifted him from his cocoon but nothing could break that grip. Coluber leaned in and growled, "You think hate makes you strong but your anger is but a brief candle in the night. Mankind has embraced hatred deeper and stronger than you can imagine, since before your race looked to the stars. Hatred enough to crush you and your pathetic little species into nothing."
He tightened his grip on the throat, closing the airway of the Tau just enough to stop his breathing, but not enough to kill instantly, Coluber wanted to watch this one die. Alohvar kicked and flailed, his fingers scrabbling over burnt Ceramite but he could not break that grip. Coluber watched intently as the kicks grew feebler and weaker, the skin of the alien's face going grey and the arms lost vitality. Hate died in those pallid eyes and then was replaced by fear as the life was squeezed out of him. Moment by moment Coluber watched as life fled and then finally that head lolled back and the body became limp and unmoving. Alohvar died in Coluber's hands, suffocated to death and the Amber Viper took great satisfaction in knowing he had extinguished his enemy.
Coluber waited until he was certain of the kill, then dropped the corpse and turned away. His body burned head to toe with injury and exertion and he desperately wanted to lie down and rest. Yet he had not the time. Around him shattered pieces of masonry continued to fall as the Titan strode on, indifferent to the destruction it left. Where it had walked unearthly lights grew in power as rifts punched through reality and Neverborn reached into the Materium. This Forge was dying in the fires of unreality, torn apart by the vile weapons it had once laboured to build.
Coluber stooped to pick up Venom and then limped off, heading away from the growing rifts and following the Titan's footsteps. There was scant chance of survival but it was better than facing Neverborn head-on. This damned planet had already taken enough from the Amber Vipers and there was no way he would let it claim his life too. So he left Alohvar's corpse behind, unmourned and forgotten as it was buried in falling rubble. None in the Tau Empire would ever learn of his fate and the cruel lessons he had learned about the dangers of the galaxy were forgotten forevermore.