Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 281
"This is getting ridiculous," Joffel complained.
"You don't have to tell me," Larus muttered sullenly.
"We have been at this for hours," Kazao concurred.
"And you'll be at it for another hour if you don't put your elbows into it!" Reddam rebuked.
Kazao glanced over, seeing the line of armours standing on their racks. In the squad's billet the Amber Vipers were working over their plate. Washing dirt from cracks and teasing out invisible flecks of blood from the joints. Scuffs had been buffed out, bullet holes filled with Ceramic pastes, then painted over. Trimmings had been adorned with lapping powders and then buffed thoroughly. Layer after layer of polish, each one rubbed over and over till the Space Marines' fingers went numb.
Kazao thought their armour had never been shinier, but Reddam wasn't content. Ever since he'd told them other Chapters were coming to the Nest he'd been obsessed with perfecting the squad, driving their training regimes to the utmost and then spending every waking minute honing their appearance. Their bikes shone, bolters dripped oil and their plate was gleaming. Kazao honestly couldn't imagine how they could look any better, but Reddam wasn't satisfied.
He glanced over and saw the Sergeant running a cloth over a vambrace, working it back and forth. What he was trying to achieve baffled Kazao, but the intense stare in his eyes was unnerving. Joffel by comparison looked bored, Larus sullen and Tebes… Tebes was annoyingly focused on his plate, as if unbothered by the tedious work. Kazao's expression could not be read, when not in plate he wore a Stormtrooper helmet and wrapped his limbs in bulky scout-fatigues. His aberrant nature would never be accepted, he knew that, but to bask in the squad's comradery was enough.
"Seriously, how much cleaner and power armour get?!" Larus grumbled.
"It can get a hell of a lot more glorious than this," Reddam muttered.
"The other Chapters won't care," Joffel argued.
"They certainly will," Tebes countered, "A Marine's armour is his life, their devotions will be fastidious."
Larus sniffed, "This isn't the first time we've had guests."
"They were here to break us and place the Amber Vipers under the Regent's thumb," Kazao pointed out, "It's not the same."
Tebes stated archly, "We are sworn to serve the Imperium, a Space Marine should follow orders without rancour."
"If you're about to quote the Codex Astartes at us, I'm going to thump you," Joffel muttered.
"The Codex says…" Tebes started.
"Right, that's it!" Joffel snapped as he lobbed a wet cloth at his Brother. The moist rag hit Tebes in the side of the head and spilled suds over his cheek. Tebes frowned as he pulled the dank patch away, then grinned as he hurled it back. Joffel dodged and the rag hit Larus, who snatched up a wire-brush and threw it like a missile. Tebes instantly snatched it from the air and held it like a dagger, drawing in a breath to shout a harsh rebuke.
Kazao grabbed his tin of lapping powder, intending to lob into the brawl, but Reddam barked, "Stop that immediately!"
Everyone froze as Joffel protested, "We're just having a breather."
"The other Chapters aren't having breathers," Reddam growled, "They spend every minute honing their skills, practising formations and tending their gear. While you slobs are kicking back and drinking beer they are perfecting their skills. Every moment dedicated to the art of war, every effort bent to making themselves deadlier. If I treated you like they do their subordinates, then you'd be having no more than fifteen minutes of free time a day!"
"Fifteen?!" Joffel squeaked.
"Reddam , we've been at this all day," Larus protested, "Can't we take an hour to go to the fighting arena?"
"Nobody's going to the fighting arena till we can see our faces in this armour!" Reddam snapped, "Sometimes I think I am too lenient on the lot of you. I can assure you if we had Chaplains, then you'd see how easy I've been on you… Kazao, are you listening to me?!"
Kazao looked up guilty, his helm cracked open so he could drink from a straw. He lowered his bottle ashamed and closed his helmet, "Apologies, I felt thirsty."
"How many of those have you had today?" Reddam growled.
"Two or three," Kazao guessed.
"Eleven," Tebes corrected.
Kazao glared from behind his blank visor but Reddam rubbed his chin, "That's a lot, excessive even. Kazao, are you experiencing problems with your aberration?"
"No Reddam," Kazao deflected.
"He's been drinking non-stop for weeks," Larus pointed out.
"I have not!"
"You have," Joffel rebuked, "We've all noticed it."
Reddam glared at the aberrant for a moment then decided, "We're taking you to see Shrios."
"That's not necessary," Kazao demurred.
"Any gene-seed issues must be reported immediately, you doubly so. You are the least stable of us, if your body is unsound we must know. We're going, no arguments."
"Does that mean we can stop scrubbing our plate?" Joffel asked brightly.
"Wipe that idiotic grin off your face, we'll be back to training drills immediately afterwards."
Reddam turned and strode out, leaving the rest to trail behind. Kazao followed, dejected by the thought of visiting the Apothecary. As they left their billet and made their way across the Nest he reflected that he'd been avoiding Shrios whenever possible. Being poked and prodded was never pleasant but his body's growth was not something he wished to discuss. He'd been growing stronger ever since he adopted his cracked plate, his movements swift and sure. He suspected it was exposure to the rads his plate leaked, causing his aberrant flesh to pile on muscle. A theory he'd built on by subtly sabotaging the seals around the generator stack. Reddam would go spare if he knew that last part, which was why Kazao hadn't told anyone.
Soon they reach the Apothecarion, where Shrios worked to build the next generation of Amber Vipers. They stepped through a sterile drape and found themselves in a sparse white chamber. The Nest's original Apothecarion had been a resplendent vision of Biologic mystery, but the passage of time had taken its toll. Chattels laboured over ceramic dishes so faded as to be yellow. Gargoyles hanging from the roof were ill-formed and soft-edged. Lesser Apothecaries wore robes that were frayed around the hems, cutting into progenoids with scalpels sharpened so many times as to be little more than suggestions of metal.
Eyes looked up as the squad entered and Shrios called from the back of the room, "What now?!"
"We need your skills," Reddam answered.
"We're busy, and this is a sterile room I'll have you know!"
"It's about Kazao's gene-seed."
"Oh, right, that's different, through that door, I'll be with you in a minute."
The squad stepped through another door and found themselves in a freezing morgue. Sealed hatches lined the walls, and frigid air billowed from vents overhead. Metal gurneys were laid out in rows, containing Transhuman bodies, vivisected and left. They weren't Amber Vipers, Kazao could tell at glance, waxy flesh spoke of vat-bred clonemeat, fit for servitors but not a self-aware man in any sense. The faces were oddly beautiful, sculpted as if perfected by a sculptors' hand. Shrios must be running some experiments, Kazao guessed, but as to what he could not dream.
Shrios stepped through the door, tossing some plastek gloves into a bin and said, "What's the problem then?"
Kazao had no choice but to say, "I'm thirsty, all the time."
"Not just thirsty," Reddam corrected, "He's downing water like a fish."
"Dehydration: possible. Lack of electrolytes: perhaps. Won't know till I take a closer look. Sit on that gurney and take your helmet off."
Kazao sheepishly sat his arse down on a metal tray and lifted his helmet off. The others averted their eyes, keeping from looking at the scaled skin and red eyes of the Aberrant. Kazao hated it but knew the taint of mutation was an offence to the Imperial way, to be reviled and abused by all good and upstanding men. That the Amber Vipers allowed such degenerates to fight spoke to their parlous condition, in the early days they'd been desperate for every hand that could hold a bolter. The Aberrants had been tolerated, but no more than that.
Shrios pulled on some fresh gloves and picked up a tray of instruments. He began examining Kazao, pulling the head to and fro. He held open an eyelid and shone a light into an iris, inspected the jowels under the chin and felt the twin-pulse in the jugular. He took skin samples and a blood philtre and ran it through a small gene-reader, then had Kazao open his mouth and inspected the tongue and the sharp fangs. Finally he had Kazao spit on a glassic stick containing a pink substance and held it up amazed as the colouring went maroon.
"No wonder you're thirsty," Shiros muttered, "Your Betchers Gland is hyperactive. Acidity is way off. Your body is telling you to try to dilute your spittle, before your chin falls off."
"That's all?" Kazao breathed in relief.
"All he says," Shrios grumbled, "No, your muscle mass is increasing and I don't like your blood marks, if you weren't an Aberrant I'd be strapping you to a med-slab for exploratory surgery."
"Is it going to take him out of action?" Reddam asked.
"He's an aberrant, such drift is to be expected," Shrios sniffed, "Frankly, I've seen worse from the afflicted, and they've gone on to fight. I'm adding a course of alkaline stabilisers to your daily drug regime, that should deal with the acidity problem. But Kazao I want you to come in weekly for blood checks, this needs close monitoring."
"So I can fight?" Kazao asked as he strapped on his helmet.
"Yes," Shrios grunted as he stripped his gloves and washed his hands.
From across the room Larus was poking at a dead corpse and picked up a loose fingerbone "Can I keep this?"
"No!" Shrios snapped, "You want to add to your collection, pick stuff off the battlefield like a normal Viper."
"What exactly are you doing with these?" Tebes asked.
Shrios glanced over, "Those? Those are experimental subjects for the other gene-seed strain."
"The what?!" Joffel started in shock.
Shrios didn't answer immediately, instead he strode over to one of the morgue-hatches on the wall. He opened the freezing compartment and pulled out a long tray from within. There was no body upon it, instead a long rack of beers, kept chilled in the cold of the morgue. Shrios picked up a can and broke the tab, before slugging back a long and noisy draught.
Satisfied he shoved the tray back into a wall and leant on the wall as he waved the tin, "Remember when we claimed the Angel's Revenge?"
"Hard to forget," Larus muttered.
"Deep within I found a gene-vault, stacked to the brim with Progenoids. IXth Legion gene-line, Blood Talons Chapter. Enough gene-seed to make a Company, in theory."
Kazao cocked his head, "You're trying to add it to our stocks?"
"Hell no," Shrios snorted as he slugged back his beer, "Mixing gene-lines is a recipe for disaster. Our own stock is chimeric enough, without adding another boatload of problems. There's something wrong with the Progenoids we found, something wayward. The vat-bodies I implant look healthy, but inside they're all twisted up. Organs don't grow right, bones crack, and blood clots form in the brain. If I try to put these into a recruit, they'll end up dead."
Reddam looked thoughtful, "We know the Blood Talons were caught in the opening of the Cicatrix Maledictum, maybe their gene-seed was tainted?"
"Possibly," Shrios shrugged, "But there were always troubling rumours about the Sanguinius strain, dark whispers of taint. Or maybe it's a flaw with the Blood Talons themselves, successor Chapters can have strange deviations, especially when not direct descendants. I checked the Revenge's data-archives, their Apothecaries hadn't any proof but they suspected they weren't founded straight from Baal. Sired from another Chapter they guessed, Charnel Guard, Red Seraphs, or Angels Numinous, they argued over it a lot."
"So if this is stock worthless, why bother?" Larus asked.
"I have learned much from their mistakes," Shrios sniffed as he finished off his beer, "These failures reveal secrets common to all Space Marines, and knowledge is knowledge. With what I've learned I managed to reduce our implant rejection rates by two percent. I have another score of vat-bodies gestating in nutri-baths as we speak."
Reddam didn't look convinced, "Is that wise, what with outsiders coming to the Nest?"
"I don't leave them out in the open," Shrios scoffed.
"Still, it wouldn't do to have a noble Chapter like the Howling Griffons or Storm Heralds seeing us experimenting on another Chapter's gene-seed."
Larus snorted, "The screaming pigeons can shove off."
"They will be offended to see this," Tebes argued.
"Then they can go look up their own arses," Joffel laughed.
"Too right," Kazao agreed as he slid off the gurney and dropped to his feet.
"Keep such opinions to yourselves," Reddam snapped, "Shrios, we need this experiment placed somewhere it won't be found. We have become accustomed to skirting the rules, but this could ruin everything if it becomes known."
Shrios tossed the empty tin into a bin, "You're vexingly correct. I'll move the subjects to a remote location. It's a pain, but no one outside the Amber Vipers would understand. Blast, dragging the nutri-baths alone will take hours."
"Best fortunes with that," Kazao chuckled.
"I don't know why you're so happy," Reddam rebuked, "You scruffy lot just volunteered to help."
Groans arose from all, and Joffel protested, "Dragging heavy tubs of goo, that's beneath a Space Marine."
"Couldn't we go hone our fighting skills?" Larus asked.
"Or run laps around the Nest?" Kazao proposed.
Even Tebes sounded dismayed, "My hammer could really do with another coat of polish."
But Reddam grinned wickedly, "No, I think hauling heavy tubs is utterly appropriate for you. You needed your heads bashing together, but this will do. I've been far too easy on you so far, time to correct that. You'll drag and carry and do it with a smile. By the time I'm done beating you into shape you'll be begging to spend days scrubbing your armour."
