Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 267

Ruuka watched as the squat fell, fury and stubborn rage in motion. It was the strangest thing to see, a lone diminutive warrior diving into the fray, yet the impact was beyond his size. The gravity hammer struck first and as it did so unleashed a blast wave of force. With a thunderous bellow it blew stone and air away, immense gravitic forces ripping the ground to bits, as waves of distortion picked up constructs and flung them away.

Ruuka was close to the impact site and felt himself being tossed aside like trash in the wind. His sight became a blur as he spun helplessly through the air, tumbling headlong until he slammed into a staircase, left to flop winded upon the jagged incline. Damage rang through him and it took precious seconds for his Nanocytes to realign. Painfully he dragged his head up and saw Wulfe wasn't done, in fact he'd barely got started.

The Squat stood upright in a crater of his own making, holding his hammer by the end of its haft as he stepped forward. A construct tried to stand but he brought his hammer head down with a sweep that left it crumpled into a U shape upon the ground. Another came at him from the right and he sent it flying with a roundhouse blow, leaving it to tumble through the air without any way to right itself. Another he reduced to a silver smear, another he broke in half and another he stove inwards, collapsing it like a hab-block under demolition.

Ruuka knew grav alone would not destroy a construct, only radiation would do that, but Wulfe's blows were so devastating that it hardly mattered. Pulling themselves together would take minutes, precious time he could use to break more. As if realising this a gaggle tried to rush him, aiming to mob the squat. One hand on his plate, one touch, that was all they needed but Wulfe wasn't going to let that happen. A massive roundhouse swing of his hammer sent them flying in pieces, breaking half-a-dozen foes with a single hit. He used the momentum of his swing to pivot completely about, smashing the rest aside, leaving Wulfe untouched. He was immovable, unbreakable, nothing could get past his guard and his fury was unstoppable as he roared, "For the Hold!"

Ruuka felt his Nanocytes finally slide back into alignment and heaved himself upright yelling, "Quit trying to absorb him, just shoot the wretch!"

"Line up," Dannye called from nearby, "Volley fire!"

A line of Skitarii-constructs ran up, Hellrifles held ready. They presented arms and let rip with a volley of las, hammering the squat from afar. Supreme in melee combat Wulfe was yet vulnerable against ranged fire. Las bolts struck his armour, gouging and marring his plates. He roared in defiance as concentrated las smote him over and over, blasting deeper and deeper into his armour. He tried to race forward and close the distance but the weight of fire was too great, he was being battered into submission, taken apart one piece at a time.

"Keep firing!" Ruuka snarled, "Don't stop till he's a smear on the floor!"

But Dannye barked, "Ware above!"

A moment later a pair of brilliant beams shot down, striking two constructs and blowing them to ash. Black particles hung in the air and fallout made Ruuka itch, rad-blasts, the distinctive signature of Irad-cleansers. He looked up and saw Magos Pycelo pounding towards them, heavy weapons gleaming with potential. Rad-weaponry, capable of permanently disassembling a construct. Wulfe's mad charge had brought the Magos time enough to bring his deadly arsenal to bear and he wasted no time to fire again.

Another pair of constructs were blown to ash as the firing line fell apart, leaving Wulfe battered but alive. Ruuka saw those deadly weapons pivot towards his position and hastily threw himself aside, moments before brilliant beams seared black lines over the steps where he had been standing. His boots touched the wall and he ran up, now on the same horizontal as Pycelo. The Magos pivoted, circular body rotating in the frame of his legs as he tracked the running construct-man.

"I'll end you this time!" Pycelo roared.

"You can try," Ruuka scoffed, "Just watch me…"

He was nearly taken apart as a brilliant beam struck at his feet, barely missing his body. Furious itching told him fallout was interfering with his being, nearly breaking the bonds between Nanocytes. He reversed direction, only to find another beam scoring the ground, pinning him in. This was not supposed to happen, he knew Pycelo, knew his firing strategies, only this blast pattern did not conform.

He spun about and barked, "You updated your shooting solutions!"

"After our last encounter I most certainly did," Pycelo growled as he stomped forward, "I knew we'd meet again."

Ruuka sneered, "Always so determined, always determined to punch through any problem with sheer brute force. Everything always has to be done your way, if it wasn't your idea you weren't interested. You are as dogged as you are intractable. I spent a lifetime blocked at every turn by your stubborn pride; I refuse to spend another locked into that impasse!"

"You had every chance to prove yourself," Pycelo snarled, "But you were too hungry, too impatient. You were the proud one, always thinking you knew best, never listening. Everything that has happened is because of you!"

"It seems neither of us has changed all that much," Ruuka spat, "You still dither when you should have blasted me on sight."

A sudden roaring noise from the right heralded a wave of constructs cresting a wall. Hundreds of them, from all walks of life. Skitarii forms running alongside recreations of men and women and children. All of them summoned by Ruuka to aid in this final confrontation. They poured onto the surface as a wave of bodies, enough to drown any resistance.

Pycelo spun to bring his weapons to bear and let rip with twin streams of rad-fire. He blasted the oncoming wave as he backed up, hastily reversing away. Again and again he fired, till his weapons glowed white-hot, but to no avail. Hundreds of constructs poured towards him, more than could be stopped. All Pycelo could do was retreat before the oncoming mass, backing up to the vertical floor and awkwardly stepping onto it.

Ruuka smiled as he saw the tide once more swing in his favour. He let the other constructs take the lead, using them to soak up Irad-Cleanser shots as he strolled along. Ambient radiation was climbing, but not enough to trouble them. Despite all the fury and defiance of their foes the outcome had never been in doubt. The Nanoswarm would win through, there was no other possible outcome.

Ruuka stepped onto the same level as the retreating Magos and saw him join up with Wulfe and the surviving pair of Space Marines. They stood together, backing into a corner. Ruuka let his forces pin them in as he meandered over to a drop and peered over. He had had enough surprises for one day; the last thing he wanted was Brontes to show up with a last-second rescue. Thankfully the Cadmus was far away and struggling to find a route back, isolated and cut-off. There would be no interference from that direction.

Pleased Ruuka turned back to the defiant survivors and called, "You have fought well, but there was no way you could ever win. Accept it; you lost this fight before it started."

"Nothing's over yet," Wulfe growled as he hefted his hammer.

"Till the bitter end," Jordig spat, missing his breastplate and one pauldron.

"Why?" Ruuka sighed, "You fight against something you don't even understand. We offer you immortality, the solution to entropy and decay. This is the dream of the Mechanicus made real. You can become what every tech-priest has yearned to be. Man and machine, a union that shall never end."

"You'll never take us," Kerubim hissed.

"Not you," Ruuka admitted, "You shall wither and die, but the rest of you can join me and live forever. We shall spread across the universe, acquire all data. Everything that can be known, shall be known. The Quest for Knowledge shall be completed!"

It was Pycelo who retorted, "And then?"

"And then…" Ruuka started, "What?"

"What do you do when you have acquired all knowledge. When everything is known, when there's nothing left to explore, what shall you do? After the Hungering becomes everything, what is it planning to do?"

"I don't know," Ruuka muttered, "Nothing I suppose."

Pycelo spat, "Exactly. The hungering offers nothing. To exist as a record, merely a piece of data in a memory cache, that is not life. If we do not act, if we do not learn, we may as well not exist. The Hungering is not eternal life, it is endless death."

Ruuka was irritated by that and snarled, "You won't sway me with fancy words. You shall be absorbed, this is going to happen. You cannot stop it."

"I can," Pycelo hissed, "I will."

"With those guns?!" Ruuka laughed, "Fool, you might destroy this body but the Nanswarm can whip up another any time we want. All those constructs you have demolished can be recreated. You've done nothing to hurt us!"

"I wasn't planning on shooting you!" Pycelo roared.

Suddenly the Magos sprang into life, charging headlong at Ruuka. Pistons whirred and legs pounded as the Magos bore down, moving with startling speed. Ruuka hadn't expected so reckless a move and was caught off-guard, too slow to leap aside as the mass of metal slammed bodily into him and carried him away. The inertia of the charge took them both off the precipice at his back, flinging them into the air in a tangle of metal and limbs.

Ruuka clung to the metal frame as they tumbled away, spinning over and over in a mad roll. The strange gravity of this realm took them higher and higher, floating away from the ground. Ruuka snarled at the loss of control, helpless to recover his composure. Yet he was far from done. He dug his hands into the metal of Pycelo and Nanocytes flew free, consuming the magos piece by piece. Silver threads burrowed through matter, absorbing Pycelo even as they drifted away.

"This was your plan?!" Ruuka laughed, "You throw yourself away for nothing."

"It is the end of us both," Pycelo hissed as the silver spread, "I brought you into this universe and I'm taking you out of it."

"You idiot!" Ruuka snarled, "This drop won't kill me."

"It wasn't meant to," Pycelo hissed as Nanocytes penetrated his brain-jar, "It was supposed to bring you to that…"

Ruuka twisted his head about and saw a strange and bulbous machine hanging at the heart of the twisted realm. Capacitors the size of buildings throbbed with latent power and plasma bottles leaked flaring light that illuminated the interior. Mighty power swelled from the machine, a sense of terrible energies flooding through it. Ruuka didn't know what it did but sensed it was dangerous and should not be interfered with.

"No," Ruuka breathed but was helpless to stop their plummet as they collided with the machine. He hit first, crushed under the weight of the Magos and as he touched the device Nanocytes poured out of him. Microscopic machines flooded into the machine, stealing atoms and claiming the matter of it for the Nanoswarm. Projector vanes dissolved, conduits fell apart and etheric manipulators disintegrated.

"No, stop it, stop it!" Ruuka wheezed but could not prevent the Nanoswarm from absorbing the machine. The Hungering existed to claim data and this device was merely more information to absorb. Unbidden and uncontrolled the Nanocytes took the generator apart. They could recreate it in time, a thousand copies could be made, but before it could do so it first took the generator off-line. Reality blinked, dimensions quivered as the Brane shield collapsed, releasing something into reality that had been contained for so long.

From a pocket dimension they came, swarms of microscopic machines: a second Nanoswarm. They fell like rain upon the Hungering, Nanocytes of a different order entirely. Unlike the original strain these ignored loose atoms, interested only in the microscopic machines that made up the Hungering. They latched on and injected a new code-cant into the matrix that bound the Nanocytes together, compelling them to turn upon their kin and share the new command, like a virus through a Cogitator Network. In moments the Binaric virus had infested all the Nanocytes it could reach, then the second phase began.

Buried in the virus was a template, of a single molecule and an irrefutable command to produce it. Compelled to act the Hungering brought together atoms in a new configuration, building a molecule with a singularly corrosive nature. First one, then hundreds, then millions of molecules of the most noxious substance ever invented by man: Phospex, a toxin that could scour worlds bare and destroy anything, even down to the atomic level. Microscopic machines broke apart, unmade by their own creation, yet they could not stop making it. The viral code-cant compelled them to make more and more Phospex, until the Nanocytes themselves succumbed to the alchemic brew.

Ruuka felt his being burning as his own body began to produce Phospex, the Nanocytes that made up his being turning against him. He screamed as his body fell apart, limbs dissolving into acidic green clouds, unable to stop destroying himself. His face was the last to break part, consumed in alchemical toxins that left nothing behind. His last sight was the alien Nanocytes raining down on his fellows, causing them to break down into clouds of Phospex. Then he was no more. The Noxia Interregnum was loose and it would not stop until this entire planet was nothing but a sea of toxic acid, killing the Hungering and anyone else who yet remained.