Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 258

It was a sorry sight that Kerubim made as he slumped in the Archeaopter's hold. The craft was flying northwest at top speed, raggedy wings fluttering in the wind. Others flew in formation, but Kerubim cared not. He pulled free his helm and grimaced at the rad-burns to its colouring. A shame upon the armour's spirit, but not nearly so great as the shame that hung around his neck. Defeat was ever a bitter pill to swallow, but this was more than the sourness of being beaten, this struck to the bone.

"What eaten ye?" a gruff voice rumbled.

"You have to ask," Kerubim spat.

"Would I ask if I kenned?" snorted Wulfe.

Kerubim looked up and saw the Squat standing over him, not a thing many could claim to have seen. Wulfe was battered and bruised, his armour dented in many places. He'd been in the thick of the fighting and yet somehow had avoided being absorbed. Kerubim stared intently, looking for the telltale shimmer of Motive Force his altered eyes allowed him to detect, but found nothing. Wulfe remained untainted; he was as he had always been. Kerubim found that impressive and insulting, that a squat held his ground where a Space Marine did not.

Kerubim clenched his jaw and looked away, but Wulfe merely shrugged and dumped his ass down next to the Marine. Kerubim glared across the hold, counting the few Skitarii that had made it back. Barely a fifth of their strength had evacuated the battlefield; an army that could have laid waste cities and conquered nations, overwhelmed by arcane monsters of the distant past. Barely had they held the line, saved only by the last minute aerial assault, but they had lost fourth-fifths of their fighting strength and nearly all their equipment. Kerubim did not doubt the Hungering would come again, and this time the Imperials had nothing with which to stop it.

Wulfe fidgeted with his behind and then from somewhere pulled out a cylinder. He unscrewed the top and Kerubim's nose wrinkled as the smell of strong spirits filled the hold. Squat rotgut, not their famous beers, but pure distilled alcohol, proof enough to strip paint from Ceramite. Wulfe slugged back a mouthful then belched loudly, making Kerubim grit his teeth.

"Do you have to?" he grumbled.

"After a battle like that, aye, I have to."

"This is hardly a victory feast," Kerubim muttered.

"All the more reason ta drink," Wulfe snorted, "A retreat is no easy thing ta bear, ye ken?"

Kerubim spat, "At least you stood your ground… I…."

"Ye got something ta say?"

"It doesn't matter," Kerubim deflected.

"I annae gonna have ye moping like a wee baby the whole bleeding way. Out with it, or feel the back of me hand."

Kerubim rocked his head back and confessed, "I encountered Dannye again, or rather the thing Dannye has become. He came right for me and I ran… I ran! I didn't even try to put up a fight. I had nothing that could hurt him, nothing, so I withdrew."

"Crap happens," Wulfe sniffed.

"The colours of the Astartes do not run," Kerubm snarled.

"Sound like something a blathering fool says before he dies," Wulfe grunted, "The cogboy could'a kill ye with a touch, and that poncy flashlight ye lug aboot is as pointless as a eunuch visiting a whorehouse."

Kerubim eyed the squat and asked, "You got enough of that stuff to share?" Wulfe handed over the flask without a word and Kerubim took a sip. The acidic bite wasn't that bad, so he gulped a little more, then the aftertaste hit. Kerubim lurched forward, eyes watering and throat clenching, coughing furiously as fire burned his oesophagus from tongue to stomach. His nostrils felt like they were filled with Promethium exhaust and his teeth coated in fur.

Wulfe deftly snatched the can from Kerubim's hand before he could drop it and chuckled, "Good aye?"

"I think…" Kerubim coughed, "I think I burned off my tastebuds."

"Ye still have those? Oh well, still ye did good lad, most folks be throwing up by now. They musta lined ye guts with steel when they changed ye face."

Kerubim shook his head and said, "Wulfe, I have to know, how did you avoid getting Absorbed?"

"Had plenty o' practice," Wulfe growled, "Fighting bugs, ye learn to keep their filthy claws at bay."

"Oh, right," Kerubim sighed, "You fought the Tyranids over your homeworlds. I can't imagine how you survived, how you endured such losses and kept going."

Wulfe handed the flask back and said, "First, booze helps. Second, keep putting one foot in front of a' other. Third… you'll find out the third after one and two."

Kerubim didn't follow that but accepted back the vile brew and took a swig. Silence fell upon them as their aircraft soared onwards, heading back to the spaceport. Kerubim didn't feel like talking anymore and the two drained the flask dry as they waited. He was grateful his implants cleared the alcohol fast, or he'd be drunk as a priest after evensong by the time they landed.

Kerubim heard the clank of landing skids settling on Ferrocrete and leapt up, heading for the hatch the second it opened. Daylight streamed in, revealing teams of Enginseers running to tend to the craft and the familiar apex of the Crystal pyramid taking up the horizon. He found flights of Archeaopters landing, disgorging a much diminished force. He looked over their depleted units, paranoia causing him to doubt they had got away clean, but saw none of them betraying the shimmer of a Hungering construct. He was certain they were pure.

He spied Brontes and Jordig dismounting another craft, and the crippled form of Pycelo exiting another, the Magos taking up the whole hold alone. Adepts raced towards him, bringing tools and blessed unguents to tend to his frame but he sent them scurrying with a harsh blare of his vox-emitter. Repairs would have to wait, for another was closing. On six brass legs lurched a round hololith, steered by a servitor head wired into the front. From its back arose a Holo-image of Belisarius Cawl, head and shoulders hovering over the lurching disc, the rest of him too bulky to fit into the frame.

Kerubim hurried over and heard Cawl saying, "Most distressing, most worrysome."

"Don't grease it," Brontes snarled, "That was a clusterfrak."

Jordig countered, "We successfully thwarted the Hungering's attempt to escape containment. The battlefield is saturated with radiation, it won't be going anywhere."

"Blind meatsack," Brontes snarled, "It's already demonstrated it can burrow through the rock of this planet. Travelling underground will shield it. How long before it spreads beyond the contaminated zone: hours, a day at best. It's coming for us, of this you can be sure."

Kerubim interrupted to ask, "How did it think to attack us from behind?"

Pycelo answered, "Ruuka. I was confronted by a copy of that traitor. It was he who planned the ambush; I recognise his style in every stroke. This Hungering is using his wits to plan its strategy."

Jordig tapped his chin thoughtfully and asked, "You knew him best, any idea how Ruuka would proceed?"

Pycelo mused, "He won't be content to sit around and build his forces. He will strike fast and hard. He yearned to prove himself, to show off his meagre abilities. Never content to gather the proper resources first, always burning assets before they matured. I tried to drub it out of him, but he never learned."

Brontes added, "The Hungering will go for the major population centres first. I've seen it before; the Nanoswarm is smart enough to grind down all resistance, before turning its attention to the industrial resources, then the natural elements."

Cawl declared, "Then it is imperative we alert the Governor and have him rally the PDF."

"Fat lot of good the paperboys will do," Wulfe jeered.

"They will buy time for an evacuation of the civilians," Jordig prompted.

"Evacuation?!" Kerubim started, "You think we can get fifty million people of this planet?"

"It is standard Imperial policy," Jordig argued, "We can load the tithe-ships with key personnel and essential industrial components, salvaging something of this planet's value for the Imperium."

"The time for that was fifty years ago," Brontes snarled, "You'll never get those people out."

"We can save some," Kerubim protested.

"And if the Hungering gets to them first," Brontes snapped, "If you take single construct into orbit then it will overrun a ship, and then it can spread to other worlds."

Kerubim started, "Does it need ships? I mean, can't it make its own?"

"Eventually," Brontes explained, "But it can't trust a construct-ship. Stellar radiation prevents it just flinging itself into space, and don't forget the Warp is just as dangerous to machine kind as to organics. To travel between worlds the Hungering will have to make ships the slow way, the way you meatsacks do. It was the only thing holding back the Hungering long enough for the Hegemony to rally in our previous war. That buys us a little time."

"To do what?!" Pycelo snapped, "We lost almost all our rad-weapons in that fight. All our weapons of mass-destruction are expended and our forces reduced to a scattering of units. If the Hungering comes again, when it comes again, we will have nothing left. Our options are reduced to one: Exterminatus."

"That is hardly a speedy prospect," Jordig sighed, "We cannot be sure they would respond with alacrity, we here do not have the authority to summon an Exterminatus fleet without question. Plus standard armaments are useless in this scenario. Cyclonic Torpedoes and Virus Bombs are nothing to a Nanoswarm, and radiation-based weapons are hardly standard load-outs, why would they be when we have clean-energy alternatives?"

"Ye assuming the Inquisition even signs off an Exterminatus," Wulfe grunted, "Weasley beggars would probably try to get their filthy mitts on the Hungering for themselves."

Suddenly Cawl's avatar interrupted, "Friends, friends, be not so distressed. I have a plan! I think there is a way to douse this planet in radiation, without resorting to crude weapons."

Jordig frowned, "I am not aware of any method you can employ to produce such an effect."

"Conventionally no," Cawl chuckled, "But I have never been limited by convention."

"I think I'm not going to like this," Brontes grumbled.

Cawl continued, "Stars produce stellar winds, streams of charged particles that we call cosmic rays. Life-bearing worlds are protected by strong magnetic fields, by-products of their iron cores spinning. Holy Mars however lacks such a natural field, relying instead on ancient technological marvels to sheathe the planet in a protective barrier. Truly marvellous examples of the Omnissiah's munificence, which it so happens that I spent a few centuries examining. In my studies I discovered a way to disrupt a planet's natural magnetic field, leaving it vulnerable to cosmic rays."

Kerubim was amazed and exclaimed, "Is this possible?!"

"No, it's not," Brontes grumbled, "And even if it was it would take too long to soak the planet in enough cosmic rays."

"It would slow the Hungering down," Cawl argued, "This system's star is more energetic than Sol, plus there are ways to increase that even further. Examine Calth, where the Word Bearer traitors poisoned a star."

Kerubim was giddy with the thought but Jordig sounded unconvinced as he hissed, "I've heard your wild boasts before and they never work out as promised. Tell me, have you tested your theorem and do you have the necessary equipment on board Zar-Queasitor right now to do this?"

"I am running simulations as we speak," Cawl protested, "I have designed theoretical models in the past."

"That means no and no," Wulfe snorted.

But Kerubim argued, "What other choice do we have? It's this or admit defeat."

Pycelo agreed, "The boy is right, we have to try. We alert the defence forces, and get as many sacred relics of the local manufactorums out, before Cawl kills this world."

"And the people," Jordig prompted.

"Them too."

Brontes didn't sound enthused but said, "I can see no alternative, it is the only chance we have. But don't think for a second the Hungering won't try to stop us. Once it sees we are up to something, it will send everything it's got."

Kerubim nodded as he agreed, "Then it's up to us to stop it. For the sake of the whole galaxy, we need to keep the Hungering at bay, until this world's death is assured."