Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 177
The Imperial fleet was busily engaged over Lutum. Slab-sided warships hung in low orbit, lending fire support to the suppression efforts ongoing below. Not quite a Hive World, yet the planet still boasted teeming cites that covered hundreds of kilometres. Orbital fire set many of these aflame, spreading soot over vast tracks of ashen wastes and polluted seas. Dirty, ugly and torpid Lutum was a bloated dowager of a world, one who had yet to realise her days of glory were past and clung to the last vestiges of her respectability. That the Imperials would claim the planet again was not in question, but in their eagerness to conquer they failed to note the hidden danger behind.
Lutum was a sprawling world and in her corpulence had attracted three moons. These blackened rocks were locked in an eternal dance with each other, circling and spinning a common centre of gravity as they orbited Lutum. A jealous dance where they sought each's others embrace, only to be snatched away by the gravitational yank of the third partner. It was a ballet of infinite complexity and also violence. The moon's electromagnetic fields clashed and scrabbled as they pulled near, then stretched like rubber bands as they drifted away. The result was an electromagnetic storm of distortion, silencing and blinding all. As if that wasn't bad enough the gravitational contortions had trapped solar winds, stray ice comets, drifting asteroids and radioactive particles. The entire region was a storm of confusion and discord tens of thousands of kilometres wide and in that haze hung a squadron of warships.
Drifting among the gravitational tides, battered by lightning and ice-comet impacts, they lurked on low-power. Reactors idling and plasma drives cold, they waited for the sign to act, but it did not come. With tiny bursts of manoeuvring thrust five frigates hung in formation, their Imperial iconography chipped and scored by random asteroid impacts. Above a larger vessel languished, her flanks bearing marks of its former allegiance to the Dark Gods. Her hull had been scrubbed clean to please her new mistress, but nothing had been done to diminish the gun arrays or launch bays. Yet all these paled in comparison to the flagship. A leviathan of the void, fifteen kilometres long and boarder than a frigate' length. The hull was coated in layers of Adamanitum, strong enough to withstand a broadside that would crack a lesser ship in half. Her gun decks bristled with macro-weaponry and the Bombardment Cannons on her spine presented looming barrels to the void. Her prow was a sledgehammer of armour, hiding launch bays and torpedoes tubes and her bridge stood like a castle lording over its fiefdom. She was the Angel's Revenge, a Battlebarge of the Adeptus Astartes, once flagship of the Blood Talons Chapter, now subverted to the service of another.
Inside her cathedral like bridge hundreds of bondsmen went to work. Even when idle a ship of this displacement was never quiet and the work of tending her systems was never ending. Men and women laboured over their stations, chattering constantly as auspex errors and surveyor ghosts were parsed. Helm adjustments kept them still, relative to the other ships, and ensured they remained hidden. Systems were soothed, machine spirits blessed and chants sung to the Omnissiah. In many ways it was the picture of an Imperial bridge crew, save that each and every soul present had sworn allegiance to another and their minds yearned to feel the loving presence of their Emperess.
Verina shared that ache. She stood upon the command dais in her armour and looked over the bridge, pleased to see that all was in order. She was a middle-aged woman, with short black locks and a defiant jut to her jaw. Her right eye was a steel-white orb of glassic, bisected by a vicious scar, old but still raw enough to make most flinch. She wore black armour, decorated with golden fly-de-Lys and boasting a white cape with red linings. At her hip hung a red bolter and a chainsword, weapons of potent strength she knew how to use. Her pauldrons bore the marks of the Order of the Ebon Chalice, revealing her as a Sister of Battle, though her former masters would love nothing more to erase her existence entirely. She no longer knelt to the corpse-god of Terra, she served another, a living master whose love burned in her heart.
"Two weeks," Verina sighed, "Two weeks without a single word."
"How much longer must we abide?" a gruff voice uttered behind her.
"I do not know," Verina lamented, "We have been sitting here, waiting without a word and I grow restless."
A shrill voice reprimanded, "We have our orders, from the Emperess herself. We are to wait here and not interfere, she has plans for the invaders."
That statement made Verina turn about. Occupying the Dais with her were two more souls. The first was a tall man, clad in iron-plate. Golden bands ringed his biceps and thighs, etched with litanies of abjuration, and his exposed face was stubbled and gruff. He bore a kite shield upon one hand and the other rested on the grip of a spiked mace. This was Dylun, former Crusader of the Ecclesiarchy, a licensed witch hunter for the Imperial Faith. The other was a hunch-backed crone, wrapped in black robes that boasted sorcerous runes. Her hands were liver-spotted and wisps of white hair hung over her hooked nose. Moryna, a hedge-witch and peddler in the arcane, former unsanctioned psyker now mistress of Rites. That the pair could stand in the same room without trying to kill each other was a testament to the largesse of the Emperess, her loving touch erasing their former enmity with loving grace.
Dylun's lip twitched as he grunted, "We should go see what's happening."
Moryna chided, "We have our instructions."
"But what if something went wrong?" Dylun urged, "What if they hurt her?!"
"Impossible!" Moryna snapped, "The Emperess sees all and knows all. She allows the Imperial fools to approach, so they may bathe in her loving presence. You will see, soon she shall recall us and our numbers will be swollen with new recruits."
Verina sighed, "I wish it was true."
Moryna sniffed, "You doubt her power?"
Verina shook her head and said, "Never, I remember the first time I saw her. Walking up to my convent's walls, unarmed yet armoured in radiance. It shames me that we dared to fire on her from afar, yet our shells detonated in the air before they could sully her path. I even pointed my bolter at her, yet when I saw her clearly my world changed. Such love, such majesty, truly she is the One. My heart was hers the moment she spoke to us, I cast aside my allegiance to a corpse and embraced living glory."
"It was the same for us," Dylun agreed, "When she came to Lutum from the darkness of the Noctis Aeterna my Cardinal dared to decry her presence. Witch he called her, Daemon-kin he denounced her. He commanded my order to kill her, but with a single word she claimed our hearts and minds. We cast that fat idiot from the highest spire of his own cathedral and then followed her across the planet, spreading her glory to the masses."
"How the people wept with joy at the sight of her," Verina sighed, "They protested and fought us at every step, yet as soon as we herded them into her presence they felt her glory sweep over them and rushed to embrace us. I scarcely remember the person I was before she came, so dull and dreary, so rigid and unthinking. She was a different person, some Other being, not me, not as I am."
"You see," Moryna crowed, "All will be well. The Emperess will turn these newcomers to her service and our armies will grow. Always we shall grow, until we number enough to march on Terra itself and place our mistress in her rightful place: atop the golden throne."
"I am not so sure," Dylun muttered, "They may have Space Marines with them."
"It makes no difference," Moryna scoffed, "They can be turned... with time."
"That kind of thinking got my sisters killed," Verina hissed.
All three paused to look up at their trophy. Hanging over the bridge on iron chains was a warrior, well half a warrior. His lower torso was missing entirely and his hands had been amputated. He wore no clothing but his remaining muscles were inhumanly bulged, slotted with implant sockets and brands of allegiance. His lips were sewn shut so he could not speak and null-spikes were driven into his temples, but his eyes were always open, seeing all. Nutrient lines kept him alive and waste-tubes cleansed his blood constantly. This one had defied the Emperess and so deserved eternal punishment. He was Brother-Codicier Lanfast, last of the Blood Talons, and he was doomed to watch his former flagship be turned to the service of the one he had tried to kill.
Verina shuddered at the sight, "Those fiends took down my entire convent in their mad hatred, all my Sisters laid out in the mud."
Dylun concurred, "When the Noctis Aeterna lifted we thought to spread our new gospel to the stars, instead these curs came to kill the Emperess. Good job only a few score survived the galactic calamity to reach us. I doubt we could have withstood an entire Chapter of them. If more have come..."
"We underestimated them, that's all," Moryna soothed, "The old Emperor built them well, hardening their minds. The new Emperess has their measure now, she can claim their hearts."
"I wish that was true," Verina sighed, "Yet my heart aches with her absence. I need to know she is well, I need to be near her. When she is away I cannot remember what joy is. I will abide this no more, I am taking the fleet out."
"You defy her orders?" Moryna rebuked.
"I am her appointed Lord Militant," Verina retorted, "I have her trust in matters of war. But fret not, I shall not charge in heedlessly. We shall inch out and spy on the invasion, we can soak up their signal noise without them ever knowing we are here."
"Make sure they don't," Moryna snapped, "Her wrath is not to be tempted. But While you do this I must attend to the ceremonies."
"More of the faithful are to be sacrificed?" Dylun enquired.
"The daily offerings must be conducted," Moryna chided, "The Emperess demands her due."
With that the crone shuffled off, leaving the pair alone among the noise of the bridge. Verina turned and started giving orders to steer the ship towards the periphery of the storm, where they could see and hear the outside universe. The ship responded with a faint tremor and Lanfast swayed on his chains as the motion provoked a muffled grunt.
Dylun stepped near and his hand brushed hers as he asked, "Do think we will find anything untoward?"
"Not here!" Verina hissed as she snatched her hand away, "And in answer to your question, I suspect we will."
"Then what will do?" Dylun mused.
Verina growled, "If they hurt a single hair on the Emperess' head then there will be no hell in the galaxy that compares to what I will do to them!"