Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 289
"What the Frak is going on?!" Ferrac snarled angrily.
Reddam barked back, "We told you, Inquisitor Verral, his escort wears the colours of the Soul Drinkers!"
"That's not possible!"
"We saw it with our own eyes!"
"This is a trick; it has to be!" Ferrac hissed.
"It's no trick, they are Soul Drinkers," Coluber sighed wearily. That brought the shouting to a halt. In Coluber's private quarters they gathered for an emergency meeting of the Old Seventeen. All those who had founded the Amber Vipers were present, their faces pictures of dread and suspicion. They looked like trapped prey animals, caught in a vice and ready to gnaw their own leg off. Coluber understood their plight, he felt the same. To see those disgraced colours once more was shocking in ways he couldn't describe, awe, ingrained reverence, hatred and revulsion, all in equal measure. It was like seeing a dead parent rise from the grave, a festering zombie, but still recognisable.
Two others were present, Nathanal and Maru Kysoto. The mortal man had been there at the start of the Amber Vipers, he knew where they came from. Maru was telepath and had been inside Coluber's head, he knew everything. With their gathering everyone on the Serpens Rex who knew of their origin was present, to figure out what the hell they were going to do about this calamity.
"How can this be?" Ferrac uttered, "They died, all of them. Sarpedon's scum killed all our Brothers, then got themselves obliterated."
"We got away, maybe some others did too?" Reddam mused.
"It can't be, we spent years hunting Sarpedon's spoor, we'd have found any others survivors."
"Not if they didn't want to be found, the galaxy is a big place."
Nathanal broke in, "They can't be your former Brothers, they are all Primaris."
"So?"
"So they would have to be inducted after Belisarius Cawl revealed the existence of the new paradigm. They can't have been active when the Soul Drinkers turned Traitor."
"We were never Traitors," Coluber hissed threateningly.
Shrios rubbed his jaw with an armoured fist, "Maybe Cawl's proposed Rubicon has succeeded at last, he's been promising to bridge the gulf between Firstborn and Primaris."
"You buy that rubbish?!" Ferrac snorted, "Cawl's inventions never work as promised. They're more dangerous to the Imperium than the enemy, that's why we have a crapload of his misadventures sealed up behind the Gates of Perdition. Even the Cerberii don't dare use his inventions."
"He did make the Primaris, he may have had another breakthrough."
But Ferrac snorted, "I'll believe it when I see it. Cawl's last two braincells are competing for third place."
Coluber turned his back on the argument and looked out the window. As the others shouted over each other he looked upon the ruined plazas and broken spars of his base. For decades his life had been lived amid ruins, slowly piecing things back together, begging, borrowing and stealing for whatever he could get. He had done this to build a future, sure that the past was a sealed door. The thought that he could have been wrong was a knife to the hearts, the notion that fellow Soul Drinkers may have been out there in the dark, struggling alone, was beyond contemplating. It had to be a lie, else Coluber was nothing but a deserter and a coward.
"No," Coluber said.
"Pardon?" Reddam blinked.
"They can't be the Soul Drinkers we knew, they can only be new generations, raised after the fall of Cadia."
"You don't sound very sure," Nathanal dared.
"It must be so; else we have forsaken all bonds of fellowship and Brotherhood."
Maru broke in, "The Hypno-indoctrination of a Space Marine is strong, impressed into the gene-seed itself. Never to be forgotten, no matter where one wanders, or what colours one wears."
Coluber nodded, "He speaks truly, the Amber Vipers rose from the ashes of a dead Chapter. This is the rock we built our lives upon. The past was dead and we were right to let it go. These newcomers can only be fresh creations, false Soul Drinkers, given our old colours but not our Brothers."
"But why?" Reddam mused, "Why would the Imperium resurrect a disgraced Chapter?"
But Maru countered, "The true question is, why would the son of the Most Glorious Emperor resurrect that name?"
"We know Sarpedon died upon the Phalanx, along with his filthy renegades. But the exact details were hidden from us. Perhaps something happened there?" Shrios wondered.
Coluber sighed, "We're flailing in the dark, jumping at shadows. We need more hard facts, we need to speak to someone who has access to the Crusade's sealed files."
"You don't mean..." Ferrac groaned.
"I do, I sent word to someone who can speak truth to us," Coluber answered.
A light blinking on his desk had been alerting him to an incoming signal and now he opened the link. A Hololithic projection sprang up, one-twentieth the size of the person speaking. Even so the broad armour and resplendent colours of the White Consuls presented an intimidating mien, Terminator Captain Robann, in all his fierce glory. He looked irate, his face covered in crusted blood and his fists tainted with oils torn from rebel Skitarii.
"What do you want?!" Robann spat, "I am flying between active combat zones as we speak!"
"I need information," Coluber replied.
"You interrupt my labours for this?!" Robann growled, "First your refuse to leave orbit as instructed, then you call other Chapters to the edge of my warzone. Now you waste my precious time!"
"Robann, the Amber Vipers performed a mission for your benefit in this theatre, it's time to honour our pact," Coluber argued.
"You have some bloody cheek, thinking I owe you anything."
"Then let me put it this way," Coluber countered, "We have carried out orders of dubious nature, straight from the Regent, and taken the blame for them. With one message I could inform the galaxy that the actions of the Amber Vipers were directly ordered by Imperial authorities, the results would be explosive."
"You wouldn't dare!" Robann spat.
"The trouble with deniable actions, is it leaves a lot of skeletons in the closet. And I know where they are. So, shall you bicker or tell me what I want to know?"
Robann glared in frustration, "What do you want to know?"
"Soul Drinkers, Primaris Soul Drinkers, where do they come from and what are they doing here on my starfort?"
"Hold," Robann stated as he looked out of the frame. Seconds passed and Coluber could see his eyes flickering as he read something. The Captain must be receiving fresh intelligence, not reciting from memory. Interesting, Coluber mused, Robann hadn't been expecting the Soul Drinkers to arrive in theatre, else he'd have already known everything about them. That shifted the balance of the situation.
Robann read aloud, "Says here the Soul Drinkers are an Ultima Foundng Chapter, cut from fresh cloth. They were given the name, heraldry and relics of a dead Chapter, at the specific request of the Imperial Fists. Odd, the justifications are classified, but it says the Lord Regent signed off on it, as part of his wider efforts to rebuild extinct Chapters."
Coluber frowned, "He agreed to restore an Excommunicated Chapter?"
"Doesn't say anything here about an Excommunicatus, doesn't say anything at all. The older files have been subjected to an Edict of Obliteration. All I have are some recent combat records, nothing impressive. These new Soul Drinkers have yet to make their mark on the galaxy."
"I find that suspicious," Coluber muttered.
"Why do you care anyway?"
"I just do," Coluber deflected, "Thank you, you have aided me greatly."
"Don't call me again," Robann spat as he cut the link.
Silence fell over the gathering as Coluber contemplated the news. Possibilities shifted and changed, implications were sorted and prioritised. Threats generated and countered. For long moments he chewed over the facts and discarded the irrelevancies, coming to the salient points.
Finally he concluded, "They are not our dead Brothers, they are nothing to us. But they wear our old colours, this is no coincidence."
"Do you think they have... the Soulspear?" Reddam breathed.
"The Soul Drinker's most holy relic," Coluber mused, "They may, or they may not. It is irrelevant to us. Only two things matter: What do they know of our origins, and what do they intend?"
Ferrac growled, "To finish what the Crimson Fists started."
"A squad is not enough to destroy us," Shrios argued, "No, someone is playing games."
"The Inquisition," Nathanal gulped, "Do they know?"
Ferrac snorted, "They know, some of them at least. They aren't big on sharing, but that Inquisitor Markof, he threatened me with the information. We left him fuming, I wouldn't put it past him to seek revenge."
"What of the Regent?" Reddam asked, "If the Inquisition knows, Guilliman must too."
"I'm sure he does," Shrios sighed, "He probably saw this as a chance to rub our faces in the hold he has over us. Oh, his hand is all over this."
"I think not," Coluber countered, "Robann didn't know they were coming, and if he didn't know then this isn't some orchestrated trap. As theatre commander he'd be in the loop, he'd be told of our connection to the Soul Drinkers. No, not everything that happens in the galaxy starts with the will of a Primarch. This is smaller, more directed, more personal. Inquisitor Verral and Chaplain Daggon, they are the key players in this game."
"What was your impression of them?" Reddam asked.
"Scant, we shared few words," Coluber sighed.
It was true, the ritual exchanges had been brief, Coluber battling shock at the sight of purple Ceramite and the golden cup icon. The Inquisitor had struck him as untrustworthy, but that was hardly news. The Chaplain had been terse, Daggon shared few words and spoke nothing of himself. Those dark eyes had glared out of the skull-helm though, accusatory and unwavering, as if he could see Coluber's sins in glowing letters over his head. Coluber had hurriedly shown them to a billet and left them there, before rushing here.
"We need more time," Coluber sighed, "We need to uncover their intent. There are three other Chapters visiting, we cannot risk slitting these Soul Drinker's throats and throwing them out the airlock."
"Was that an option?!" Nathanal started, "Killing loyal Space Marines?"
"Not like we haven't done it before," Reddam muttered as he kneaded the haft of his spear, with its hacked out lightning bolt of Chogris.
Maru's voice issued forth, "They seek to trap you in a vice of memory, holding you down with the weight of ages. But you are no longer Soul Drinkers, you took the name Amber Vipers and left the past behind as a snake sheds its skin. You do not let yesterday define you, this is one of the few admirable things about you. Do not let them steer your course, make them react to you."
Coluber nodded, "Well said, they think to provoke us to rash action, but I will not let them choose the nature of this battle. I shall watch and learn their intent, then strike."
"You mean to press on with the Conclave?" Shrios asked.
"I must, we cannot back out now."
"Thank the Throne we hid my experiments," Shrios muttered, "That's the last thing we need."
"Thank me you mean," Reddam snorted.
Ferrac questioned, "So we play nice, watch what they do and wait for the Grox-dung to hit the exhaust port?"
Coluber sighed, "We have no other choice, for better or for worse we are committed. Amber Vipers, Soul Drinker, Storm Herald, Blood Raven and Howling Griffon. It's just a matter of keeping them from finding out anything is amiss, and see who lets what slip."
