Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 224

From the edges of the planet's atmosphere the sharkboat arose, climbing slowly into a higher orbit with dogged determination. Alone it travelled, without any of the compatriots that had set forth alongside it. Without any crew to return the rest of the flotilla had been left to die with the ancient derelict. Even in the last boat there were but three, all that remained of an expedition numbering in the hundreds.

That fact weighed heavily upon Kerubim as he waited in the troop bay, left with nothing to do save count the dead. He had removed his helm, breathing in the cold air of the barely heated spacecraft. A human would have had trouble stopping their teeth chattering but he was a Space Marine, and the Mechanicus' personnel barely noted such things. Still the stark emptiness of the bay troubled him and he sighed, "I wonder how many Skitarii died for this mission?"

Brontes replied from his perch, "The bone-rattlers that call themselves savants don't care, why should you?"

"Death in battle should be celebrated," Kerubim argued, "Honour demands it."

"Pah, honour. You fleshbags have invented some baffling concepts, but none so illogical as honour. Death is death, in battle it may serve a useful purpose, but those who die care nothing for honour."

Kerubim bristled as he spat, "You are a soulless machine, without the blessings of the Omnissiah. What do you know of the value of a human heart?!"

Brontes replied coldly, "More than your tech-shamans. Else why send canaries down to the ship?"

"Canaries?"

"Back on Old Earth, miners used to carry small birds in cages with them. If a dangerous gas arose the bird would die first, and they'd know it wasn't safe for important people. That's what we are to these bone-rattlers: expendable."

"You're wrong," Kerubim spat, "It was a dangerous mission, requiring the best and bravest of souls."

"Keep telling yourself that, maybe you'll believe it someday."

"Why did I go and get myself trapped with a thing so bitter as you?" Kerubim lamented.

"Fleshbag, you whine too much," Brontes grunted as his eye lenses dimmed and he stopped talking.

Kerubim sighed in exasperation as he looked over to Jordig. The Primaris Marine had removed his helm and was tapping at a dataslate held in his augmetic hands. Without a helm his face was revealed to be surprisingly youthful, not much older than Kerubim. A deceptive appearance, since the Primaris had been held in stasis for millennia, awaiting the call of war. Those eyes had beheld an Imperium rebuilding from the fires of the Horus Heresy, an age of renewed hope and expectation of better days to come. Jordig's face was stern in the way common to those who had instead awakened to a bleak age of horror, an era as strange to them as they were to it. Perhaps this was why he was so fastidious, his hair clipped close and jaw smooth of any whiskers. He affected a tidy and well-groomed appearance, an impression somewhat spoilt by the large fangs protruding from his gums and a golden-yellow cast to his iris.

Kerubim leaned over and asked, "What are you writing?"

"Preparing our mission report for upload," Jordig stated coolly, "Cawl will be pleased."

Kerubim ventured, "Perhaps his pleasure will extend to trusting us at last?"

"That is for him to decide."

"You must have an opinion."

"It is not for me to question the Archmagos, I am but a humble Techmarine. Questions lead to doubt, doubt leads to free thought. Questions are the door to Heresy."

Kerubim rolled his eyes and moaned, "I never thought a Space Wolf would be so dogmatic."

Jordig eyes narrowed and his lips pulled back over his fangs as he spat, "Don't call me that, I am not one of those louts. I am of the Unnumbered Sons; you would do well to remember that, whelp."

Kerubim sank back, frustrated at his situation, but also a little amused by his barb. It was juvenile to poke at Jordig's resentment, but right now he wasn't feeling very generous. It was the only way Kerubim had to needle the one who acted both as his mentor and prison guard. Kerubim and Brontes had departed the Serpens Rex on a quest for knowledge of the deep past, only to run straight into the forces of the Indomitus Crusade. The Amber Vipers were flagrant in their defiance of doctrine, and Brontes' mere existence was a crime, so they'd been arrested on sight. For some reason they'd been handed off to that strange polymath Belisarius Cawl, who after some interrogation and deep scans of the Silica Animus, had palmed them off onto Jordig. For about a solar year Kerubim had been kept in confinement, his only consolation being that he was allowed to study the secrets of the Techmarine order. Still, this was the first time in a year he'd been allowed to leave his prison and he was determined to earn his permanent freedom.

A chime suddenly sounded through the bay and Kerubim pulled his cage up to spring free. The others didn't react as he stomped to the front, boots mag-locking every step of the way. At the prow a tiny porthole lay alongside the hatch and he eagerly pressed his face to it, peering into the dark of space. Ahead of them lay a leviathan of the void, a massive starship coasting in high orbit. Floodlights illuminated a sweeping hull with hundreds of auspex vanes and shield pylons. Drive nozzles that could swallow a frigate bulged at the rear, idling on low power. The bridge was a fortress of stepped layers, each with redundant shield generators and defence turrets ringing the central command nexus. Racked stacks of macrocannons made up the gundecks and the boxy prow housed a Nova Cannon, firepower enough to blow the Amber Vipers' derelict starfort to atoms. Upon the flanks was the great skull and cog icon of Mars, proclaiming to the stars that here sailed a legendary Ark Mechanicus.

"Zar-Quaesitor," Kerubim breathed in awe and well he should. Ark Mechanicus were the ultimate expression of the shipbuilder's art, with firepower enough to rival the mythic Glorianna-class of antiquity but so much more besides. No mere warship, the vessel before them housed laboritoria and factorums to equal a Forge-shrine. Ever at the forefront of the Quest for Knowledge this ship's cogitators housed data gathered from millennia of exploration, secrets uncovered at great expense. Here arts unknown anywhere else in the galaxy were practised, lore unknown to any Forgeworld given license to practice. The workshops within could produce weapons at a rate a Hive City could not match, and she carried whole armies to carry them. It was rumoured that an entire Knight house and a Demi-Legio of Titans dwelt within, though Kerubim had not seen them. All this was in service to one soul, Belisarius Cawl, hailed and hated in equal measure as an inventor and innovator and creator of the Primaris Marines.

"Impressive as ever," Kerubim breathed.

"Put your eyes back in your sockets," Brontes scoffed, "It's only a ship and our prison too."

Kerubim sighed, "True, speaking of which, we need to complete your disguise."

He moved over to the Silica Animus and reached up to adjust a large icon affixed to its chest. A double-headed eagle made of brass, sealed to metal armour. The fury of the fight on the ship had knocked it askew and Kerubim expertly corrected it, making sure the wingtips were flush to the surface. Brontes had argued it was useless but Kerubim had demanded it be attached, lest trouble arise.

"This is stupid," Brontes grumbled.

"It's necessary, we need everybody to think you are a standard Battle-automata, if they suspect you are self-aware, they will tear us both limb from limb."

"How is this supposed to fool anybody?" Brontes growled.

Kerubim explained, "Without an Aquila you're an insidious Abominable Intelligence, with an Aquila you're my helpful Battle-Automata. Nobody will question an adept being escorted by a combat-robot, so long as you keep your mouth shut."

"I don't have a mouth," Brontes muttered.

"You know what I mean."

"Just when I thought this age couldn't get any more moronic, it finds new depths of idiocy to plague me."

Kerubim stepped back in satisfaction as he checked the Aquila was perfect. But then Jordig stood up and said, "We're on final approach, time to hand over the data-crystal... and your rifle."

Kerubim sagged as he gasped, "Haven't I proven myself to you?"

"You know the conditions of your parole," Jordig stated firmly, "Rifle, now."

Kerubim handed over the weapon and data-crystal reluctantly but was prompted, "Shock-stave."

"Seriously?!" Kerubim blurted, "Who am I going to hurt with that, it's not like I can effect an escape anyway."

Jordig however kept his hand extended until Kerubim relented and handed over the small device. The Techmarine clipped it to his hip as the Sharkboat began to shake with landing thrusters and declared, "Remember to keep your guard up. The Tech-priests are not a harmonious lot. Half the adepts on that ship report to other Magos', ones who would seize any excuse to crush Cawl. I can count on one hand the number of people who know what Brontes is, including Cawl himself. If anyone else figures it out..."

"You'll kill us," Kerubim recited by rote, "Destroy Brontes and blame it all on me for trying to sneak an unholy Silica Animus into Cawl's presence. Cawl will deny ever knowing an Abominable Intelligence was on board and I'll be burned as a Heretek."

"Remember that," Jorvig uttered as the Sharkboat landed.

Jordig turned to the hatch as Kerubim muttered to Brontes, "He never takes your weapons."

"Because he knows I'll reduce him to a smear on the floor if he tries," the Cadmus replied smugly.

Kerubim and Brontes followed the Primaris Marine out of the hold, into a hanger filled with noise and light. Grinding machinery and shouted voices hammered at his ears as flashing hazard lights blinked on and off. Heat washed over his face and the smell of unwashed bodies and exhaust fumes clawed at his nostrils. The hanger was a hive of activity and their arrival produced almost no response from the milling crowds of menials.

Kerubim longed to stop and examine their tasks but Jordig was already moving off, marching through the crowds without pause. Menials scattered before his path, leaving the pair to trundle along in his wake. Kerubim saw many eyes linger on the Cadmus, but they relaxed when they saw the Aquila emblem, assured the automata was merely a combat unit of the Legio Cybernetica.

With swift steps Jordig moved off, yet it still took half an hour for them to reach the far side of the hanger, so vast was it. Here they summoned a Transit capsule and climbed within, to be whisked away at high-speed. Kerubim knew they were passing forges and workshops producing wonders, training ranges where Titans could duel and hanger so vast they could berth frigates, but he saw none of it, sealed inside a blank grey tube. He opened his mouth to ask a question, but was silenced by Jordig holding up one finger, warning that even here the walls had eyes.

In fuming silence Kerubim waited, until at last the capsule stopped and they disembarked. He stepped out to find himself in a workshop, piled high with junk. Teeming stacks of broken machinery lay in the corners, with tools and soldering irons left out at random. Incense burned low in a censor and a tired vox-horn recited Binaric psalms on a loop. In one corner a bedroll lay, with a small heating panel for warming rations and a latrine in the opposite corner. A line of tired servitors stood mid the detritus, awaiting maintenance with slack jaws. This was Kerubim's jail cell, accessible only by Transit capsule, which only a select few could direct to this hidden cell.

"You two wait here," Jordig ordered, "I will deliver the data to Cawl personally."

"And I'm supposed to do what?!" Kerubim scoffed, "Count the tiles, again?"

"Those servitors need their fluid-links flushing," Jordig answered.

Kerubim threw up his arms and cried, "I thought after this mission you'd trust me with something more important. I want to be a Techmarine, not a scrubber!"

"Part of being a Techmarine is dutiful attention to tiny details," Jordig admonished, "You'll never be honoured with the Holiest tasks until you prove you can handle the mundane ones. Now snap to it!"

The capsule slid shut and sped off, leaving the wall to grind closed. Kerubim shook his head and muttered, "Just once he could bend the rules, just once."

"Not likely," Brontes scoffed, "He'll never bend so much as a hair on his head."

Kerubim eyed the Cadmus and proposed, "I don't suppose you care to help me?"

"And listen to you whine all the while, not happening," Brontes snorted, "I'm powering down for a cycle, wake me when something interesting happens."

The Cadmus slumped slightly as his eye lenses blinked out, leaving Kerubim alone. The young Marine sighed wearily and then turned to pick up a bristled brush. He stepped towards the nearest servitor, expecting a long and messy task ahead. This was not the secret wonders of archeoscience he had dreamt of, but it looked like he was stuck with it anyway. Resigned to his task he stepped to an idle Servitor and muttered, "I should never have left the Serpens Rex."