Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 212
Hornan raced with chainsword in hand, hurrying to reach the forward lances. He felt his heart pounding in his chest as he ran and not only from the exertion. His soul raged against the cruelty of fate and the injustice of luck. The Carmilla had been his, the ship and its crew were his to command free of interference from hated Terra. All that remained was dispose of the witnesses and then he would be free. Then Commissar Landry saw fit to rise from whatever dank hole he had been hiding in and ruin everything. For that alone Hornan would kill him, not to mention a lifetime of sneering arrogance.
Around him teams of armsmen raced, lugging shotguns and cutlasses with eager relish. They wore carapace armour taken from the ship's small-arms lockers, usually reserved for petty officers but now pressed to serve new masters. Hornan had gathered them together in haste, his most fierce and merciless men, those who had delighted in spilling blood during the mutiny. Every man here had felt the lash of their oppressors too many times and they were eager to repay that torment. Hornan could count on them to show no mercy when they caught up to the Commissar.
Ahead loomed the prow lances, towering constructions of conduits, focussing lenses and energy chambers. It loomed a hundred metres high and stretched as far as the eye could see, every inch covered in scaffolding and tangle mazes of pipes and cabling. Cyber-cherubs flittered to and fro, screeching Binaric psalms and scores of servitors anointed steaming cables with blessed oils to keep the belligerent Machine Spirits placated. This was the primary capacitor, where staggering amounts of power would be accumulated to service the requirements of the lance weapon. No land based weapon could compare to the towering majesty of void weaponry. Destruction that surpassed a Centurio Ordinatus' output was unleashed from this place and this was only one of three such chambers spread across the prow.
"Warp hells," Hornan cursed as he looked upon the twisted maze of metal, "Landry could be anywhere in here, spread out and…" A sudden bang cut him off as a shotgun blast took the man beside him in the face and peppered his skull and neck with red-hot pellets. The man collapsed frothing blood as more blasts rang loud, showering armsmen with a hail of blasts as more shotguns rang.
"Scatter!" Hornan cried as he dove behind a pipe. As he did so he had a brief glance of a number of attackers, scores of them. They were ragged and filthy, the lowest dregs of the ship but each of them bore weapons in hand and all had red rags tied around their arms, chests and heads. The conclusion was inescapable; Landry had recruited followers among the crew. Fanatics, they had to be, no others would listen to a lone Commissar. Most of the crew would have shot Landry on sight, but there were always those whose loyalty to the Imperial Creed went beyond the bounds of sanity. Those who would actively resist any effort to improve their lot, in the name of a god who did not care to know their names. Somehow Landry had found these zealots and brought them together in this place.
"We can't risk being pinned here!" Hornan shouted to his fellows, "Advance by pairs, cover each other and take them in close quarters!" Responding to his order the armsmen advanced, their courage undaunted by the ferocious barrage. Men leaned out to spray shots into tangled metalwork as others advanced. A few lucky shots struck men off their feet but the majority made it to cover and then laid down fire for the rest to advance.
Hornan waited a moment and cursed, "Why didn't I think to don armour?" Then he dashed from cover to the next pipe. No rounds found him, for which he thanked any god who cared to listen, and he made it to safety. Thunderous retorts rang loud in his ears, the acrid stink of gunpowder and the bright flashes of muzzle discharge blinding in the close confines. He winced as several more armsmen were cut down but then they reached the nearest attackers and drove into them. In close combat the weight of their carapace armour proved decisive, blows scored over hardened plates without penetrating as stabs from cutlasses opened guts and chopped off limbs in return. With a surge of shocking violence the armsmen cut down a dozen foes and the rest fell back, retreating into the maze of pipes to buy room to manoeuvre.
"After them!" Hornan roared, "It will be a cold day in hell before they take the Carmilla back from us!" He matched actions to words, lopping after a fleeing man with his chainsword held ready. The zealot was a large man, fat hanging off him, but he moved swiftly as he ducked under a horizontal pipe twice as thick as he was. Hornan followed without pause and nearly died as a cleaver swung for his neck. The fat man had paused to set up an impromptu ambush, nearly killing Hornan in the process.
Reflex saved him, sending him diving to the deck in a forward roll that left greasy stains all over his back. Hornan hastily rose to his feet and spun about before the zealot could finish him off. To his surprise the man was no towering juggernaut of muscle and pride, no avatar of Imperial virtues. He was breathing hard, his heart obviously hammering from the effort of running. Rolls of fat hung off his arms and his belly was low over his belt yet upon his brow was a tattoo of the Aquila, signs of unbending devotion. He was clearly unaccustomed to combat, a fact attested to by the stained white uniform of a victualler. He was a cook, a damned ship's cook, and he'd nearly killed Hornan.
His anger rose at the indignity and he spat, "You die for that."
"For the God-Emperor," the cook wheezed as he lurched forward and swung a notched butcher's cleaver.
To his credit the man didn't pull his punches, going for the throat in a killing blow, but Hornan swayed back and let it pass before his eyes. As he surmised the cook was no warrior, his attack telegraphed and predictable but still a single blow could end the fight. Hornan was no space marine, one lucky strike would be his undoing. Hornan let the blow pass but didn't intend to allow a second. The cook staggered with the missed attack, pulled off-balance by the momentum of his swing. Instantly Hornan seized the opening, swinging his chainsword down on the over-extended arm. Spinning blades met skin and bone and scythed through them with ease. A hideous shriek of bone shattering arose as Hornan leaned into the blow, red blood spraying high from the impact site. Iron-scents clawed at his sinuses as he ripped the arm clean off, leaving the man to collapse screaming in agony.
Blood poured from the wound, pooling in the floor and causing Hornan to step back. It was strange, he'd just killed a man and yet his first thought was to keep his boots clean. The ludicrousness of that nearly made him laugh, the absurd notion tickling his spirit but he held it back. Combat did strange things to a man's mind, the rushing emotions unhinging many and leaving others catatonic or raving madmen. Hornan had been in enough fights to know the stress was trying to crack his sanity and he needed to focus lest his reason be taken from him. He had no intention of ending up like those drooling madmen who spent all day rocking back and forth, gibbering of crazed visions.
Hornan left the cook to bleed out as he ducked back under the pipe and returned to the fray. In his momentary absence the fight had moved on, armsmen and zealots wrestling amid the confusion of metal conduits and tangled pipes. Bodies lay everywhere, both sides losing many but the greater number were fanatics. The mutineers held the advantage and they pressed it ruthlessly.
Hornan made to join their assault but it was then he spied a flash of red above. He paused as he saw a figure in a long coat running along an overhead gantry, shiny black boots ringing on the metal mesh. Commissar Landry himself, dashing through the fight like some avenging angel. Hornan's ire surged at the sight, pushing aside his tiredness. He spied a ladder nearby and ran to it, sheathing his sword to haul himself up. It took moments to reach the Commissar's level and Hornan saw the man had his back to him, caught unaware as he fired a bolt pistol into the melee below.
Hornan grinned as he pulled his stub-pistol from its holster and made to shoot the Commissar in the back. It was not to be. Some tiny instinct alerted Landry, a shadow moving, a cry from below there was no way to tell, but Landry was alerted. He spun on his heel and brought his bolt pistol about to fire. Hornan's eyes widened but his arm continued its motion, raising the pistol for Landry's heart as his finger tightened on the trigger. Then both men fired simultaneously and the pistols discharged as one.