Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 354

The Ghostwind

Once more into the empty gulfs of nonspace the Serpens Rex plunged, once more braving the cold nothingness that lies below the universe. The Starfort took her cargo of two Chapters into a void so barren as to make intergalactic space appear lively, her passage paid for by the deaths of psykers. Aboard the Starfort mortals shuddered, growing ever more wary of the strange realm they crossed. The Warp was a dimension of nightmare and horror, but brave men dared it regularly. The Ghostwind unmanned the sternest minds, leaving them drained and haggard. No amount of courage could shake off the lethargy that stole over them, leaving them with the anima of servitors.

Coluber could see the effect in the eyes of the crew. Outside the Apothecarion he lingered, waiting on a summons from Shrios. The Chapter Master stood in a high corridor, along with his trusted advisors. Ferrac, Reddam, Kerubim and Nathanal, along with Maru Kysoto. Hasak stood alone, the Brother-Exemplar missing his companion. In silence he forbore, unflinching in the face of loss, but Coluber knew they would soon have to appoint a new bodyguard.

His idle musings were interrupted as a passing mortal bumped into Ferrac. The Battle-Captain had been well aware of the approach, but assumed the Chattel would step aside. He turned with a glower, one that had made men piss themselves in the past, but this mortal barely seemed aware. He mumbled a reflex apology, then stepped around and carried on his path. That was strange; Space Marines were not used to being treated as obstacles in the road.

"This is getting out of hand," Reddam commented.

"What?" Nathanal mumbled.

"The Chattels, they can barely see," Reddam pointed out.

"Who?" Nathanal murmured in blank incomprehension.

Coluber was concerned, the mortal artisan had been growing terse, every jump through nonspace draining his will to interact. More and more Coluber was turning to Kerubim to handle the day-to-day operations of the Nest. Space Marines seemed to withstand this strange environment better, but even Coluber was finding the persistent headache behind his eyeballs distracting.

"How many more jumps to Dimmamar?" Coluber asked.

Kerubim replied, "Impossible to say."

"Didn't our passengers give us updated starcharts?" Reddam pressed.

"They shared their nav-logs, but that hasn't helped. They don't seem to Astrogate the same way we do. They are cagey about their means of navigation, citing intuition and gut-feeling as more accurate compasses than star fixes and charts. They assure us we are on the right track, but cannot say when we will arrive."

"Blood typical," Ferrac grunted.

"They know Nihilus better than we do," Coluber chided, "We have to trust them."

"You trust them, I'm keeping my axe-rake to hand," Ferrac grumbled.

Coluber looked over that, "Kerubim, any more faults found in the Nest?"

Kerubim sighed, "Structural failures mount daily, we're having to replace parts constantly. Nothing vital has broken yet, but it's only a matter of time till a critical part is withered. If a plasma reactor is affected we won't know till the Serpens Rex explodes."

It was then Maru broke in to say, "Physical concerns are only the start of our issues, the psionic effect is more troubling."

Coluber looked up, "You have news?"

Maru's armoured sarcophagus was impassive but he managed to appear worried anyway, "I have scoured the archives, searching for an answer but found nothing. But the Necron connection to the Ghostwind gave me a hint. I searched more recent events and in the Astropathic logs found a similar phenomenon. In the Pariah Nexus, there are reports of a Stilling."

Coluber frowned, he'd read the reports but seen nothing of import. The Pariah Nexus was just another warzone in the galactic calamity that had overtaken mankind. Genhanced recall pulled the reports into perfect clarity. Battlegroup Kallides of the Indomitus Crusade had sailed to confront the Necron threat and been bogged down in a meatgrinder. Ships could barely navigate, armies were swept aside by Technowitchery and endless reports of lost morale and failures of fighting spirit streamed from the front. Whole worlds laying down to accept their fate without lifting a finger to defend themselves. He'd taken it for cowardice, but it could have been more.

"You suspect a connection?" Coluber asked.

Maru replied, "The Necrons are said to be generating some form of Null-field, one that spans lightyears. Psykers find their powers blunted, and the Warp is barely a whisper. I do not pretend to understand Xeno abominations, but the similarity to the Ghostwind is plain. Perhaps they are projecting its nothingness into the Materium, maybe they recreate the effect artificially. I cannot pretend to know how, but the results are inarguable."

Reddam mused, "Do the reports give any hint as to how to undo the effect?"

"Faith," Maru replied, "The pious of heart seem to own a strange immunity to the Stilling. The Sisters of Battle fight with undimmed fervour and the Frater Militia have taken the lead in the war. Space Marines seem immune, but the Imperial Guard and Navy have been forced to send legions of priests to every regiment, to stir the faith of the common soldiers."

"Faith," Coluber groaned, "That doesn't help us, the Amber Vipers have never been pious, our Chattels piety has never troubled us."

"We're Frakked," Ferrac grumbled.

Reddam turned to Nathanal, "You noted not all the Chattels have been affected to the same degree. Perhaps some are more pious than others. Is there a way to reinforce that?"

Nathanal rubbed his eyes with a gritted hand, "Sorry… I was… Yes… I'll ask for volunteers to lead prayer chants and arrange time in work rotas for daily observances. It could help."

It was then the door to the Apothecarion opened and Shrios appeared. Coluber saw a hard look in his eye and wondered what was irking the Apothecary but he waved them all inside without comment. Coluber found himself stepping into a morgue, cold and sterile. Metal hatches lined the walls but his eye was drawn to three biers, each holding a Chattel. They weren't dead, naked and silent, but patently alive.

"What's this?" Coluber asked in puzzlement.

"A most serious matter," Shrios grunted.

"Three layabouts?" Ferrac sniffed, "Are they sick?"

"Worse, but it's hard to explain. Better if I show you."

The Apothecary took a scalpel from a tray and stepped to the nearest. A mortal woman, of middling years. Her face bore signs of hard graft in the Serpens Rex's service but she still had decades of life left in her. She stared upwards, unresponsive to stimulus, only the rise and fall of her chest showing she was not a corpse. Shrios took the scalpel and sliced her face, leaving a bleeding cut from ear to lip. The woman didn't respond, pain stirring no reaction. She lay still, staring upwards without a trace of conscious thought.

"What's wrong with them?" Coluber asked.

"Unknown," Shrios stated, "They didn't show up for their work shifts. Their bunkmates went looking and found them like this. All three had just laid down wherever they were and stopped responding. I've checked and it's not viral or bacterial, no congenital conditions or Xenos parasites. They are, physically hale, but brain activity beyond autonomic functions is simply absent."

Ferrac leaned over an elderly man and grabbed a shoulder, "Hey you! Get up, get off your arse and get back to work! I'm talking to you!"

No response was forthcoming and Reddam muttered, "The lumens are on but nobody's home."

"What could have done this?" Nathanal groaned.

"The Ghostwind," Coluber guessed.

"That's my suspicion," Shiros agreed, "It has suppressed their neural functions."

Maru spoke up, "This is far worse than you know. I am probing their psyches and find no trace of anima. That vital spark of inspiration and creativity that comes from the Warp has been extinguished. They have no connection to the Immaterium, no soul, as you understand the term. Their essence of self has withered to nothing. They are for all intents and purposes: soulless."

"They have become pariahs?" Kerubim gulped.

Yet Maru corrected, "A Pariah generates a Null-field, interfering with other's connection to the Warp, these unfortunates do not. They do not obstruct the Warp; they are simply empty of it. You are looking at sacks of meat and bone, nothing more. There is no personality left in these husks."

The implications stole over Coluber and he gasped, "Are you saying the Ghostwind is killing our souls?!"

"It seems I am," Maru sighed, "You cannot comprehend what Psyker sees, but suffice to say without a connection to the Warp a man cannot function. Even the bluntest among you owns that vital spark. It is essential to our being, and to be separated from the Empyrean is to become a husk of a man."

"But Space Marines should be immune, right?" Reddam pressed.

"Resistant," Maru corrected, "But enough exposure will turn you into husks too. Coluber, your decision to leave the recruits and Snakelets in Sanctus was far wiser than you suspected. I shall be the last to wither; my connection to the Warp is the strongest."

A cold dread settled in Coluber's gut, to think that travelling nonspace was imperilling their souls. Somehow it was worse than sailing the Warp. Death and torment lingered over every journey through the Empyrean, but to simply be drained of one's soul, to wither in spirit till one laid down and waited to die. For a Space Marine that was the worst possible way to die.

"Belisarius Frakking Cawl," Ferrac spat, "That useless bucket of bolts has only gone and killed our souls!"

"Not yet," Reddam countered, "Perhaps it will wear off. What if we alternate Warp jumps with the Ghostwind? We could plunge into the Immaterium and recharge our souls, top up the capacitor, so to speak."

"The soul is not a battery!" Maru rebuked, "The human spirit is vitality, life, creation. You can't simply plug it into a generator!"

"But how can we stop this from happening to us?" Nathanal drawled.

"Stop using the Corposant, right now," Maru urged, "The damage is limited so far. If we cease all exposure to nonspace we may heal, given enough time."

Coluber turned to Kerubim, "Can we reach Dimmamar without using the Corposant?"

Kerubim shook his head, "Negative, we cannot make headway without the Astronomicon. For good or ill, we must proceed."

"You can't be serious!" Shrios barked, "This is madness, we have to turn back right now!"

"We can't," Coluber hissed, "The mission must be completed. Kerubim, what sort of losses can we expect?"

"Stand-by," Kerubim said as the whir of cogitators echoed from under his collar, "Without more data-points I can only estimate vague figures but I am assuming an exponential growth curve. If our journey to Dimmamar and return to Sanctus takes the projected number of jumps, we will lose seventeen to twenty-five percent of our Chattels. If we must exhaust all our Psykers it will cost us eighty-three to ninety-two percent of our Chattels. I do not have enough data to estimate when Space Marines will start to feel the effects."

Tens of thousands of deaths, even in the best case scenario. The Amber Vipers would be willingly sacrificing their own servants to a fate worse than death. A part of Coluber baulked at the thought, urging him to head back to Sanctus immediately. But this ran into the hard fact that he had been given a mission, and Space Marines never abandoned a mission. The significance of the task was clear, thousands of Primaris Marines waited to be awakened, armies that could save sectors. The Imperium needed the Amber Vipers to succeed, all mankind needed them to win. Plus the Primaris technology lay within reach, the means to elevate their Chapter to a new paradigm. The souls of Chattels were nothing when set against the spoils of victory, even Space Marines were expendable for the higher cause. Sacrifices were no stranger to Coluber, victory demanded no less.

"We cannot turn back," Coluber declared, "We proceed as planned, no matter the cost."

"You'll kill our own people!" Shrios spat.

Ferrac snarled, "And whose fault is that?! This chrome-plated dolt should have known this would happen!"

Kerubim retorted, "We had no way to predict the effects of the Ghostwind on the human psyche."

"Then you can tell Cawl from me that he's a Frakking idiot! He's found the only way to travel the stars that makes the Warp look safe!"

Coluber cut in, "Alas, I must agree. If Cawl thought the Ghostwind could replace Warpflight as the Imperial standard, then he has failed. We cannot countenance allowing this drive technology to spread. We shall continue the mission given to us, but as soon as we return to Sanctus I want the Corposant decommissioned and sealed back behind the Gates of Perdition. I shall never allow the Serpens Rex to travel via the Ghostwind again, once we have completed our given task."

Reddam pressed, "And what of the Blood Talons?"

"They cannot be allowed to know of the danger," Coluber sighed, "Tell them nothing. They have only just begun their first transit, they may not notice the worst effects for some time. With fortune we will reach Dimmamar before anything happens to their crew. A few headaches we can wave off, and I have no plan to bring them back to Sanctus."

"Cover it up?!" Shrios spat.

Coluber snapped back, "Exactly! Euthanize these meatsacks and speak of this to no one outside this room. Consider this an order, we are carrying on to Dimmamar, and will accept the cost in lives it demands. The Amber Vipers have never been strangers to losses and I will not flinch from the butcher's bill now. Whatever the sacrifice required to succeed, we will pay it."