Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 195
Hornan sweated under his collar as the Hololith crackled with distortion. All across the secondary bridge of the Carmilla crewmen worked with unusual quietness, even the servitors sounding subdued. Ridiculous as it was in the vacuum of space officers whispered to each other with sotto voices and ratings gestured silently, trying to go unnoticed. Even the priest at the far lectern seemed unwilling to sing praises. All felt the chilling sense of exposure and well they should. The Carmilla was edging out of the ion storm, poking her nose into empty space where she could see and be seen.
Hornan gripped the railing tight as he looked up from his dais and hissed, "Where are you?"
At his side Commissar Landry stood ramrod straight and chided, "Trust in the auspex and pray for God-Emperor's benevolence."
"More like trust in the God-Emperor and pray for a clean auspex," Hornan muttered.
Landry didn't sound amused as he said, "You must show more fortitude in front of the crew. You are their captain and must appear confident at all times. Nothing will destroy a crew's spirit faster than a Captain who seems out of his depth."
"Hard to be confident in such a reckless plan," Hornan grumbled.
"You doubt it can be done?" Landry challenged as his hand drifted to his bolt pistol.
Hornan caught the not-so-subtle threat, and hissed, "Don't think to shoot me yet, I have not lost my courage. The plan might work, and I will play my part, but it requires too much to go exactly as we want it to. This Ferrac thinks to play the enemy, but no plan of action ever survives contact with the enemy."
"I shall make note of your lack of faith," Landry hissed.
"So long as you do it quietly," Hornan retorted.
He turned his eyes to the Hololith and watched as surveyor haze began to fade away. Carmilla was emerging from the Ion storm on the edge nearest Lutum. She coasted slowly, hugging the distorting murk to hide her energy signature, while her auspex vanes scoured local space. The resulting image was jumpy and hashed with distortion, but Hornan could see two marks lurking at opposite ends of the storm, frigates set to scan the void in case the Imperials tried to a make a dash for safety. Along the ventral aspect Echidna was flying a patrol circuit, sweeping back and forth ready to intercept anything that moved. Yet it was high above that the true threat lurked. The Angel's Revenge, sailing in a lazy circle above the storm. She looked barely wounded by her injuries in the fight over Lutum and was ready to dive upon anything that poked its nose from the storm. She was a hungry and lean killer, an oceanic predator on the scent of blood and her fangs were sharp.
"There she is," Gansay declared.
"I don't think she's seen us," Torhay added.
"Let's keep it that way," Hornan affirmed, "Helm, steer heading 000 mark 090, then give me a two-second burst from the main drives. Bring us up behind her on inertia."
The Carmilla lifted her nose and began a slow cruise upwards, creeping behind the Revenge on a low-power drift. The ship was kilometres long and packed with thousands of crewmen but in the flaring discharge of the ion storm her energy emissions were blanketed in waves of distortion. Slowly the light-cruiser drifted nearer, watching all the while as the range closed. Every soul on board tensed for the moment the Revenge spied them, but it did not come.
Landry said, "Sloppy auspex work, they should be able to see us this close."
"We didn't when they ambushed us," Hornan reminded him.
"Those were small frigates, this is a cruiser. It seems the Space Marine was right; these Heretics are poor void-farers."
Hornan gritted his teeth at the comment as he watched the icons moving. He had to time this just right, emerging from the storm in a position where the Revenge could see them, but not so close as to be blown from the stars. His goal was to entice the foe into giving chase, luring them into the jaws of a trap. The goal was clear, the only question was could they pull it off.
Hornan beheld Revenge reach the furthest edge of her sweep, some sixty thousand kilometres away, and begin a laborious turn. He wouldn't get a better chance than this and ordered, "Increase power to the main drive, full thrust. Take us straight out of the storm and make it look like we're running for the open void."
The crew laboured to obey and Carmilla surged into life, springing free of the buffeting clouds of surveyor hash. Her prow shrugged off wisps of corposant as she ploughed into the void, sailing free and clear. Before her lay the depths of trackless space, but not so far away her gallant sprint was spotted. The Revenge's auspex painted her hull with surveyor sweeps and the predator surged into life, heaving about to bring her gaping prow to bear. Gun ports slid open along her flanks, bombardment cannons lifted to scent for blood and torpedo tubes yawned wide, to reveal the deadly warheads within.
"She's seen us!" Gansay hollered.
Hornan tried to sound confident as he uttered, "Good, she's taken the bait, now let's reel her in. Raise shields and charge the lances. Divert reserve power to the manoeuvring thrusters, fire bow port and stern starboard thrusters. Helm, come to a new heading!"
The Carmilla began to spin in the void, her mighty engines flaring to counter inertia. A direct reversal of course was the most time-consuming and energy-intensive manoeuvre in the void, yet the Carmilla was swift and nimble for a capital ship. Her bow swung about with alacrity, bringing her to face the storm once more. Two minutes was all it took for the ship to turn completely, though to Hornan's sweating worry it felt like hours. Finally Carmilla was pointed back the way she had come and the main drives flared to life, thrusting her back along her course. The sight stirred Revenge's lust for blood and the Battlebarge accelerated harder, merely forty-thousand kilometres behind and closing fast.
"We seem to have caught her attention," Hornan muttered, "We must look like panicking cattle, caught unaware by a hunter and fleeing for our lives."
"You wanted to peak her hunger," Landry muttered, "She's hungry and then some, but if she swings about she can rake us at extreme range with her broadside guns."
"We can't let that happen," Hornan snarled, "Enginarium, vent plasma from the eighth drive coil and reduce acceleration by ten percent, make it look like we are having engine troubles."
The Carmilla slowed a hair and Revenge took the bait, powering nearer. The edge of the storm beckoned, promising safety and cover but Hornan kept his mouth shut, holding back the order to dive into the mists and disappear. They had to wait until the moment was right to act.
Suddenly Gansay yelled, "She's launching strike craft, Deathbirds in the void and closing fast!"
"Launch Fury interceptors," Hornan ordered, "Direct them to protect our drive coils, we can't let them cripple us!"
Landry muttered, "I was praying they had forgotten about those."
Hornan scoffed, "The universe is too cruel for such good fortune to fall our way, we'll have to fight our way out."
In the Hololith swirling clouds of Deathbirds and Furies engaged, billowing blue and red dots dancing around each other. The Imperial pilots were ace flyers and their craft were superior in the void, but the Heretics enjoyed a terrifying superiority in numbers. Hornan knew many brave pilots were about to die, forced into an unequal battle by the arrogance of a Space Marine, but he hardened his heart and told himself it was necessary. Yet he could not help think of Ambos and pray for her survival, to lose the grizzled flyer would weigh heavily upon him. The reality of command was a lot less glorious than he had ever imagined it to be.
Landry spoke, "We're crossing back into the storm."
"Then the first phase is complete," Hornan declared as the Carmilla was swept into the mists, "Comms: send a tight-beam signal to the Wyvern, tell them we're coming in and the Revenge is hot on our heels. It's time to start the burn."
The Carmilla sent a tightly focussed vox-signal into the murk of the storm, punching through the haze with a powerful signal, one that had better be received. Behind her Revenge brushed the edges of the ion clouds and dove straight in, chasing the fleeing cruiser into the washing distortion. At long range the interference had hidden them but the two ships were only thirty-thousand kilometres apart and the Revenge was fixated upon the bright flare of the plasma drives. She would follow Carmilla anywhere, never relenting in her chase, which was what the Imperials wanted.
Hornan scanned the Hololith desperately and muttered, "Come on, come on, where are you?"
"Faith," Landry chided, "Have faith."
Hornan's instinct was to spit 'frak faith', but he had no wish to be shot on his own bridge so covered, "As the God-Emperor wills."
Suddenly a cry went up, "Mass-shadow detected, dead ahead!" Hornan looked up in dismay and spotted a massive asteroid emerging from the ion clouds, barrelling right at them. A slab-sided rock, pitted by impacts and scorched by solar winds, ugly, blunt and indifferent to the turning of the universe. Ten times the size of Carmilla, larger even than Angel's Revenge, and almost pure iron throughout. It was moving under the direction of chemical thrusters, planted along its rear by Tech-Priests from the fleet. Short-burning but powerful boosters, giving it a kick up the rear. Between its burn, and the closing ship's speeds, the relative velocity was a considerable fraction of the speed of light and with that much mass involved any impact would be lethal. And that was before one considered the explosives planted throughout its bulk.
"It's too close!" Gansay cried in alarm.
"Abaddon's Balls!" Hornan breathed, "Turn to starboard, Come about now!"
Carmilla groaned as her bow turned, heaving away from the asteroid as the flocking Furies and Deathbirds scattered. Her mass continued to drift along a collision course but flaring plasma drives edged her away, the vectors shifting inexorably as she pulled hard to starboard. Hornan gripped the railing with white-knuckled fists as he watched the Hololith realign, desperately afraid they had failed the turn, but to his joy the bow cleared the oncoming mass of the asteroid and took them away, missing a deadly impact by a mere five kilometres, a bowel loosening near-miss in void terms. Behind her the Revenge ploughed on, the doughty Battlebarge unable to make the turn and locked into a terminal impact-trajectory with a moving mountain in space.
"She's doomed!" Hornan cheered.
Torhay cried, "Ha! That's what you ground-pounders get, charging in like a grox in mating season!"
Landry cautioned, "They may yet try to turn."
But Hornan scoffed, "She's too fat about the gunwales and heavy in the keel. A ship of that displacement cannot match our turn. It seems I owe Ferrac an apology, those mud-rats really do know nothing of void-faring."
His elated mood was punctured as Gansay cried, "Wait, what's this?!" Hornan's eyes jumped to the Hololith and his jaw fell as he saw the energy spikes of weapons locking on. The Revenge's spine was lined by doughty Bombardment cannons and they all lifted as one to point at the oncoming mass of the asteroid. Magnetic accelerator coils discharged and flung spinning shells the size of buildings at the rock. They crossed the shrinking gap in moments and slammed into bare stone, burrowing deep under its surface like bolt-rounds striking skin and bone, then they exploded. These warheads were designed to kill cities, to break armoured warships and batter continents into submission. They exploded into incandescent flares of violence, incredible heat and shockwaves shattering the rocky surface and splitting it apart. Vicious fractures ripped the front of the asteroid apart, spraying chunks into the void, then the heat of the detonations set off the explosives within and the asteroid erupted like a firecracker.
Hornan watched in mute disbelief as the asteroid came apart, disintegrating into a billion spinning stone shards that expanded in a silent sphere of impotent fury. Revenge ploughed into that blizzard of fractured rock, her bow pelted by tumbling bits of stone and grit. She disappeared into the confusion, shields flaring wildly as they fought off impacts. Her length was eclipsed by debris and he dared to think she had been fatally wounded, but his guts clenched in terror as he saw her hammerhead prow emerge from the other side. Her iconography had been scoured bare and one of the torpedo tubes was clogged with debris but the Revenge had emerged alive. She had taken the Imperial's trap in her jaws and snapped it in half.
"No..." Hornan breathed in dread, "Throne no..."
"What do we do?" Gansay cried as wails of terror and dismay swept the packed bridge.
"I... I..." Hornan stammered, unable to think of anything to say. He was unmanned, left adrift and helpless by the shocking reversal of fortune.
But then Torhay yelled, "Look! Here comes the fleet!" Hornan saw it, emerging from the haze came Wyvern, Jormungandyr and Myrmidon Squadron. The full power of the Imperial warfleet, bearing down on the Revenge with gunports open. Wyvern led the way, hungry for blood and eager for battle to be joined. Jormungandyr was hot on her heels, the repaired ship still bearing many wounds but able and willing to fight, a pugilist who had not yet been battered enough to admit defeat. Myrmidon squadron held the ventral approach, looking for a chance to slip into vulnerable spot and sink their knives in deep. Each ship was outmatched by the power of the Battlebarge, but she was isolated and alone and reeling from her narrow escape. If they hit her together before she could recover, they may yet win the day.
"Come about!" Hornan shouted desperately, "We must rejoin the attack. Cycle shields and bless the lances for repeated firing; all hands prepare to reengage!"
"May the God-Emperor watch over us," Landry prayed.
Hornan muttered, "He'd better, it's going to take a miracle to pull this off. It's too late to back out, either we win here and now or we're done for. It's all or nothing: victory or death."