Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 187
They could see the fight from afar, the vicious exchange of crossfire lighting up the void. Reddam sat in his cockpit and watched as imperials engaged heretics in a furious exchange, ordnance exploding in waves as shields flared and crackled. Even he, a veteran of many wars, was amazed by the firepower on display. Void warfare was unlike anything else, especially within visual ranges. Weapons that on land would have been war-winning implements of destruction were stacked along gundecks like rows of corn. Each broadside would have levelled a continent, yet were shrugged off by shields of such magnitude a Hive City could only dream.
The proud and haughty Veritas unleashed stacked ranks of guns, her starboard flank rippling with discharging macro-weaponry. Following in her wake Jormungandr flung shells into the void, the fierce brawler adding waves of destruction as nimble Carmilla made a sweeping pass, her lances stabbing down from a vertical vector. Revenge was well struck, her shields turning opaque as they deflected eye-watering explosions. Any lesser ship would have been cracked in two by the onslaught, yet she was a Battlebarge, her armour was thick and her shields triple-reinforced. The queen of the void shrugged off the torrent of fire with disdain, scorning the pointed barbs of her rivals. In return her gundecks roared, flinging out as much firepower as she was receiving, hammering the Imperials at close range.
Higher up Myrmidon squadron swept in broad circles with the Echinda, the commerce-raider almost as swift and nimble as the escorts. The frigates had a combined salvo that outmatched her, but the foe's launch bays disgorged waves of Deathbirds, pecking and harrowing the escorts ceaselessly. Imperial Fury interceptors tried to fend them off but were badly outnumbered and could not deny the assault.
Tebes broke the silence to breathe, "Throne…"
Reddam snorted back, "Never seen a void battle on this scale have you."
Joffel replied, "Not like this, not even the invasion compared."
"Don't let it distract you," Reddam warned, "The fight could swing this way at any moment."
As if he had been overheard the vox crackled, "Wyvern control to Wraths, hostile bandits and frigates heading for the civilians. Wyvern is moving to intercept. Steer vector 125 mark 100 and advance to engage: fangs sharp."
"Fangs bared," Reddam voxed, "Squad follow me, bless your targeting auspexes and set weapons-free. Arcaka, are you with us?"
"On your nine, let them taste our venom!" the other squad leader voxed.
Reddam pushed his throttle open and the Wrath shot away from the Wyvern's bow, dashing forward to engage. Nine other Wraths trailed in his wake, the Amber Viper's fighter screen advancing ahead of the cruiser on wakes of plasma. Reddam ran his eyes over his readouts one last time and found all was well. The Machine Spirit was eager for the fray and the controls thrummed in his grip. Grey Avenger wanted blood in the void and she would find it.
He lifted his eyes to the stars and saw small glints of light descending from above, enemy fighters dropping towards the cargo ships. If they got among the civilians they would wreak havoc, civilian-grade armour nowhere near warship quality. The Amber Vipers weren't overly bothered about mortal deaths but it was Reddam's mission to stop the attack and so he would.
Kazao voxed, "Auspex reads thirty fighters, they outnumber us three-to-one."
"Only three, those poor bastards," Joffel sneered.
Reddam approved of their fighting spirit and ordered, "Loose spread, set lascannons for 0.4-second intervals and keep an ear out for missile locks. You've got the edge in acceleration, use it. On my signal…. Break and attack!"
The tiny glints of light swelled into the form of blunt-nosed craft, then they opened up with spears of lasfire. Reddam was already jinking, throwing Grey Avenger to and fro in a random pattern to avoid being hit. A forest of las surrounded him but with expert hands he avoided them all, feeling his bones creaking as G-forces hammered him. The range shrank in seconds and then the Deathbirds flashed past. He saw them clearly for a moment, spread hawk-wings and a triangular body with a three-man cockpit. They carried four lascannons and eight missiles but slung under their mass hung a doughty plasma-cannon, strong enough to burn through the hull of a cargo ship or blow a Wrath to atoms.
Reddam flipped over and burned after them, falling onto the six of a Deathbird. His helm fed targeting data to this eyes and he saw the foe jinking to and fro, trying to avoid his vengeance. It did no good, Reddam's thumb hit the firing rune on his stick and Grey Avenger opened up, ten lascannons shooting in sequence to create a furious barrage of fire. Three seconds the foe managed to avoid his onslaught, then a las-bolt went straight up an engine exhaust and blew it into flaming scrap.
Reddam spun about and cried the signifier for a kill, "Mortus!"
All around Wraths engaged Deathbirds in a swirling dogfight and the vox filled with cries, "Bandit on my tail. I've got him. Three of them breaking through, moving to engage. Kazao watch your six! Mortus!"
Reddam saw Kazao's fighter being tracked by a pair of foes, their lascannons flaring. The Deathbirds were struggling to hit the jinking fighter but blue glows under their wings signalled plasma cannons preparing to fire. A heartbeat later brilliant bolts shot forth, caging the Wrath in a hail of plasma. Kazao darted left and right but couldn't evade them all and took a glancing blow to his flank, that left energy bleeding out in his wake.
"I'm hit!" he called, "Subitis, subitis, subitis, I'm hit!"
"Hold on, I'm coming!" Reddam snarled as he flipped about and rushed after them.
The Deathbirds weaved to and fro and Reddam's targeting icon jittered as he struggled to lock on. "Come on, lock-on damn you… Stake one!" As the tone changed to the welcome shrill of lock his finger hit another rune and a missile shot away from Grey Avenger. It soared straight and true and struck a Deathbird on the right wing, blowing half its side clean off. The craft went into a mad spin, spewing fire and oxygen into the void, then it tore itself apart and shattered into debris.
"Mortus!" Reddam cried as heaved about to engage the other one, only to realise he didn't need to.
Kazao cut his drive and flipped end to end, firing backwards to tear his pursuer apart and cried, "Mortus!"
Reddam fell onto Kazao's three as he spun about to call, "How bad are you hit?"
Kazao replied, "Servitor's rerouting power. I can still fight."
"Good, follow me," Reddam ordered.
Together the pair dove back into the fray, shooting continuously. Deathbirds were everywhere, darting back and forth as they chased Wraths through the void. They were good, swift and well-armed, but the Wraths were finer engines of war, with better armaments and higher acceleration curves, plus they were steered by Transhumans. Joffel swooped through a pair of fighters, blowing them apart with stabbing lasfire, another was blown away by a flashing missile, smashing it to scraps. Tebes pinwheeled through the fight, lasfire punching out in all directions. Larus chased a Deathbird through a dizzying evasion, it contorted madly through the angles but he stuck to its rear like a limpet and in seconds ended it with a single shot.
Stars spun in Reddam's vision as he cartwheeled through the madness, lascannons firing ceaselessly. Then he heard the servitor wail behind him, the unmistakable shrill of a missile lock. Instantly he threw his Wrath over, flinging himself laterally as a missile shot through the space he had just vacated. He spun about, seeking the shooter and saw a Deathbird diving upon him, plasma cannon blazing fiercely. It had him dead in its sights, and he had no time to evade. He stared death in the face but even as the plasma cannon blinked to fire a lasblast speared up from below, catching the weapons' reservoir chamber. Plasma escaped confinement in a cascading explosion and the Deathbird ceased to be, destroyed by its own lethal power.
A moment later Joffel soared past crying, "Mortus!"
Reddam thrust away as he replied, "Nice shot."
"That's five," Joffel crowed, "That makes me an ace."
"Count laurels later, fight now," Reddam retorted.
The dogfight continued as Amber Vipers winnowed the enemy from the void. In a straight fight the superiority of the Astartes was made plain and the Deathbird's numbers fell dramatically. Reddam thought the day was theirs but then the vox crackled, "Wyvern Control to Wraths. Thunderhawks are launching a boarding action, fighter escort required."
"Copy Wyvern control," Reddam called, "Arcaka can you handle the dregs?"
"These bandits are mine, you go play nursemaid," Arcaka laughed.
"Squad with me!" Reddam called as he broke off and burned away. Four other Wraths fell in with him as they climbed. Above he saw Wyvern closing into point-blank range with four enemy frigates. The Heretics had thought to bracket the cruiser in a crossfire and cripple her, but they had underestimated both the strength of her shields and the enhanced manoeuvrability of her thrusters. A corona of lightning enveloped the Wyvern as she soaked up their barrage, withstanding the onslaught with cold disdain. As he watched she swung about, pulling off a turn that should have sheared a ship of her mass in half. She heaved across the bow of a frigate as her gundecks lit up, throwing out waves of macroshells, turbolasers and missiles. The frigate's shields buckled for a moment then collapsed, electromagnetic shockwaves billowing out as the torrent of fire started carving up her hull.
Reddam had no time to watch as a pair of darts shot from Wyvern's port bay. Viper's Bite and Poisoned Fang, carrying two squads of Amber Vipers towards the next nearest frigate. Instantly turret fire arose, lashing tracers sweeping the void as the Heretics tried to swat them down with an intricate web of defence. Reddam couldn't let that happen and dove into the hurricane, crying, "Follow me in and watch that crossfire!"
Swathes of tracers turned their way, forcing them to jink and weave as Larus cried, "It's too thick!"
"Stay on target!" Reddam roared as he pushed his engines to the maximum.
"There's no room to manoeuvre!" Kazao shouted.
"Stay with me, we're almost there!" Reddam barked.
Closer and closer the streams of tracers came and Reddam knew the smallest slip could spell their dooms. He threw himself randomly about as they closed, trusting to blind luck to keep him alive. He muttered a litany of swiftness to the Machine Spirit of Grey Avenger, urging the craft to find a morsel more speed even as he yanked the controls to and fro. Something clipped the underside of Grey Avenger, making his hearts leap into his mouth, but his controls remained true so he rode the jarring and pressed on, diving into the heart of the storm. Just as he through death was certain he passed an invisible boundary and the tracers fell away. They were too close to the hull to be properly targeted, the defence turrets unable to bracket them in a crossfire anymore.
Kazao breathed, "We made it, I don't believe it."
"The Emperor Protects," Tebes stated firmly.
"Sweep and clear," Reddam briskly ordered, "Create a hole for our Brothers."
"This will be a turkey shoot," Joffel laughed.
Reddam turned and flew laterally to the hull, sweeping along the frigate's length. He spied a turret spitting fire into the void and put a dozen lascannon shots into the emplacement, ripping it open and silencing its guns. Another and another he broke, blasting away the point defence protection of the frigate. His Brothers did likewise, smashing turrets off the hull with concentrated lasfire. The paltry guns of a fighter could not trouble a warship's armour but they could leave the ship shorn of its protection and vulnerable to another strike.
Reddam peeled off and broke for the void calling, "Reddam to Thunderhawks, the road is clear. Hit that opening as hard as you can."
"Copy Brother-Sergeant," a distant pilot voxed, "Commencing attack run, they shall taste the Emperor's fury."
Reddam shot away from the frigate as the pair of Thunderhawks soared past, flipping over to present their landing claws to the hull. Reddam knew they would burn an entrance with concentrated melta-fire, then unleash their deadly cargo into the heart of the foe. A frigate's crew typically numbered several thousand, they would have prepared defences and swarms of armsmen, but it would not matter. Twenty Amber Vipers were more than enough to gut that ship and leave her dead in the void. The Adeptus Astartes excelled in many theatres of war but nowhere more so than a boarding action. There was a damned good reason they were called, 'Space Marines'.
Reddam left the doomed frigate behind as he climbed back into the fray. While they had been engaged Wyvern had demolished her target into scrap. The enemy escort left bleeding from hundreds of vicious wounds in her hull. Air, energy and bodies spilled into the vacuum of space as the vessel rolled over, reduced to a drifting hulk.
Wyvern wasn't done. The cruiser hove to and began shooting at the next foe, a vicious predator set loose among helpless poultry. She wasn't content with one kill, she wanted more, many more and the rate of fire from her guns meant she would taste blood again. It seemed the two surviving Heretic ships agreed for they swung their prows upwards and pushed their drives to the maximum. They were running, leaving the Wyvern in their wake as they fled with their shields flaring under the assault of her guns. A handful of Deathbirds fled with them, leaving control of low orbit in Imperial hands.
The attack on the cargo ships had been repulsed but Reddam wasn't reassured. He looked high and saw the Revenge still embroiled in a close-quarters fight with the Imperial ships. He knew well the power of a Battlebarge and understood this was far from over. If Admiral Belliad didn't stop that ship soon, there was little Wyvern and her Wrath fighters could do to halt her advance. Quietly he urged, "Hurry, hurry up and kill that monster, before she kills us all."