Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 188
"Scorpio squadron has been beaten back," Dylun stated over the din of the bridge.
"For their failure daemons of the warp shall gnaw on their gizzards," Moryna hissed.
"Half of them already are dead already," Dylun remarked.
Verina heard the words and felt a pulse of frustration beat through her. The escorts had failed in their efforts to reach the Mass-conveyors and rescue their Emperess, a galling setback to her plans. Half her escorts broken and the rest fleeing for their lives. If she was not so far away she would put a bolt-round into their commander's heads. She thought this not from professional pride but personal vexation. Verina felt the absence of the Emperess as a throbbing pulse behind the eyeballs and a sick twist in the gut. The need to be near the living god gripped her hard, a compulsion to look upon the golden sovereign consuming Verina's soul. She wanted to rage and cry, to tell others they didn't understand her needs, but she knew they felt the same way.
Across the vast bridge of Angel's Revenge the crew laboured to keep the Battlebarge straight and true. Every man and woman fought with their consoles, struggling to master the obdurate Machine Spirit of the ship. The Revenge was a pitiless vessel of war and her spirit was equally callous, prone to go its own way and drift from direction. Though the inexperience of the crew also played its part, few of them were original crew, less than one in ten surviving to embrace the Emperess' love. The rest were mortal draftees from Lutum, struggling to make sense of what they were doing. They sweated as they fought to hold the ship on course, shouting at each other and beating panels with their fists in frustration. It made Lanfast, the last Blood Talon, chuckle in his iron chains, taking some small satisfaction in seeing his flagship's will had not been broken.
Verina forced herself to ignore the mocking laugh as she stared into the Hololith and tried to make sense of the confusion within. It was a mass of blips and arrowheads, dominated by the vast sweep of the planet. The Adepta Soroitas taught its daughters to stand and fight, to pray and seek spiritual virtue, but it did not teach one how to read a Hololith. Verina had spent months teaching herself how to command a starship, parsing technical manuals and practising simulations but the reality was proving more challenging. Nothing in space was fixed, everything was moving and vectors shifted constantly. It was not enough to see what was occurring, one had to know what was going to happen, to predict the conjunction of vessels long before they had begun to close together. It was like trying to track a single snowflake through a blizzard and Verina was gaining a new respect for void commanders.
Verina shook her head and told herself to concentrate on one thing at a time. In the highest orbits Echidna was dancing with a quartet of Sword frigates. The Commerce-raider was outnumbered but surprisingly manoeuvrable for a cruiser and was managing to avoid being bracketed. She was aided in this effort by squadrons of Deathbirds, a force the Emperess' armies had in droves. This fight could be safely ignored.
Lower down the survivors of Scorpio squadron were retreating from a surprisingly tough cruiser. Beyond them lurked the tauntingly close cargo ships and Mass-Conveyors. Verina presumed the Emperess was imprisoned on one of those vast transport ships and needed to board and capture them immediately. Sadly that seemed a long way off right now. She would have to beat the guarding forces first, that was all she needed to concentrate on.
She picked out the icon of the Revenge, seeing the mighty ship surrounded by three hostile vessels. There was a proud line cruiser, the Veritas, running parallel to the starboard flank and hammering the Revenge's shields. A sleek light cruiser, the Carmilla, that one they had already encountered off the ion storm. She was running in from a dorsal vector, lances gleaming. Off the port flank a squat and unlovely ship loomed, the Jormungandr. Verina would have discounted that one, save her Bombardment Cannons had a sting the Revenge had already learned to beware. On the perimeter an orbital dock was spewing out fighter and bombers, it wasn't in gun range yet but soon would be. The Battlebarge's shields were holding, as her gundecks roared, but they wouldn't last much longer.
Verina drew in a breath and ordered, "Increase speed and ready a torpedo spread for the orbital dock. Starboard weapon batteries, keep that cruiser at bay. Port batteries hammer that brick of a ship. Bombardment Cannons elevate and fend off that light cruiser."
The crew hastened to make her will manifest but Dylun murmured, "Dividing our firepower won't be enough, not against their shields."
"Don't question me," Verina snapped, "We only need to hold them off, the real threat is the bombers."
Closing from the orbital dock came a flurry of Starhawk bombers, burning hard for the Battlebarge. With all the Deathbirds engaged there was nothing to stop their approach and they dove for the beleaguered ship, their stubby wings made heavy by plasma missiles. Verina felt a flutter in her heart as she shouted, "Point-defence turrets, fire!"
Streaming webs of tracers shot forth, lashing the void with deadly power. The incoming bombers jinked to and fro, trying to avoid being hit but a Battlebarge's defences were thick indeed, superior to any line cruiser's. One, two, three, four Starhawks were clipped and exploded into tiny puffs of light and air, their crew's snuffed out of existence in a heartbeat. Verina dared hope the rest would be warned off, but their bravery was sterling, daring the web of destruction to close and launch missiles. Her heart skipped a beat as swarms of missiles slammed into the prow, exploding over the bow with blazing orbs of plasma. The ship rocked furiously from the impacts, yet the reinforced armour of the bow was pure Adamantium, it resisted the cascading detonations, shrugging off plasma like an oceanic creature spilling water off its back.
The bombers broke off and retreated, their payloads spent. Four crews dead and no significant damage done, a testament to the strength of the Revenge. Yet the danger was not over. In the Hololith the swirling icons showed the exchange of fire increasing, the duel growing more ferocious. Decks rumbled as guns the size of buildings fired shells across the void and artificial gravity quivered as the shields were pushed to the maximum, an opaque shell growing thinner and thinner with every moment. The Revenge was throwing out destruction in all directions but her foes were many and they were closing.
Suddenly there was a flare of energy in the Hololith as the Carmilla fired, her prow lances stabbing down to tear at the frail protection of the void shields. One beam went wide but two impacted squarely and the Revenge snarled as her systems overloaded. Chained lightning ran across the length of the ship as electromagnetic energies blew out and left her defenceless. Instantly the torrent of shells from the Veritas began slamming into the hull. Macroshells, turbolasers, missiles, grav-blasts and plasma bolts hammering at her thick armour. Cries arose from the bridge crew, "Impacts on decks seventy-eight through one-twenty-seven. Vacuum breaches in multiple compartments. Macrocannons forty-one and forty-two have gone quiet, presume all hands dead."
"Return fire!" Verina furiously shouted, "Keep hitting them!"
But then Dylun shouted, "Ware the Jormungandr!"
From the starboard flank the brick-like ship swung doughty Bombardment cannons about and let slip hell. City-killing ordnance crossed the void and struck the Revenge's flank, burrowing through armour as would a bolt-round through flesh. They exploded a second later, ripping apart a section of the stern above the plasma drives. The Revenge was bled deeply as plasma spilled from the ragged wound, streaming in her wake like vitae from a wounded soldier.
On the bridge the violence of the impact threw Verina against the railing of the dais and she clung to it to keep her feet. The crew wailed in distress as servitor's chattering increased in tempo and the blaring of consoles sang of the ship's pain. High above Lanfast snorted in his chains, taking delight in seeing his captor's humiliation and Verina knew this was a telling wound.
"Plasma thruster nine is dead," a crewman cried, "Main drive output reduced by seven percent. Helm is sluggish to respond!"
Moryna hissed, "They have us, they have stone dead."
Verina snapped, "No, try to look ahead and see what will happen next. The Carmilla is breaking off; she has only prow lances and will need to run out before she can come at us again."
Dylun growled, "Orders?"
Verina shouted, "Switch bombardment cannons to target the brick. Concentrate all fire immediately!"
The crew obeyed and the ship's guns came to bear. Long seconds passed as the gaping barrels along her spine were swung to engage, then every weapon discharged at once. Macrocannons, turbolasers, plasma annihilators, missiles and grav-cannon smote the Jormungandr, shattering her shields with overwhelming power. Electromagnetic waves rolled over the hull as the energy barriers collapsed, and then two Magma bombs struck home. This time it was the Jormungandr who suffered, her internal compartments blowing out as explosions tore through her. Men died, energy conduits were severed, munitions detonated and reactors failed as a cascading series of explosions ripping through her, collapsing her internal structure and warping her spine. The wounded ship lurched in space, streaming fire and bodies as the cracked superstructure robbed her of speed and firepower. Jormungandr had been crippled, left limping in the void and no threat for now.
"Yes!" Dylun shouted, "Take that you blackguards!"
"Again," Moryna hissed, "Hit them again."
But Verina snapped, "Silence fools, look at the Veritas!"
In the Hololith the cruiser was pulling ahead, swinging to port as she drew across the bow of the Revenge. "They're crossing the T," Dylun gasped, "They'll rake us across the bow at point-blank range!"
It was a text-book naval manoeuvre, the classic killing blow every Captain dreamed of, the death of ships and the ending of battles. Screams of terror rang out across the bridge and yet Verina's attention was not on them. She noted Lanfast was silent in his chains, the Space Marine not amused at the sight. He had seen something, he knew a truth that eluded the mortals. The enemy had made a mistake, Verina realised, and she thought she knew what it was.
Her lips drew back over her teeth in glee as she cried, "Silence! Get back to your posts and divert all power to the engines. All ahead full!"
Dylun gasped, "You don't mean to…"
Verina snarled with glee, "Give me ramming speed!"
In the Hololith the Veritas grew in size, swelling as Revenge accelerated. Too late the Imperial ship saw her mistake and her helm pulled up, trying to climb out of the way, but it was no good. Her gundecks flashed as they threw a desperate wave of defiance at the closing Revenge, but the reinforced prow shrugged it off with ease. Her launch bays gleamed like a predator's mouth as she pounced, the four ramming spikes fangs in her jaws.
The Revenge closed the distance in moments, then the ramming spikes slammed home, punching through armour with the full momentum of fifty gigatonnes of mass behind them. The Revenge caught Veritas amidships, behind her gundecks but before the engine block. The port stabiliser wing crumpled like a spent ration can, shattering into a mass of broken spars. Compartments folded into themselves, killing thousands of men in a tangled twist of metal. Magazines were smashed, transit tubes imploded, support beams shattered into kindling and still the Revenge drove on.
On the bridge the violence of the crash threw all hands about like rag dolls yet still Verina cried, "More power to the engines: more, MORE!"
The Revenge pushed on, carving her way through the Veritas. The sledgehammer prow dug deeper and deeper, plunging through the Veritas like a piledriver driven through a man's torso. The proud cruiser screamed in the vox-waves as her mass was violated, her spine breaking and her lines deforming. A Tyrant-class cruiser, eight kilometres of metal and armour, bent around her gunwales, the bow and the stern no longer in alignment. Then the Revenge punched clean through the other side, her prow ripping free to cast two shorn halves of starship down either flank.
Veritas died, torn in two as the bow and stern fell away from each other. They tumbled away in death spin, ruptured innards spewing men into the vacuum of space. Every inch of their cross-section could be seen, a perfect picture of the internal workings of starship left exposed to space. Bulkheads failed to close, the Machine Spirits wailing in torment, as all oxygen was ripped from the interior. Every man on board died clawing at their necks, trying to draw a breath that would not come. Admiral Belliad expired too, falling to the floor of the bridge as his eyeballs froze in the chill of the void and his tongue gagged with vacuum swelling. Medals and pride availed him not as death claimed its due, his life snuffed out with no more effort than the lowest rating's.
On the Revenge's bridge cheering erupted at the sight of Veritas' corpse falling behind in their wake. Crew pumped the air and sang songs of victory as a ship-kill was confirmed. Verina was no exception, laughing loudly as her rival was broken and defeated. The Veritas was dead, Jormungandr was crippled and Carmilla running. The way was open to end this fight once and for all.
Dylun crowed, "The lackeys of the dead-emperor are defeated!"
"Ave Imperata!" Moryna cried, "Ave Imperata!"
"Yes my friends," Verina laughed, "Now take us to the orbital dock. We'll break their last redoubt then swing about and pick off the stragglers. Give praises to the Emperess, soon she will be among us once more!"