Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 220

"Possible bandit off your ventral ten," Tebes voxed.

"Copy," Reddam replied, "Moving to intercept, fangs bared."

Reddam feathered the stick and Grey Avenger spun towards the stray object, lascannons ready. He kept a hair-trigger finger on the stick in case of hostile action but needn't have bothered, the hostile craft was drifting inert and unpowered, dead in the void. Reddam fluttered his plasma drive to coast nearer, examining the derelict fighter. An Imperial Fury interceptor, riddled with lasblasts, doubtless taken in the furious exchange below Revenge's keel. The pilots and nose-gunner were frozen statues, left in eternal combat stance at their posts. Sudden and catastrophic loss of life support had killed them quickly, the cold of space stealing their vitality in moments. Their lives reduced to mere numbers in the fatality tally of the battle.

As Ferrac led the boarding action Reddam and the Wraths had engaged the remaining Deathbirds and traitorous Furies, a whirlwind of las and missile as fierce as any engagement so far. The Wraths had reaped a fearful toll but had not emerged unscathed, Grey Avenger keening from multiple hits as were all the other Wraths, only their robust engineering had saved them. Still it had been closer than he cared to admit, the weight of numbers nearly crushing them, but suddenly and without warning the flurries of bandits had broken, fleeing for their lives into the hash of the storm. About the same time Revenge had lost direction and begun to list aimlessly, proving that the ship had fallen to the Astartes. Without their leaders the Heretic's courage had proved brittle indeed. Reddam suspected they would try to reach Lutum and attempt a landing, but he'd filed that as someone else's problem.

Reddam kept a wary eye but grinned under his helm as he saw a Squadron-leader's markings set underneath the canopy. "Serves you right Traitor."

"Repeat that," Tebes voxed.

"It's Ambos' fighter," Reddam crowed, "The Heretic received her due punishment for her treachery."

"None can escape the Emperor's implacable justice," Tebes agreed.

"Come, let's finish our sweep and get back," Reddam stated as he turned Grey Avenger's nose to the convoy. Arrayed before him were thirteen cargo ships and the three mass-conveyors, backlit by electro-static discharges from the ion storm. All that had survived the assault of the Heretics, the lucky few who had been too insignificant to destroy. The wallowing civilians had taken hours to light their reactors and awaken their drives, not capable of moving until long after the Revenge had fallen. Naturally their first instinct had been to flee in panic, but threats over the vox and a few close flybys from the Wraths had convinced them the fight was over and they had calmed down. Now they slowly burned for the edge of the storm, heading for clear space at last.

Reddam swept over the dorsal vector, then down the rear, watchful for threats. None emerged and he was satisfied the Deathbirds were dead or fled, no hostiles remained to trouble them. The site of battle was falling behind and navigation was getting more problematic as the convoy moved so he decided to call it a day and make for safe harbour. He turned Grey Avenger for the heart of the convoy, where the Revenge lay dark and cold.

It was a strange sight, the vessel that had been responsible for so much death and destruction was an inert mass of metal, helpless and unable to move under her own power. Her gunports were closed, Holo-pennants dark and barely a handful of interior lights leaked through the cathedrals on her spine, the only sign that she wasn't completely dead. The only reason she was moving with the convoy were two tiny motes off her bow, Viper's Bite and Poisoned Fang, towing the Battlebarge on kilometre-long Adamantium chains. It made the eyes water, to see two tiny gunships tugging a vessel several million times their mass, but they were gamely trying, plasma drives straining to produced forward thrust. It had taken sixteen hours to rig up this crude tugboat and almost as long to get them moving. A tiresome affair, but Ferrac had planted his flag and was determined to drag the Battlebarge back to the Nest, or at least to a point where the Chapter could pick them up.

"That looks so peculiar," Tebes remarked as they closed, "One would think it impossible."

Reddam explained, "There's no atmospheric drag to overcome in space, in theory one could move a starfort with the force of a feather hitting the ground."

"Just so long as we don't have to try anything complicated, say like turning right."

"Straight ahead will suffice, all we need is to get clear of the storm. Then we wait for the rest of the Chapter to arrive."

Tebes mused, "Couldn't we just leave her here and come back?"

Reddam scoffed, "Not if she drifts off into this hash, we could scour this storm for a century and not find a cold and powerless ship. Emperor forfend she gets drawn into the gravity well of a moon and crashes. We'd never get her off the ground."

They lapsed into silence as they approached the bow, seeing the looming berth of the forward hanger waiting. Set between the forks of her ramming spikes the bay loomed like an open maw, wide enough to swallow a Frigate and waiting to swallow them whole. There was no controlling officer to guide them in so into that maw Reddam steered, seeing the bright flash of an atmospheric integrity field sweep over his hull, then gravity snatched the Wrath and tried to drag him down. Careful handling of the reaction-control thrusters let him land safely, setting down between two Deathbirds and a servitor-loader. His hands flew over the controls and then he took up a vial of oil and anointed the console intoning, "With sacred libations I soothe thee, with reverent devotions I appease thee. Sleep machine and await the call. Be at peace and dream of war."

Ritual observances complete Reddam disembarked, making sure to grab his spear on the way down. No chattels came to tend to the wounded Wrath, no refuellers and artisans to repair ailing systems. The bay was eerily quiet, the cavernous space stretching back over a kilometre into the length of the Battlebarge. Ribbed arches reinforced the walls, munition hoists dangled from overhead and heavy barricades were flushed to the floor, ready to spring up and baffle exhaust-thrust at a moment's notice. The sight took Reddam back to another age, when such a place would have been bustling with gunships and strike craft, enough to launch whole companies of Space Marines into the heart of war. He ripped off his helm and drank in the flat air, multi-lung untroubled by the low-oxygen levels as he sank into nostalgia. He hadn't realised how much he missed this sight until he saw it again.

Tebes jumped down from his fighter and remarked, "Gravity is working, and the atmo-field."

"Emergency generators have kicked in," Reddam explained, "Even without the main reactors this ship will have secondary and tertiary back-ups in every compartment, to supply minimal life-support."

"Impressive," Tebes replied.

"She's designed to take a pounding and keep her crew alive no matter what comes her way. There's nothing in the galaxy to match a Battlebarge for survivability, as we found out to our cost."

Tebes followed as they moved further into the bay. They stepped over the bodies of Heretics, grey-faced from suffocation and left to rot where they lay. Only waxy-skinned servitors yet moved, their Augmetics keeping them alive to maintain the ship, regardless of who commanded her. Reddam knew they would have to clear out the bodies before they rotted, but with tens of thousands of corpses to eject that would have to wait.

He noted more Wraths dotted about the bay and realised the others had completed their sweeps and come back already. he and Tebes had been the last to land. He saw the survivors of Arcaka's squad in a corner, three Brothers mourning their losses. He did not intrude into their grief, knowing it was a private moment. In time they would have to be reorganised or divided but for now he let them be.

Further down he saw Larus, Joffel and Kazao, standing around an ungainly craft several times the length of a Thunderhawk. They were examining its skeletal structure and the numerous claws and clamps strung between a boxy cockpit and an oversized engine bay. They were guessing at its function and Reddam was amused by their inaccurate deductions.

"It's some form of orbital surveillance craft," Joffel argued.

"Redundant, a missile platform is far more likely," Larus scoffed.

"You're both wrong," Kazao retorted, "It's an interplanetary tug, for pulling loads inside a star system."

Reddam strode up to them and called, "What you are looking at is an Astartes' Heavy lander."

Heads turned to look at him and Larus asked, "What does it land?"

"Whatever you want," Reddam answered, "Supplies, munitions, whole columns of tanks in one go. Why this thing could ferry an entire forward base from orbit, including an armoured Stronghold."

"Great," Joffel laughed, "All we need is a Stronghold to go with it and we're set for life!"

"Maybe there's one on board," Larus mused.

"She is a Battlebarge," Kazao said thoughtfully, "The Blood Talons may have left all kinds of loot behind for us to claim."

Tebes scowled in offence and rebuked, "Surely you do not mean the Chapter should keep this ship?!"

Kazao snorted, "What in the name of sanity makes you think we'd give her away?"

Tebes snapped, "The Administratum will insist a vessel of this calibre be reallocated to a Chapter able to make best use of her. I'm not sure if we even have enough Chattels to crew her."

Joffel however countered, "If those quill-pushers want a Battlebarge they can go conquer one themselves."

Larus sneered, "Aye, frak the lot of them, it's ours now."

Tebes bristled but Reddam cut in, "Battle-Captain Ferrac has claimed Victor's Rights. We took this ship in blood and by rights she is ours. Anyone who disagrees can take it up with Ferrac."

"I'll pass," Tebes muttered, "I'd rather keep my head attached to my shoulders if it's all the same."

Reddam grinned as he quipped, "We'll go look in the holds in a minute, if there's anything miraculous in the vaults I want to claim it for Secundus Cohort, before Primus grabs all the best gear. But first, Kazao, a word alone." The others shuffled off, leaving the pair alone. Kazao alone had kept his helm on, to hide his scaly face, but he looked furtive as he avoided making eye contact.

Reddam leaned in to say, "Kazao, that was amazing flying out there today."

"Thank you," Kazao stated flatly, "I flew to my best ability."

"Not my point," Reddam whispered, "Your speed and reflexes went beyond skill, beyond Astartes gene-forging. No one flies like that, not even me."

Kazao sounded abashed as he said, "I don't know what to tell you."

"I do," Reddam retorted, "Tell me if your aberration is getting worse."

Kazao's voice lowered as he said, "I cannot lie, my mutation is growing more… extreme."

Reddam nodded as he said, "Your speed in flight, your strength in the fighting arenas. Not purely by training did you acquire such might. Tell me if this is going to be a problem."

"I can handle it," Kazao deflected, "I am in control of myself."

"I can trust the word of a Brother," Reddam assured him, "But tell me if anything else happens to you."

"I shall, I swear it."

"Good," Reddam declared to put an end to the matter then lifted his voice to call, "Come on then, let's explore our new flagship and discover what kind of loot she's got stashed in her holds!"