Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 236

With great solemnity Tezla set her stern to the icy blue marble of Hadreb and set sail for distant stars. She left behind a graveyard, leaving much of her Skitarii cohort and many adepts to become frozen corpses. Blood had been spilled and lives lost, all for the fleeting chance at something grander. The Tezla's mission was far from over, the prospect of lost knowledge drawing her on. So she set a course for the nearest jump point, beginning a course to rendezvous with Zar-Quaesitor.

Ruuka wondered if it would prove worth it. The losses of the mission weighed heavily upon him, but the data could make it worthwhile. He wanted it to be so, he yearned for something marvellous to occur. For the good of the Imperium, for the glory of Mars but mostly for himself. It wasn't enough to find the glory of past knowledge; he wanted to be the one to find it. He wanted to prove to the universe that he was equal to the challenge.

He kept this thought to himself as he watched Explorator Pycelo at work. The lumbering machine was in his Strategium again, surrounded by glowing strands of flowing data. The brain in a jar at the heart of the machine bubbled excitedly and many sensory nodes darted from screen to screen, checking green lines of code as they streamed by. Pycelo muttered a constant refrain to himself as he waited for results, ignoring his Executor completely.

Ruuka had come straight to the old man once the shuttles landed, bringing the precious data with him. As expected Pycelo hadn't said a single word of praise, no comment on the efforts made in his name or the blood spent. He'd merely snatched up the proffered data-crystal and uploaded it to the cogitators, urging the Machine Spirits to decode the starcharts within. Ruuka kept annoyance off his face as he waited for his gene-father to acknowledge his presence, eyeing Famulous Treya, who lurked in the corners.

Finally the data-screens went white, then reformatted, showing a swirling mass of lights, connected by thin lines. Pycelo's mechandrites waved excitedly and he cried, "Behold, the glories of the past revealed!"

Ruuko looked up at the glowing screens and let slip, "So many."

Pycelo elaborated, "A full and complete map of the Hegemony, as it stood twenty-thousand years ago. Every colony, every industrial node, every warp channel and secret base. It's all here."

"I don't recognise these star formations," Ruuka frowned.

"Millennia of stellar drift will do that, the warp has been completely reshaped a hundred times over since this map was made. Still with sufficient cogitation runtimes we can break down the charts and build an updated version. All the lost secrets of the Hegemony are ours for the taking."

Ruuka looked about and remarked, "There must be thousands of locations, tens of thousands."

"More," Pycelo agreed, "Still we can narrow it down. Many of these worlds will have been explored, or destroyed. Some may be colonies of man, or Xenos, others lost to Warp ruptures. But if we eliminate all the known points, then the unknown shall be revealed. If even one of those worlds hoards lost technology, or by the Omnissiah's grace a full STC library, it could be the greatest discovery since the self-sealing stem bolt!"

Treya interjected smoothly, "We must make all haste to Cawl's side, so he can decipher these results."

"Or not," Ruuka sniffed.

Pycelo's mechandrites stopped waving and his centre mass rotated within the frame of his legs as he hissed, "You have something to say Executor?"

Ruuka kept his voice level as he replied, "Why run back to Cawl when we can explore these stars ourselves?"

Treya's voice fluttered as she gasped, "You mean to plunder the lost knowledge for ourselves?!"

"I knew you were ambitious," Pycelo scoffed, "I did not think you were stupid enough to cross the Archmagos."

But Ruuka lifted his hands and said, "No, you take my meaning all wrong. I merely point out that running back to Zar-Quaestor is inefficient. Cawl will decrypt the maps, then will dispatch us to investigate the results. Back and forth, back and forth, wasting time and energy. We have the maps, we have the adepts. Let us scout a few of these worlds first and then bring back something worthy to Cawl."

"We wouldn't know where to start," Treya mused, "Without broader references and Cawl's breadth of historical knowledge."

"We have Brontes," Ruuka pointed out, "The Cadmus surely knows many of these stars. He could tell us which ones are worth looking into. The ones he doesn't know about could be even more interesting."

"Brontes is badly damaged," Pycelo argued.

"He repairs himself," Ruuka countered, "All we need is a lead. Imagine if we find one treasure of the past, one page of STC output. Glory and respect would shower upon us. Cawl's boons would be extravagant."

"Our glory or yours?!" Pycelo snorted, "Oh yes, I see what this is. You want to grab a chance to elevate yourself in the hierarchy of the cult. You wish to leave my service and join Cawl's retinue. That's why you hang back from enjoining yourself with the machine, as I insist. You think to seek richer fortunes elsewhere!"

"I assure you," Ruuka protested.

"I will not have it!" Pycelo spat, "You will learn your place, you will become a good and proper Magos as I have instructed. Then and only then will you inherit the Tezla. I will not have you stealing my rewards. I will find the secrets of the past, I will present them to Cawl and I will be rewarded, not you!"

"You're being paranoid," Ruuka retorted.

"Get out," Pycelo snarled, "Don't darken my door until you can learn proper respect."

Ruuka stiffened at the rebuke but promptly turned on his heel and left as bid. His jaw was clenched and his fists tight with anger, his mind seething at the pettiness and hypocrisy of his Gene-father. He heard Treya moving to the Explorator's heart, crooning appeasements as she stroked his drip-lines. He hated that she could not leave with him but didn't look back as he strode out, leaving the old fool to stew in bitter paranoia.

Ruuka set off through the passages of the ship, head down and glowering in frustration. He set a swift pace, brooking none to slow him and Enginseers scattered to get out of the way. His anger was obvious but strangely his course was not to his own billet. Instead he took a very different route, heading towards a compartment of the ship set aside for visiting dignitaries. He reached a bland metal door and opened it without signalling, using his Executor's code to override the Machine Spirt.

Inside he found Secutor Dannye, standing in the middle of a bare metal room. The master of Skitarii was utterly still, save for a Mechandrite that snaked out from under his robe and plugged into a humming Cogitator. It twitched and jerked occasionally, signs of random neural firing as the Secutor processed vast amounts of information. Whatever he was doing required processing power beyond his internal Augmetic capabilities. For all his foul mood Ruuka knew better than to interrupt an Adept communing with the Machine Spirits, so crossed his arms and leant on the wall as he waited.

After a few minutes Dannye exhaled loudly and his Mechandrite disconnected. He seemed unsurprised the Executor was present, a fraction of his consciousness noting the interruption. The Secutor turned his head fractionally and uttered, "I was engaged in Sacred Communion."

"I noted," Ruuka retorted, "Anything interesting?"

"I was evaluating the planet Hadreb and the Jathyr threat, to determine if it is worthwhile cleansing the planet to claim its resources."

Despite everything Ruuka was interested and asked, "And is it?"

"The planet owns significant deposits of Mercury, Iron, Uranium and Cobalt, as well as traces of the rare elements Astatine and Protactinium. These would justify mining operations on most worlds, but the harsh conditions make any expedition a resource-intensive prospect. Terraforming: impossible. Local Xenos are non-spacefaring but robust and difficult to eradicate, Exterminatus would be required, further complicating any mining efforts. Warp currents are unfavourable and there are sixteen planets within the sector that provide the same resources without any special requirements. Conclusions: the Jathyr are no threat to the Imperium and there is nothing on Hadreb we can't get easier elsewhere."

"So they're a waste of virus bombs," Ruuka sniffed, "They still gave your Skitarii a drubbing."

"Losses were forty-seven percent," Dannye stated coolly, "Within the acceptable parameters I established when I summoned the Jathyr."

It took a moment for Ruuka to process that and he started, "Wait, you summoned them?!"

"Of course, a simple subwave vox transmission alerted them to our presence. They moved far faster and proved better armed than simulations projected, but they sufficed for our agreed objective."

"Brontes," Ruuka snarled, "You said you wanted the Silica Animus eliminated, you didn't say you planned to set aliens on him. And Wulfe too. You nearly cost us the whole battle when your Skitarii broke and ran."

"My Skitarii do not break," Dannye icily refuted.

"You ordered them to abandon the field," Ruuka gasped, "You feigned disorder to draw the Cadmus out, then abandoned him to die."

"And it would have worked had you not charged in with that illogical shuttle rescue and retrieved them!" Dannye snapped.

"How was I supposed to know that was what you were planning?!" Ruuka barked, "You said you wanted to steal a march on Cawl, to eliminate Brontes and claim the secrets of the past for yourself. You nearly ruined the whole mission with your blundering; we could have lost the starcharts!"

"There was no danger of that, the data was secured before I ordered a withdrawal. Everything was in hand; I was in control the whole time."

Ruuka rubbed his brow and sighed, "Secutor, this agreement between us isn't going to work if you don't communicate your plans. We should have worked together, orchestrated the trap as one. If I'd known what you planned, I would have helped. I want what you want, to find the lost secrets of the ancients and use them, not horde them away like the fossils sitting on the Forge Synods would, not frivolously invent as Cawl does. Factor into your equations that working at cross-purposes is inefficient, but united in purpose we could achieve anything!"

Dannye was silent for a moment as whirring cogitators under his hood hummed loudly. Ruuka could tell the Secutor was running millions of simulations in his head, considering every possible outcome. It seemed the results were favourable for after a moment he stated, "Hypothesis accepted. Secrecy is sub-optimal. Clear communication of objectives results in improved efficiency."

"I'm glad we agree," Ruuka sighed, "On to other matters: Pycelo refused my proposal."

"As predicted, the Explorator is attached to Cawl, separating them was a low probability outcome."

"I had to try," Ruuka sighed, "If only he'd give me a chance to prove myself, but no. So be it, if he won't give me permission, I'll do it without him."

Dannye pointed out, "We have the starcharts, but we lack enough context to identify priority targets. Without more situational data we could be blundering across hundreds of planets looking for anything of value."

"Agreed, I have no wish to spend centuries poking through mouldy ruins. We need something big, something that will show everyone we are right. I recommend interrogating Brontes…"

"Negative!" Dannye snapped, "The Abomination must be destroyed."

"But he knows things…"

"Negative. Abominable Intelligence was one of the greatest mistakes of the ancients. They were weak and diffident; they allowed threats to grow unchecked. The Lazarus Progression aims to correct their mistakes, to take the weapons of the past and use them to eradicate all threats. The dark rites of Cybermancy and Technotherugy will at last be used to their fullest extent. The Hereteks and Abominable Intelligences, Xenos and mutants and Necrons: all will be destroyed in a galactic cleansing. And when Mankind exists in blessed isolation, we will turn our attention to Chaos itself."

Ruuka lifted his hands in acceptance and said, "As you will, not Brontes. But that means we will have to keep close to Cawl. Watch him keenly and wait for him to dissect the starcharts for us. We will have to find out where his interest lies, then steal a march on the Archmagos and get there first. Whatever he plans to acquire, shall be ours."

"This I can do," Dannye agreed, "By agreeing to keep the Abomination's existence from Mars, I have secured his trust. He will share his secrets with me, then I will hold the Keys of Hell in my hands."

Ruuka nodded as he said, "Then we are in accord. We will wait, bide our time and when the chance comes, we will seize the prize for ourselves. The galaxy will be changed forevermore and our names will be hailed as the heroes who saved humanity. And Pycelo… Pycelo will see he was wrong to hold me back. I will show them all what I can do!"