Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 271
In the deserted hanger Brontes faced off against the Hungering. Two ancient artefacts of a dead civilisation, two remnants of a forgotten empire. One a walking Heresy, belligerence and fury wrought in metal, the other an all-consuming horror, wearing the form of a dead Marine as a mask. The sciences and crafting of the Hegemony distilled into two points, the final exemplars of their lust for knowledge and reckless invention. Bound to destroy one another.
The Jordig-construct stood up from the deck, where silver tendrils burrowed through the matter of Zar-quaesitor. He glanced at the fleeing Kerubim and remarked, "That was redundant."
Brontes glared at his foe but admitted, "I do wonder how many decks the boy will clear before he remembers he has a vox."
"You wanted him gone?"
"I wanted him safely out of the way, so I don't have to hold back as I destroy you," Brontes growled.
"Improbable, you have no rad-weapons and we…"
Suddenly Brontes was in motion, swinging his great fists at the construct. Even without disruption fields they carried enough force to dent a tank's hull and all that ire was directed into his attack. He was furious in his resolve, deadly in intent, but the Hungering had been waiting for the attack to come. As the fist swung for his head the construct twisted, letting the blow sail past without contact. Then it struck upwards, fingertips scoring through armour as Transhuman strength cleaved through reinforced plating. Brontes sensed Nanocytes swarming, trying to take over his being but his own defences immediately responded, wrestling atoms away from the intruders, leaving them stalemated.
He responded by driving his elbow back, then following up with a roundhouse swing but none made contact. The Hungering moved with Jordig's speed and surety, a Primaris' innate swiftness married to the experience born of years of combat. Brontes had size and reach but the Hungering was his equal and matched him move for move.
A lashing blow touched nothing but air as the Hungering moved past a stack of crates and taunted, "Your vaunted skill proves substandard."
"You're mouthy, for a collection of fleas," Brontes growled.
"The Jordig-unit favoured psychological engagement in combat, so must we."
"Just a pale copy," Brontes snarled, "That's why you will not win."
"A hollow boast, you can't even hit us."
"Wasn't trying to, just steering you where I wanted!"
Brontes lashed out with those words, aiming not for the construct but rather the piled crates behind him. Too late did the Hungering sense the danger and was slow to react as the metal fist struck piled boxes, causing them to tumble. Heavy crates toppled, falling upon the Hungering like an avalanche, weight enough to crush a grown man. The Hungering's arms came up but were helpless to resist as the crates slammed down, burying him in supplies.
Brontes didn't think for a moment that would buy anything other than a few seconds, but he was already running. With great heaving steps he raced across the bay, moving with the irresistibility of a freight train. Brontes heard crates being thrown aside as the Hungering rose from the trap, but it was not quick enough to catch him. The Cadmus robot veered towards the open hanger bay, steering straight for the edge of the door. A collection of thrumming devices lined the bay entrance, atmo-field generators, running passively on their own power circuit.
"Taste vacuum scum!" Brontes snarled as he crashed into the generators, wrecking fists slamming into the bulky mechanisms. Energy flared as the fields were cut, leaving gaping vacuum behind. An instant hurricane blew up as Brontes grabbed the frame of the door, clinging on for all he was worth. Crates and servitors and fuel bowsers tumbled away, thrown into the cold of space. A shuttle ground past, its claws leaving sparks behind as it was hurled into the void. Brontes could do nothing but hold on as the hanger vented its contents, sensing the absolute chill of space trying to claim him.
After a few seconds a great metal slab fell from the roof, an emergency shutter slamming home to cut off the breach. Brontes sagged as the forces pulling at him faded, and hissing vents pumped fresh air into the bay. He let go of the wall, looking to see if his plan had worked, only to be disappointed. In the middle of the cleared floor the Hungering stood, unmoved by the tornado. His feet were bound to the deck by silver tendrils, the Nanoswarm securing him as firmly as if he were welded to the floor.
The Hungering's face betrayed no anger or concern as he cocked his head and remarked, "That was why you wanted the Kerubim-unit gone?"
Brontes saw that his desperate plan had failed and could only grunt, "It worked in the last war."
"Repeating tactics," The Hungering scoffed, "Easily predicted, you have not changed in twenty-thousand years. Your defeat is certain."
"Then I'll beat you into goo and wait for Cawl to bring enough rad-grenades to finish you off!"
"No, you won't. We are the ship now, we spread through its matter. Observe."
Brontes lurched as the deck convulsed, swelling organically. The floor had become a mass of Nanocytes, the Hungering absorbing floor and walls and all the systems within into itself. It was becoming Zar-quaesitor, taking the ship for itself.
Brontes staggered as he spat, "Dumb move, stellar radiation will cook you!"
"We are far from the local star," the Hungering sniffed, "And there are other ships nearby to claim. We can adapt; a trait you singularly failed to embrace."
As if summoned the floor surged upwards, a column of Nanocytes climbing high as they moulded themselves into the shape of a head and shoulders. A construct, growing out of the ship's matter. The Hungering hadn't the right type of elements to create a fully-fledged construct, not yet, but it had enough raw materials to fashion a proxy out of metallic alloys. In moments it shaped itself into the head of Ruuka and a rasping voice issued forth, "You are a relic, a fossil from the past. Best left there. We are the future."
Brontes was aghast at the half-man thing and uttered, "What have you done?!"
The face of Ruuka went silent but another was forming, Dannye, who uttered, "We are completing the quest for knowledge, all that can be known shall be known."
"Not like this," Brontes hissed as more heads emerged, "Not like this!"
"But yes," another said, a middle-aged woman with a stern face and coiled hair over her ears, "We are fulfilling our civilisation's primary purpose."
"Captain Korery?!" Brontes whispered in shock at the face of the twenty-thousand years' dead officer.
"Oh yes," she replied, "You were wrong to fight the Nanoswarm. It is everything the Hegemony dreamed of: infinite creativity, infinite knowledge. We were made to reshape the universe, and at last it shall be so."
"No," Brontes cried as more faces emerged in a macabre parody of resurrection, "You died, you all died. I watched the Hungering kill you all!"
A bust with the face of Admiral N'yala cried, "We are not dead, we are forever!"
Another with the features of General Kiutey proclaimed, "The Age of Reason died, the Age of Ignorance is ending. Now is the time for the Age of Logic to begin!"
"Stop fighting us," the visage of the famous polymath Huyer urged, "This is what you were made for, what all of us were made for. Rationality shall reign supreme, the filth you deem Chaos shall wither on the vine. We shall become all matter, free of emotion and superstition. The stars will at last be tamed, as the Hegemony always schemed."
Brontes backed up to the wall but found no succour there. The Hungering was already in it, swarming through the matter of its substance. Brontes knew he was too late to stop it, the Hungering would overrun the ship long before Cawl could summon any rad-weapons, the crew would be absorbed without firing a shot in anger. The Hungering was going to win, its twisted vision of the Hegemony's ideal triumphant at last. He was but one Cadmus, his weapons insufficient to stop it, there was no way he could punch this foe into oblivion.
Brontes sagged as he whispered, "It's over, at last it's over."
The Jordig-construct moved past the obscene tableau of heads as he stated, "You surrender to us?"
"There's no point fighting, the end is here at last," Brontes intoned as he sent a signal to shut down his Nanocyte defences.
Instantly the Hungering responded, sensing his vulnerability. Nanocytes surged through the wall into his being, claiming atoms with rapacious greed. Pistons and armour and power cables were infested, foreign Nanocytes charging through his open systems with fearful speed. Quantum circuits were taken, drawing his artificial mind into the Hungering's matrix and in the realm Binaric Brontes and the Hungering engaged in a meeting of minds.
The Cadmus viewed the interior of his own mind as digital fangs bit deep, devouring his synthetic consciousness. Data files, active subroutines and embedded protocols were absorbed, the Hungering opening its matrix to devour the Cadmus whole. Brontes watched memories disappearing, the battle over Medusa, the abortive war against the Rotundus, the subjugation of the Jathyr and a thousand other races stolen from him, never to be recovered. His operating system was being stripped bare, the pair linking code-cants as the Hungering took all it found.
"At last!" its synthetic voice echoed loud in the non-space, "We have a Cadmus!"
"You have," the last of Brontes sighed, "We are one."
"We shall be united till the stars go out," the Hungering crowed.
"We are indeed one, bound together forever," the ghost of Brontes' whispered, "All my strengths are yours, as are my weaknesses."
With the last flicker of will, Brontes reached into the core of his being and activated his kill-switch. A Binaric earthquake shook the combined mindscape, digital cracks running through them both. Destruction arose, spreading like wildfire, destroying all that remained of Brontes and spreading into the matrix of the intruder. The Hungering screamed in denial, a frantic wail of distress let slip. It tried to break away, it tried to abandon its consumption of Brontes and flee, but it was too late. They were one, bound indivisibly, the Cadmus' self-destruction was the Hungering's also.
A swathe of burning destruction swept through the essence of both, annihilating all. Brontes' mind imploded as the final dissolution of his being came, and so too did the Hungering's matrix decimate itself. All constructs, all Nanocytes were affected. Every single mote of its being was bound into one consciousness and their death was simultaneous. The Hungering died, everywhere it was, every piece of it wiped from existence, leaving only Binaric ashes as a testament to the ultimate destruction of an artificial intelligence.
A final piece of Brontes clung on for a moment and his whisper went unheard, "So ends the last warrior of the Hegemony, I die not with a bang but with a…" The statement went unfinished as Brontes went silent, never to speak again. In the hanger the burnt-out shell of the Cadmus slumped, eyes dark and unseeing, meanwhile the Hungering collapsed into ooze, the last trace of the Hegemony fading from the universe at last.
