View Full Version : [M] The Replicants - IC
Azazeal849
02-26-2013, 11:09 AM
Rated M for distressing situations, violence, and potential language and drug references.
Link to OOC (http://role-player.net/forum/showthread.php?t=39992)
http://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/554395_570929746268328_1020521268_n.jpg?dl=1
The snub-nosed shuttle lurched back into being in a violent burst of light, trailing red corposant along its 30 metre length as the last grasping fingers of warp stuff fell away and disintegrated, reluctantly releasing the ship back into realspace. The backlit glow in the eyes and mouths of Gellar-projection gargoyles along the shuttle's flanks faded, and the smaller running lights of auger sensors lit up to replace them.
Even though it had only been a short hop from their homeship at the edge of the system to the inner planets, interrogator Javid Schafer still breathed a sigh of relief. It was a tiny voyage by the standards of most warp flights, not even needing a Navigator to reliably calculate, but only a fool took any length of journey through the immaterium lightly.
Interrogator Schafer leaned forward and rested his hands on the cockpit dashboard. He was a tall, muscular man with wispy brown hair and a careworn face pulled tight by premature frown lines. He looked older than his 41 standard years, but that same weather-beaten face and the hard look in his eyes gave him an air of authority to match the inquisitorial signet on his ring finger. The rest of his uniform, simple black fatigues, matched his no-nonsense appearance perfectly.
“Are the explorators in orbit yet?” he queried his pilot as he regarded the pale blue marble of a planet that filled most of the transparisteel cockpit windows. It was winter in the northern hemisphere, and most of the visible land mass was locked in snow beneath heavy clouds.
“Not yet, sir.” the pilot replied in clipped Gothic. “They took the safe option and exited warp a little further from the atmosphere.”
“The perks of working for the inquisition.” Schafer grunted. The shuttle had dropped back into realspace somewhat inside the buffer zone laid down by planetary regulations, but it had been necessary in order to intercept the returning explorators. Lord Sidonis wanted these men debriefed by his own organisation before they took anything back to the planetary governor. “Broadcast our clearance codes to the nearest orbital defence station, and if they kick up a fuss give me the vox.”
Several of the orbitals were indeed demanding identification, lighting up the auger screens with bright hailing runes. Also blinking was the more placid contact icon of the explorator ship; further away, but still within the ring of rocks and dust that had been the planet's moon until four millenia ago when the Necron War had reduced it to gravel. Blinking within the man-made ring system was the icon of the massive grav-anchor station that kept at bay the cataclysmic climate shifts that the moon's absence would otherwise bring. The remains of the destroyed moon through which the grav-anchor floated posed a minor threat to careless navigators, but nothing like the threat of the laser defence stations that hung in low orbit. Even their auspex returns were aggressive, burning much larger and hotter than the vox satellites and spindly orbital docks that drifted around them. Schafer could see two of the defence orbitals from his cockpit, vast black star-shapes against the white planet behind. One seemed to be conducting an invasion drill; retros flaring silently to shift it into a different orbit and throw off the targeting solution of an imaginary attacker.
“I'm just glad the boss trusted me with this.” the interrogator went on, half to himself, as his pilot busied himself with transmitting their ident codes to the nearest orbital. “Alia would probably have feigned her usual nicey-nice approach, pissed off someone and got into a fight with a defence monitor.”
His pilot didn't say anything, only grinned and shook his helmeted head.
“Something funny, Clement?” Schafer asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Just that you never seem to have anything good to say about interrogator Machairi, sir.”
“Probably on account of her being a total bitch.”
Arval Clement grinned again, unoffendedly. He was a wiry, dark-skinned man with a shaved face and scalp beneath his interface helmet, and a very white smile that he flashed often. A career pilot, ten years in the Imperial Navy had left him with a calm professionalism and a tolerant view of sinful mankind - something that three further years serving the inquisition had not yet dampened. He knew both Javid Schafer and Alia Machairi, two of lord Sidonis' up-and-coming interrogators. Both were natural leaders, and two dominant personalities were bound to clash with each other.
“They've accepted our codes, sir.” he said after a moment.
“Have we got a vox link to the surface yet?” Schafer said tersely. He could have had the message sent to his agents on-world much sooner via astropath, but that would have meant having to put up with one of the witches for the duration of the trip to Venatora. And while some astropaths could be affable enough, they were prone to dissolving into babbling and paranoid fits without warning.
Clemet took his eyes off the main controls for a brief moment to glance at the comms panel. “Yes sir, we’ve got a link.”
“Tell our people already on the ground to rendezvous at the starport and wait for us to land, then hail the explorators.” Schafer paused to examine the auger returns again. “Any sign of Vizkop?”
“No sir, not on luminal or warp sensors.”
Tech-adept Vizkop was the mechanicus liaison who lord Sidonis had ordered to accompany Schafer to the meeting with the explorators. Though, being ad mech, he had decided to take his own separate transport. He must have got there before them.
“Bloody tech priests.” Schafer growled.
+ + + + + +
Thirty floors above ground level, the building's thick windows kept out the roar of the wind, although its strength was evident from the snowstorm flurrying past the glass. The apartment complex beneath the starport's number 3 landing pad was sumptuously furnished, and the best part was that it needed occupying in case the authorities came asking after Jet, an agent who was using it under an assumed identity before disappearing into deep cover in the shadier parts of the planetary capital. Marcus Black, however, was not taking advantage of the facilities. Like Jet, and the rest of lord Sidonis’ agents on Venatora, he was part of a net designed to take down a xenotech smuggler known to frequent the planet. The heretic had hit upon the novel idea of smuggling artefacts inside John Does and having his contacts pose as their next of kin, and while his sister Kelly monitored the local mortuary, Marc himself sifted through the data she and the others had collected in search of connections.
He sat with one arm hooked round the back of his chair and the other hand absently prodding a fork into the food at his elbow while he scanned the data. It scrolled slowly in front of him, projected up by the hololith built into the table. The food was a standard local dish, consisting of strips of spiced meat stuffed into a hollow, bell-shaped fruit that was bright yellow and tasted slightly sweet. It wasn’t bad, but Marc still couldn’t believe that on Venatora there was no such thing as a sandwich.
He paused for a moment in his work, turning towards the window to watch the blizzard. The anaemic sunlight outside illuminated a pallid but strong-jawed face with calculating green eyes, and dark hair cut short in the style of a hive enforcer who didn’t easily lose old habits, even after transferring out of the uniformed branch. On his desk next to the hololith and the plate of alien food was an empty tanna mug and a palmtop data slate. The PDA was open, with a message that had been uploaded to Marc as soon as it had filtered through the local astropathic choir. It was a letter from his father back on Solomon, letting him know that he was back on active duty in Decker hive now that his bionic legs had been replaced with higher-grade ones, paid for by Marc’s share of the Pembroke bounty. Marc’s father remained stilted in communication with his son, but now it was due to guilt rather than anger at a duty that he thought Marc had abandoned. It was neither of their fault - how could Marc have told his family that he hadn’t simply quit his job in the enforcers, but been recruited by the inquisition? Nevertheless, Marc was immensely relieved that his true employment was now out in the open - his father’s approval meant far more to him than he ever dared let on.
All of Marc’s family had originally served with the enforcers on Solomon, although now only his father remained there. His sister Kelly had also been drafted into lord Sidonis’ retinue, but they weren’t the only ones to have done so following the Pembroke incident. Frank, Vincent, Kally and Eugene had made it out too, and been through the same interrogations, vetting and training as Marc himself. Frank had adjusted to his new role best, and was now off on a mission with agents Brenner and Van Der Mir, while Eugene had been transferred to Task Force Carbon - Sidonis’ stormtrooper detachment. Vincent and Kally were here with him on Venatora. Vincent was the same as ever - bipolar, and unreadable right up until the split-second he chose to take action - while Kally was noticeably more bitter and withdrawn. Mind you, Marc thought ruefully, Emperor knew she had reason enough to be angry with him.
Also assigned to Marc’s data gathering team were the xenotech specialist L'Hoace; the pyrokine Shere, who despite his psyker status was probably the most upbeat member of the team; and a stormtrooper called Remus who had been assigned as security. Like Eugene, he served in Task Force Carbon under major Kadath Al-Omar.
Marc shifted his right leg slightly as he thought of the major. The scars on his thigh, though long healed, still gave him pain during cold weather. Unfortunately, it was always bloody cold on Venatora. Marc had managed to stay professional with Al-Omar after the latter had rejoined Sidonis (following the abrupt termination of service with his former employer) but Marc was not yet ready to be friendly with the man who had both shot him and played an undeniable role in the disaster on Solomon.
The strangest additions to their team were Sapphira, a Sister of the hospitaller, and the mechanicus liaison Vizkop. Of the first, Marc had wondered why a sarorita was required over a regular medicus, while the second had been attached to their team literally only hours ago. It made sense, given their recent orders to interview the returning explorators, but the team was not due to blast off from Vitaris and make the jump back to Venatora for several days.
Marc’s thoughts were interrupted by a sudden chime from his PDA. He pulled it closer, read the message, and paused for a moment before tapping the tiny vox unit built into his wrist-chronometer.
“Ordo team, this is Marc.” he said. He spoke in Venatoran low gothic, which they had all painstakingly learned before their arrival. “Schafer’s arrived early, and so have the explorators. He’s going to escort them down and wants us to meet him up on the landing pad.”
Marc clicked off the vox-caster and stood up. Beneath a plain double-breasted suit, he had the wiry physique of someone who had been specifically trained to be at the peak of physical fitness, but without appearing so to a casual observer. That was a product of his last six months training for field operations, although it hadn’t prepared him for moving from a hive on an arid desert planet to one that was currently locked in a particularly bitter winter season. He grabbed a long cashmere coat and a pair of gloves, turning on the inbuilt heating coils as he slipped them on and headed for the door.
He stepped into the sheltered waiting room overlooking the landing pad a minute or so later. The pad was a wide space ringed with flashing lights and auspex beacons, with space for several 50-metre-long orbital landers to touch down at once if necessary. Currently occupying the paint-marked landing strips were two Arvus lighters and a law-enforcement ’thopter, either having just been brought up by the hydraulic lifts or else still waiting to be lowered into the hangers below. Setting his feet apart, Marc clasped his hands and waited for the others.
dakkagor
02-26-2013, 12:30 PM
Earlier
The local chain ganger swung his meaty fist for Kally in a wide, wild haymaker. She stepped back across the floor of the refectory and leaned back, letting the flailing blow whisk past her head by an inch.
Kally's cover was as a leg breaker for a local shipping guild. They needed someone who could watch the starport and the dense tangle of businesses, guilds and crime syndicates at street level for accomplices to the smuggler. She was earning a reputation as a pretty brutal piece of work, and this poor frack was about to add to that reputation. She stepped back again from another telegraphed blow, staying light on her feet and watching the massive muscles of her opponent bunch and writhe under his skin tight shirt. She was wearing her boots, reinforced gloves and her hardened bodyglove under street clothes. She had a protection and mobility advantage, but she couldn't hit nearly as hard as the ganger. And he was a lot tougher.
Her opponent was a Chemmer, a particular breed of big dumb ox who used hormones and chems to boost there muscle mass. Tended to make them thick as posts, and angry as Grox's with hornets up their assess. This one had made a passing comment about her ass as she had left a meeting with her guild contact, and as a guild enforcer honour demanded she couldn't let it pass. A drink got thrown, words where said, and pretty quickly people where laying odds. Chemmers did two things near the star port: haul heavy cargo's and break smaller people.
Her opponent followed her to the edge of the impromptu ring. Most people where laying odds on the Chemmer. She could dance all day but getting inside his reach to do some damage meant risking those sledgehammer fists, a trip to the local medicae facility, or worse.
She dropped to her knees as he lunged forwards to try and pull her into a bear hug, and rolled away to the left. Coming up to her feet as her opponent turned, she snapped her right foot up and caught him under his chin, cracking his jaw and sending him staggering backwards. He recovered quickly to his credit, swinging those wild haymakers again as Kally gave up the ground in the ring. From the sounds around the Refectory, Kally thought she might be providing a big upset for a few people.
She stepped round him again, driving her gloved right hand up into his armpit in a move that Kadath had drilled into her in CQC training. As the big guy lurched from the unexpected strike, she moved behind him and delivered a swift stomp to the back of his knee. He bellowed in surprise pain and slumped down to one knee, just in time for Kally to deliver another hard axe kick to the back of his head to knock him to the floor.
A silence fell over the Refectory as Kally settled into a fighting stance, waiting for the big lug to rise. He stirred, trying to get up, but then slumped back down again. He was beaten.
Around her the refectory went wild. Other fights broke out over winnings. She merely sneered at the big oaf, sketching a little bow. She turned, walked through the crowd, picked up her long coat, and disappeared into the night. On her way out the guild contact had passed her an envelope. Local currency, and a job for later. It was in the district where they where handling the transport of corpses.
“Position two.”
The winch activated again and for a few moments Kally struggled to stay on the floor, lifting her arms as high as they would go, straining her legs to ease even a little of her weight onto the metal deck. It was futile. In a few seconds more she was dangling from the chain and it felt like her shoulders and arms had caught fire. It was even a struggle to breathe. For the first time real fear of what this maniac would do to her gripped her as it suddenly became a struggle to remain as still as possible, every twist on the chain adding to the pain. This must be what a worm on a hook feels like, she realised as she fought not to panic as the room slowly twisted around her.
Nathaniel swum into her field of vision. How long had she been up there? She could feel the sweat streaming from her, the shortness of breath and the tightness of her chest. She thought she could feel blood trickling down her arms where the manacles where biting into her wrists. The pain was clouding her mind to the point she didn't even know if she had been saying anything. She couldn't feel her fingers, but considering what her arms and shoulders where telling her, that was probably a mercy. She blinked, managing to focus on the Explicator and his damn clipboard and quill.
“Ordo team, this is Marc.” he said. He spoke in Venatoran low gothic, which Kally had been cramming on for the past month or so between meditative exercises and athletic reconditioning. “Schafer’s arrived early, and so have the explorators. He’s going to escort them down and wants us to meet him up on the landing pad.”
She lurched up in her bed, streaked in sweat. Her hand flew to the pistol on the night stand next to her and she flicked the safety off as she scanned the empty room. Just a dream. Just a dream. She slowed her breathing, taking a deep calming breath. Just a dream. With shaky hands she safed the las pistol and placed it back on the night stand before picking activating her comm. bead.
"Kally To Marc. I'll be up in a minute."
She climbed out of bed, holding her head in her hands for just a few seconds to collect her thoughts. She beat the memories back down, then rose to get her gear. She didn't need this right now.
She studiously avoided the shower. And flannels. She had a sink wash instead, and got back into the body glove. Laspistols, paired steelburners, went into a pancake holster on her back. Knives slipped into combat boots, a gift from Major Kadath when she successfully completed the CQC course. Unlike Marc, she hadn't had much contact with the Tallarn during the Pembroke incident (apart from one incident with two soldiers, a car park, and a gunship) and she found it difficult to hold a grudge against the man. Just a professional doing his job. The collar fitted around her neck, dampening her powers to the point where she was tolerable to baseline humans, then slung on her overcoat. She tied her blond hair back into a simple pony tail and retrieved her boltgun. Marc would probably appreciate it if she didn't dawdle any longer.
He stepped into the sheltered waiting room overlooking the landing pad a minute or so later. The pad was a wide space ringed with flashing lights and auspex beacons, with space for several 50-metre-long orbital landers to touch down at once if necessary. Currently occupying the paint-marked landing strips were two Arvus lighters and a law-enforcement ’thopter, either having just been brought up by the hydraulic lifts or else still waiting to be lowered into the hangers below. Setting his feet apart, Marc clasped his hands and waited for the others.
"Marc" she offered as she stepped into the room behind him a few minutes later. She hadn't exactly avoided Marc since the Pembroke incident, but she hadn't looked him up either. In truth, Marc had seen her briefly at easily the lowest ebb of her life, the most vulnerable and damaged she had ever been and seeing him reminded her too much of that moment, even though Marc had played a major part in saving her skin. So she had buried herself in recovery and training, redeveloping the lost muscle mass, learning the skills she needed to be useful to Sidonis. And it wasn't like he had done the same. They where both busy people and Kally was tough company at the best of times. Came with the territory.
If he wanted to say anything, he should feel free, but for the moment she just leaned against the wall and waited for the others.
"So, how did it go downhive? Any new information?"
She looked up sharply at Marc. He was still looking out at the landing pad. She shrugged her shoulders as she stood up straight.
"Nothing really new. I've got a couple of jobs going through the target district in the next few days, I'm hoping to turn something up but I'm not confident. Its a whole damn ecosystem round that port, and they're pathological about keeping secrets. If I can identify some of the 'relatives' from the crowd, we might get a break that way, but you're probably better following the data end with Kelly. That money chain has to go somewhere."
She had snapped into reporting mode, standing straight, hands clasped in the small of her back (despite the twinge of pain). They might have a frosty relationship but that was no reason not to be professional.
"Oh, got into a fight as well. Nothing I couldn't handle."
Atrum Daemon
02-27-2013, 04:24 AM
The glow of the data slate screen splashed over Vizkop’s mask while he reviewed his assignment parameters for the forty-seventh time in the past hour. He was sitting in the small transport that had brought him to the surface, the only sound around him coming from the servitor pilot as it ran diagnostic checks on the systems. Vizkop’s mask pulsed slightly as he let out a mechanical sigh. He tossed the data slate aside with a small clatter and stood up from his seat. He picked his shoulder holster and strapped them on over his light armored body glove. With a rustle of fine fabric, Vizkop was soon covered by his ornate Mechanicus robe. His face was hidden behind a helmet-mask with a cross shape on the front. It was hooked into his cybernetic senses to further enhance them. He would need the increased eyesight and sharper hearing to find tells in body language and read vocal tones during conversation.
The knife slid from the target’s back, the pistol coming around to fire noiselessly through the head of another.
Into the shoulder holster went his stub pistol, a custom weapon made for his hand. The weight was reassuring and familiar. On his hip rested his large bore stub revolver. He twitched his wrists slightly, causing a pair of blades to spring out over the tops of his hands and fill the compartment with the blue glow of power fields. <All things are in readiness> he spoke to the empty ship in binary. <I am departing. You may return to the transport when I disembark.>
The pistol fired again and he felt her back against his, head turning to glance at her.
“Compliance,” the servitor droned.
The knife hand swung again as eyes met. Warm blood spilled onto his hand, soaking into the fabric of the glove.
The tech-adept exited the lander, securing his robe closed and looking very obvious in the scarlet color. The private transport he had arrived in closed its door and took off from the pad. Vizkop rubbed his cybernetic hands together for a moment, bioelectricity jumping between the fingers for brief seconds before he let his hands drop to his sides. He did not relish having to make sure the Inquisition agents and the Explorators played nice, but it needed to be done. All the facts needed to be on the table and talking to one of their own would surely help the Explorators open up.
She winked at him and spun away, removing three other living obstacles.
If they had nothing to hide.
All subtlety had gone.
Vizkop started walking off of the pad toward the waiting station. He had arrived early so he could go over his slates in peace. But, with his reviewing done, the time for meet and greet had come. He stepped into the waiting room to find it already occupied by a male and a female. Given their dress and posture, he assumed they were part of the Inquisition team he had been attached to.
The hallway stank with blood and eyes met once more, smiles splitting faces.
“Tech-adept Vizkop reporting,” he said in measured Venatoran Gothic. He made it a point to learn the local dialect of a planet when he was visiting on business.
DoughGuy
02-27-2013, 05:21 AM
John found himself sitting in a small Venatora church about a 10 minute walk from the starport. He was sitting in the middle as usual and fancied he could feel a grove from the hours he had spent here. He sighed and looked around with tired eyes. It wasn’t that he didn’t like being here, in truth he was here because it was the place he most enjoyed, but after so many visits with nothing inbetween even the best places could grow boring.
If he had been able to visit some of the larger cathedrals in the city he may have enjoyed it more. He could spend hours viewing the architecture and decoration of a larger cathedral. Seeing which local martyrs and saints had been chosen by the church for the walls and roof, examining busts of priests past. He might have even been able to get into a library and read of those acts directly. A smile took to his face just from the thought of doing so.
Instead he had been forced, admittedly by himself, to stay within a close distance to the apartment the ordo squad was using in case something came up. The only church close enough had been this medium sized one in a nearby apartment on the 5th floor. While there was an official ecclesiarch priest overseeing the church, they had not seen fit to do much in the way of decoration. The walls had been painted white though that was now flaking from age. In addition most of the room was taken up by rows of pews in order to fit as many people in as possible.
With the midday service finished John rose from his seat and decided to head back to the apartment to see if anything had progressed. Picking his staff off the seat next to him he walked out of the room, ignoring the stares he got, and headed to the ground floor. Outside a snowstorm had picked up and was blowing a furious gale down the streets. He could see barely any people were visible along the sidewalk, few willing to brave the storm and the cold for any reason.
Turning to his left John began the trip back to the starport. The cold bothered him little, it never had. A pyrokine didn’t feel the cold unless they wished too, his own power sustaining his heat in the freezing winds. Even so he had put on a large, white trenchcoat which provided a decent amount of warmth on his own. Even with the force staff he tried not to attract attention to himself as a psyker and walking around in just a bodyglove would draw suspicion.
As he walked he mused on what the group was doing here. They were mostly just waiting for the interrogator as they compiled information; no real action had been taken against the smuggler yet. That was what had John sitting around for hours in the nearby church. His logokine skills were only useful when they had people to question and there hadn’t been much of that lately. And his pyrokine skills were useless until they took action, something he knew wouldn’t happen until the interrogator arrived.
Suddenly his wrist chron mentally buzzed with the sound of a message. The small psychic adaptor attached sent the message straight to him
+Ordo team, this is Marc. Schafer’s arrived early, and so have the explorators. He’s going to escort them down and wants us to meet him up on the landing pad+
The news was welcome, it meant their investigation would hopefully progress to the next stage. He held the chron up to his mouth, preferring to respond by his voice rather than the monotone one built in, “John here. On my way back.”
***
He arrived at the landing pad a couple of minutes later to see 2 figures waiting. As he approached he immediately felt the sting of the cold enter through the coat and revised his earlier statement. A pyrokine didn’t feel the cold unless they wished to or there was a cold enough woman nearby. He backtracked a few steps and waited outside Kally’s null range hoping the Interrogator would take no offence at his distance.
Jarms48
02-27-2013, 06:43 AM
A Lackluster Reunion
Years prior
Why had he been dragged out here again? To the back end of all creation? Orders he supposed, though when he was personally requested by one Lady Inquisitor Chrysanta of the family Remus, his heart almost shattered then and there, his world shrank, his hands shook, his right eye twitched, surely his eldest sibling had matured over the past few solar cycles. He never could understand how she earned the title Inquisitor. Though Chrysanta was always the kind to enjoy the scenarios of cat and mouse, which in a way made her perfect for the Inquisitorial rounds, weeding out traitor cults or investigating xeno activity on those far flung systems.
His destination was the outlying world of Ferrum, an Imperial backwater known by few, its only profitable venture its numerous mineral deposits, its only visitors the quarterly merchant vessels sent to collect the Empires tribute, taking with it hundreds of millions of tons in ores to be refined into goods across the Imperium. Julianus had caught one of these transports before its departure from Solitas, a six week journey in a freighter hauling a full load of agri produce. A journey that only succeeded in leaving his fatigues with the stench of meat. A stink he couldn't seem to wash out despite attempting to do so; multiple times.
He had met his accursed sister at Ferrums planetary space port; a goods loading station anchored in high orbit, connected to the planet by a single tether sporting numerous cargo elevators that ferried the hourly mineral shipments. She stood waiting at the opposite end of the docking umbilical, donned in a robe that hid her figure and a hood draped over her head, obscuring her face save for her the families dull green eyes and a malicious smile.
"Brother! I though you would never come, I started to have my doubts over the last few weeks, wondering if my message even made it to you." Her tone was rather serious, something that left Julianus pondering if he was wrong about her, that the sense of power that had seemed so relishing during her younger years had vanished, leaving behind someone calm, devote, careful and precise.
'Well, it did, hit the fortresses Astropathic banks four months ago, than transmitted to me on local vox net a day later. Your request was approved after another following week and I was sent on the next transport shuttle out, it was a maze getting to you.' He replied, stopping as he passed the red line designating the umbilicals end and the stations beginning. He was clad in full gear, save for his weapons and personal effects that were stored in the kit bag which hung from a sling across his back.
"Well what matters is that you are here, I could trust no one else but you, we have a bond thicker than anything." She returned, the thought once again going through his mind, that perhaps this was not an attempt to gloat but one of a dire nature. He paused, thinking of her choice of words, a family bond, did they truly have that? Out of the fleeting contact he had with his many older brothers and sisters, Chrysanta was often the one he was least accustom to; at least that was before he had received word of one of his brothers death, a warrant stamped with the badge of office of the Commissariat and inked with the Remus name.
'My Lady Inquisitor, may I implore you a question?' Julianus inquired, his mind pinching at strings and going over the possibilities.
"There is no need for the formalities out here, Julie. Ask away." She answered, though the nickname was something he despised, be it the juvenile nature of it or that it sounded more like a name intended for the opposite sex. He closed his eyes and silently sighed, the expression thankfully hidden behind his rebreather.
'Yes sister,..... Lady Chrysanta,..... Inquisitor,..... Ma'am....." He stammered, experience, training and a Schola Progenium education made forgetting the curiosities difficult. "When did you send this message?'
"You were always one for formalities Julie." She reflected, her tone managing to sound rather cheerful. "Six months ago."
'You were here for.....' Julianus stopped mid-sentence as she rose a hand.
"No, don't be a fool brother, I made numerous rounds while I waited, going over reports and assessing local matters that planetary lords claimed needing an Ordo touch. I extrapolated, though this planets weather patterns have kept me from completing my task, a delay that has kept me here for two weeks at current and if not for these storms I may have missed your arrival completely." She said, nodding her head slowly as she finished.
'So an Inquisitor can be wrong?' Julianus halfheartedly answered, though as the words parted lips he wished he stayed his tongue.
"Wrong? You would be so bold to accuse an Inquisitor, and fail to address one without the proper terms or respects. I should have you lashed, beaten or better yet, use my powers to force you to do that to yourself." She warned, her voice like daggers.
'But you said,..... Sorry my Lady, forgive me Inquisitor.' The storm trooper bowed his head and worded his apologies. Memories of his youth, of those times before and during his time at the Progenium beginning to come back to him.
The spell was broken, whatever he had thought instantly vanished. She remained the same harlot of the Emperor, pardon my lack of faith grand Imperator, as she ever was. It was then that she took a step forward, wrapping her arms around her younger sibling, an event Julianus had not predicted nor would he ever thought he'd see an Inquisitor actually do. He responded on reflex, as often as he protested he wasn't a man completely devoid of emotion, the gesture lasted for a mere moment as both parties backed off.
"Come now brother, we have the work of the Emperor to attend to." Chrysanta finished as she motioned her way to the orbitals planetary elevators.
'As you wish Inquisitor.' Julianus acknowledged, slowly following her lead before building the courage to walk along her flank.
* * * * *
Task Force Carbon
How long had it been? Remus wondered as he waited in line at the mess, his gaze going over the other members of his platoon as they made their way to breakfast after morning PT. Many of his peers stood ahead of him making selections from the slop the facilities cook had to offer. His mind debating if it was time to send his numerous relatives a message, it had been years since he had seen any of them, the faces of his remaining brother in the Guard or the stain in the Commissariat becoming a fading memory.
"Oi! Remus, lines moving!" A trooper yelled out behind him, giving him a shove with his food tray. Julianus balled a fist, cracking his neck as he did, in full kit he pondered how many teeth the man could lose if he punched him in the jaw with an armoured gauntlet. He shook his head to rid himself of such a thought, instead he stepped forward, wrapping his hand around the serving instruments of the items that at least looked edible.
'Yeah, yeah, do that again Tavus and you see what happens.'
"Oh, come now Remus, we all know your secret, under that hard shell lies a family man."
'Ha! And how would you know that?' Julianus almost snorted at the comment, shaking his head as he made way to his table. He shared it with another eight troopers; who were to busy eating or battling each other to make themselves heard.
'How about we decide this by a game of regicide?'
"Throne sake, I am never playing that game with you again. It's like,.... Are you sure you're not a Psyker?"
'I assure you I am not. I'm just naturally gifted I suppose.'
"Yeah, yeah. Remind me, why are we here again?"
'Ordo matters. All it ever is, all they ever tell us and all it ever seems we do is patrol and keep out the riffraff.'
"Don't forget PT and sermon."
'Hey, I like PT.'
"One of the only people that actually do."
'Hah, well it seems I'm the runt of the litter, being allocated to this team for the prospect of security. Huh, guess I'll be opening doors, holding hands, carry equipment and looking overly menacing.'
"Oh, I know that all to well. They always think they're better than us."
'They are better than us.'
* * * * *
Snow? Here I thought this was a desert planet. Julianus continued to let his mind wonder as he made way to the landing pad, stopping along one of the painted outlines, slapping his boots together and making the sign of aquila before holding stance with a crisp salute. Typical curtsey drilled for hours upon hours in his youth, a position that he would not move from unless directed.
Felwether
02-27-2013, 08:50 PM
Vincent awoke from a dream, moments ago he had trodden the swirling landscape of of Aphra Sela where he’d hunted down an old associate or maybe Aria where he finally killed the snake-tongued fokker – he couldn’t tell and the fleeting details disappeared almost as soon as he opened his eyes. He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of his cot and squinting under the hard glare of the lumin strips mounted to the ceiling of his quarters. The dreams had started to come back a few months ago, and they weren’t always welcome. He had been clean for a while now, and sleeping naturally for the first time in what felt like decades. Vincent figured that a few old memories whether good or bad, were a fair trade for a clear head and a clean bill of health. He pulled on his fatigues and padded across the floor to the sink and stared at his bare chested form in the mirror. The entire right hand side of his torso had been smashed to a bloody pulp on Makita and had since been replaced with armoured augmetics. A jagged scar of puckered flesh ran from his hip to what remained of his shoulder adding even more to his body’s somewhat jigsaw-like aesthetic – tattoos ended abruptly where the damaged parts of his body had simply been removed and new lumps of scar tissue and vat grown skin grafts were almost luminous against his leathery hide.
Vincent hefted his new arm, an angular block of coal black carbon fibre and armaplas, and twisted it into place in its socket, he refused to sleep with it attached to him, maintaining that it twitched and moved around in the night. There was a barely audible buzz as it connected to the complex network of artificial nerve bundles and MIUs that allowed him to move it. After a few seconds he flexed the fingers and remembered how hard it had been in the beginning – it had taken months of painful rehabilitation to get any real use out of it and it hurt from time to time. Part of him hated it, the fokkers had actually made him pay for the damn thing out of his share of the Pembroke bounty and in a way it almost felt like a brand, a mark of ownership his new masters had placed upon him. Still, he could a crush man’s skull with it so that was something at least. He chuckled quietly to himself.
Vincent’s vox unit crackled into life as he was tying his boots, it was the Kid calling them to assemble. He was the boss now, apparently. Vincent tapped the acknowledgement rune before pulling on a scruffy vest and his shoulder holster. He stopped and stared intently at himself one more time, as if trying to read something in his own eyes, and then stomped out of the room to meet with the team.
****
Vincent stepped into the warmth of the waiting room and was faced by what he guessed was the rest of the team – he was usually the last to arrive.
“Mornin’ folks.” He said cheerfully, not caring if he interrupted anyone.
He spared a polite nod for Kally – she was tough as nails and a fokken freak to boot. He liked her. Vincent pulled a lho stick from behind his ear and lit it.
“What’s the good word?”
Azazeal849
02-27-2013, 10:45 PM
Marc offered a brief hello to Shere and a nod of acknowledgement to Remus, letting the stormtrooper stand down. Like most of the Carbon stormtroopers, he couldn’t fault his professionalism.
”Mornin’ folks.” Vincent said cheerfully. “What’s the good word?”
The big ex-bounty hunter seemed to be in one of his better moods, which was good.
“Other than the explorators are back early...” Marc admitted, turning away from the window to face Vincent. He avoided meeting eyes with Kally, which he pretended was due to still not being quite used to her blank nature. “Your guess is as good as mine, Vince.”
The governor’s office had been understandably secretive about the mission to Vitaris, so much so that even the inquisition had only found out about it two days later. Governor Faroven wasn’t the only one who found it suspicious that a pulse-looped vox signal had started broadcasting from a supposedly dead planet, and what’s more one that had appeared when the two planets were approaching opposition and would remain so for the next two weeks. And now the explorator mission he had sent out in secret before the inquisition could intervene were returning significantly ahead of schedule. As was his habit, Marc had already come up with several theories as to why the joint aeronautica / ad mech team might have cut their mission short; few of them were benign.
From their superiors Marc and the others had been told little, beyond the news that interrogator Schafer and an ad mech liaison had been dispatched, and a maddeningly vague order to continue with their current investigations until further notice. Well, Marc thought as he glanced at Vizkop, the liaison had arrived, but so far he hadn’t told them anything new either.
“You might ask adept Vizkop.” he suggested, cocking an eyebrow towards the tech priest who had remained silent behind his T-shaped visor since making his initial introduction.
childsouldier
02-27-2013, 11:20 PM
Fredriq was buried. Trapped in a cave of unknown twists, turns and ends. Surrounded, entombed and alone. All around him were piled data slates, books of all shapes and sizes, a personal holofield projection unit for reading mem-crystals, a local data-web uplink monitor, even some sheaves of manuscript. He was exactly where he wanted to be. Lost, spiralling through the collected knowledge, factoids, history and dramas of a new world; content.
He sat, head down and rapt, in the Main Reading Hall of the Librarium Administratum of St. Jerome the Bookkeeper. A fine building, he supposed. Architecturally speaking it was nothing compared to, say, the Gran Bibliotéqa de Malazar, far off in the Hespix Sector, with its vaulted ceilings and Rhatongan Revival buttresses fashioned from exquisite chrydite marble. Now that was a fine building. But this, a more... humble edifice, hid its treasure well, but my what treasure it was.
Fredriq had unearthed what appeared to be an original fourth edition copy of Gulden-Locke's Treatise on the Formation of Planets Hospitable to the Human Species or the Elements Required for Their Survival, an exceedingly rare find which he was presently savouring like some might a liquor's familiar burn or a lover's fleeting touch.
Of course, he was already familiar with the work and the conclusions drawn by Gulden-Locke, as any man of learning in the Imperium should be. Nevertheless, he was enthralled. To see with his own eyes the perfection of the cartographic diagrams, the subtle brilliance of the ancient typeface illuminating the masterfully wrought hypotheses with which the work triumphantly, boldly finishes, aroused a flurry of excitement emanating from the ancient paper sheets through his fingertips and into his soul itself.
His enjoyment was rather rudely interrupted by a sudden, high pitched chime and Fredriq was ungratefully teleported back to the here and now. Snatching his wide-framed spectacles from where they perched at the tip of his broad nose, he glared around for the source of the noise, jet black eyes shooting daggers at any who dared interrupt the gentle, rhythmic patterns of this temple of the intellect.
Around him the librarium maintained its steady buzz of activity: the muted clack-clack of the auto-scribe servitors, the hum of atmospheric stabilisers and the shuffling of robed Administratum officials as they went about their unending work - all continued at their steady pace, the entire scene the picture of reverential purpose. Quite what the source of the most unwelcome distraction had been, he could not ascertain.
At the only other occupied public table a lecturer from the local university glanced at Fredriq, his sallow, angular face wearing an irate expression of forbearance. Fredriq motioned a sigh of understanding in his general direction before returning his attention to the detritus of his own table, piled with knowledge given physical form. Perhaps it was for the best, he had been drifting for quite some time from the purpose at hand, frustrating as it was.
He was here on secondment to one Lord Sidonis, an Inquisitor of some standing in the Ixaniad Sector. Though he had not personally met the Inquisitor. Nor even his Interrogator. What was his name? Jove, or some such. Imagine the discoureteousness, having a xenologist of his standing be dispatched from Ixaniad Sector Inquisitorial Command to this backwater, with very little by way of explanation, no proper resources for research, and then to have a lackey, a servant, meet him at the starport...
Heaving a deep sigh that filled his lungs and shook his small frame, Fredriq ceased that line of thinking as fruitless. It would only raise his ire; already he felt a heat rising in his lined face as he flushed at the ignominy to which he had been subjected. Despite these things not all was lost; were he not dispatched to this humble librarium he might never have beheld the glorious tome which he had just been perusing.
Indeed Venatora itself, world and system both, was possessed of some remarkable stories of great personal and academic interest to him. With the planet's archives largely at his fingertips, even those sections normally beyond access of the common researcher thanks to the partial Inquisitorial privileges granted to him, he was largely content to while away his hours here until such a time as that Black fellow called upon him.
Not two Terran minutes had passed, and just as he was beginning to sink back into the soft embrace of his studies, than the ghastly chime sounded once more, if anything louder this time. Reaching for his nose to clutch his spectacles in anger, he realised that he had not replaced them following their previous usage as an expression of his irritation. He no longer required the glasses for reading thanks to some bionic implants which, as an aside to their primary functions, had fully restored his vision. Still, he had become somewhat attached to his reading glasses, they just seemed to fit, and so he had the lenses replaced with clear glass so as to allow him to wear them and not return to the level of hindrance their absence once caused.
Instead he reached and plucked them from atop a precarious pile of data slates as he levelled his gaze around the room searching for the continued source of his annoyance. And all the saints bedamned if he didn’t see that local university professor glaring quite heatedly at him as if he were the source of the confounded noise! Fredriq returned his steely gaze for a moment before pointedly replacing his glasses to their rightful place, perched low at the very tip of his nose, exaggeratedly turning ever so slightly away from the man and resuming his reading.
“Well plague rot the felcher’s beady eyes,” thought Fredriq, bristling at the man’s presumptuousness. Looking at him as if he had no right to be there. Why in his previous visits to the librarium the ‘professor’ had explained to him that he was a teacher of agri-science at the local university, and that he was researching the use of grox manure in the fertilisation of arid soil. Imagine, a man who made his life’s work the investigation of the bowel functions of a vile and beastly creature, an expert of the scatological. Some of his subject matter may have seeped into his thick skull, to give Fredriq such a look.
Bristling away to himself he resumed his research of the history of the Venatora System, particularly the events of M37 which led to the destruction of its moon. Fascinating stuff, once he had gone beyond the official reports and prop-vids of the defeat of the alien threat by dint of his Inquisitorial override commands.
Having not been permitted access to any of the supposed xenos artefacts being smuggled in the system these pages were his best diversion, and at least tangentially related to his reason for being here. Fredriq settled back in his seat with a particular eye-witness report dating from early M37 and began to sink into the account; it really was a romping tale, the Guardsman relating the occurrences in a far more satisfactory fashion than the dry and dusty matter-of-factness of the official historia and…
Louder than ever that blasted chime. A string of curses ready on his lips, Fredriq was half way out of his chair when a shadow fell over him. The professor was standing over him, threateningly close and looming, his lips drawn tight in a scowl. When he spoke, his words were of that awful Venatoran vernacular.
“Excuse me, but would answer that vox, for Throne’s sake?” he growled.
Fredriq blinked once or twice, confused, not following what the professor was saying. Suddenly he remembered the personal hand-held secure vox unit Marcus Black had provided him with upon arrival on the world. He searched for it beneath the piles of books and manuscripts, eventually ferreting it out as the professor resumed his seat with a hostile backwards glance.
Keying in his encryption codes Fredriq saw that there was indeed a message from Black. Entering a further encryption code, a transcribed message read: +++ Ordo Team, this is Marc. Schafer’s arrived early, and so have the explorators. He’s going to escort them down and wants us to meet him up on the landing pad. +++
Fredriq swore quietly to himself and stood up. Beckoning to the one attendant librarian, shawled in the ubiquitous grey robes of the Administratum’s Librariam, he snatched up his grox-hide coat and tossed it over his shoulders. As the Librarian approached with a long-suffering expression written across his face Fredriq blurted, “sir, I have an important matter to attend to, please see that my materials remain untouched until my return.”
Warp take him but the man had the temerity to respond! This would never have happened in the sprawling libraries at Inquisitorial Command. As Fredriq rooted out his personal datapad from the teetering mountain on his table, the fellow bustled about in protest. “But Professor Klimpf, you can’t possibly just abandon your borrowings like this. They must be returned to their rightful place in the archives.” His voice was raising to a yell as Fredriq made his way brusquely to the door. “The correct paperwork has yet to be filed! Professor!”
But Fredriq was gone, his data-slate stowed alongside the vox-receiver and his ident-card proclaiming him as Professor Hermann Flimpf of the Imperial History faculty of the Universitas Majoria Ixaniad in the inside pocket of his jacket. He joined the steady trickle of people making their way down the enclosed thoroughfare outside the Librariam Administratum of St. Jerome the Bookkeeper, terminating in one of the city's major trans-hubs. The last thing Fredriq saw as the enviro-barriers clamped shut was the beady-eyed faecal professor shaking his head in disgust.
Jarms48
02-27-2013, 11:51 PM
Julianus unclasped his legs to a more comfortable position and moved to cup his hands behind his back. His head glanced across the room, taking note of the faces he could recall from prior excursions.
His gaze soon snapped to Mr. Nyl, one individual he already began to loathe, he had an aura about him. Remus could get the feeling he was reckless and undisciplined, a man who lacked proper courtesies in the face of the Inquisition. The storm trooper held back a response, his gaze merely followed him as the man moved deeper into the room.
The others, Kally who seemed rather off putting, an oddness about her, an unnatural feeling he could not understand, despite her complexion, something of which the storm trooper seemed rather fond of, his eyes making a pass across her form before he shook away the thought. His sight falling to the next squad member in the room.
The Investigator, still just a boy in his eyes, Remus found it rather disgraceful actually, his years of experience handed down to fresh blood. Perhaps he could be wrong, but Remus would have to allow unfolding events to play out before such a judgement was rectified.
The finally he caught glimpse of the bolt magnet, a gear head; someone he hadn't actually seen before and the rest, he didn't even bat them a glance. Julianus was going to have fun with this lot, he would have almost preferred being at the back end of all creation.
dakkagor
02-28-2013, 10:20 AM
He backtracked a few steps and waited outside Kally’s null range hoping the Interrogator would take no offence at his distance.
Sorry kid, this is as low as it goes.
She spared the bolt magnet a glance and a apologetic shrug of the shoulders. If how people felt around her was uncomfortable, psykers had it ten times worse. The collar was turned to its maximum setting of damping, and he was still feeling the effects from a distance of three meters or more.
And this is why no one ever gets close.
He spared a polite nod for Kally – she was tough as nails and a fokken freak to boot. He liked her. Vincent pulled a lho stick from behind his ear and lit it.
"Vincent" She returned the nod with one of her own, being respectful to the veteran soldier. Vincent Nyl was probably the other person who got most chewed up by Makita. The new shiny augs, the big intimidating black mech-limb and rebuilt torso testament to just how damn tough that had been on a few people.
Vincent was a pro, and a hard case. When Kally had heard he was on the team it had been the first bit of good news she had heard in a while.
his eyes making a pass across her form before he shook away the thought. His sight falling to the next squad member in the room.
Kally glared at the back of Julianus head. Motherfracker had just been staring at her ass! Her fists balled for a second, then she took a deep breath and relaxed. No point slugging the guy over it. Hell, she should be glad of the attention, it wasn't like. . .
“You might ask adept Vizkop.” Marc suggested, cocking an eyebrow towards the tech priest who had remained silent behind his T-shaped visor since making his initial introduction.
That interrupted her chain of thought. She looked to the Adept. He looked dangerous for a cog-boy, more like a hit man or gun slinger than a tech priest. She almost wanted to see him in action, just to see what those fancy looking pistols could do.
Careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
Felwether
02-28-2013, 08:12 PM
“You might ask adept Vizkop.” he suggested, cocking an eyebrow towards the tech priest who had remained silent behind his T-shaped visor since making his initial introduction.
Vincent let out a slight snort, he had developed quite a distaste for Mechanicus types since his arm had been rebuilt – the last few months had been a gruelling course of painful surgeries and needless ‘calibrations’ at the hands of Sidonis’ coterie of pet chirurgeons and their supervising tech adepts. He turned his head to regard the mysterious figure, exhaling a cloud of blue-grey smoke through his nostrils as he did so, partly to obscure his milky eyes as they darted over Vizkop's heavily armoured form. As well as his advanced augmetic enhancements, which seemed to be military in nature, Vincent noted a heavy stub pistol and a number of subtle panels which may have housed concealed weaponry.
Adeptus Mechanicus Liaison Vizkop was an intriguing individual indeed.
“Well?” He said, staring into his visored eyes.
He just wanted to find out what the fok was going on so he could get back on the hunt.
Simulacrum
02-28-2013, 10:36 PM
Mattius' woke with his head resting on his arms. He looked around, dazed, taking in his surroundings. He was in a small cafe, which was empty except for a few people. A loud, annoying beeping was coming from the vox attached to his forearm, which caused them to stare. Bringing his arm up in front of his face, he checked the message.
"Ordo Team, this is Marc. Schafer’s arrived early, and so have the explorators. He’s going to escort them down and wants us to meet him up on the landing pad."
Matthius' excitement welled up inside of him, dispelling the sluggishness that had resulted from his nap. He stood up and briskly walked out the door, leaving his drink behind.
The bitter wind howled as Mattius walked down the street, thankful all the while that his clothing was insulated. The constant falling of snow made it impossible to see farther than a couple of feet ahead of himself, but he knew the area well, and made it to the trans-hub with relative ease.
On the remainder of the trip to the landing pad, Mattius fantasized about capturing the xeno artefact trafficker. Various scenarios ran through his mind, and in each of them he was always the hero; the one that would somehow save everyone or catch the criminal against impossible odds. Mattius' fantasies were childish, although he didn't realize it. As a twenty year old man, he should be more mature, but he was still a child at heart.
Mattius' fantasies made the trip seem to go much faster, and he was at the landing pad before he knew it. He found the rest of the group easily, and approached them.
"Hello, everyone," Mattius said cheefully.
Atrum Daemon
03-01-2013, 01:23 AM
“The team claimed they were suffering ‘complications,’” Vizkop said with a small shrug. “I am intrigued as to what these complications are, just as you all are. I am to help see that they explain themselves fully.”
“This is a good feeling isn’t it?” she had asked it while moving her flexible dendrites over him. “The wet iron flowing over your hands…it makes it more personal, yea?”
Vizkop looked over the rest of the team as they arrived. Plenty of fighters among them. There was something slightly off putting about the woman called Sondar that was in line with the feeling he understood to come from what one would call a “psychic blank.” The one she was standing with was whom Vizkop supposed to be the team leader for the moment.
“We should do this more often…not just working together, I mean…”
He turned his head to look straight at the man sizing him up. Vincent, if he remembered correctly. A man of professionalism who carried himself well. The augments complimented his body well.
A hiss of air pressure accompanied the sealing of her helmet into place. He was excited to work with her again. That familiar smell of gunpowder and blood mixed with that perfume she wore to mask it…
childsouldier
03-01-2013, 11:56 PM
My was he glad to be off that trans-carriage. The stench of sweat, ugh, it almost overpowered poor Fredriq's delicate senses. All that thermal attire was necessary he supposed, given the clutches of the harsh winter months, but there really was no excusing the poor hygiene standards of these locals. At several points in the journey he had been sure he would empty his stomach, it smelled like a herd of unwashed Ioxonta cattle must surely have been crammed in at the unseen end of the carriage.
Perhaps fertilisation for the planting season starts early here on Venatora, he thought wryly to himself as he gratefully pushed his way through the throng and out onto the platform. Heaving a welcome breath of fresh air he picked his way through the crowd to the enviro-barrier, redoing the buttons on his coat as he moved. There was a faint hiss of hydraulic pressure as the doors separated, quickly replaced by the howl of the gale outside. Steeling himself, he stepped briskly out into the swirling snowfall, the cutting wind whipping at his coattails and buffeting his full head of white hair into quite a sorry state.
He moved briskly through the blanketing snow and removed his spectacles, as they proved more nuisance than anything in these conditions. He felt a slight tingling in his temples as his bionic optical enhancers whirred into action, filtering the wavelength of visible light to optimum levels. After a few moments they settled and he could make out his surroundings. Quickly Fredriq passed down several side streets, the sheer sides of the buildings to either side forming a wind tunnel that by turns forced him into a stumbling jog or had him leaning full tilt into the blistering headwind.
It really was a Sisyphean feat just to navigate this blasted place. Why they hadn't just accepted the inevitability of hive life eluded him, and he presently felt a great antipathy to whatever idiotic settlers had picked this place to make their home, and even more to those that designed the damn place. Luckily the distance was not great and he reached his destination promptly, ducking into the shelter of the hab-unit just as soon as the environmentally sealed doors opened wide enough to squeeze his meager frame inside.
Fredriq shook himself and stamped his feet, partly to rid himself of the snow that had built up on his boots and coat and partly to restore feeling to his icy extremities. Shivering and cursing he entered the arterial lift, activating the elevation rune. A local woman shared the space with him, so wrapped up in thermals that he was unsure of her gender until she issued a delicate cough, caught with a handkerchief of delicate lace.
This was, after all, the luxurious side of town, if one could credit it. Certainly Fredriq could not. His erstwhile companion vacated the lift on the twenty second level and he rode the remainder of the journey in silence, accompanied only by the creaking of the ancient gears and a soft whistle of wind. Truly, there was no escape.
The doors hissed open and he made his way briskly down the corridor, before turning right and begrudgingly depressing the activation rune of the enviro-barriers in front of him. The wind resumed its banshee's wail as he stepped out onto the starport's number three landing pad. Several craft were parked there, heavy docking gears securing them from the strength of the storm.
He could see the others gathered, across the landing pad in the sheltered waiting room. Black was there, and the beastly Vincent. He'd only had the displeasure of meeting him the once, briefly, and the meeting had left a sour taste in his mouth. The blank too. Kelly, or was it Kally? He couldn't remember. A cold one, obviously traumatised by her pariah nature. Intriguing nonetheless, her singular condition; he would very much like to learn more.
The witch was there too, beyond the range of her null field, standing outside the sheltered waiting room, safe from the agony of her presence. Two military men too, by the look of them. One hardened, the other soft. He couldn't recall if he'd met them before, dismissed it as irrelevant. The one who truly held his attention was the robed figure, unmistakable in the signature red of his Order.
Good, maybe now we'll finally discover our purpose, he thought to himself as he set off across the landing pad. As he approached the waiting room he picked up the sound of voices, though their words were stolen by the wind. Then, "You might ask Adept Vizkop." The voice belonged to Marcus. As Fredriq drew close the brute Vincent stepped forward, inquiring "Well?" through a haze of lho smoke and assuming a rather confrontational pose before the Mechanicus Adept.
"The team claimed they were suffering 'complications'," Vizkop said with a small shrug. "I am intrigued as to what these complications are, just as you all are. I am to help see that they explain themselves fully."
Fredriq slunk quietly into the waiting room, assuming a position next to the blank girl and nodding a general greeting to the group at large to hide the shudder as he entered her null zone.
kardar233
03-04-2013, 06:00 AM
The hellpistol clattered to the range's floor when the comm went off behind Lia. Some Inquisition person with a funny head wrap had told her that she had to practice with the weapon regularly, an order she quietly resented; she didn't need the stupid noisy thing, but the man had been very insistent and she'd been instructed not to punch anyone on the ship, no matter how annoying they were being. She had seriously considered kicking him, but she suspected that after that they'd say she wasn't supposed to kick anyone, either.
She paused for a moment before turning around, picking up the grox-leather jacket on the bench and shaking it, wincing when the comm dropped to the ground with a matching ruckus. The message light on the side pulsed as she picked it up and rotated it in her hands while she tried to remember how to start its playback. She had just figured the device out when she remembered her surroundings and swept a sheepish look around to the amateur shooters and rangemasters nearby before sidling off to the washroom to listen to the message.
Once in the stall, Lia began the replay, starting slightly as the vox crackled into life. +++Ordo team, this is Marc. Schafer’s arrived early, and so have the explorators. He’s going to escort them down and wants us to meet him up on the landing pad.+++ Her eyes widened as she processed the message; the range was halfway across town from the starport, and it had taken her enough time getting there that morning.
She rushed out of the range, scrambling to grab her pistol and jacket. She shrugged her way into the jacket and attempted to buckle her gun belt on as she raced into the Venatoran winter. Her bare feet barely gained enough purchase on the icy streets to support her pell-mell running as she ducked through alleyways, vaulted obstacles and reversed when met with one of the city's numerous dead ends.
When she made it to the starport she saw the motley group in the upper floor waiting room and decided she couldn't waste any more time. She slid to a stop under the waiting room's balcony and looked around furtively. Venatora's brutal winter made sure that the streets were deserted, and she gave a slight grin as she crouched and concentrated. Power gathered around her, and she released it in a leap that carried her up and over the balcony rail.
However, she hadn't counted on the ice that had accumulated there. The metres of running space that she had expected to use to burn off her forward momentum instead caused her to slide directly towards the door, her legs working double time in an attempt to stay underneath her. She retained the presence of mind to shove the door open as she slid towards it, but whatever ideas she had for after that became moot when her flailing feet hit solid tile, unbalancing her further.
Scrambling to retain her balance, she careened towards the centre of the room. It looked like she might just make it to a standing stop when a feeling of acute unease hit her, and she paused at exactly the wrong time, her motion taking her feet totally out from under her and pitching her forward. She managed to bring her head in to turn it into a short roll, her splayed-out legs bringing her to a stop after half a rotation.
At the end of this production, she was in a sitting position on the floor... in a room full of Inquisition agents. She looked up at them, her brown hair somewhat dishevelled from her run and tumble, and seemed to become even smaller than she already was. "I.... I'm late, aren't I." she said in a small voice after a short silence, her cheeks burning red.
Azazeal849
03-05-2013, 08:51 PM
Marc looked at the sheepish young psyker.
"Actually you're early." he shrugged after a long moment. "Though you could have just used the stairs."
+ + + + + +
"Visual." Clement noted as the inquisition shuttle burned down through the atmosphere, glowing red along its flanks and underside. Air resistance buffeted the two men but the transition was otherwise remarkably smooth, Clement slowly dialling down the arti-grav compensators as natural gravity took over.
From his grav couch, Schafer squinted through the superheated air rushing past the cockpit window. He saw the green ranging circle that had just projected up onto the transparisteel, numbers gradually ticking downwards, but unlike Clement he couldn't see the black speck at its centre until the counter had scrolled down from 40 to nearly 30 km.
"Pass me the vox." he grunted as Clement went about matching course and speed with the explorator lander. "And make sure our team at the landing site have a live feed."
"Sir." Clement nodded, keeping the shuttle controls steady with one hand while activating the vox-caster and passing it to Schafer with the other.
"Explorator vessel," Schafer said clearly, "This is interrogator Javid Schafer of the Imperial inquisition. You are ordered to divert course from Capital to Angelos starport."
There was a pause, before the caster in Schafer's hand crackled back with a calm baritone speaking in lightly accented Venatoran.
"Er...negative, interrogator. I need to report to HQ as quickly as possible. The governor has already been informed."
Schafer exchanged a glance with Clement. "To whom am I speaking?"
"Group captain Noyer, sir. Mission commander."
"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear, group captain. This order comes from the inquisition, with the Emperor's own mandate, and supersedes any orders given to you by the Aeronautica or even your Emperor-damn governor. Divert your course now."
"With all due respect, sir." said the voice on the vox, still neutral. "My entire crew is dead. There's a xenos threat on Vitaris and I need to go straight to someone who can do something about it. This can't wait for you to call back the ordos."
"And with all due respect," Schafer growled back, in a tone that suggested the amount of respect due was very little. "I am charged with assessing the xenos threat and making sure none of it makes its way back to Venatora. Divert now for debriefing and purity check at Angelos or I'll judge you to be part of that threat and cut your ship in two with a lascannon."
Schafer kept his thumb on the transmit rune to cut off any further protests from Noyer and turned to Clement.
"Fire a shot across his nose-cone."
Clement's usual smile had disappeared behind a grim mask as he flicked an arming switch on his dashboard. A moment later, a brilliant flash of ionised air burned a line across Schafer's field of view before vanishing into the blue halo above the clouds below. Schafer regripped the vox caster.
"Group captain..." he began, before the green circle ringing Noyer's distant lander began to slide away to the left.
"He's turning." Clement reported, grinning in relief. And then a shrill alarm tone rang out from his dashboard. "Wait!"
Several dagger-shaped objects detached themselves from pods on the side of the explorator lander. The lander was not a true military vessel, but it did carry emergency missiles for short range defence against air and void threats. Those missiles now backflipped and streaked back towards the pursuing shuttle, vapour cones bursting around them as rocket engines broke them down through multiple sound barriers, reversed their momentum, and broke them again in the opposite direction. Clement reacted faster than any normal human could be expected to: he slammed on auger jammers to try and break the missiles' auspex locks and their backup heat-seekers. He wrenched the shuttle around as hard as the airframe and the arti-grav compensators would allow. With another second or two it might have worked, but with the shuttle still decelerating from re-entry - and so closing down the onrushing missiles at hypersonic speed - it was nothing like enough.
A tremendous bang rocked the shuttle, and the dashboard in front of Schafer exploded as shrapnel was forced up through it. Alarms shrieked, while g-forces too strong for the compensators to handle crushed Schafer back into his seat. Clement was twitching feebly in his grav couch, a ragged gash in one side of his helmet where a large piece of metal had spalled off the wall and struck his head.
"Treacherous bastard!" Schafer swore, fighting the pull of g-forces to reach out and grasp the secondary controls. He didn't reach for the flight controls - he reached for the weapons.
Black smoke was pouring across the cockpit window from somewhere under the nose, but the green contact circle was still in place, range numbers spiralling upward as Schafer's damaged shuttle rapidly lost speed and Noyer pulled away. 30 kilometers...35...40...the explorator lander would soon be out of the effective range of the shuttle's lascannons.
"Oh no you don't." Schafer snarled through gritted teeth, and pulled the trigger on the automatically-tracking lascannons. There was another flare of light, obscured by the smoke, and the numbers on the targeting circle began to spiral even faster, altitude counters wheeling downwards as the explorator vessel suddenly and rapidly began to lose height. Schafer didn't see this, because the stress of firing the shuttle's weapons also blew out some weakened superstructure next to the cockpit. There was an explosion by Schafer's feet, and a large piece of metal sheared off at high speed. It narrowly missed his legs and instead cut through the stalk of his grav couch to pitch him backwards onto the cockpit deck. Still strapped in and pinned beneath the metal chair, the interrogator struck his head hard against the floor. Blood filled his eyes, turning his world red for a brief moment before everything faded to black.
The shuttle began to shake violently as it plummeted into the clouds of the upper troposphere. Still slumped in his seat, pilot Arval Clement twitched, and reached out blindly. His hand closed around the shuttle's flight stick.
+ + + + + +
Down on Angelos starport's number 3 landing pad, the team flinched and pulled their vox units away from their ears as the conversation between Schafer and Noyer was interrupted by a painfully loud explosion, which disintegrated into static before cutting off entirely.
"What the hell was...?" Marc began, before breaking into a run towards the airlock that led out onto the landing pad.
dakkagor
03-05-2013, 10:03 PM
"Throne. . ." Kally muttered. She was about to start shouting some orders when she saw Marc dash for the airlock.
Great, probably falling debris and he dashes for the exit. He's going to get himself killed!
She turned and with a muttered Solomon hive curse, she dashes after Marc as he started to cycle the lock doors.
"Someone get the starport on the vox and tell them we have a fracking emergency." she shouted over her shoulder as she caught up with Marc at the airlock.
"What are you thinking, hijack the lighters and get out to the crash?"
When Marc turned to look back at her, she met his gaze firmly.
"We both heard that bang. That shuttle will be lucky to come down in one place, let alone one piece."
Azazeal849
03-05-2013, 10:11 PM
"What are you thinking, hijack the lighters and get out to the crash?"
"Precisely." Marc said as he stabbed the airlock door control and opened the outer portal to the howling snowstorm outside.
"Inquisition!" he shouted to the surprised-looking pilots who were just climbing out of the pair of grey-hulled Arvus. He tore off his right glove to show them the silver ring on his index finger, with its stylised letter I. "We're commandeering these lighters!"
For a moment, the two pilots just gaped at him beneath their reflective helmet visors.
childsouldier
03-06-2013, 01:20 AM
White noise engulfed the gathered party, submerged in a static-filled moment of silence as the reality of the situation sunk deep. The frakker had fired on them. Fredriq remained dumb, incredulous at the audacity, the treachery of Group Captain Noyer. To fire on agents of the Inquisition...
Around him the team leapt into action, their battle-honed reflexes kicking in, moving on auto-react into a state of readiness and motion while Fredriq stood transfixed, unsure of his being any part of this matter. Shots had been fired, a man had in all probability been killed. He could think of few places in the galaxy he wouldn't rather be at this moment in time.
Voices rang out, orders were issued. He saw Marc's lips move, but the words glided incomprehensible past Fredriq. The resuming howl of the storm outside and the sharp gust of snow-speckled air went a small way to returning Fredriq to his senses. Marc was taking off across the landing pad, bellowing orders of requisition to the unsuspecting pilots.
Fredriq hurried to join Marcus as he revealed his badge of office. He shook visibly as he made his way across the landing pad, more than the weather warranted. All blood drained from his face, he was the very image of a man in the grips of panic and despair.
And now they were boarding a craft to head off the rogue captain. It was all too much for poor Fredriq. Halfway across the landing pad he collapsed in a motionless heap, overcome by the sheer terror of it all.
kardar233
03-06-2013, 01:45 AM
Lia managed a small smile of relief when the tall dark-haired man (the least threatening-looking one of the group) joked at her. She swept a quick look around the room, taking in the superficial details of the tough-looking band of Inquisition agents. The only one that stood out to her was the man in the gold suit; as her gaze swept across his face she shivered slightly. He has the Eyes...
Luckily for her, her moment of embarrassment became quickly irrelevant, as they all received comm uplinks; she didn't quite remember who it was, but the way people stood the man talking seemed important. Her eyes widened as the explosions and crashes echoed out over the voxes, and she was still for a moment as the first man and his dishevelled friend conversed, then rushed out the door.
Lia scrambled to her feet and gave chase after the group, not gaining quite as quickly as she usually would as she took care with her footing, this time. One of the group, a kind-looking older man, dropped halfway across the pad; as she was about to skid past, she reached down and stopped abruptly, the ice that her bare feet rested on suddenly cracking. She reached down to grasp his shoulders and shook him very lightly; and again. With no response, she grabbed one of the man's hands with both of her own, her small hands barely managing to wrap around his wrist. She set off once more, the unconscious man sliding along behind her as she raced towards the grey landers.
Atrum Daemon
03-06-2013, 03:04 AM
Vizkop dashed to the vox transmitter and keyed in the code to the starport. “This is Mechanicus Liason Vizkop. There is an emergency near the number 3 landing pad. A lander has been heavily damaged and is on a crash course. Send emergency teams immediately!”
“Understood, landing pad 3. Team en route.”
Vizkop killed the transmission and got moving once more, heading out of the airlock after Sondar and Marc. The ship that fired upon the Inquisition lander needed to be pursued. If it was indeed carrying a xenos threat from Vitaris then the whole crew, dead and alive, needed to be quarantined.
He was running again. He seemed to do that a lot when he was with her. They were laughing this time. Laughing that an assignment had finally gone off without a hitch. He almost forgot why they were running until she produced the detonator.
“Do you want me along?” Vizkop asked Sondar and Marc. “Or would I be better off trying to contact the Explorator vessel the lander came from?”
He wanted to chase that lander himself. But, going off on his own was a poor choice at his current juncture. Kally and Marc had asserted themselves as in charge at the moment so he would differ to them as long as he needed to.
“Maybe we’ll come back one day,” she had said. “After your training is done and I can stop being your mentor.”
The world was a paradise. Except for the column of smoke where a building used to be. He would have liked that. To just visit the planet with her without the overhang of work.
DoughGuy
03-06-2013, 04:05 AM
John chuckled when the other girl arrived, falling over herself in the snow. From her appearance he could tell she was a psyker too, wearing such little clothing. His mirth was overtaken by shock though, when the shuttle the interrogator was on came under fire from the other shuttle. As Marc took off to the landing pad John knew he had to follow. His cheery demeanor turned icy cold. His mouth drew tight and his brow furrowed in concentration.
As Marc revealed his ring John appeared next to him. Kally was too close and he was feeling the cold again but he asserted himself to the pilots anyway. Planting one end of his force staff on the ground and angling the tip at the pilots he spoke, "By the order of the inquisition you will fly us in pursuit of those shuttles."
dakkagor
03-06-2013, 08:48 AM
“Do you want me along?” Vizkop asked Sondar and Marc. “Or would I be better off trying to contact the Explorator vessel the lander came from?”
"He said no other survivors. I doubt there's anyone left to contact."
She turned to Vizkop and considered the next course of action, mentally digging through five months of training. Assisting the downed Interrogator was a priority, but, getting hold of the Lander and assessing the threat was the original objective.
"Marc, me, Vizkop, Nyl and Fredriq should head to meet the lander at the governers palace, assuming it didn't take return fire in that exchange."
Her reasons for picking the team where clear to her. If the threat was psychic, physical, or technological, they had the teams three counters on hand in the form of her, Nyl and Vizkop. And Fredriq could offer his expert advice.
"Take the Psykers and Julianus to help Interrogator Jarvid. I just wish Sapphira was here by now."
PaintSerf
03-06-2013, 09:58 AM
[OOC- Red text is courtesy of Azazeal]
Earlier
“How are you doing this fine freezing day, Ms. Kelly Black?” Sapphira inquired with a warm smile as she stepped into mortuary laboratory, which was located in starport’s medical center. Inside the room was painted in an inoffensive taupe and scented by biological matter overlaid with various chemicals. Familiarity with the building’s faculty and layout meant she’d quickly found who she was here to see.
A woman in a white verispex labcoat and dark hair pinned back in a simple ponytail turned away from the dull grey autopsy table. She had a dataslate in her hand, into which she was scribbling notes to accompany the sheaf of pict-captures sitting on the next desk. She smiled at Sapphira when she saw her. That wasn’t surprising, considering she was still mostly bundled up from the weather outside. It wasn’t until the lift down that she’d relented and deactivated the heating coils in her comfortably insulated outerwear. Neither she nor the weather outside agreed with each other very much.
“Hi Sister. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks it's too bloody cold around here.”
Kelly Black had her brother's long nose and arched eyebrows, and the same tell-tale accent of rhotic vowels and slightly trilled 'r's under her otherwise well-pronounced Venatoran gothic. There aren’t many people left with that particular accent. It wasn’t the first time she’d noted that detail. Over the past several weeks their assignments had overlapped with enough frequency. She’d take the samples that Kelly recovered and pass them along to the local Hospitaller, whose discretion and integrity could be relied upon, to look for relatives in their charity clinics. Sapphira’s direct role in this investigation was to find the anonymous dead in local Officio Medicae records. Thus far the results of her assignment had been frustratingly unsuccessful. But at least their roles allowed for some familiarity to form between them.
“I’d rather be cold than be like some of our other colleagues.” Sapphira said with all seriousness as she pulled off her rapidly cooling gloves and pushed back the coat’s hood. With an arched eyebrow she looked speculatively over the other woman’s shoulder. “I don’t suppose we’ve been blessed with any new developments?”
Kelly gestured towards the pallid corpses on the tables behind her. They had the functional, low-grade augmetics of enginarium workers, and all of them had been badly burned. Sapphira wasn’t particularly bothered by the gruesome remnants as she stepped over to the tables. No Sister was a stranger to the sight and smell of immolated flesh. Arms crossed behind her back, and at a respectful distance, she leaned in to examine the bodies in closer detail. There really wasn’t much to identify one from the others after their traumatic fatalities.
“I thought we were on to something when a trader vessel docked and unloaded these bodies after what the captain said was a reactor accident, but all three of them were clean. I checked them myself.” She folded her arms and glanced over her shoulder at the other techs ghosting about near the back of the lab. “Even with them talking to me like I don't already know my job better than they do.”
“Do they now?” Sapphira asked flatly as she graced the other techs with a mildly disapproving glance, before she regarded Kelly with a commiserating expression. In the few weeks they’d been working on this assignment she’d come to respect the young verispex’s thoroughness. The other forensics technicians were adequate in an unimaginative sort of way. Kelly’s an asset, or at least she could be, if… She perished that line of thought with a frown and righted herself to step back from the table.
“I trust your conclusions.” Sapphira affirmed as crossed her arms, and leaned towards Kelly, as she pointed at the rude grafts on the burn victims. “I never thought I’d say this, but Vincent’s arm looks like a piece of art by comparison. Actually, speaking of Vincent, I don’t suppose he’s mentioned any complications since my last check up?”
“Not that I know of.” Kelly answered as she peeled her plastek gloves into a waste bin and shrugged her lab coat into a laundry basket for decontamination. Underneath she wore a simple blouse and black skirt. “Mind you, I'm probably not the first person he'd come to if he did.”
“He can be remarkably stubborn.” Sapphira sighed while she shook her head. After a few moments of silence between them she looked over at Kelly and quietly said, “While we’re on the subject of stubborn people, I don’t suppose Kally’s been more social as of late when she’s not limb breaking?”
Kelly bit her lip. “I'm afraid not. I've gone to see her a few times after hours, since Marc won't, but she's rarely in the mood to talk.”
She paused and eyed Sapphira, as if suddenly wondering why her lines of questioning seemed to revolve around the other survivors from hive Makita. If it was she obviously thought nothing of it, because she dropped the look a moment later when both their communicators beeped. Although she didn’t let it show, Sapphira quietly offered a prayer of thanks to Him for the interruption. She recognized that look, as it appeared to be another trait shared by the siblings Black. I should check and see if there’s any documentation on the ‘enforcer sixth sense’… is it a learned instinct or a genetic inheritance? Sapphira wryly mused to herself as she listened to the message.
“Ordo team, this is Marc.” he said. He spoke in Venatoran low gothic, which they had all painstakingly learned before their arrival. “Schafer’s arrived early, and so have the explorators. He’s going to escort them down and wants us to meet him up on the landing pad.”
“I suppose we should go meet Marcus. I pray daily for all of us, but I pray for him most frequently… and not just because of his lamentable taste in music.” Kelly grinned at that reference to her childhood and Sapphira felt her own mouth curve slightly into a roguish grin. Once the moment passed she eased back into seriousness. “Has he been looking after himself, or do you still have to make sure he actually eats and sleeps with some regularity?”
Kelly sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Believe it or not,” she said with a wan smile, “This is him on a good day. I've told him before about switching off after work. But yeah, he's fine.”
“Your brother’s a good man, and he’s fortunate to have you here with him.” She said with a slight nod of encouragement as they walked back to the desk. Even though it seemed as if these three were a literal dead end it couldn’t hurt to process their information. Persistence and perseverance would eventually see results in this investigation... one way or another.
---
Present
"I just wish Sapphira was here by now."
“Ask and the Emperor shall provide.” Sapphira commented as she came up behind Kally and Marcus, her ever grinning companion cradled protectively under her left arm.
The smile and light tone that might have normally accompanied that was nowhere to be found on her serious and reddened face. She’d been on the staircase up to the observation room when the situation had taken a turn for the unexpected. In her sprint up the stairs and out onto the landing pad she hadn’t had the time or mind to worry about the blizzard outside. As a result the wind snapped and tugged at her unfastened jacket and the robes underneath.
“Do we have the beacon for Javid’s shuttle?” Sapphira asked as she adjusted the weight of her narthecium bag slung over her shoulder. “If anyone survived those crashes then we need to go, right now. Time is critical.”
Felwether
03-06-2013, 07:05 PM
Vincent gritted his teeth, he had come to the briefing in a vest and the icy grip of the Venatoran winter hit him like a ton of bricks as he left the waiting room and followed the others onto the landing pad. In the distance, the sky was streaked with what he guessed were the contrails of both craft and heavy clouds of black smoke, the exchange of fire had been so heavy that he could make them out through the snow.
Over his shoulder he saw the old man go down but didn’t stop to help. He was surprised to see the wyrd-girl simply scoop him up and drag him past like he was nothing at all. He couldn’t help but be impressed – even with his new arm, he wouldn’t have been able to move Fredriq with such ease. Still, the fact there were now two fokken psykers on the team made him glad he’d at least brought his laspistol.
"Marc, me, Vizkop, Nyl and Fredriq should head to meet the lander at the governers palace, assuming it didn't take return fire in that exchange."
Vincent didn't argue, he wasn't here to make decisions. He did, however, jab a finger at the unconscious form of Fredriq.
“We’re seriously bringing this guy with us?” He gave a derisive snort and climbed into the nearest shuttle. He was quickly losing his patience.
“Better bring some fokken bodybags…”
Azazeal849
03-06-2013, 11:25 PM
"By the order of the inquisition, you will fly us in pursuit of those shuttles."
While Marc's less threatening appearance had its advantages in some situations, the more imposing Shere with his gold suit and staff got a quicker reaction out of the stunned pilots. They looked at each other, and then leapt back into the waiting Arvus shuttles to begin powering up the engines.
"Take the psykers and Julianus to help Interrogator Schafer.”
Marc nodded, and paused with one hand gripping the rail inside the Arvus side hatch.
“Take John with you.” he shouted over the combined noise of the snowstorm and the rising whine of the Arvus' engines. “Just in case.”
He pulled himself up into the flyer, gesturing sharply for the others to follow.
“I just wish Sapphira was here by now."
"Ask and the Emperor shall provide." Sapphira commented as she came up behind Kally and Marcus, her ever grinning companion cradled protectively under her left arm. Behind her, Lia was helping Fredriq into the second Arvus.
“We’re seriously bringing this guy with us?” Vincent gave a derisive snort and climbed into the nearest shuttle. He was quickly losing his patience.
“Better bring some fokken bodybags…”
“Head west.” Marc told his Arvus pilot, who was cursing quietly to himself as the two reluctant conscripts lifted their round-nosed shuttles off the landing pad, turned into the buffeting wind and streaked skyward with a sonic boom that ricocheted between the skyscrapers below.
"Do we have the beacon for Javid's shuttle?" Sapphira asked as she adjusted the weight of her narthecium bag on her shoulder. "If anyone survived those crashes then we need to go, right now. Time is critical."
“I don't have much fuel.” the pilot put in hesitantly. “I just got back from a cargo run to Sinuessa.”
“How much?” Marc asked pointedly from one of the six seats behind.
“Maybe an hour's flight time?”
“More than enough. What can you see on auspex?”
The pilot consulted his instruments. “Search and rescue 'thopters scrambling behind us, and two radar contacts out west. Big ones. Moving fast and losing height.”
“That's them. Get on the vox – frequency two four two point four megaCruz.”
The pilot was still muttering agitatedly to himself, but he complied. “Er...inquisition shuttle? This is cargo flight seven seven three, carrying some of your agents. What's your situation, over?”
The reply, filtered through the main vox caster so that the rest of the passengers could hear it, was almost drowned in static.
“...down...have t...stop...”
Marc cursed under his breath as the Arvus accelerated west through the snowstorm.
+ + + + + +
“The lander isn't going to make it.” Kally's pilot told her worriedly. Her eyes kept darting to her auspex screen as they streaked though the long, glacier-formed valley that led from the.broken toothed mountain range on the skyline down to the planetary capital. “It's...it's gone down!”
The pilot pulled her control stick to one side, banking hard. “What do you want me to do?”
+ + + + + +
“I've lost them on the auspex.” the second team's pilot warned. “It's the mountains.”
About eighty kilometres west of the capital, a long spine of mountains separated the continent's coastal regions from the dryer inland. The tall peaks played havoc with direct vox signals, meaning that most communication between the cities on either sides had to be relayed by satellite or astropath. The Arvus was now soaring perilously close to those peaks, relying on its machine spirit's augers in the blinding snowstorm.
“Can you take us higher?” Marc asked.
“The wind's...” the pilot began to say, and then, “Wait...holy feth!”
G-forces pressed the inquisition agents back into their seats as the pilot wrenched the bug-like Arvus round in a sharp turn. Something boomed past above them, out of sight but close enough to be heard even through the lighter's thick hull. As their aircraft came round in a sharp U-turn to face away from the prevailing wind, the blizzard in front of the bubble cockpit briefly abated, to be replaced by a thick streak of black smoke. The smoke was pouring from an aircraft that shuddered through the air ahead of them. Much larger than the Arvus, and with the blocky, unaerodynamic shape of a void-craft, it was big enough for them to see even though it had already pulled some distance ahead of them. Along its dorsal side was painted the huge stylised I of the inquisition, crossed through with three bars each the thickness of a civilian ground car.
Shards of debris were peeling off from the shuttle's flanks and spinning away in its wake, forcing their Arvus pilot to keep his distance. At Marc's instruction he kept on the damaged shuttle's tail, diving to follow as it lost speed and height. Schafer's transport was still airborne, but it clearly wouldn't be for much longer.
dakkagor
03-07-2013, 12:17 AM
“What do you want me to do?”
Kally was standing behind the pilot, looking out the window. It was unnerving how much the pilot was relying on the instruments in this white out. Kally didn't like it. She didn't fancy chasing after the lander in this weather, and was kind of glad it had splashed. But she doubted it would be as easy as just bagging and tagging the wreckage and heading back to the apartment for recaf and amsec.
"Put us down as close as you can to the last return, and take it slow. We'll find the wreck on foot if we have too. Once you land stay down until we get back, and stay in vox contact."
She turned to the team in the back.
"Alright people, our pilot is going to put us down and then we are going to find that wreck and check for survivors. Assume that anyone you meet will need to be subdued, we are going to take those frakkers alive if we can. They just shot at an Inquisitorial shuttle and we are going to want some answers."
Noyer better hope he's dead before we get to him. That would be merciful.
"Its a total white out out there, so we'll pair up into two man teams. Regular vox check-ins and no frakking about. Once you find the wreck call it in, and wait for the rest of us to converge."
She frowned. She wasn't sure how she had slipped into a leadership position in this motley band. She wasn't exactly a team player. No time for doubts now. Maybe that was it. First and the loudest with the best ideas equals leader, at least in Kally's understanding of the human condition. It was how it worked in gangs at any rate.
She walked to the hatch, hanging onto the handles, before turning to Fredriq.
"Stay on the shuttle, and stay in vox contact. If we need an expert opinion we'll be in touch. Are you armed?"
childsouldier
03-07-2013, 01:26 AM
A cold, hard jab broke through Fredriq's fugue-like state. Slowly his vision swam back into focus, though it continued to shake violently. He realised he was trembling rather uncontrollably. Around him the dim interior of a small aircraft also shook and juddered, cast into eerie relief by a bank of augur displays and a red light that could surely only be meant as a warning of immanent danger. For a moment he was sure that this was hell.
"Put us down as close as you can to the last return, and take it slow. We'll find the wreck on foot if we have to. Once you land stay down until we get back, and stay in vox contact." From the co-pilot seat in the nose of the craft Kally's terse tones directed the pilot into the teeth of the storm and Fredriq realised the truth was far worse. He glanced around the compartment at his companions.
Vincent was there, clad in nothing but a sleeveless vest, his brutal augmentics and patchwork of scar tissue and tattoos lent a fiendish quality by the infernal lighting. He looked far more menacing now than Fredriq had ever seen him. Suddenly he found himself grateful, even comforted, by the man's palpable aura of violence. The Mechanicus liaison and the group's witch sat opposite Fredriq, the latter gripping his staff in readiness while the priest of the Omnissiah unholstered two ornate pistols. He certainly didn't look like any Adept Fredriq had ever laid eyes upon, his bearing more warrior than cleric.
"Alright people, our pilot is going to put us down and then we are going to find that wreck and check for survivors. Assume that anyone you meet will need to be subdued, we are going to take those frakkers alive if we can. They just shot at an Inquisitorial shuttle and we are going to want some answers. It's a total white out out there, so we'll pair up into two man teams. Regular vox check-ins and no frakking about. Once you find the wreck call it in, and wait for the rest of us to converge." Almost as soon she finished speaking the craft gave one final pitch before settling on blessed terra firma.
They'd touched down, though where they were was impossible to judge, such was the fury of the blizzard beyond. Kally and the team quickly dismounted and Fredriq looked after them in utter dismay before hauling himself from his seated, bedraggled heap and moving to the door to follow. Kally turned sharply as he reached the portal.
"Stay on the shuttle, and stay in vox contact. If we need an expert opinion we'll be in touch. Are you armed?" she asked impatiently. "Y-yes," he stammered, grasping clumsily at the laspistol hidden in the folds of his coat. Nearly before the word has passed his lips she was gone, joining the rest of the group as they fanned out to search for the wreckage of the shuttle.
Fredriq shot a frightful, plaintive glance at the pilot and looked back out at the departing backs of his comrades. Not ten paces from the ship and they were swallowed by the all-consuming white-out of the fierce blizzard. Tremors continued to wrack his frail body as he took out his laspistol, the weight of the gun in his hands alien and unsettling.
Fredriq's stomach convulsed; leaning out the door of the shuttle he heaved up his earlier meal before raising his pistol and tracking the anonymous, terrible nothingness. Around the ship the storm continued to rage, an anchor of safety in a sea of unknown hazards.
kardar233
03-07-2013, 01:32 AM
Before
Lia saw the tough-looking lady jabbing fingers along with names she didn't recognize, but she saw enough to know that she was going with the tall man and the old man she was pulling along was going with the lady. Looking quickly over the lady's group, she noticed the gold man again. When she thought no one was looking at them, she tugged on the man's arm and slid the old man's limp hand into it. She looked up at him briefly, caught sight of his eyes once again, shivered, and got into the flyer with the tall man.
Now
The experience of flying was a relatively new one for her. She'd flown a couple of times before, once coming off her world and again coming down to this one, and while not being able to feel through the earth was somewhat unsettling, she liked the idea of hurtling through the air like someone she'd kicked, though considerably more alive.
She saw the shuttle emblazoned with the giant "I" careen through the atmosphere and something sparked in her head... something familiar, a story she liked from her childhood. She pressed herself to the windows, trying to get a sense of the shuttle's trajectory, and shouted forwards to the cockpit. "Get in front of the smoky flying thing! In front!" Her words were mostly swallowed by the thundering of the lander's engines, but she hoped someone would hear and repeat it for the pilot.
(For reference: the gold man is Shere, the old man is Fredriq, the tough-looking lady is Kally and the tall man is Marc.)
Atrum Daemon
03-07-2013, 06:41 AM
“Marc, me Vizkop, Nyl, and Fredriq should head to meet the lander at the governor’s palace, assuming it didn’t take return fire in that exchange.”
Vizkop nodded and piled into the lander along with his new team mates. With the body glove and his implants, Vizkop had barely noticed the Venatorian winter. Even so, the scarlet kimono he favored had been insulated against the cold for extra insurance.
Hatred. He had never felt hatred so pure before. The abominable…thing before him shuddered closer. He refused to call it a machine. It was not that anymore. It was corrupted. The whole city was corrupted. If he could keep his guise up just a bit longer, he would be inside the citadel…
He pulled out his pistols to check them. Both were in working order, but he hoped he would not need them. Kally wanted the crew alive. He holstered his guns again and flexed his fingers, his luminen capacitors at full working order. He listened closely as Kally barked out orders and gave a firm nod of acknowledgement. Who he was paired with was not a concern. They were all talented people who should be able to handle themselves.
She smiled at him. He liked it when she smiled. Who were they today? Another couple on vacation? Inspectors of some variety? Many were the masks they wore. They only showed their true faces to one another. They knew who they could trust.
Vizkop’s visor adjusted to a thermal view as he was consumed by the snow storm. He could see the heated outline of the man Nyl beside him. His gaze became more focused as his senses kept compensating for the lack of vision from the storm. The shuttle’s wreckage would still be giving off a good deal of heat, as would any survivors limping away from it.
dakkagor
03-07-2013, 10:00 AM
"Y-yes," he stammered, grasping clumsily at the laspistol hidden in the folds of his coat. Nearly before the word has passed his lips she was gone, joining the rest of the group as they fanned out to search for the wreckage of the shuttle.
As Kally stepped out into the biting cold something tickled at the back of her mind. She turned back to properly look at Fredriq, someone she had so far endeavoured to ignore during the mission. They came from completely different worlds and had so little in common they might as well be aliens to each other.
But right now she pitied him. She remembered her first fight. She had been thirteen and she had puked in fear the night before. She used to have the occasional nightmare about the gunfight that followed, before. . .before. . .
"It gets easier." She offered as she stood on the edge of the ramp. She met Fredriqs eyes for a second. "Though you might not thank me for that."
She toggled her vox to the team band.
"Nyl, buddy up with Shere. Shere, try to keep both of you warm if possible. Vizkop, you're with me."
She took a bearing and jogged into the white out, falling in beside Vizkop and trusting the mechanicus agent had some aug's to help his vision. The cold cut right through her coat and pressed against the body glove. The glove had rudimentary heating layers and an emergency heating coil, but the temperature here was enough to make the suit really struggle. And she would stand out like an Ascension decoration to anyone with IR vision.
Felwether
03-07-2013, 10:24 AM
"Nyl, buddy up with Shere. Shere, try to keep both of you warm if possible. Vizkop, you're with me."
"Ja." Vincent paused for a second and looked warily at the psyker next to him; Shere didn't seemed bothered by the cold at all. "Try not to get yourself lost, Kally girl."
Great. He'd been dumped with the fokken witch. Made more sense than Kally being paired with him, her being a blank or whatever it was, but he still wasn't happy about it.
Vincent had scrounged up a spare flight jacket and a powerful lamp pack from the interior of the Arvus. The jacket was slightly too small but it was insulated and took the bite out of the wind and the lamp pack would help when they found the wreckage. He pulled a small, black woolen hat from his pocket and pulled it over his scalp. The hat barely covered his ears, he usually used it to disguise the black bowie knife tattooed down the length of his scalp - arguably his most distinctive feature - but it still helped. Vincent may have not been exactly what you'd call professional but his decades of experience had taught him to always bring the right tools for the job and he felt naked without the rest of his kit.
"Right, uh, John." Said Vincent to the psyker, raising his voice over the storm and trying not to show his discomfort. "We'll shadow Kally and Vizkop - he should be able to track the wreckage fairly easy through this." He snapped on the lamp pack and began to trudge after the other pair. "Keep up."
Vincent opened the strap of his holster - he'd be keeping an eye over his shoulder just in case.
Azazeal849
03-08-2013, 02:13 PM
"Get in front of the smoky flying thing! In front!"
"What?" the pilot asked, not daring to look back over his shoulder as shards of hull plating continued to break off from the crashing shuttle. Arvus lighters were rugged beasts with machine spirits to match, but they weren't designed for bulldozing through supersonic debris.
"Overtake them!" Marc clarified, throwing down his vox caster as it continued to give him nothing but static. The shuttle's radio might be dead, but someone was still clearly in control of it because the retro thrusters around the nose and underside were flaring white-hot in an attempt to slow the craft's descent. "I think I know what she's got in mind."
+ + + + + +
Fredriq's stomach convulsed; leaning out the door of the shuttle he heaved up his earlier meal before raising his pistol and tracking the anonymous, terrible nothingness. Around the ship the storm continued to rage, an anchor of safety in a sea of unknown hazards.
"Hey!" the pilot called back as Fredriq vomited down the outside hull of her Arvus. "Sorry." she added hurriedly a second later, when she remembered that she was talking to an agent of the Holy Inquisition.
There was a moment of awkward silence, broken only by the descending whine as the Arvus' turbines powered down into standby mode. The pilot looked back again as Fredriq heaved the side door closed. She was a middle-aged woman, with a prominent nose underneath the silver visor that hid her eyes.
"You're...not exactly how I pictured Throne agents." she said. Fredriq couldn't tell if she was talking because trying to keep a lookout through the blizzard was futile, or simply to fill the awkward silence. "The frescos in the basilica always had these great big men with hammers and haloes round their heads..."
She paused again.
"Can you tell me what's going on? Why are we playing search and rescue ourselves instead of calling in the medicae?"
+ + + + + +
Vizkop’s visor adjusted to a thermal view as he was consumed by the snow storm. He could see the heated outline of the man Nyl beside him. His gaze became more focused as his senses kept compensating for the lack of vision from the storm. The shuttle’s wreckage would still be giving off a good deal of heat, as would any survivors limping away from it.
The four agents didn't have to go far before Vizkop saw it - a huge oblong of glowing red across the centre of his heat vision as they crested a small rise in the ground.* A hundred metres ahead of them, Noyer's lander had come down hard, piling earth in front of it as it gouged a furrow through the landscape. Despite the rough landing it appeared to be mostly in one piece, although it was difficult for even Vizkop to tell - hot smoke full of drive plasma and fragments of burning metal was billowing up from somewhere along the lander's flank, obscuring its outline and much of the trench around it. The wind stole the sound of the fires burning along the outside of the hull.
Still using his thermal vision as he tried to estimate the likelihood of passenger survival, Vizkop didn't see the green dot of a laser designator suddenly start to play across the front of his robes. Luckily for him Kally did, and she immediately tackled him sideways to send both of them rolling down the inside of the rise to land with a splash in a pool of meltwater that was oozing away from the burning crash-site. Back up on the ridge, Vincent and John scrambled aside as several objects ripped through the space where their fellow agents had been standing: objects that were too fast for the eye to see, but left roaring grey contrails in their wake.
Vincent, 50-year combat veteran that he was, recognised the weapon almost instantly. Bolter.
There was another trademark screech of activating gyrojets as a second boltgun opened up, snarling*out a short burst before it was joined by a third.
dakkagor
03-08-2013, 02:50 PM
She stood at the top of the ridge, looking out into the white. She thought she could make out smoke in the distance, maybe a hundred metres away at most. She turned to ask Vizkop if he could make anything clearer out. A green firefly was dancing across his robes, moving slowly up to his helmeted head.
spot the dot.
She didn't even think about it, pure reflex. She sprung at him, throwing her left shoulder into his torso and carrying him to the floor as the shot rang out, muffled by the falling snow.
It sounded awfully familiar.
She had misjudged the terrain underneath them and both her and Vizkop went tumbling down the rocky slope they had just climbed. She tried to catch hold of something to arrest the fall, but just ended up pulling a small rockslide after herself. She smacked into a large flat boulder near the bottom, knocking the wind out of her and flopping her over, face first, into a pool of meltwater and engine coolant from the wrecked lander.
The hood peeled back from her mouth and nose and she gasped for air, sobbing. It wasn't drowning. It was worse. She heaved two great lungfuls of air in before the questions started.
She had lasted under this technique about twenty seconds by her count. This was the third time they had used it on her in the last few minutes. It was killing her.
“Name?” Came the monsters voice. Somewhere above her? Behind her?
“KALLY SONDER!” She shouted. Her voice echoed of the hard tiles of the shower block like a judgemental chorus. Her chest heaved in another laboured breath as her hands clawed at the slab for purchase. She needed to escape.
“Age?” A shadow fell over her. She couldn't move her head. Couldn't move her limbs. She knew this one.
“Hive records show I am thirty two years old!” Her breathing was returning to normal. Please not the hood again.
“Who was the first man you slept with?” Doesn't matter just answer, anything but the hood.
“Karlson, a bounty hunter, we were drunk, him more than me. After I got my limiter” Ask me something else, anything else, I know what you're going to ask me next not that please please please please please not that God Emperor above. . .
“What did Lucius Pembroke say to you before he died?”
Her back arched, trying to rip her hands and feet free of the metal straps. She screamed.
She pulled her face out of the water and screamed as the memory flooded her mind. She scrambled backwards out of the pool, blindly panicking as she stumbled to her feet and ran for a good 20 metres away from the pool, desperate to put some distance between herself and the memory, before finally falling to her knees, sobbing and shaking. She thought she had it under control. . she thought she could handle it. But it had been so real, so vivid. Like being back in that awful place. . .and all it had taken was having her face submerged.
She calmed herself down, trying to get a handle on her situation. She had lost her bolter somewhere in the fall and her vox had ripped free from her head. That was probably lying at the bottom of the pool.
She clambered to her feet, taking deep, calming breaths. Stay calm. Breathe. she looked round, trying to get a fix on the others, on the Arvus, on the lander. She couldn't see a damn thing in the snow. She didn't know where she was, and her tracks where already becoming obscured in the wind.
She tried to keep her breathing under control, tried to control the panic rising in her gut.
Don't get lost Kally girl.
In a survival situation the best thing to do was sit still and hunker down until help arrived. She couldn't use a flare, because there where hostile's nearby. And the others needed her help, so she wasn't going to sit around and cry while they got shot at.
She turned towards the sound of the bolters firing, it was distant and faint but it was there. She drew a laspistol from her back and marched resolutely towards the noise, keeping an eye out for the scree slope she had just tumbled down. If she was lucky she would stumble across Vizkop, or her bolter, or the. . .or the pool, and be able to reorientate herself to the others.
If not, she'd have to hope the wind dropped soon. Or she could get stuck out here. For good.
Felwether
03-08-2013, 07:52 PM
Vincent grabbed a hold of Shere’s gleaming arm and pulled him to the ground.
Bolt magnet is right.
“Keep your head down!” He shouted, keeping his voice clear above the howling wind and the whine of incoming fire. Combat was Vincent's bread and butter.
He was lying on his back in a slight depression at the lip of the ridge. A volley of rounds whipped past, maybe a metre or so above them. He pressed himself into the snow, instinctively trying to make himself as small a target as possible and waited a few seconds. Vincent didn’t bother drawing his pistol, the sidearm would be next to useless at this range. Fok, he could’ve had a long-las and not hit anything with the damned snow hammering down around him.
Vincent pressed his index finger to the throat mic strapped around his neck.
“Kally?” Another round streaked by overhead. “What the fok is happening down there?”
Static.
Vincent flipped himself over onto his stomach, shuffled towards the edge of the rise on his elbows and risked raising his head to survey the scene ahead. Through the blizzard he could make out the faint glow of a fire and the vague outline of the lander but little else – Vizkop and Kally were nowhere to be seen. Emerald green beams of light swept back and forth in deliberate patterns, the tell-tale sign of laser targetters. The shooters were servitors maybe, automated certainly and judging by the sound and speed of the rounds that had just bombarded them they were packing bolt weapons of some description.
Not good.
“Kally!” He roared again, as though his demand would suddenly yield a reply. He refused to believe the worst.
He ducked down again as another salvo of rounds impacted near his postion, throwing up great clumps of earth and snow. Vincent changed tack, he’d be damned if he was going to die on the side of a mountain in the arsehole of nowhere.
“Vizkop? Are you hearing me?” A shot landed maybe a foot from his head “What do you see man? Tell me what you see!”
There was no sense in charging off into a blizzard – not until they knew exactly what they were dealing with, anyway.
DoughGuy
03-08-2013, 11:29 PM
John grunted as he was pulled to the ground by Vincent. Focused on the situation he didn't even think of passing a retort, rolling away from Vincent so a single volley couldn't take them both out. He heard Vincent yelling for the blank but ignored him. The girl could handle herself, it was the adept who they needed to contact, and he had a working brain as metallic as it would be. +Vizkop, respond+ he sent to the man psychically as strong as he could. It might hurt his head a little but it would wake him up.
He then turned his attention to the lander. A faint glow could be seen from where it had crashed and he wondered how anything had survived. He glanced over at Vincent but saw the man had nothing that could reach the guns. "We need to take the guns out so we can search for the others. Focus on that." John summoned a small fireball in his hand, "I'll try to use this to grab shed some light on the guns. I'll pop up and throw it. When they shoot at me you pop up and check if you can see any of the guns."
Once Vincent gave approval he would pop up and throw the fireball at the guns, empowering it to show enough light to reveal the the crash site.
Atrum Daemon
03-09-2013, 08:27 PM
Vizkop did not have time to react when Kally suddenly shoulder-checked him. He let out a blurt of binary static as they fell and quickly recognized the sound of the weapon that had almost opened a hole in him. He landed hard in the pool of melt water, his helmet saving him from being knocked out entirely but he was very dazed from the impact.
The pain was immense. So much so that the burning sensation on his arms quickly dulled to a throbbing sensation. He had screwed up royally. Gotten himself captured by his target. “You’re proving quiet the resistor.”
There was that horrible lion’s purr of a voice again.
“I’ll have my men just cut to the chase.”
His eyes were forced open. The glowing metal pins drew closer and closer…
“Vizkop? Are you hearing me? What do you see man? Tell me what you see!”
+Vizkop! Respond!+
The shouted words, both mental and non-mental, jerked Vizkop back to the world around him. He leapt up from his prone position, barely aware of his soaked robe. His augments compensating for the heat change along with the small heating lining of his body glove. He moved up from the melt-water to get a better look at their assailants.
“Servitors,” he returned over the com. “Defense servitors or similar, most likely. Armed with long-range boltguns judging by the sound of them. Good at range for defense, but their usefulness with diminish the closer we get. They’re probably using thermal sighting like me plus laser range finders. If you’ve something hot on hand, you can distract them.”
He dropped back down from the snow ridge he had been peeking over and checked himself. All still intact and his guns were both there. Casting a glance around, he caught sight of Kally walking determinedly toward the direction the bolter fire was coming from. “I’m nearby, agent Sondar,” Vizkop informed her, hoping she still had not lost her vox in the fall. “I’m heading your way.”
He picked himself up and started moving through the snow as best he could.
dakkagor
03-11-2013, 08:39 AM
She thought she heard someone shout her name.
She turned to her left, eyes peering into the white out. There it was again. . .She took a few steps forward, keeping her las pistol pointed at the ground, but ready to snap up in an instant.
"Agent Sondar!"
Vizkop suddenly stepped into view, causing Kally to snap up her laspistol on reflex. On realising it was the mechanicus adept, she lowered the pistol again, letting out the breath she hadn't realised she was holding. She jogged up to him, smiling despite herself.
"Vizkop, am I glad to see you. When my comms got trashed in the fall I was worried I might be stuck out here."
She looked past him, just able to make out the melt water pool. She suppressed a shudder.
"Lets go join the others. What's the situation?"
As they jogged back to join the others, Vizkop hopefully bringing her up to speed, she spotted something at the bottom of the scree, just on the edge of the pool. Her scourge pattern bolter, lying half submerged, the strap snapped from the but of the gun. She scooped it up and quickly cleared the breach and cocked it, checking the heavy weapons mechanisms and the fire selector.
Seems to be working. Lets hope the machine spirit isn't too pissed from the fall.
kardar233
03-11-2013, 04:57 PM
Lia was plastered to the window, her mind working furiously. The Arvus had just overtaken the crashing shuttle, and she was watching the smoking hulk, trying to estimate where it would land.
The lighter passed over a set of low mountain peaks, bringing a large, snowy plateau into view. She looked back at the shuttle they were leading and made another guess as to its descent; it was going to hit the near edge of the plateau. She needed to act now.
Scrabbling at the side doors, she focused inwards. Her hand caught the handle and tugged for a moment before realizing it needed to turn first while she muttered something under her breath, mantra-like. The heavy door levered outwards, bringing in a rush of icy air that shocked even the most heavily-bundled of the group. Her voice raised just enough that the others could hear.
"I think I can, I think I can..."
She hurled herself out the open door to the snowy plateau two hundred feet below.
She fell through the blizzard, concentrating and reaching for the earth. She hit the snowy ground and gave a sigh of relief as she felt steady, anchored to the ground again. Then she turned to see the shuttle.
Spewing black smoke, it hurtled towards her with murderous intent. She fixed it in her gaze and frowned as she deepened her concentration. Starting from her hands, her skin took on a beige-gray cast, the precise detail of her skin disappearing, averaging out to a slightly rough texture. She reached further down into the ground, feeling its solidity beneath her, and she tensed and gathered her strength for the trial ahead. The shuttle drew ominously near, its steel-gray face mocking her. She tucked her head in, widened her shoulders and outstretched her arms. Bright green power flared in her mind as she gathered it, stretching outwards...
"I think I can, I think I can, I think I can..."
The shuttle struck her like the fist of an angry god. She rose to meet it, feeling its immense force pass through her into the ground, which cracked and ground beneath her feet. She felt its force against her shoulders, her rocklike body unable to sustain the pressure it was taking, groaning beneath the shuttle's weight. She bent with its motion like a willow against the wind, staying on the edge of what her enhanced body could tolerate, but she couldn't retreat forever.
"I think I can..."
Moments later, she hit a full crouch and panicked for a split second as the crushing weight of the oncoming shuttle threatened to grind her into powder. Regaining her presence of mind, she severed her ties with the ground beneath her and suddenly skidded backwards, pushed by the shuttle, its direction of motion now close to level.
"I think I can..."
Taking advantage of the slippery surface of the plateau, she slid her feet back behind her and uncoiled her torso, attaining a leaning stand as she flew across the ice. She reached down once more, felt the solid earth beneath her and stopped abruptly, the rock beneath her groaning with the force suddenly being exerted on it. The shuttle's mass bore down on her again, and again she pushed as much as she could handle and retreated when it was too much. The bright green flame of her power dwindled, but she drew on it again.
"I think I can..."
Again, it was only moments before she coiled down into a crouch before the motion of the shuttle, but she had a rhythm now. She released herself from the ground, sliding back again, preparing, stopping, releasing, sliding, preparing...
"I think I can..."
She spared a glance backward and saw the jagged rocks of the plateau's edge just a few dozen metres away. Stop, release, slide, and she leapt upwards in the face of the oncoming shuttle, her feet finding the vertical rock face. She braced herself against the rock and pushed once, the flame of her power guttering out as she harnessed it one more time.
The shuttle came to a shuddering stop, its stern tilting up momentarily and then settling down again. Lia rested for a minute in the two foot deep impression of her shoulders in the front hull of the shuttle, then slipped down off the rock and stood unsteadily in the snow, her skin returning to its normal appearance.
Blearily, she saw the others exit the landed lighter. Her eyelids drooped as she swayed on her feet. "diddit... did it work?"
Azazeal849
03-11-2013, 05:28 PM
John's fireball did predictably little to illuminate the white-out, but as the white-hot flare flashed and died the bolter fire temporarily stopped. Vizkop's last transmission made the probable reason clear - if the unseen servitors were indeed using thermal vision, they were pausing to reaquire their targets as the sudden burst of infrared washed them out. Another fireball, and they'd be able to get close enough to engage the servitors and hopefully put them down.
+ + + + + +
Scrabbling at the side doors, Lia focused inwards. Her hand caught the handle and tugged for a moment before realising it needed to turn first while she muttered something under her breath, mantra-like.
"What the Horus are you doing?" the pilot yelled, somehow maintaining control of the Arvus as the heavy door levered outwards, bringing in a rush of icy air that shocked even the most heavily-bundled of the group. He glanced back at Marc, but the agent wasn't looking at him. He was looking out the open door as Lia dropped away into the blizzard below, and realising that he had in fact guessed wrong as to what the young telekine's plan was.
"Oh bloody hell!" he swore vehemently.
+ + + + + +
The four remaining agents leapt from the Arvus as their pilot set it down, still cursing fluently under his breath. The shuttle had come down in a cascade of dislodged rock and machine parts, the bare rock underneath its hull scoured of snow and scorched black by the emergency braking thrusters. Everybody's first thought was that if Lia hadn't been crushed, she had surely been incinerated. This assumption was happily disproved a second later when Lia herself appeared from behind the crashed shuttle; a little unsteady, but apparently unhurt.
Her eyelids drooped as she sayed on her feet. "Did it...did it work?
"Bloody hell." Marc said for a second time, right before the vox-beads in their ears crackled to life. It came not from the recently-crashed shuttle's shipboard vox, but a short-range microbead similar to the ones the team themselves were wearing.
"Throne, girl." said a voice in standard Gothic. It carried the teeth-clenched tightness of a man in pain, but there was a trace of humour in it regardless. "You dented my ship!"
"Clement?" Marc said, putting a gloved hand to his ear. At the same moment, the hatches along the shuttle's left side thunked with the sound of disengaging locks, before swinging slowly open with a breath of venting air pressure.
"Need some help here." the pilot coughed back over the team vox. "Help, help the interrogator..."
The side hatches were designed for airlock umbilicals, not ground access, and without ladders they stood an awkward three metres above the ground. The agents had to boost each other up to get aboard, but once they had done so they were able to work their way forward through the narrow central corridor to the mangled cockpit. Arval Clement was slumped in his chair with blood running down the side of his face under his split helmet. Interrogator Schafer was on the floor stirring feebly, still held against the dislodged grav couch by the restraint straps.
"Over here." Clement called out weakly.
Jarms48
03-12-2013, 04:34 AM
"Hello, everyone," Mattius said cheefully.
Julianus spared the man a glance, a roll of the eyes and a soft grunt the only expressions offered. He couldn't believe this was to be their PDF liaison. He had expected someone older, someone of rank at least, perhaps a Lieutenant constantly in vox commune with their superiors. He seemed young, cheerful, those would disappear quickly, this was Ordo work after all, the Inquisition had a certain aura about it. A certain unease but for once in his life, the veteran storm trooper didn't have that feeling, everything sounded off about this mission. The team seemed rather careless, slacked, nothing which he expected.
Fredriq slunk quietly into the waiting room, assuming a position next to the blank girl and nodding a general greeting to the group at large to hide the shudder as he entered her null zone.
The Xenologist, one that Julianus tended to admire, a man of which he assumed, what he lacked in everything was made up with personal experience and intellect. His thoughts were soon interrupted as he watched the infant tumble into the room, a display that caused him to fight back a sudden urge to run a palm down his face. When did the Inquisition send little girls to fight their battles? When had they grown so petty, so unorthodox, so in human? It enraged him to even think about it and the fact that she bore no shoes annoyed him further, a child had no place in battle, no place in this investigation, such was the purpose of the church schools, the Schola Progenium or so many countless other organizations. It was a disgrace, yet he could do nothing, such was not his duty, but he'd be damned if he didn't force her to wear a pair of boots at least.
* * * * *
Down on Angelos starport's number 3 landing pad, the team flinched and pulled their vox units away from their ears as the conversation between Schafer and Noyer was interrupted by a painfully loud explosion, which disintegrated into static before cutting off entirely.
Julianus gritted his teeth, surreptitiously moving a hand to deactivate his helmets micro-bead.
"What the hell was...?"
"Sounded like a detonation Investigator." The storm trooper said rather bluntly, breaking his silence as the atmosphere changed from formal proceedings to a combat scenario.
"I suggest we............." he paused, watching effortlessly as the man darted for the door.
"You stupid frakking slagger." He silently uttered, unslinging his hotshot lasgun over his shoulder and arcing it across the terrain as he motioned through the threshold. He lowered his aim and sprinted after Black, heavy boots clutching across the floor of the starport with each fall of the foot.
* * * * *
With no response, she grabbed one of the man's hands with both of her own, her small hands barely managing to wrap around his wrist. She set off once more, the unconscious man sliding along behind her as she raced towards the grey landers.
"No backbone, that's another point on the checklist." He shook his head giving the Investigator a glance as he seemed quite capable of handling their requisition for transport. Julianus sprinted over, eyes darting across the professors frame.
"Just great, get out of the frakken way girl and put on some Emperor damned shoes!" He yelled, grasping the now limp Fredriq and throwing him over his shoulder. Taking him to the nearest shuttle and placing him in the first vacant seat he could find, doing up the safety harnesses before climbing back down.
* * * * *
“Ask and the Emperor shall provide.” Sapphira commented as she came up behind Kally and Marcus, her ever grinning companion cradled protectively under her left arm.
"Roxanna?" Julianus muttered, questioning himself as he caught the armoured Adepta Sororitas at the corner of his eye, he shook his head. He had seen Sapphira before but every time he had, he could see nothing but his beloved sister.
(Might put a flashback here)
* * * * *
"Throne, girl." said a voice in standard Gothic. It carried the teeth-clenched tightness of a man in pain, but there was a trace of humour in it regardless. "You dented my ship!"
"Hah, yeah might take a bit more than a slap of new paint and a hammer to fix that!" Julianus added, a smirk developing over his face.
"Over here." Clement called out weakly.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Quit your bitching." Julianus continued, pulling himself up onto the deck of the vessel with the help of his peers. Making his way down the central hallway that lead to the cockpit.
"That could have hurt, pilot you could have hurt me!" He slapped the man on the shoulder and gave him quick regard.
"I suppose you want out? Here let me." Remus finished, reaching forward and deactivating the mans fasten, before catching him before he hit the floor. "This isn't romance bud, don't think of it as an embrace."
Atrum Daemon
03-13-2013, 02:20 AM
“The situation is…interesting…”
Vizkop filled Kally in on his deductions as they jogged back, moving as fast as they could through the snow and the white-out conditions. His thermal sensors detected a sudden flare of light from the fireball thrown to distract the servitors. The firing stopped, making the trip a little less harrowing thanks to the absence of danger range finding lasers.
“Mikera!”
His voice rang out over the valley. They stood atop a fallen battle engine. The Heretek Mikera stood before him, resplendent in her armor and battle gown. He gripped the shaft of the crackling power glaive tight in his hands. “This madness ends!”
“You think you can stop me, boy?” she hissed.
“No,” he shook his head, “I think I can kill you.”
“Our destiny is manifest!” Mikera said, drawing her twinned power swords and cracking them to life. “This world and all its neighbors will kneel before the sons and daughters of the Omnissiah!”
-This is adept Vizkop. I’ve got Agent Sondar and we’re moving to your location.- He sent the burst transmission over the vox to Marc John.
“We’re all in one piece, then?” Vizkop asked, sliding in to join Marc and the psyker. “Gonna try to make a run at those guns?”
Vizkop was starting to feel a bit excited. That was not good for him. He got reckless when he was excited. He did his best to calm his blood, which was rushing despite the biting cold all around.
DoughGuy
03-13-2013, 04:34 AM
John conjured another fireball in his hand as the group hid. "I think that's exactly what we're gonna try to do." he chuckled. With a flourish of his hand he summoned a second fireball, "Always good to be doubly sure." he said. Letting the fireballs float over his shoulders he unholstered his plasma pistol and checked it was ready to fire. Despite the freezing winds and snow the gun's burning heart was as bright as ever.
"On the count of 3 we run. 3 ... 2 ... 1," John popped up and fired one of the fireballs in the direction of the servitors. The other fireball shot off to the right and hovered over the ground burning brightly. "Go!" he yelled as soon as the bolter fire ceased. He used his force staff as a lever to pull himself out of their ditch and increase his momentum. He ran with the plasma pistol pointed in front, searching for targets, and his force staff trailing behind. He glanced at the ground as he ran, looking for any further ditches he could use to hide if they didn't make it in time.
dakkagor
03-13-2013, 11:33 AM
“The situation is…interesting…”
"You can say that again." she huffed as she scrambled up the slope behind Vizkop, listening intently as Vizkop explained his theories on the automated defences they where facing.
If they are automated, he could be long gone by now. Or he could have been killed in the crash. Don't go borrowing trouble. Assess the situation on the ground, and act appropriately. Do not jump to conclusions.
Kadaths training came back to her easily. It had all seemed like common sense at the time, even obvious, but having those words to fall back on helped.
She threw herself down on the ground, landing next to Vincent, and away from John.
"Hope you didn't miss me. Went for a look at the scenic terrain, nearly got lost." She smiled wickedly, deciding she would talk to Sapphira about her panic attack. Or Marc. Later.
“We’re all in one piece, then?” Vizkop asked, sliding in to join Vincent and the psyker. “Gonna try to make a run at those guns?”
"I think that's exactly what we're gonna try to do."
"Use the fireballs to frak with the guns sensors? Sounds like a plan to me." She shrugged out of her sodden coat and tweaked with the bodygloves environmental systems, switching them off. She needed to be showing as little heat as possible.
"On the count of 3 we run. 3 ... 2 ... 1," John popped up and fired one of the fireballs in the direction of the servitors. The other fireball shot off to the right and hovered over the ground burning brightly. "Go!"
She leapt up, bolter cradled in her hands, just behind Vizkop. She'd have strong words with John about his counting order. 'Go on three' obviously meant something different on whatever hicksville world he had grown up in. On Makita, it meant you fracking well went on the word 'three', and she nearly had. And nearly had her pretty little head blown off for her trouble.
She scrambled down the slope on the other side on 'go' and plunged into the snowfield beyond, the snow suddenly up to her thighs as she started to run forwards. Less of a run, more of a ungainly gallop through the drifts and into the stinging biting wind. She had never run in snow that thick before. Infact, she had never run in snow before full stop. Without the suits heating coil she was suddenly bitterly aware of just how gacking cold it was. She ploughed on regardless, taking ragged breaths of freezing air and putting as much effort as possible into reaching the shattered lander looming in front of her. As she cleared the last drift she found where the heat radiating from the shuttles blackened sides had melted the snow into puddles of melt water and bare rock. Suddenly the smell of clean snow and bare rock gave way to burnt plastic, smouldering alloys and still burning fuel.
She slid to a halt and looked around, bolter up and following her gaze. She hadn't been shot at and she couldn't see any hostile's or friendlies. And she hadn't heard any gunfire.
"Vizkop? Vincent? John?"
She backed up towards the lander, feeling the heat from its sides radiating onto her back, stopping her teeth from chattering. Her legs burned with the sudden exertion but she ignored it for the moment. She knew she was still out of shape compared to seven months ago and that was a problem for another time. She promised herself a hot bath back at the apartment after all this. And some drinks.
"Come on guys, come on. . ."
Atrum Daemon
03-13-2013, 08:50 PM
“On the count of three, we run. Three…two…one,” John popped up and fired one of the fireballs in the direction of the servitors. The other fireball shot off to the right and hovered over the ground burning brightly. “Go!”
At the word go, the servos in Vizkop’s legs kicked in. The high quality cybernetics propelling him along a little faster than one would expect in snow. He was not moving at full speed, but his pace was improved despite the deeper snow on the other side of the slope. He followed the heat signatures he was still detecting, heading right for one of the defense servitors. He altered his path a bit to get to the side slightly, the blade in his left arm springing out and powering up. Vizkop dashed as well as he could up the drift to the servitor’s position and passed it, his blade slashing through the servitor’s leg in order to cripple it and moved on.
Mikera was unlike any opponent he had ever fought. She was well-trained and highly experienced. He was constantly on the defensive, sure that if he tried for any ground he would be dead in a heartbeat.
Vizkop splashed into a puddle of melt water as he made it to the crash site. Smoke was pouring from the lander and the area stank of leaking fuel. Vizkop started to wonder if anyone had lived through it. His blade slid back into hiding and he drew his revolver from his hip, keeping it ready as he moved forward. He scanned the site for signs of tracks leading away or signs of movement from the crashed ship.
childsouldier
03-13-2013, 10:46 PM
"It gets easier." She met Fredriq's eyes for a second. "Though you might not thank me for that." With that Kally and the rest of the team disappeared into the swirling tempest, leaving Fredriq alone and terrified.
Or at least he had thought himself alone, until an indignant voice reprimanded him as he heaved the contents of his stomach out the aircraft's side hatch. "Hey!" the pilot called back as Fredriq vomited down the outside hull of her Arvus. "Sorry." she added hurriedly a second later, when she remembered that she was talking to an agent of the Holy Inquisition. The sudden reminder of her presence startled Fredriq, who nearly jumped out of his skin at the noise. Turning sharply, with a wild look in his eyes, a pallor not much healthier than that of a corpse and gloopy strings of unpleasant liquids dripping from his nose and mouth, he certainly didn't cut the typical figure of an Inquisitorial agent. The pilot could be forgiven for being a little dubious.
There was a moment of awkward silence, broken only by the descending whine as the Arvus' turbines powered down into standby mode. "You're... not exactly how I pictured Throne agents," she said. "The frescoes in the basilica always had these great big men with hammers and halos round their heads..." Fredriq smiled wryly at this observation as he made his way to the front of the narrow interior of the shuttle and seated himself near his interlocutor. "Can you tell me what's going on? Why are we playing search and rescue ourselves instead of calling in the medicae?"
"We all serve however we can my dear," Fredriq said in answer to her first remark. "Some swing hammers and smite foes, but I'm afraid the work of the Inquisition is often far less grand than the pennydreadfuls and the frescoes would like it to be. I once had the opportunity to converse with a blessed Astartes, you know, the 'Space Marines' from the propagandramas."
He glanced at the pilot, saw her beam eagerly, and lean in close, mention of the Space Marines piquing her curiosity and renewing some of her sense of wonder at the shadowy cast of figures into which she had been so unceremoniously thrust. Fredriq may be a let down, but at least the others carried bolters, or shot fire from their hands. In the cockpit the pilot nodded towards him, encouraging him to continue. "Well, what was he like?" she queried, awe clear in her voice, not just at the very idea of the Angels of Death, but that she, so unexpectedly, might meet someone who had spoken to a living, breathing superman.
"Oh, he was really rather a bore," Fredriq replied. "A member of the Deathwatch. You're not familiar with the Ordo Xenos?" The confused look on her face confirmed that she was not, while the hurt, angry look told him that she'd had about enough let downs for one winter's night. "Dour fellow, of the Lamenters Chapter if I remember correctly. Aptly named."
"And in answer to your second question, my dear, we are not calling in the medicae because there is an alien threat aboard that shuttle. We are investigating the illicit smuggling of xeno-artefacts, of which I am something of an authority," Fredriq stated rather smugly, preening slightly and feeling his confidence come slowly back to him as he took his mind off the dreadful situation in which he found himself.
While it may have brought some comfort to himself, Fredriq's talk of alien dangers seemed to do little to help the local pilot. In fact, rather the opposite. Plucked from the landing pad, thrown into contact with a band of Inquisitorial agents and chasing down a crashed shuttle was surely quite a shock to her system, and talk of alien nightmares stalking the whiteout only increased this. The distant thump of gunfire that rang out to break their momentary silence certainly didn't help.
Both their heads whipped around to peer fruitlessly into the swirling snow in the direction of the shots. Fredriq joined the woman, whose name he hadn't gotten, and sat nervously into the vacant copilot's seat. Several more bursts sounded beyond the veil of snow, just barely audible in the shelter of the aircraft above the pair's ragged breath and pounding hearts. The two briefly looked at each other again, their eyes meeting for a moment before each looked away in fear and shame.
Then, from the direction in which the team had went, something moved. It appeared to be coming this way. Fredriq's breath froze in his chest as the... thing drew closer. A shape slowly emerged from the snow-choked distance. Spherical, incandescent, it floated perhaps two metres above the ground, pulsing with an inner light. Then, not twenty paces from the hull of the lighter, they saw it. A perfect ball of flame, drifting past the ship just metres away. The autoreactive plexisteel windows dimmed as the flaming spectre hove by the shuttle and disappeared behind them.
Another nervous exchange of glances passed between the two, before they returned worried eyes to the outside world, where the blizzard continued unabated and their comrades presumably did battle. Not one of them wielded a hammer, Fredriq realised. Perhaps he should explain the difference between the Ordos Xenos and Malleus to his companion. It would certainly distract his fraught imagination, no bad thing at this time.
Azazeal849
03-13-2013, 11:07 PM
"I suppose you want out? Here let me." Remus finished, reaching forward and deactivating the man's fastenings, before catching him before he hit the floor. "This isn't romance bud, don't think of it as an embrace."
In spite of his pain, the pilot managed to chuckle. The side of his helmet had been caved in, and quite possibly fractured the skull beneath; he was extremely lucky to be alive. That he had managed to stay conscious enough to crash-land the shuttle as well was a minor miracle.
“I'm not in the mood for love right now, trooper.” he joked through gritted teeth. “My head hurts like a frakking bastard. Please tell me you've got Sapphira with you.”
“What's going on?” coughed a gruff voice from the floor. Interrogator Schafer was coming to, wiping the blood from his eyes and fumbling with his restraint straps. Perhaps it was the sudden burst of vox chatter across the team's microbeads that was galvanising him.
“Kally?” a familiar voice barked, “What the fok is happening down there?” There was a series of static cracks, and then the voice came again. “Vizkop? Are you hearing me?” Crack! Crack! “What do you see man? Tell me what you see!”
“Where are the others?” Schafer demanded, forcing himself to stand by sheer willpower.
“Pursuing Noyer.” Marc answered, as he came running down the central corridor towards the cockpit. “The lander went down further east.”
“Where's your transport?”
“Outside. We commandeered an Arvus.”
“Well don't just bloody stand there!” Schafer barked at his agents. “We've got a team under fire, and a traitor to bring in!”
+ + + + + +
Vizkop dashed as well as he could up the drift to the servitor’s position and passed it, his blade slashing through the servitor’s leg in order to cripple it and moved on.
The servitor Vizkop had hit, its sensor-studded face disturbingly blank behind its sealed bowl helmet, fell from its vantage point and tumbled down the inside of the crater. The snub-nosed bolter spun away out of its steel-gloved hands, and it began bleating a distress code from a vox unit mounted on the chest of its pressure suit. It skidded to a stop and began to scan around dumbly for its weapon, still emitting bursts of error static.
Vizkop splashed into a puddle of melt water as he made it to the crash site. Smoke was pouring from the lander and the area stank of leaking fuel. Vizkop started to wonder if anyone had lived through it. His blade slid back into hiding and he drew his revolver from his hip, keeping it ready as he moved forward. He scanned the site for signs of tracks leading away or signs of movement from the crashed ship. There were none, just the other two servitors shrilling error codes as they turned guns on him whose ammunition would not arm at such a short distance.
+ + + + + +
"Come on guys, come on. . ."
Kally scanned the outer hull of the lander for potential access points. She thought of Vincent and reflected that it was times like this that she wished she carried krak grenades around with her 'just in case', like the crazily-prepared ex-Guardsman did.
The hard landing had broken the lander's back, and the hull was split in several places. More than one of those rents in the hull plating was venting smoke or plasma gas. Between and beneath the glowing-hot engine cowlings was the rear access ramp, its integrity compromised by the way the lander had buckled upon hitting the ground.
+ + + + + +
“...Repeat, this is group captain Conrad Noyer, Vitaris explorator mission, with vital intelligence for governor Faroven. My lander came under attack and has crashed at co-ordinates 7-4-6-2 by 1-9-9-4 west of the capital. I need immediate assistance.”
Group captain Noyer, unshaven and now wearing a hastily-donned survival suit over his flight fatigues, gave up and slammed the vox-caster back against its housing. Whatever else the crash had wrecked, the vox's machine spirit had well and truly fled its mechanical shell.
He was interrupted by a bleeped warning tone from the cockpit dashboard. One of the lander's slave-linked servitors was broadcasting an error message. As Noyer watched, the second servitor's icon began to do the same, and then the third. The gun-servitors were perimeter defence models designed to protect the explorators' landing site, and they carried boltguns with standard self-propelled rounds rather than the kicker-charge-augmented rounds used by close quarter forces like the holy astartes. Good for recoil, and fine when you could expect to see your target coming from a long way off; made vulnerable by the ten-metre minimum range that the bolts required to accelerate, and by a mass-reactive detonator which, unlike the close-quarters variant, had to travel a similar safety margin before arming. Noyer knew these things, even though most of them were jealously-guarded secrets of the mechanicus and not shared with the wider Imperium.
The servitors were transmitting error codes, attempting to track and engage targets that had fallen below the minimum range of their weapons. That could mean only one thing: the hostiles were right outside the lander.
Noyer chewed the inside of his cheek, and snatched his gun belt from the blood-spattered copilot's chair. He would have to deal with the inquisition aggressors himself. It was the only option left.
kardar233
03-14-2013, 02:39 AM
"Bloody hell."
Lia was unreasonably pleased with herself when she heard the tall man's understated exclamation. She hoped she had made a good impression with the team; she knew it was important for people like herself to be on good terms with the rest.
She ambled unsteadily towards the shuttle hatch, where through blurry eyes she saw two men being led out of the crashed shuttle. "Oh look, the people inside made it." she managed to haltingly say. She gave a wan smile and waved shakily at them. "Hi, people inside!"
Then she pitched face-first into a snowdrift.
DoughGuy
03-14-2013, 03:04 AM
John made it safely into the 10 m perimeter before the servitors could account for his fireball. Mentally he dismissed the second fireball now it was no longer needed. Spotting Kally dealing with the lander and knowing he'd be less useful around her he walked over to the 2 remaining servitors and turned their heads into steam with 2 quick shots from his plasma pistol. While it was tempting to leave them active in case Noyer ran they needed him alive.
That done he circled around the lander, moving to the opposite side Kally was on. There he waited, looking for movement along the ruined hull. Kally would doubtless enter the lander and if Noyer tried to run away John would be waiting on the other side for him. At the first sound of fighting though he would carve a hole in the side of the lander with his power, or simply use of the rents in the side, and rush in to help out.
PaintSerf
03-14-2013, 07:58 AM
“I'm not in the mood for love right now, trooper.” he joked through gritted teeth. “My head hurts like a frakking bastard. Please tell me you've got Sapphira with you.”
“Of course I’m here, Arval, and I’ll be with you shortly.” Sapphira called out as she moved into the cabin, and frowned slightly as she noted the pilot’s condition. For a moment she wondered how the man was still conscious, and joking, to say nothing of controlling a shuttle crash. Go. She mentally commanded the servo skull forward while she closed in on the interrogator. The skull grinned and seemed to nod as it bobbed forward with the low whine of its anti-gravity plate. When it neared a soft blue light shot out from an array to sweep over the pilot.
“He’s just running a diagnostic on you, Arval. That’ll be helpful when I can get you,” She tried to reassure anyone when the servo skull went about his business. Some patients were, quite naturally, perturbed by the potent symbol of mortality when injured. “But right now I need to check on how Javid’s doing. You just hang in there, and lean on Julianus until we get to the Arvus, alright?”
Sapphira gently scooted around Marcus in the tight confines of the cabin to reach their leader. The man had fought his way out of the gravity couch and stood. Javid looked unsteady, which was to be expected with his apparent head injury. True to form he was already trying to harangue Marcus for information. His interrogators are always the same. That was a positive sign, all things considered, but it really was the last thing Javid needed to be doing. She needed to get him to calm down and get back to the Arvus for further evaluation.
“Well don't just bloody stand there! We've got a team under fire, and a traitor to bring in!”
“You need to stop yelling, Javid, right now.” Sapphira flatly ordered as she moved in and supported the Interrogator. She pulled him against herself and looped one of his arms over her shoulder. Nothing about her grip or tone suggested it was up for debate – rank be damned. Gently yet insistently she started to goad the man towards the exit and into the storm. Occasionally she looked back at her other patient to see how they were managing.
"Oh look, the people inside made it." Lia managed to haltingly say. She gave a wan smile and waved shakily at them. "Hi, people inside!" Then she pitched face-first into a snowdrift.
“Someone help Lia up, please?” Sapphira asked as she and the interrogator passed the sprawled out child, sparing her a glance with slightly narrowed eyes. The girl had a prodigious psychic ability, and showed by halting the shuttle. That one is dangerous. She half supported and half restrained Javid as they went to the Arvus.
“She does not use her powers anytime soon.”
Felwether
03-14-2013, 04:34 PM
Vincent threw himself over the edge of the ridge as Shere loosed his second fireball, he half expected the psyker to explode in a shower of gore at any moment and it was a happy coincidence that this was his opportunity to put some distance between them, even if it meant charging off towards a group of bolter armed servitors.
Vincent slid feet first down the steep incline using his heavy boots to guide his descent. He hit level ground hard and found himself knee deep in freezing snow, his fatigues were already soaked with ice water and exposure to the freezing cold wind made his skin feel like it was physically burning. He gritted his teeth and began to lope off into the snow field.
Vincent would be the first to admit that he wasn’t exactly light on his feet and he struggled in the deep snow, employing a combination of brute strength and a clumsy hopping technique to navigate the terrain, watching as the others disappeared ahead of him into the blizzard.
The wall of snow ahead of him began to glow orange as he closed on the lander and he drew his pistol with his organic hand in anticipation of conflict to come. The snow began to give way to loose earth and rocks as he began to ascend the slope of the shuttle’s impact crater. He heard the sounds of fighting in the distance though in the white-out he couldn’t quite tell which direction it was coming from. Then, silhouetted against the crackling fires dotted around the downed voidcraft, came the unmistakable shape of a guard Servitor.
The hulking creature had turned away from the snow field, obviously distracted by whatever was happening in the crater. Vincent was only feet away from it and he used its distraction to his advantage, he snapped of a pair of poorly placed shots, striking it in the shoulder the back. The servitor let out a blurt of static, possibly as a warning and turned jerkily to bring its bolter to bear. Vincent ducked as one of its massive arms came swinging around to intercept him before coming up with a bone shattering swing from his augmetic arm. The haymaker had Vincent’s full momentum behind it as well as the power of the arm itself and it connected with catastrophic force, shattering the servitor’s domed helmet and setting it off balance. Vincent felt his heart pounding in his ears, gone were the thoughts of a subtle flanking manoeuver or concerns for his or the others’ safety.
The killer in him came to fore, the promise of violence washing over him like a wave. He didn’t break his stride, he leapt on the brute like a wild animal and they both tumbled into the crater. Vincent landed astride it with a grunt and immediately began to hammer blows into the servitor’s head, cracking its armoured mask and shattering ocular implants effectively blinding it. The raw power of his new arm was intoxicating. The servitor sat up in an attempt to free itself, easily lifting Vincent’s weight but he was stuck fast, tearing at its face mask with his armoured gauntlet in an attempt to reach the organic parts inside, the look of grim determination etched into his mutilated features would have chilled most men to their core. The creature screamed as his chisel like fingers found purchase in an eye socket and Vincent was sprayed in a gout of black hydraulic fluid as he effectively pulled its head apart. It slumped back and twitched, and Vincent smashed his fist into its exposed brain to ensure the kill.
His peripheral vision swam back to him and he became aware of Vizkop fighting nearby. His breath caught in his chest as he spotted the third, thus far undamaged servitor, sluggishly moving to train its bolter on him. Panting with exertion, his old knees aching with the effort, Vincent sprang to his feet, half falling into cover behind a piece of wreckage as the man machine opened fire.
Surprise had been the key factor in dealing with his last opponent, which now lay in an ever expanding pool of viscous black liquid a few feet away and, equipped as he was, he doubted if he would be so successful with a second without getting the drop on it. Vincent muttered something harsh and guttural in his native tongue as a fusillade of bolts thudded against the chunk of fuselage he was huddled behind. Fortunately the servitors had been equipped with Stalker rounds designed for long ranged combat making them far less effective close up, though a good hit could still tear through and unarmoured human.
Vincent was beginning to think his time was up when there was a flash. The pyrokine had appeared through the blizzard and fired off a shot from a fokken plasma pistol of all things. A little bit unreliable for his taste but he had to admit it got the job done. His assailant went down instantly; its head vaporised by a blast of super heated gas.
Vincent let out a loud cackle as the smell of melted flesh filled his nostrils - he had never been so happy to see a psyker in his life.
dakkagor
03-14-2013, 07:10 PM
Soundtrack (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToOa6M9zaPE)
Kally looked round at the distinctive explosive hiss of a plasma stream hitting soft tissue. It seemed to have come from her left.
John made it then, atleast.
"I'm going in after him! Cover the exits!" she shouted in his direction, before sprinting to the back of the lander.
She got round the back and assessed the damage. The door was badly crumpled against the super structure, which had warped from the impact. She stepped up to the emergency release handle and pulled on it with all her might, letting go only as the heat from the distressed metal began to bleed through the body glove and burn her fingers.
"Gak me, its never easy."
She stepped back and racked the slide of the bolter, looking at the door again. She switched the fire selector to the single clip of hellfire rounds, and then switched off her limiter. Taking a knee and aiming carefully, she put a brace of neat shots into each joint and lock on the damaged door. The acid from the explosive bolts quickly melted through the metal and the door fell open with a thunderous clang against the bare scraped rock.
She slung the bolter and swapped to a steel burner laspistol and stepped inside. Warning lights where flashing inside, and equipment was strewn across the deck. Cables dangled like spilled guts from the walls where equipment had fatally failed. She pried open the inner airlock door and stepped into the corridor proper. Kally quickly examined her surroundings, taking stock and filtering out the noises she could ignore. She stepped round a hatch that seemed to have once led to a lower deck and cargo hold, half of which was now smeared across the mountain outside. The other half had compacted together under the ship, probably acting as a cushion to spare it more damage. Another hatch above her hung open, with black smoke and fumes leaking out of it. That probably led to the engines, which looked pretty frakked from the outside. She doubted her mark would be be hiding up there getting a plasma tan.
She came to the first bulkhead and found the manual handle. With a grunt of effort she ground the heavy door half way open. Looking round the door the corridor beyond seemed empty. She squeezed through the gap and quickly scanned the rooms beyond. The armoury looked promising. This door at least worked without requiring her to work a manual lever. She stepped inside, looking over the racks.
Most of the weapons seem to still be here. They can't have got into a fire fight with whatever is out on that world. Ammo looks largely untouched too.
The underhiver in her kicked in. She knew she was under equipped for this little jaunt, she hadn't had time (or really thought she would need) to get any manacles, and hey, loot was loot. They even had some bolt shells in the right calibre for her scourge, probably for the defences outside. And some krak grenades. She even scooped up a replacement comm bead, which she quickly tuned to the right frequency and popped back into her ear.
She looked up from her looting as she heard the bulkhead doors open. Someone was moving down the corridor outside. She raised her laspistol and stepped to the door, listening. Heavy, booted footsteps. A male voice cursing under his breath.
Noyer.
The footsteps stopped. It occurred to her that he could probably see all the way out the back of the ship, thanks to her efforts to open the door.
He knows I'm inside. He'll either stand or flee. Don't give him the choice.
She slid back the door as quietly as she could. No gunshot, no explosion. She swung round the corner, pistol in hand, safety off.
The corridor was empty.
'What the Frak?'
There was a loud bang, far too close. It felt like taking a kick to her upper back and she was knocked off her feet by the impact, sent sprawling forward into the corridor. She kept a grip on her laspistol as she thumped into the deck hard.
Oh Holy Hell, I've been shot. That sucks.
She lay still, assessing the damage. It normally hurt a lot more than this, and the point of impact felt like her spine. She realised what had happened. Noyer had got behind her, but the rigid armour plas on that part of the bodyglove had soaked the shot almost entirely, distributing the impact across her back rather than letting the bullet punch through and kill or paralyse her. He must be using a fairly weak gun, probably just a standard issue sidearm. She could feel blood trickling down her back from the injury, but it didn't seem anything more than superficial.
He stepped closer, then over her, as she thought it through at lightning speed. What next, a shot to the head to make sure of the kill, or getting closer to make sure of the deed? How well did they train navy pilots?
Noyer hooked a boot under her sprawled out right arm, and kicked the laspistol out of her reach. Then he rolled her over with the tip of his boot.
Her left arm, as he did, snatched her other laspistol from its holster. As she rolled onto her back the pistol came up in one smooth, practised motion perfected through years of gunfights, centring on his surprised, unshaven and haggard face.
"Noyer." She smiled. He began to bring his pistol round. She breathed out, tapping into the mental exercises she had been drilled on. Her pariah nature washed over him and he stumbled back, the pistol dropping again as the feeling of uncleanness and unnatural horror washed over him, unmanning him.
She jumped to her feet, striking out with her left hand as he shook it off. She managed to lock her left hand around his wrist as he pulled the trigger again on reflex, the shot ricocheting down the corridor. She tried to get her laspistol under his chin but his left hand locked around her wrist, forcing her arm to point at the ceiling, where another wild shot scored the low ceiling. He was stronger, heavier, and had a height advantage.
But Kally was the better fighter, and was faster. And she wasn't afraid to fight dirty. She dropped her laspistol, as if he had forced it out of her hand, and he kicked it away, but that was just a ruse to draw his attention. She surged forwards, slamming her forehead into the bridge of his nose, stunning him and making him let go of her immobilised hand. She grabbed his arm, the one that was holding the pistol, and then put her shoulder into his chest before pulling on the arm. He was heavy but Kally completed the throw, slamming him into the deck hard enough to wind him and make him drop the heavy navy revolver he had previously had in a death grip. She didn't waste any time, rolling him over onto his face and crouching on top of his lower back as she forced his right arm painfully behind him. He began to struggle, so she took the opportunity to twist his arm until he cried out in pain.
"That's for shooting me in the back, you frakker."
She fished out the manacles she had retrieved and quickly locked his arms behind him. Standing up and deeply satisfied with her work, she rested a boot on him to make sure he wasn't going anywhere, and activated her newly acquired vox.
"Kally to team, managed to scav up a new vox. Oh, and I've caught Noyer."
Now thats more like it, she thought proudly. I still got it.
Atrum Daemon
03-14-2013, 09:35 PM
Soundtrack for temporal shifts (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abjE9Qx0O60)
“I’m going in after him! Cover the exits!”
Vizkop was moving for the ship when he heard Agent Sondar’s shout. He nodded to himself. She could go after Noyer. He was not fully interested in Noyer, especially if he was still on the ship. Vizkop was more interested in finding out what, if anything, Noyer had brought back with him. He peripheral sensors began to alert him to the presence of another servitor training a target laser on him. Vizkop’s heavy revolver barked once, the heavy slug speeding into the servitor’s brain case. The revolver was designed for, as the gunsmith who had made the weapon had put it in his vernacular, “cyborg hunting” and able to punch through heavy armor easy; especially when it was loaded with the heavy rounds Vizkop had an affinity for. The servitor fired just as the bullet annihilated its skull, the bolt shell flying wide and bursting among a snow bank.
He spun the power glaive to deflect Mikera’s attack. The shining blade knocked her swords aside and he sprang forward, forcing his shoulder against Mikera to push her back. Once on her back foot, he brought the glaive around in a deadly arc and cut a deep gouge into the traitor’s battle armor. He had misjudged the distance slightly. Mikera struck again, the scissor strike of her glittering blades threatening to bisect her would-be assassin. He took the chance and surged into her strike, closing the distance seconds before her arms came together and slammed his head into her face.
Vizkop found the entrance Kally had made. As he stepped inside, his helmet switched from thermal to low-light. The emergency lights provided some illumination, but Vizkop needed to be aware in case there was some unseen xenos threat waiting in the darkness ahead. Taking a breath to calm his nerves, Vizkop stepped into the lander and began his own exploration.
“You’ve seen what we’re capable of, Kyne! Or whatever your name really is,” Mikera hissed, snorting blood from her shattered nose onto the metal beneath their feet. “What true servants of the Omnissiah are capable of when all restrictions are lifted!”
“And it has only served to strengthen the convictions I have.”
Mikera snarled and sprung at him again, her blades stabbing deep into the hull of the battle engine as he evaded her strike. He made a bid to decapitate the mad woman, bringing the glaive down sharply. Mikera’s augmented reflexes saved her as she ripped one of her swords free to stop the oncoming blow and kicked the assassin’s legs out from under him. She leapt atop him, pinning him in place by driving one power sword through his shoulder, the blade sinking into the hull again. With her other sword in a two-handed grip, she prepared to jam it through his face. She hesitated when the click of a hammer reached her ears. The assassin’s gun went off, sending the armor-piercing round through her torso. Mikera jerked backward off of him, but managed to remain standing. She held her bleeding side and snarled again, trying to raise her sword arm and failing. His eyes and hers met for a long moment after he pulled out the power sword and stood up.
Mikera toppled backward, falling off of the collapsed battle engine to the desert below. When she fell, he sank to his knees and allowed all the pain to wash over him finally.
“Kally to team, managed to scav up a new vox. Oh, and I’ve caught Noyer.”
Vizkop paused in his examining of some of the damage to the ship when heard the news. He thought for a moment about ignoring her and continuing his own looking. But, he was getting nowhere fast. Noyer had answers. And he would talk. One way or another. “Acknowledged, Agent Sondar. I’m in the lander and heading to you now.”
Vizkop took off down the torn up corridor, using Kally’s vox signal to track her down.
Azazeal849
03-14-2013, 11:06 PM
“Someone help Lia up, please?” Sapphira asked as she and the interrogator passed the sprawled out child, sparing her a glance with slightly narrowed eyes. The girl had a prodigious psychic ability, and showed by halting the shuttle. That one is dangerous. She half supported and half restrained Javid as they went to the Arvus.
“She does not use her powers anytime soon.”
Schafer grunted, cuffing more blood from his face and turning his creased eyes towards the fallen Lia. He was all too aware of how dangerous it was for psykers to overstretch themselves.
“Black.” he growled. “Take the psyker in. Watch her.”
Marc looked from the interrogator to Lia, still lying in the snow. “Yes sir.” he said after a moment.
He wasn't experienced in working as a handler for psykers; there hadn't been any of them in the Makita Hive Enforcers, and he hadn't been given direct responsibility for one since joining the inquisition. He knew most of the theory on the subject, but theory and practice were two very different things. As such, it was slightly gingerly that he approached the psyker and scooped her up in his arms before carrying her back to the Arvus. She looked obscenely harmless.
An astropath would be lower maintenance. he thought to himself wryly.
+ + + + + +
Vizkop took off down the torn up corridor, using Kally’s vox signal to track her down. Outside, he heard the shrieking whine of the second Arvus landing somewhere nearby.
A much closer noise, a soft scraping sound, made him snap round towards the sleeping quarters on his right. A gloved hand had suddenly appeared past the doorframe, and dragged forward the head and shoulders of a body clad in a battered red exo-suit. The body dragged itself further out into the corridor with a whine of misfiring augmetics, and only then did it turn its bare head upwards and see Vizkop.
The body was a man; a man with a bony face rendered almost skeletal by his unnatural pallor and tightly-drawn skin. His breathing was so shallow as to be inaudible. His lips were dry and chapped, and his eyes were sunken in his skull. Those eyes rolled weakly upwards and fell across the mechanicus iconography on Vizkop's robe.
“Help...me...” the man gasped, and collapsed onto the deck.
Atrum Daemon
03-16-2013, 04:49 PM
Vizkop paused in his movement when he caught the sound of a second Arvus touching down outside. Assistance? The lander could be carrying the rest of the team. It could also be carrying assistance for Noyer. He drew the revolver again as the sound of the Arvus died down. The silence of the ship only broken by a slowly dying emergency signal, Vizkop started walking again.
A scraping sound made him spin and point his revolver at the shadowed doorway of the sleeping quarters. He nearly shot into the darkness when the hand grasped at the door frame. He lowered the gun slightly when the exo-suit clad person pulled itself through the door.
The body was a man; a man with a bony face rendered almost skeletal by his unnatural pallor and tightly-drawn skin. His breathing was so shallow as to be inaudible. His lips were dry and chapped, and his eyes were sunken in his skull. Those eyes rolled weakly upwards and fell across the mechanicus iconography on Vizkop’s robe.
“Help…me…” the man gasped, and collapsed on the deck.
“You’ve had a terrible time of it haven’t you?”
They were alone again. She was sitting by his bedside in his room on the ship. A few days had passed since he watched Mikera fall from the engine. It was so comforting to hear her voice again. He was too tired to talk. He only nodded. She smiled at him. It was not the false smile she wore on the job or when talking to their superiors. The smile was genuine. A smile she had only for him.
Vizkop holstered his revolver and knelt down. He guessed the man was part of the team Noyer had been in charge of. He could still hear the faint sounds of breath from the man. Vizkop hoisted the man over his shoulders and stood up. There was the risk that the man might have had contact with some alien force, but Vizkop was not going to kill him on that possibility alone.
“Vizkop to team,” he said through the vox, “I’ve found another survivor. Still en route to Agent Sondar’s location.”
With the man across his shoulders, he continued through the ship until he tracked Sondar to her location with Noyer. “Found someone else,” Vizkop said to her.
dakkagor
03-16-2013, 11:41 PM
“Vizkop to team,” “I’ve found another survivor. Still en route to Agent Sondar’s location.”
"Still here and secure Vizkop, take your time."
Kally had heard the other lander come in. She wasn't an expert at identifying landers by engine noise, and for all she knew Noyer had managed to summon help from the Palace.
Sapphira reached into her bag, and pulled out another syringe. She swabbed Kally's right wrist and she looked away.
“Problem?”
“Hate needles.”
“Ah. That’s perfectly understandable, and you're in good company. We've got some hard cases onboard that wouldn't flinch from a heretic’s bayonet, but come near them with a needle?”
She flicked a syringe out of her survival pack on her belt and jabbed it into Noyers shoulder through his flight suit. A dose of Kalma, standard procedure for containing prisoners and keeping them docile and compliant in a hostile environment. Once it took effect she could shove a pistol into his hands and uncuff him and he would still follow Kally around like a lost puppy. She felt Noyer relax under her, and she took her boot off him. Reaching back into the survival pack she picked out a pack of local manufacture Lho sticks (Emperor brand) and lit one up, sorting through the events of the fire fight and what had happened so far. If Schafer survived he would want a proper debriefing and it helped to get her thoughts in order now.
With the man across his shoulders, he continued through the ship until he tracked Sondar to her location with Noyer. “Found someone else,” Vizkop said to her.
"So I heard" she nodded to the Adept. "Noyer isn't going anywhere for the moment, he's restrained and drugged." She stooped and recovered the pair of laspistols she had dropped, stowing them in their holsters. "What's the story with red?" she said, gesturing to the body slung over Vizkops shoulder. "He looks like a cog boy, sorry, Tech Priest."
She shrugged her shoulders. "Bad habit, don't mean any disrespect by it."
She paused for a second, not sure what to say. She knew next to nothing about Vizkop, and in truth with the fighting apparently over she just wanted to go back to the apartment and have Sapphira dig bits of bullet and armour plas out of her back. There was a dull pain there now the adrenaline had worn off that spoke of fresh scars to come.
"If you collar is good to move, we should probably get clear of this shuttle before it explodes."
DoughGuy
03-16-2013, 11:57 PM
John heard the second shuttle moving in and moved into the shadows of the downed shuttle. Now that Noyer and the servitors were taken care of the shuttle shouldn't have any more surprises. He walked around the wreck until he could see the second shuttle coming in for a landing. He aimed hist pistol at the bay door's, ready to fire if the occupants were reinforcements for Noyer. He decided against a psychic message, not wanting tip anyone off. Regardless their identity should be known soon enough. Crouching down in the snow he waited.
PaintSerf
03-18-2013, 08:29 AM
“Black. Take the psyker in. Watch her.”
Sapphira nodded in approval at the interrogator’s directive as she helped the man out of the blizzard and into the relative warmth of the Arvus. The order had been terse; in the manner Javid preferred to issue them, but spoken clearly without slurring. It had also been prudent given what Lia had just done, but in her opinion it was an order that should have been given from the start of their mission. However those opinions were irrelevant right now, so Sapphira shelved them and helped the interrogator ease his way into a seat.
But the manner of how Javid presented his order was a positive sign, considering his definite head injury and probable concussion. She had noted his difficultly walking, even with her assistance, but then again they were out in the middle of a snow drift while in a blizzard… and he’d just come from an almost catastrophic shuttle crash. Once they were in a more suitable location he was in for a comprehensive evaluation. For now he’d just have to sit this out as the team did what they were trained to do.
“Julianus,” Sapphira called out to catch the soldier’s attention, and she spared him a glance as she secured the restrain belts on the interrogator, “Please secure him in the chair next to Javid.” The look shifted over to the pilot and she smiled reassuringly while peeled off and tossed aside her gloves. “I’ll be right over in a moment, Arval. Just hang in there.”
While the Arvus took off Sapphira knelt down in front of her patients and opened up her narthecium kit. She quickly pulled out a gauze bandage and passed it up so Schafer while she dug out her data-slate. With Javid taken care of, at least for the time being, Sapphira summoned over her assistant and synced it to the data-slate. The notation document she’d been working on earlier in the morning was immediately superseded by the diagnostic readout on Clement. Her eye narrowed while she reviewed what it had to say about the man’s condition. After a moment she canceled the screen and set the device down.
“It might not feel like it, Arval, but you’ve been blessed,” Sapphira commented as she peeled off her heated gloves before she produced a water flask and two tablets of strong painkillers from her kit. She offered him both items and assisted him with the consumption process. “You’re whole except for that nasty scalp laceration. Just don’t think I’ll clear you for flight anytime soon.”
"Kally to team, managed to scav up a new vox. Oh, and I've caught Noyer."
“Please remain calm, Javid. For your own wellbeing.” Sapphira immediately counseled the interrogator, which she emphasized with a meaningful look, as the news crackled over the vox. While her attention was on Schafer she re-tasked the medical drone to do a diagnostic scan on him. Unlike the pilot he hadn’t had the benefit of a helmet when he whacked his head. The servo skull burbled an affirmative code and methodically swept the interrogator up and down with blue light.
“Vizkop to team, I’ve found another survivor. Still en route to Agent Sondar’s location.”
“This is Hospitaller Sapphira,” she quickly replied, making sure to define her role for the most recent addition to their team, as the Arvus began to descend once again, “We’ve just touched down at your location. What’s the survivor's condition?”
Azazeal849
03-18-2013, 02:30 PM
"Please remain calm, Javid. For your own wellbeing."
Schafer was frowning, as he usually did when Sapphira addressed him by his first name in front of other inquisition personnel, though in this case it was the product of the vox-bead nestled in his ear, which he had been pressing one finger against and listening to intently.
"I can rest when some heretic finally succeeds in putting me down, Sister." he grunted, waving away the sevo skull as it finished its diagnostic. "Until then..."
"Vizkop to team, I've found another survivor. Still en route to agent Sonder's location.
"This is Hospitaller Sapphira. We've just touched down at your location. What's the survivor's condition?"
Behind her, Schafer popped the restraints on his chair and rose purposefully to his feet. He manoeuvred past Sapphira before she could stop him and stepped out of the landed Arvus as soon as their pilot dropped the ramp.
John aimed his pistol at the bay doors, ready to fire if the occupants were reinforcements for Noyer.
"Hold your fire psyker, it's us." Schafer called as he stepped down the ramp, his hands resting on his own sidearms holstered either side of his waist. One was a laspistol and the other a solid-slug automag; a somewhat extreme pragmatist, Schafer liked to carry one of each type of weapon just in case one proved ineffective against whatever tentacle-flailing alien was causing the latest round of heresy on his watch. Leaving Marc in the shuttle with Lia, Clement and their still-grumbling Venatoran pilot, Schafer forged his way through the snow towards the crashed lander.
"Nyl." the interrogator barked as he spotted Vincent, who stood in the shadow of the lander still grinning a murderer's smile over the dead servitors. "Go get L'Hoace, we'll need him to identify any potentially dangerous xenotech that Noyer might have brought back with him."
+ + + + + +
Back in the first Arvus, Fredriq and the pilot sat and listened to the muffled sound of the wind through the now-sealed hull of the flyer. The subdued roar drowned out the whistle of the idling jet turbines, which the pilot was keeping active to prevent the promethium lines from freezing. The pilot turned to look at Fredriq again as the team's chatter rustled through the tuned-in vox caster resting on her dashboard.
"I think they need you over there." she said to the xenologist, before undoing her chinstrap and pulling off her visored helmet. Underneath it was a comely woman in her early middle ages, although strangely she had shaved all of the tawny hair away from her pale scalp. Even her eyebrows and eyelashes were missing, and the overall effect was somewhat surreal. She clearly didn't think anything of it as she added, "Um...is there anything I can do to help? Or do you just want me to stay here and keep the engines running?"
+ + + + + +
"Get a perimeter set up." Schafer told his squad as they filed up the rear ramp Kally had opened and stepped out of the blizzard into the cramped confines of the lander. Beyond the open inner airlock the interior was dark, and Schafer flicked on a lamp pack as he stepped through. A thin haze of smoke had leaked into the main corridor from the burning engines, and scattered the torch beam as Schafer directed it into each of the side modules in turn. The exo-suit prepping room was empty, as was the servitor cryo-storage, but the sleeping quarters that the second survivor had crawled from contained three corpses. They were pale, and stiff from rigor mortis. Dried streaks of blood on the floor suggested that the unfortunate three had been dragged into the sleeping quarters and simply dumped there. Schafer hissed through his teeth at the sight of them.
"Three bodies." he pointed for the agents following behind, and then turned as the isolation bulkhead in front of him opened to reveal Kally and Vizkop on their way out of the lander with their respective burdens. Schafer's eyes went immediately to Noyer, who was stumbling ahead of Kally in a drugged haze.
"I heard everything over the vox." Schafer growled. "Well done on apprehending the heretic." He turned to Kally, a warning look on his face. "But Sonder, I swear to the Emperor - if you ever go charging in on your own like that again I'll have you censured."
dakkagor
03-19-2013, 10:53 AM
"Come on you, up."
She nudged Noyer with the tip of her boot and started to march him out of the shuttle. It sounded like Schafer was intact from the shuttle. As she walked Noyer out she ran into Schafer coming in.
"I heard everything over the vox." Schafer growled. "Well done on apprehending the heretic." He turned to Kally, a warning look on his face. "But Sonder, I swear to the Emperor - if you ever go charging in on your own like that again I'll have you censured."
Her laspistol, trained on Noyers back, dropped in surprise. For a second she stared dumbfound at Schafer. What the hell was she here for, if not pulling in people on her own when required?
"Interrogator, with all due respect, I made a call based on the situation on the ground. The conditions outside made it pretty gakking difficult to coordinate a simultaneous breach, and I didn't want the perp to get away from us. If he had made it into the snowstorm he could have died out there and we would never have found him. I deemed it an acceptable risk."
She kept her voice and tone as level as she could, trying to sound professional and clinical, detached. She knew Schafer was just doing his job, and he had every right to chew her out (hell, he had every right to shoot her on the spot as far as she knew.) But surely the ends justified the means this time?
Azazeal849
03-19-2013, 10:56 PM
"Get away from us?" Schafer repeated, cocking an eyebrow. "With two psykers and a tech-priest on our team? As usual, Sonder, you're not considering the skill sets of the people backing you up. The better option would have been to wait for the others, then breach."
The interrogator paused as there was a click from his microbead, as if one of the absent squad members back on the second Arvus had just activated their vox-mic to say something.
"Black?" Schafer asked tersely, putting a finger to his ear, "Say again? Is Lia awake yet?"
There was a momentary pause, as if the speaker had decided at the last minute to change what they were about to say.
"No sir." Marc's voice crackled a second later. "She's still unconscious."
Schafer took his hand away from his earpiece with an annoyed snort and turned back to Kally.
"Lone wolves get killed, agent Sonder." he said. "Pure and simple."
dakkagor
03-20-2013, 11:38 PM
"Lone wolves get killed, agent Sonder." he said. "Pure and simple."
I did fine on my own for years before the Inquisition levelled my fracking home, you jumped up nancy boy.
"Yes Sir." She responded, flatly. "I'll get the prisoner stowed for transport."
She nudged Noyer forwards, resisting the urge to take out her simmering anger on him. She kept telling herself that this was how it had to work now. Schafer was the boss and she could like it or lump it.
Wrong words. She could put up with it, or lump it. Like hell would she like it.
She guided Noyer to the lander her team had flown in on. Time to wrap this up.
Jarms48
03-20-2013, 11:58 PM
“Someone help Lia up, please?”
"Hah." Julianus snorted as he put the injured Clement down against the bulkhead.
"Yeah, point me to the nearest crew locker, maybe I can find some spare shoes, put a pair of boots on her while the little witch is knocked out, she's a damned fool not wearing something without tread out here and not to mention the risk of frostbite." He scorned, Julianus was the type to not fully grasp the capacity of those cursed with the powers of the warp. "I don't suppose we have a fire blanket or something on board, keep her warm I suppose, I don't know if she can sustain whatever warp magic she's using to keep herself from freezing in a state like that."
“Julianus,” the storm trooper gave Sapphira a glance. “Please secure him in the chair next to Javid.”
"Yeah, yeah, as you request sister Sapphira." He returned, a sigh escaping his lips as he leaned over, drawing his hands under the arms and hoisted him up. Julianus shook his head, slowly guiding the pilot back into the cockpit and helped him back into his chair. "What the lady wants she gets, hah? You'll be fine Clement, I'm sure you've heard the stories of the Sister Hospitaller."
* * * * *
"Get a perimeter set up."
"Yes Interrogator." Julianus confirmed, giving the man a nod as he began circling the crashed lander, weapon raised guiding across anything he deemed out of place or significant importance. Though between the debris scattered everywhere, the light of dieing flames and the frost that continued to bite at his armour kit, he couldn't find anything that stood out in particular. He came full circle, taking position at the bottom of the shuttles ramp as he waited for the team to finish whatever in the warp they were doing.
* * * * *
He heard boots fall back down the metal of the access, his head turning to catch the sight of Kally escorting a man he assumed was their target.
"Want a hand with that?" He offered, a grin soon growing across his face as he remembered the look she had given him back at the port. "Or would you prefer I just trail behind you?" Thank the Emperor his expression was masked by his rebreather, though his tone was dripping in sarcasm.
Atrum Daemon
03-21-2013, 05:36 AM
“This is Hospitaller Saphira.”
Vizkop did not need to hear more. He sped up his stride a bit to get ahead of Kally. His burden was alive, he knew that. But, he did not know for how much longer he would last. “Survivor is unconscious,” Vizkop said, “possibly in need of serious attention.”
Vizkop gave an acknowledging nod to Schafer as he chewed out Kally and headed toward the Sister Hospitaller. Vizkop carefully lay his burden down inside the lander.
She was wearing a dress. He always thought she wore dresses well. He would never say it to her face, though. For all the fearlessness he showed, talking to her was a near insurmountable obstacle to him. They were attending some party to gather information on the world’s aristocratic circles. Schmoozing with such people was not so much difficult as it was insufferable. But being with her made it easy. Maybe he would be able to suck it up and talk to her this time around.
He remained crouched near the unconscious body. He was ready to spring into action should the body suddenly rise and become hostile.
PaintSerf
03-21-2013, 08:04 AM
"I can rest when some heretic finally succeeds in putting me down, Sister." he grunted, waving away the servo skull as it finished its diagnostic. "Until then..."
This time it was Sapphira’s turn to frown as Schafer brushed past the drone, which made a hard noted bleep as it moved back, and powered out of the Arvus. It wasn’t merely Javid’s personal wellbeing that she was concerned about. He was their leader, and if his health were impaired than that could compromise their mission. She’d have to hunt him down later for further observation, and voice her concerns in private, as it wouldn’t do to undermine his authority like that in front of the others.
“Survivor is unconscious, possibly in need of serious attention.”
Sapphira merely shook her head, made an affirmative vox blip, and put aside any thoughts of Javid. There was no time for that with Arval bleeding and another inbound patient. She crouched to rifle through her kit for supplies. From her satchel she produced a wad of anti-hemorrhagic infused gauze and a bandage. Both of them were tossed up onto Javid’s abandoned seat and Sapphira rose to stand in front of the pilot while she pulled on latex surgical gloves. With a mental command the servo-skull decreased height and collected some of the gauze with his manipulator pincers. He moved around behind her and patiently waited for the next step.
“The helmet’s coming off now, Arval.” Sapphira cautioned just before she gently eased the cloven headgear off the pilot’s head and rested it in his lap. For a brief moment she could see the nasty laceration, which would undoubtedly leave an impressive scar despite even her best needlework, before the drone moved forward to cover the area in gauze. She reached over for the bandage and quickly unwound it, taking note of the sticker emblazoned across the helmet’s back. It cheekily read ‘Stop screaming… I’m scared too.’ With deftly practiced hands she applied pressure to the laceration and wound the bandage over it. No sooner had Sapphira finished when she heard someone enter the lander.
“Another diagnostic scan, if you please.” Sapphira immediately requested of her assistant once she saw what the other survivor was. He was one of the Martian Priesthood. She had no idea how the man was augmented, but he certainly must have been given the non-biological noises of distress. The servo-skull made his affirmative note and floated forward. While the drone worked Sapphira nodded politely to the other Mechanicus representative.
Azazeal849
03-21-2013, 10:42 PM
The scan of the second survivor told Sapphira nothing good. The man was dehydrated, had lost a significant amount of blood, and had slipped into a coma. The ultimate cause was a charred las-wound low on his chest, which had caused damage to several internal organs and was beginning to show signs of sepsis. The augmetic toxin filter in the man's abdomen had also been crippled, making his implants powerless to reverse the damage. The man needed immediate treatment, and even then Sapphira didn't rate his chances highly.
Schafer peered over the Hospitaller's shoulder at her data slate as it scrolled the servo-skull's report.
“Letting that man die isn't an option.” he said curtly. “I want to know how he survived and why Noyer didn't kill him too. Those other three in there look like they were put down very efficiently.”
The interrogator paused to gather his thoughts. The cold of the Venatoran wilderness was somehow intensifying the fire pulsing through the front of his head.
“Someone get back out to our shuttle, make sure those rescue crews aren't poking around anywhere they shouldn't be. Gather up these servitors too - if there's anything left of their wetware I want to know if they were compromised in any way. And have the rest of this lander swept for xenotech or contamination. I want to know if you find anything suspicious.”
+ + + + + +
Inquisition field HQ, Angelos starport
24 hours later
“Clean?” Schafer said, raising an eyebrow towards the gauze pad that was now taped to his right temple. “You're sure?”
“Completely clean.” Marc said. In Schafer's icy presence the ex-enforcer was falling back on old habits, standing regimentally straight with his hands clasped behind his back. “Vizkop's servitors swept the whole lander, and we went over everything again ourselves. Nothing that wasn't Imperial standard.”
It had been a hectic 24 hours. Keeping the rescue crews away from Noyer's lander had been difficult, as had deflecting the increasingly urgent inquiries from both the Aeronautica and the planetary governor himself as to just what had happened. At least here, in their designated quarters within the starport, the agents could work without interruption.
Schafer made an ambiguous grunting noise, and shunted a pair of data slates across his desk. “And what did the two prisoners have to say?”
“Farrier is stabilised, but still unconscious.” Marc replied. “And Noyer isn't talking.” He pulled a control wand from the inside pocket of his double-breasted suit jacket and clicked it towards the pict-screen on the wall. It brought up a recording that was just over an hour old, judging by the time stamp underneath the small Aquila icon in the bottom right corner. It showed a small cubical room lit by a single harsh lumoglobe, and unfurnished except for a dull metal table. On one side of it sat Marc with his ever-present PDA in his hands, while on the other Conrad Noyer was restrained in his chair by bands of black iron inlaid with a tracery of silver hexagrams. The group captain was unkempt and unshaven, but his lantern-jawed face was neutral, and his eyes seeming to stare not at Marc, but past him.
“What happened on Vitaris?” Marc was saying, the voice relayed by hidden microphones built into the table. “Why did you kill your crew?”
There was a brief silence as Noyer failed to respond, or to even acknowledge the question.
“You're not saying anything. That's fine. It's not my job to force the truth out of you. But this is your only chance to give me your version of events. You had important information, you were fired on, and you panicked. That's understandable. But you can help yourself a lot by telling me just what it was you were so anxious to tell the governor. What did you find out there?”
Again, Noyer didn't answer.
“He didn't fall for any of the usual psych tricks.” Marc said to Schafer as he paused the recording with another click of the data wand. “We...might have to move up to the next Action level.”
Schafer cursed. Getting a confession out of a heretic they already had a case against was easy. But getting reliable information out of one was shit hard. People lied, even under torture. Psychoactive drugs could make them more willing to talk, but often affected the reliability of their stories and their ability to recall them. And heretics of exceptionally strong will could sometimes resist even psychic interrogation.
“Alright.” the interrogator said, pushing his fists into the desk he was sitting behind to lever himself up. He picked up one of the data slates and began to scroll through it to remind himself who in his team was cleared for Third Action. “We could have done with explicator Strelilov on this mission.” he muttered half to himself as he read.
Schafer didn't see it, but a very dark look passed over Marc's face at the mention of the explicator's name.
“I'll go check on Lia.” he said, managing to keep his tone level as he snapped an enforcer's salute and turned to leave. He had left the recovering psyker in the care of Vincent and Kally while he unsuccessfully interrogated Noyer.
+ + + + + +
“DNA, fingerprints and retina scans all match.” Kelly Black said as she turned away from the three bodies on their autopsy slabs, “This is definitely Noyer's team.”
She was speaking mainly to Fredriq, who was shadowing her around the tables and making his own assessment of the bodies. Tech-adept Vizkop stood to one side, observing more passively.
“Riorden Vega and Aurelia Krichbaum.” Kelly went on, pointing at the stocky man and the tall, wiry woman lying on the first two slabs. The face of the man had been deformed by the lasbolt that had hit it, bursting the top of his skull and pushing one eyeball out of its socket. The woman had been shot through the throat. “Both Aeronautica, and both shot with a las weapon at point blank range. Though at this point I coudn't tell you if the lasgun was Noyer's or Farrier's. Both had semi-depleted power cells.”
She turned to the third body; another woman, but this one obviously augmented, the most notable cybernetic being the blue-lensed camera that had replaced one of her eyes.
“This one's Briseis De Reuter, ad mech. She wasn't shot. The exo-suit we found her in had a broken faceplate, so she might have suffocated - probably out on the surface of Vitaris.”
+ + + + + +
Interrogator Schafer closed the door of the observation room behind him, and frowned at the window sized pict-screen on the wall that showed the cramped chamber where Noyer was still restrained in his hexagrammically-warded chair. Sapphira stood nearby, with the stormtrooper Remus next to her as he guarded the second, mag-locked door that led into the interrogation cell. Shere was there too, although this time in his secondary capacity as a logokine.
“The bastard's all yours.” Schafer growled.
DoughGuy
03-21-2013, 10:53 PM
John stood in the corner of the room, leaning against the wall as he waited for the interrogation to begin. He hated this part of his inquisitorial work, finding it distasteful and occasionally over the top. Torture wasn't something that sat well with him, even against enemies of the Imperium. At least Schafer knew not to ask him to use his pyrokine power as a tool of pain here, he'd hate to have to refuse an order. He waited silently, bringing his logokine skill to the fore and concentrating on it.
Atrum Daemon
03-22-2013, 04:34 AM
Vizkop had fallen into a stoic façade around the rest of the team. It served the dual-purpose of projecting a stereotypical Mechanicus face and allowing him some time for a bit of introspection about the last few hours and the events therein. There were too many possibilities to consider. He shoved them from his mind and resigned to just waiting until Noyer’s interrogation was over.
The world had burned. The masters of the Forge had chosen death rather than risk the secrets of their vault exposed to the Great Enemy. He had survived. Along with those who took shelter in the bunkers. But he knew the tenacity of the kind of enemy they faced. Mikera had shown him that tenacity all too well.
“The camera,” Vizkop said, finally speaking inside the morgue. “She has a camera installed in her bionic eye. It might have some recorded evidence on it if the hardware has not been damaged.”
With the right tools, Vizkop felt confident the eye could be removed and the data on the camera recovered. He hoped the poor woman had captured something that would shed light on this mystery. It would mean she had not died for nothing.
Azazeal849
03-25-2013, 10:51 AM
Kelly paused in her work to look back over her shoulder at him. She looked slightly put out - as if annoyed that it had been Vizkop rather than herself to make the discovery, despite the fact that there were few outside the mechanicus who genuinely understood how bionics worked. However, instead of saying anything to the tech priest she simply nodded and called over one of the starport med-techs.
"I need this implant excised." she told him.
Jarms48
03-26-2013, 01:02 AM
“The bastard's all yours.” Schafer growled.
All ours? Remus went over the thought, repeating the Interrogators words in his head over and over, looking for definition. His mind plucking and probing for context, the storm trooper lived off orders, moved with direction. In combat he could be excused, free to his own initiative, his own volition, though in the confines of their HQ building he was nothing but a glorified sentry. All ours. He mussed again, wondering if the Interrogator would mind if he took their prisoner out for light refreshments or an Iho stick, he was his after all. Though if he did follow such a course, he could see his career ending rather abruptly. Luckily for him he understood the shorthand of the Inquisition, his sister used it all to well.
* * * * *
"Brother?"
'Yes Lady Inquisitor Chrysanta?'
"Any opinions?"
'Upon what lines? All I see is a puddle of refuse and a pile of ragged cloaks.'
"A member of the Ordo Xeno and you are still blind."
'Seeing as you saw this case held warrant we're not just dealing with some random serial here.'
Ferrums capital city, though to small to be considered a hive and what it lacked in density, it more than made up for in dispersion. Its terraces and avenues spanning dozens of kilometers, its streets of the habitation zones were lined with snout houses as far as the eye could see. Though their investigation had seen them to the cities central commercium district, in the damp alley's that ran like a maze in between the multistory complexes.
It was dark, militia men held the roadblocks along the roads as Chrysanta leaned down towards liquified remains of whatever had the displeasure to wear these clothes. She reached forward with a gauntleted hand, letting her index finger trace a line in the pool as if to feel the texture. She looked over her shoulder, giving her brother a look, her features still hidden beneath her hood.
"That much is obvious Julie, I expected more from you."
'Well, the local militia officers continue to grasp at thin air. They claim it's cult activity, but that couldn't be right we are the Ordo Xeno.'
"Out here? People take what they can get, an Inquisitor is an Inquisitor, be it aliens or heresy our duty is to the Emperor. Such goes the Inquisitorial runs at the ends of the Imperium."
'So it is the cults?'
"Don't be a fool brother, though a less experienced Investigator could mistake this as rot, the scent of Nurgle."
'Then what is it? Elements from a gestation pool?'
"This is not Tyranids brother, we are nowhere near the beasts. This is but the remains of a Hrud, shadow creatures, their bodies liquefy rapidly upon death, conveniently making detailing the creature impossible."
'Hrud? I've heard the name before, you will have to pardon my lack of knowledge Lady Inquisitor Chrysanta but I will have to consort the texts for detail.'
* * * * *
Julianus shook his head, his gaze slowly moved to Sapphira as he listened to her commands. He nodded. Walking over to their captive and made a pass around his chair.
"They want me to hurt you, you understand that right?" The storm trooper began as he worked upon undoing the fastens of his gauntlets.
"If you co-operated I can permit you with a quick death," he paused. "Or freedom, depending on how merciful my superior feels." Though freedom was a rather loose term. "The Emperor is loving, the Emperor is forgiving, do what is right, do what we ask, for we are only seeking to perform his holy work."
Julanus turned from the chair and placed his gauntlets on a nearby table. "But why should we be kind? You tried to kill us, as you did your crew." His words were more of a muse, pondering aloud as he looked head over shoulder.
"You will tell us what we want to know, through your own volition or through our own......... 'Devices'." He turned on the soles of his boots, taking a single step forward, soon followed by another, the storm trooper cracked his knuckles with every footfall.
Atrum Daemon
03-26-2013, 06:46 AM
The med-tech nodded and began the slow and careful process of removing the eye from the woman’s face. For long minutes, the whirring of tools and click-clack of metal bits filled the small examination room. The extra pieces were placed into a tray and the implant removed from the eye socket with the greatest of care.
“If I could take that?” Vizkop requested. “We should view the last entry as soon as possible.”
The med-tech simply nodded and handed the implant over. Vizkop produced a few connectors and hooked up the implant to his helmet to decode the data and from there hooked it to a monitor so the room could view the data. Vizkop dismissed the med-tech before using the playback of the visual data.
The gathered agents saw things from De Reuter’s point of view. She and Noyer entered a cave presumably on Vitaris. The pair paused in the presence of a sharp pyramid seeming to rise out of the cave floor like a grand spike of some beast. The pyramid came alive as Noyer approaches it, green light coursing through the grooves of the object like emerald rivers. De Reuter ducked behind a rock as the pyramid flashed and struck Noyer with green light. Thirty seconds passed before De Reuter chanced a glance out from her hiding place. She sees Noyer’s smoking corpse and something that should not be: a second Noyer standing before her. The new Noyer smashes her void suit visor with a rock and De Reuter falls. The view becomes scrambled as she tries to flee before jerking sideways. The last image before the feed dies is of Noyer standing over De Reuter with glowing green eyes.
“I think we have some kind of answer,” Vizkop said, unhooking the implant after saving the visual data. He was doing his best to control his racing thoughts about what they had seen and keep up his stoic façade. “Or at least evidence enough to get started. I hope.”
He walked the broken streets. Ash filled the air along with a deep silence. A silence only born from a tomb. For that was what the city was. A tomb for unseen bodies. Thousands of innocent lives snuffed out in flames. No bodies, not even bones, littered the streets. Only the ashes in the air left any reminder that life once pulsed through the streets and buildings.
He intoned a soft prayer of thanks to the implant's machine spirit before carefully setting it with the other evidence recovered from the deceased De Rreuter.
dakkagor
03-27-2013, 05:18 PM
Pain. Nothing but pain. She was just a tiny speck, afloat in a sea of agony that stretched away from her in all directions. Someone was calling her name from a great distance and she clung to the words so she wouldn't drown.
She came round face down in her cell. The lights had been turned down and the music was off, a small mercy. Her right shoulder was a mass of dull, aching agony. She couldn't move her fingers or her right arm at all. It was like it had been amputated.
That thought gripped her in terror and she tried to turn her head to assess the damage. Whoever had dumped her back in her cell had left her arm by her side, just out of her limited view. She tried pushing herself into a sitting position with her left arm but her head swam and she collapsed, exhausted and dizzy to the floor, her head thumping into the padded cell floor. She lay still for a few minutes, just breathing, trying to manage the pain, trying not to vomit.
The door to her cell clicked open and someone stepped in far too quietly for her liking. It wasn't like she could defend herself anyway. Whoever it was got close to her and put a bag down on the floor near her head. She swivelled her eyes to look at it. A medkit. Thank the Emperor.
“Kally Sonder? Can you hear me, Kally?”
“So, while we’re here, I’ve got a question for you.”
Kally grunted as the tweezers slipped into the meat of her back. She gritted her teeth as she felt them lock around a splinter of armour, and then moaned in pain as the shard was pulled free. There was a 'chink' as the shard was dropped into the kitchen sink.
“How is it, Kally,” continued Sister Sapphira as she swabbed the tweezers before she went after another shard of armourplas. “That you’re still alive? You’ve been shot in the back half a dozen times, at least, and that’s excluding the heretic’s try. I’m not even counting those scars, these ones right here, where I can only assume a butcher tried to pull out your kidneys. While it’s possibly a miracle you're still able to twitch, please don’t, if you can help it.”
“I'm trying.” Kally grunted. “It’s hard without painkillers. Are you sure. . .”
“Yes” she rasped. Her throat felt like she had been gargling razor blades. All that screaming. . .
“Excellent. My name is Sapphira and I’m of the Sisters Hospitaller. I've been sent to provide you with treatment.” she watched the sisters slim, pale hands delve into the medkit and remove syringes. “What I'm going to do first is apply a local anesthetic. Once it takes effect I will relocate your shoulder. After that I'm going to apply a nerve regenerator agent to the shoulder and lower back. The painkillers won't help with that but it shouldn't be too bad, at least compared to what you just went through. Do I have your consent to proceed?”
“Yes” she managed again, not really understanding why that was necessary. She was the prisoner here, and she had learned today that they could do whatever they wanted to her. She felt the needle slip into the mass of abused muscle and tendon and then numbness spread across her back. The nauseous feeling receded with the pain.
“I'm going to use the Spaso technique to relocate your shoulder. Fair warning, you might feel this through the drugs.”
“I’m quite sure, and thank you for asking, once again.” Sapphira commented before she warned her current patient, “Now hold still. Treating patients in a kitchen? Oh, Emperor Enthroned, how far I’ve come since my noviciate days.”
Kally sighed, and then yelped as the tweezers yanked another shard of armour from her back. “This has running water, a surface I can rest on to let you get to work. It’s hygienic enough, and no one uses it to cook.”
“Enough isn’t quite good enough sometimes. Besides, I sometimes cook in here, if I’m around. Believe it or not, I actually made breakfast this morning.”
“Ok, one person cooks here. I've lived off take out since I arrived. That's why I know it’s hygienic. You never saw my kitchen in Makita hive, this place is a hospital in comparison.”
Kally braced herself for a sudden sharp tug on her arm, but instead felt a gentle pressure on her wrist. She was aware her arm was moving at full extension, and suddenly there was a 'klunk' sound from somewhere to the right of her head.
“Not too bad, I hope? Just hang in there, we’re almost done.” More rustling from the bag. “Next I'm going to administer the nerve regenerator. That should counteract any nerve damage that Nathaniel’s inflicted.”
Another pinprick, one in the shoulder and one at the top of her back. A cold, icy sensation spread across her back and upper body like ice water in her blood. She gasped.
“We’re finished, Kally, and you’ve handled it stoically. Now that you’re mended I'm going to move you to a sitting position. There’s a bucket on hand if you need to throw up. Once you’re up we'll try to get some water and food into you.”
She nodded weakly. She felt the sister’s cool arms encircle her torso, and then, roll her onto her back. For a second she passed out, and then came back around as she was propped against her sleeping slab.
Kally was resting on the marble counter in the kitchen, her chin on her folded arms and her chest stripped as Sapphira went to work. Kally knew she was only complaining to distract her. There was another 'plink' as another bloody shard dropped into the sink. Sapphira sighed and propped her left elbow on Kally's lower back, resting her head on her upturned wrist as the tweezers in her right hand went into the bullet wound.
“We can discuss your mournful dietary and housekeeping habits later. But, all things considered, this place is quickly becoming a hospital. The dining room’s now an impromptu surgical suite, with comatose Mechanicus adept included, and there’s currently an injured ex-Naval aviator passed out and recovering in my bed. If only we were back aboard the True Bane…”
She heard the sister make a non-verbal noise of disapproval. Finally Kally got a good look at Sister Sapphira. She had pale, fine features, beautiful jet black hair neatly trimmed to frame her face. Her eyes were intense and cat like, a pretty pale grey. A single black fleur-de-lys tattoo under her eye like a beauty spot. A look of deep concern was on her face.
“You're a saint” she managed as the Sister proffered a plastic cup to her lips. The water inside tasted strange, salty and at room temperature. She gulped it down anyway.
“Not quite, but I do work with one. But thank you nonetheless. I'll be sure to pass along your recommendation to the Holy Synod for confirmation.” She chuckled and Kally couldn't help but smile. The sister refilled the cup from a flask in her kit and Kally emptied it again.
“That’s electrolytes, salts, vitamins and minerals. It might taste nasty, but it’s good for you. You’ve sweated a lot and you've lost weight quickly. And you seem to be running a fever. Is this your first time off Makita Hive, Kally?”
“I bet they got painkillers too. And I bet the nurses didn't lean on their arse. And were prettier.” Kally growled, resisting the urge to bite her arm as the tweezers dug around to find the naval pistol slug.
“If the services here aren’t to your liking, Ms. Sonder, please feel free to seek treatment elsewhere.” Sapphira responded mildly, with an airy hint of humor, before she reverted into a more clinical tone. “On a more serious note, would you care to guess how narrowly this bullet missed your spine by? I’ll give you a hint; by less than an inch. You easily could’ve been paralyzed from the waist down, or on Kelly’s slab with a bullet through the skull.”
“I. . OWWW!” She shouted as the bullet came clear with a distinct 'pop' sound. She felt a fresh wave of warm blood cover her back. “Throne on Earth that stung. . .”
“You’re almost done, so bear with me for a moment more.” Sapphira tutted, and Kally felt a cooling sensation fill the wounds, followed by Sapphira mopping up the blood with a surgical wipe. “And we’re finished here. The wounds have been filled with synthskin, but it needs to set, so do try and take it easy for a few hours. All things considered, you handled this rather well. You were lucky that your suit saved you, this time.”
“Yes.” she answered. “I don't even know how I got here. Or where here is exactly.”
“You were picked up by the Astartes. To be exact it was a Sons of Plutarch Terminator Squad. They took you directly to the True Bane, which is Lord Sidonis’ personal vessel, after they determined you weren’t an immediate threat or contaminated.”
She reached into her bag, and pulled out another syringe. She swabbed Kally's right wrist and she looked away.
“Problem?”
“Hate needles.”
“Ah. That’s perfectly understandable, and you’re in good company. We’ve got some hard cases onboard that wouldn’t flinch from a heretic’s bayonet, but come near them with a needle?”
She flinched as the needle slipped in, still relatively painlessly thanks to the morphia.
“Okay, Kally, no more needles for today. That was a wide range immunization shot, so it was worth any discomfort. The True Bane is a clean environment but it’s not sterile. Nathaniel should have done that first thing… if he were following procedure.”
“You don't like the Explicator?”
“We both serve the Emperor.” Sapphira answered, in a pretty non-committal way. “What information is he trying to get out of you?”
“I know, I know, be more careful next time.” Kally stood up and quickly pulled a fleece over herself, ignoring the goosebumps from the cold counter. “Am I safe to wash?”
“You know, when you make promises like that, I find them somewhat hard to believe. Also, yes, you’re safe to wash up. I dare say you need it, too.” Sapphira chuckled as she started to wash up herself.
“Ha ha, very funny” Kally couldn't help but grin. “I'll let you go treat Vince.” She thought about talking to Sapphira about the flashback she had had. The way it had made her first scared, then angry and reckless. She shrugged it off; Sapphira would be going into an interrogation soon and would need to be focused. She didn't doubt that Noyer was dangerous as hell, it was already looking like he had shot everyone on the lander himself.
Kally thought for a second. She needed a friend in here, an ally. She needed some sliver of hope that she wasn't going to die in that interrogation block.
“I was close to Lucius Pembroke before he died. Explicator Nathaniel is convinced Lucius said something to me before. . .before he died. But I don't remember anything.”
“And that’s the truth?”
She shook her head. “Maybe. I don't remember. Maybe Lucius did say something and it'll come back to me when Nathaniel moves up to the hot irons and rack.”
She had meant it as a joke, but the way Sapphira refused to meet her gaze sent a cold shiver down her spine.
“Look,” Sapphira began to break the awkward silence, “Kally, blanks like you are a valuable resource. The normal procedure is to take them directly to Lord Sidonis, but Nathaniel claims you’ve been entrusted to him. Honestly, I don’t believe that for a moment. Is there anyone who might vouch for your story if I go around him?”
“I don't think anyone else was there. Marcus Black, he's an arbite. We got on pretty well. Maybe he would say something. And Agent Van Der Mir, he employed me for hunting down Massani before that all went to hell.”
“I know of whom you speak. Your friend Marcus came in with the first wave of survivors to be cleared. I believe he's being trained for field deployment.”
Kally nodded. Made sense. Marc seemed like a sharp customer. She just hoped he was doing better than her. Not that that was hard, considering.
“I should leave, before Nathaniel suspects something.” Sapphira stood, and then quickly packed up her bag.
“Is there something else on your mind?” Sapphira asked, as she turned off the faucet, when Kally turned to walk out the kitchen. She paused. There was an expectant look on Sapphira’s face as she turned around from the sink.
“I'm just. . .tired. I'll talk to you later about it.”
“Of course we can talk later… just so long as we actually do. Believe it or not, Kally, I'm here to help when you need it. But I can't help you if you don’t let me help you.”
Kally sighed, her shoulders sagging. “I just don't want you to worry. You or Marc. I'll be fine, and you've both got enough on your plate.”
“It’s my calling to worry, Kally, about everyone and everything.” Sapphira said with a faint, and slightly forced, smile as she turned the sink tap back on. Kally thought she could detect a note of hurt in her voice, but she shrugged it off. People often took what she said the wrong way.
“Wait.”
She turned back to face Kally.
“Why are you helping me?”
Sapphira turned away for a second, sighed softly, and then looked back to Kally.
“I knew Karosi Thane fairly well. It was a tragedy that you killed her… but that was a tragic day all around. I reviewed your biometrics from the incident and I’ve seen the recordings. They made a mistake, going in as they did, when you were obviously near panic and scared out of your wits. If she’d survived, she wouldn’t have allowed Nathaniel to go this far. You likely would’ve been recruited for field work by now.”
“And Nathaniel Strelilov?”
“It wasn’t Karosi’s way to punish the innocent if she could avoid it, which was a philosophy that we shared… and Nathaniel doesn’t. He relishes the power of his rank. Not necessarily the infliction of pain, although that’s part of it, but knowing he can choose to inflict pain at any time. I'm not going to lie to you; Nathaniel’s motivations are personal rather than professional. He’s only keeping you alive as revenge for the pain you’ve caused him. That’s not how Karosi would’ve liked her memory to be honoured. I'm going to try to get you help, but you have to hold on until that help arrives.”
She stepped to the door and knocked twice. As it slid open she looked back one last time.
“You've got twenty four hours for rest and recovery. May the Emperor watch over you, Kally.”
She hated her memories. Despised the way they seemed to intrude into her life. It was like she had never escaped the cell at all, like she was carrying it with her on her back.
She headed to her own rooms on-suite and washed slowly, enjoying a proper soak in the tub. She was meant to be watching Lia, the freaky little witch girl, and knew that as a blank she was the groups best defence against anything that might crawl into her head, but at that moment she needed to relax an inch before putting her mind back onto work and a potential execution watch. She changed into some black fatigues and jammed one of her steel burners into her pocket, before tying her hair back into a pony tail. Satisfied that she no longer looked a state, she headed for the lounge.
Kally stepped into the main lounge and saw Vincent sitting in an armchair, staring intently at Lia, as though he was expecting her to regain consciousness at any moment. The former bounty hunter had an obvious distrust of psykers, which was no surprise given his background; the parts she knew about anyway. His mars pattern laspistol was nearby as always, resting on the recaff table. Doctrine on psykers was clear: take no chances, and Lia was an unknown, potentially unstable element.
"Hey." she said, as Vincent looked up. She had swung by the kitchen, no vacated by Sapphira (probably gone to check in on the interrogation of Noyer, she mused) and picked up two bottled beers. They where local branded, practically fizzy water, but they where cold. "Thought you could use some company."
She padded over and settled into the couch across from Lia. They had laid her out on a couch and covered her with blankets to keep her warm, and she looked so fragile and childlike that Kally had a hard time believing the wild tales from the other Arvus. She guessed the blankets where Sapphira's touch.
"Cheers." grunted Nyl as Kally handed him a bottle, the top popping of easily in the grip of his matte black augmetic hand. He paused for a second, taking a swig of the beer before grimacing. “Fokken piss water, this stuff.” He inclined the bottle and studied the label for a moment. "Schafer is right, you know. Running in like that could have gotten you killed. Or someone else."
Kally sighed, her shoulders slumping. "I know. I just. . . "
"Have got something to prove, or a fokken death wish?" Vincent took another swig. “Because I could just shoot you myself, you know.” He stared at her, gaze steely and focused, before his face cracked into a grin. He was trying in vain to get a smile out of her, not realising the seriousness of what had occurred at the crash site.
"Yeah, actually. I freaked the frak out when I fell of the ridge, had a flashback. I had to prove to myself I can still do. . .this." She gestured widely with her beer bottle. "I need to know he didn't take that away from me."
Vincent snorted, dismissing her last statement and leaned forward in his chair. He gave a cursory glance in the direction of Lia, ensuring she still unconscious.
"Want to talk about it?" He offered at last.
"Yes, and no. All I've done is talk about it. Sapphira knows pretty much everything, I think. But it didn't help. I still have gakking nightmares, still can't take a shower without wigging out. So talking didn't help."
"A shower?"
"Its something Explicator Strelilov did to me. Its called water boarding. They take a damp sack, pull it over your head while you're strapped down. Then they pour water on your face for about half a minute."
Vincent’s ravaged features softened as understanding dawned on him. "I’ve heard.”
"It was pretty much hell on frakking earth to live through" Kally spat, her temper rising, more at the memory than Vincents typically laconic reply. "Its worse than drowning, you just freak out no matter how much training you've had to resist it. And he'd had me for a month at that point, I was half way dead already before he strapped me to that bench."
"And now you can't shower, or get your face wet?" Vincent prodded. He had just about finished his beer and was considering getting another.
"No, I can't. I can just stand to wash my face, and I have to have a mirror so I can see myself doing it. Last time I tried to have a shower I froze halfway in. Took me half a damn hour just to get back out of the bathroom so I could have a proper nervous breakdown."
"You pretty much proved you where back on the horse today, though. I can list half a dozen poor fokkers who have the same kind of problems, hell, nightmares and flashbacks aren't your territory alone. You can’t let it affect you in the field." Vincent looked at the ceiling and let out an almost imperceptible sigh. “You let that happen and it can be fokken game over girl.”
"I know" Kally slumped back into the chair, leaving the empty bottle on the recaff table. "I know. Just . . .he got away with it, you know? The frakker tortured me near to death for a month and all he got was a slap on the wrist. I want to put him through what he did to me. I want to break his frakking limbs and make him see exactly what it was like"
"Ja, I hear that." Vincent chuckled wickedly and levered himself up, heading to the kitchen. "Those beers in the chiller?"
"Green case, grab a couple for yourself." Kally was looking at Lia, suddenly envious of the kid and her untroubled, deep sleep.
Vincent came back with four more beers and put them on the table, cracking one open for himself and Kally.
"I get you on the Explicator, never met your chap though. I don't trust Sidonis or his men. Soon as I can, I'm out. They had me locked up like a prisoner for weeks, drove me to fokken distraction."
Kally nodded. "Would if I could. I've got to stay." She took a deep swig of the offered beer after softly chinking the bottle against Vincent’s.
Vincent gave her a puzzled look, took another swig of the beer and grimaced. He had hoped it would get better, but no, still cheap fizzy water. He pulled a lho from its customary spot behind his ear and lit it.
"Marc, pretty much. Kelly as well, but mainly Marc." She sighed. "And before you say it, I know it doesn't stand a cat in the eye's chance of working out. But I owe it to him to watch his back, at least."
"As long as that's all your watching" Vincent chuckled as Kally blushed. "Ja, anyway I'm heading to the sack. I'll leave you on watch Kally girl."
He stood, stretching out and rolling his augmetic shoulder.
"Thanks for hearing me out Vincent. And sorry about today. Won't happen again."
He shrugged his shoulders "Don't mention it. It gets easier, you know. The edge comes off and the scars fade. You just have to live long enough to wear them down. Besides, my offer still stands." He let out a rough cackle and holstered his pistol.
Kally nodded, looking into the middle distance as Vincent meandered off towards his room with the unopened bottle and the half finished one clinking together. Once he was gone Kally looked down at her wrists, her palms turned up to the ceiling. She could make out the faint outline of scars from the Explicators manacles running across her pale skin.
"I hope so Vince. I really hope so."
(OOC : HUGE thanks to Felwether and Paintserf. Always a pleasure and never a chore writing with you guys!)
Azazeal849
04-02-2013, 09:32 PM
”You will tell us what we want to know, through your own volition or through our own...devices.”
Remus turned on the soles of his boots, taking a single step forward, soon followed by another. The stormtrooper cracked his knuckles with every footfall.
Noyer let out a slow breath, and looked at Remus for the first time since the stormtrooper had entered the room. He had given up protesting his innocence, but he didn’t seem at all intimidated.
“Your friend in the suit already explained your devices.” he said in a neutral voice. “And I think you'll be granting me freedom soon enough.” He cocked an eyebrow at Remus, his lantern jaw set. “Still, do what you have to do, stormtrooper.”
+ + + + + +
”I think we have some kind of answer.” Vizkop said, “Or at least evidence enough to get started. I hope.”
“Oh, I'd say so.” Kelly muttered, watching the video through a second time, and then pausing it at the section where the doppelganger Noyer appeared right in De Reuter's eyeline. She rewound to the few frames where the green lightning bolt had leapt out at Noyer, the still-frames clearly showing the front of his exo-suit exploding into tatters, the armoured chestpiece instantly vaporised. She couldn't see his face – his visor was lit up green by the lightning strike. But there was little doubt the man had been killed – if not instantly, then within seconds.
Kelly wound the video forward slowly, watching Noyer fall in slow motion. He was still lying there, in the same crumpled position, thirty seconds later when De Reuter peeked out from behind her cover towards the still-glowing pyramid. Two frames after that, the second Noyer appeared at the edge of the screen. His exo-suit was identical, albeit undamaged, and his face was clearly illuminated by De Reuter's shoulder-lamp. His eyes were empty of everything except a grim determination.
So he appeared during the thirty-second gap. Kelly thought, running the scenario through her head. Where did he come from? Further up the tunnel? From behind? What happened during those thirty seconds? Only one thing seemed certain. The thing they were holding down in the makeshift interrogation cell was not Conrad Noyer.
Kelly exhaled slowly, winding ahead to the last frame, and staring into the doppelganger’s backlit eyes as they crackled green behind his visor.
“If that's Noyer,” she said slowly, pointing to the body slumped at the base of the glowing pyramid, “Then who and what is that?” She turned to Fredriq. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”
childsouldier
04-04-2013, 10:43 PM
Fredriq hated the dead. Their company perturbed him. Faint, macabre echoes in the recesses of his mind sought to reach them, to inquire. The tendrils of his curious intellect, which so readily probed and prised at the multitudinous mysteries of the universe, always ultimately recoiled in horror from the cold, stark reality of death. As he followed Kelly Black around the autopsy theatre Fredriq studiously avoided looking at the bodies, stripped and blank, empty, as they lay on the gurneys for examination. Instead, he paid the utmost attention to his datapad and stylus, if not particularly to the rambling notes he took with them.
Noyer's ship had contained no evidence of xenotech, nothing illicit whatsoever, barring the Flight Captain himself, who had fired upon agents of the Inquisition and would soon feel the full wrath of that organisation bearing down upon him. That meant that Fredriq was yet again reduced to a state of impotence, with nothing to occupy him and very little he could do to help his comrades. And since the incident with the shuttle the day before none had been allowed stray too far from the team's base of operations, particularly one as ill-equipped to defend himself as he.
As Fredriq entered the morgue he had caught sight of the corpses at the edge of his vision, before he swiftly averted his gaze. The male's face was a particularly gruesome sight, at least the half of it that remained, a mess of seared flesh and burned blood. Kelly, who was examining the cadavers and the manner of their demise, noted that of the three, one, the female Adept, had not died a violent death, but rather from exposure to the inimical environment of Vitaris.
“The camera,” Vizkop said, finally speaking inside the morgue. “She had a camera installed in her bionic eye. It might have some recorded evidence on it if the hardware has not been damaged.”
A small jolt shot through Fredriq’s slight figure. In his studious lack of attention to his surroundings he had quite forgotten the presence of the Adept. This must be difficult for the man, Fredriq supposed. The Mechanicus were often perceived by the ignorant masses as being emotionless, uncaring in the face of death, but the loss of a fellow Adept, and particularly the attendant loss of knowledge, was a thing no Tech Priest took lightly.
Kelly noted the Adept’s contribution and called over one of the local med-techs who had been assigned to help the Inquisitorial party in whatever way they required. “I need this implant excised,” she told him. Fredriq winced at the thought, imagining himself strapped to the table and his own bionic implants being removed while he yet retained consciousness.
With a shudder he shook the grisly image from his mind and made his way, purposefully, to the far end of the morgue, his back turned to the impending surgical procedure. A whirring started behind him, shrill and loud in the low confines of the morgue. Suddenly, the timbre changed as the blade connected with first flesh, then bone. The sound was excruciating and Fredriq began to feel faint. He began to hum WM Vossen’s Sixth Symphony to himself to drown out the awful noises assailing him. How he wished he were back in the Librarium Administratum of St. Jerome the Bookkeeper now.
It seemed like the horrific act of excision lasted an age, though in truth it could not be more than a few minutes since he’d hardly reached the mezzo-forte of the first movement when the buzz of saws and clack of instruments mercifully receded. Fredriq took a moment to steel himself before turning and rejoining Vizkop and Kelly at the table, although he still avoided directly looking at any of the bodies.
“If I could take that,” Vizkop requested of the med-tech. “We should view the last entry as soon as possible.”
The med-tech simply nodded and handed the implant over. Vizkop produced a few connecters and hooked up the implant to his helmet to decode the data and from there hooked it to a monitor so the room could view the data. Vizkop dismissed the med-tech before using the playback of the visual data.
As soon as the med-tech had vacated the room a square of the theatre's wall lit up with a vid-feed. The video quality was good and the image clear, as could be expected of implants worthy of an Adept of the Machine God. It was eerily like seeing through the eyes of the dead, and Fredriq was uncomfortably reminded of the barbaric practice of auto-seance, of which he had heard but never witnessed, nor wished to.
De Reuter and Noyer entered a cave, presumably on Vitaris. The pair paused in the presence of a sharp pyramid seeming to rise out of the cave floor like a grand spike of some beast. The pyramid came alive as Noyer approaches it, green light coursing through the grooves of the object like emerald rivers. De Reuter ducked behind a rock as the pyramid flashed and struck Noyer with green light. Thirty seconds passed before De Reuter chanced a glance out from her hiding place. She sees Noyer’s smoking corpse and something that should not be: a second Noyer standing before her. The new Noyer smashes her void suit visor with a rock and De Reuter falls. The view becomes scrambled as she tries to flee before jerking sideways. The last image before the feed dies is of Noyer standing over De Reuter with glowing green eyes.
Fredriq ducked instinctively when the Noyer-double smashed open the visor of the Tech Adept. For a panicked moment he had forgotten that the Noyer-double, staring down at them in freeze-frame now the video had come to a conclusion, was of no danger. He felt foolish before another, more panicked moment came upon him as Fredriq realised the real Noyer-double was in their custody. A terse exchange passed between Kelly and Vizkop that Fredriq missed, fear shutting down his senses.
They were watching through the video again and Fredriq wrenched his attention back to the slow-cycle frames and away from the litany of horrors his imagination was already visiting upon him and the team. They watched as the pyramidal structure, which was definitely Necrontyr in origin, pulsed into life. The beam of energy that smote Noyer matched all field descriptions Fredriq had heard characterise the so-called gauss weaponry employed by the Necron, and the slow-cycle vid-frames captured a hint of the molecular collapse they caused.
To Fredriq's eye the defences seemed Canoptek in nature, meaning that they were automated safeguards for the tombs of the xeno race as they lay in their ancient dormancy. That, at least, was a promising sign as it meant that as of yet there was no reason to believe that the tomb world was awakening from its slumber. Further information would need to be collected, however.
The video continued and the Noyer-double reared again into view, smashing the visor of Adept De Reuter and condemning her to an excruciating death from exposure and suffocation. The violence of the action was if anything accentuated by the frame-by-frame passage of the vid-projection.
As the video ended Kelly exhaled slowly. “If that's Noyer,” she said slowly, pointing to the body slumped at the base of the glowing pyramid, “Then who and what is that?” She turned to Fredriq. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”
"Um, no, Ms. Black," Fredriq responded, trying to focus his racing mind. "There are no precedents to this in any Imperial encounters with the Necrontyr that I'm aware of. And I can with some confidence say that that is to mean that this is without precedence entirely. The architecture, weaponry and other information in the video all point to the planet Vitaris as the ancient homeworld of a branch of the Necrontyr xeno species, but Captain Noyer's... rebirth is startling in the extreme."
Fredriq began furiously scribbling notes in his datapad as he spoke, the speed of his words building as he went as his thought process built up a head of steam. "You said these people are definitely Noyer's crew? DNA and other test results show that. Have the same tests been carried out on Noyer? His skin, complexion, skeletal structure, all perfectly human in appearance. Further tests will need to be carried out to ascertain the anatomical composition of Noyer. Bone, blood and tissue samples... What does it remember? Does it think it's Noyer? Has consciousness been transferred, or copied? Are there inbuilt override protocols?"
By now Fredriq's voice was a low, rapid-fire mutter and it was clear that he was speaking more to himself than Kelly and Vizkop. His hand continued to scrawl across his dataslate at a frantic pace, recording his endless streams of questions and observations.
Felwether
04-10-2013, 07:30 PM
“Ah, Vincent,” Sapphira started, and reflexively clutched the dataslate to her chest, as she stepped out of the dining – turned operating – room doorway and fell into step with her next patient. “You’re up next. How are you feeling?”
“I’d be feeling better if the fokken beer wasn’t bottled piss.” Vincent growled responded, not slowing down. She fought the urge to roll her eyes at his color commentary, as it were. The sooner this is over, the better.
“I’ll file a public health complaint on your behalf,” Sapphira replied mildly, and favored him with a sideways glance, before she promptly circled the conversation back. “But you know what I really mean, Vincent. Most people who’d go out into blizzards in vest would be blessed if they die quickly. I don’t suppose you’ve noticed any skin discoloration? Anything like swelling, or do you feel itching and burning sensations?”
“Now that you mention it…”
“No frostbite it is then,” Sapphira flatly cut him off, once she caught the lopsided grin on his battered face, as she had a good idea of where he’d take the conversation next, “Moving on; were there any problems while paired up with John?”
Vincent rumbled something in his native tongue, a seemingly rare occurrence - it sounded like he was trying to dislodge a gobbet of phlegm from his throat. "It's late." He stopped and rounded on her. "All I'll say is the fact that he walks around in a giant fokken gold suit is the least of my concerns." He was beginning to get quite irate now, and continued towards his room.
“I had to ask,” Sapphira said, with a slightly tense edge in her voice, as she regarded Vincent’s crude yet powerful bionic arm. “One last question, and then we’re both free to go. How’s the arm been since I last talked to you?”
Vincent let out a loud sigh, exasperated by the Sister's persistence. "You should know. You saw how much effort they put into bolting the fokken thing to me."
With her questions and their mutual patience exhausted, Sapphira dropped back on her pursuit. She sighed quietly to herself and waved a hand at him. The gesture was somewhat less of a placation and more of a dismissal. While he walked on, she noted the bottles again with a slightly disapproving look, and offered the unbidden advice, “Try not to self-medicate too much more before bed, Vincent.”
Vincent stopped in his tracks a few feet ahead of Sapphira, cocking his head to one side as if to say where the fok do you get off? He made a petulant point of downing the open bottle in his hand before stomping into his quarters and slamming the door behind him.
Sapphira winced at the slam and then spared a momentary glare at the door. Alone in the hallway she forced herself to take a deep breath and silently count out a few Hail Imperators. That went well. Sapphira thought to herself, with another sigh and shake of her head, as she walked down the hallway. If the Emperor was merciful her other patients would’ve slept through the noise.
****
Vincent shut the door behind him with the sole of his boot and his room flickered for a moment as the overhead lumin strips warmed up. He made his way to his cot and plonked himself down on the edge. In the silence of his private quarters the quiet electrical hum of his arm could just about be heard. He placed the unopened bottle on the bedside table and smiled sadly as servos whirred and buzzed gently.
The augmetic still horrified him at times and he wasted no time in unhooking it. He gripped his right bicep in his left hand and twisted hard, wrenching the limb from its socket; the hum ceased and he sighed in quiet relief. He placed the device on the ground in front of him and stared at it thoughtfully. It was useful sure, fun even, but it still wasn't his; it was something they had given him to increase his combat efficiency.
Kally’s words on Explicator Strelilov, about him taking something from her entered his mind and he understood. He gave the eye-wateringly expensive device a sharp kick that sent it skittering across the floor and into the far wall. He hadn’t asked for the thing and he certainly hadn’t asked them to fokken save him. Now, he was sure, they thought he was theirs’, an asset that they could expend at any time on any useless objective they decided. They were wrong. Seriously fokken wrong.
He heaved himself off the cot, adjusting his balance to compensate for the missing limb, and walked over to his sink for a wash, he pulled off his vest as he went. He heard the garment rip slightly as it caught on the socket in his shoulder but continued anyway, unwilling to admit that he was less capable without the arm. He turned on the water faucet and leaned heavily on the brushed metal basin as he waited for it to fill.
Vincent stared at himself in the mirror, his torso looked unbalanced and he was missing so many of his markings – the right arm had borne his old regimental insignia on the upper bicep and the many kills and captures he had notched up over the decades had been proudly displayed as tiny black crosses on his forearm. Many of the important ones remained though; a red Orkoid Dakka glyph, faded almost totally, adorned his left shoulder and commemorated his time in the hunter-killer teams which scoured the ruins of his home planet, rooting out the last remnants of greenskin resistance – a somewhat dubious honour as any member of the Triarii would tell you. A black viper coiled around his bicep, marking the Nagendra Campaign, where he and his unit had worked alongside the legendary Catachan Jungle Fighters, carrying out sabotage missions and long ranged reconnaissance in the hellish swamps of that throne-damned rock. On his chest he bore five tattered stars, each reminding him of a campaign he had survived. The most important marking, of course, adorned his scalp. The black bowie knife, which he had taken great pains to keep retouched and fresh, was one of the few tattoos of meaning that he had gotten outside of guard service. It was a symbol of brotherhood, and a dozen or so others also bore it. It reminded him of better times.
Vincent splashed some water on his face and began to ponder the challenges involved in parting ways with his current employers. Many years ago, with half the Regimental Commissariat out for his blood, he had escaped from the belly of a troop transport in low orbit above Lachlyn II. He had even managed to pay his former commanding officer a brief visit before doing so. He figured disappearing into the hives of Venatora would be a piece of piss. He might even pay that Strelilov chap a visit too, as a favour for Kally.
Vincent half laughed and shook his head as he drained the sink – he was getting ahead of himself. He’d wait and see how things went. One thing was certain though, if an opportunity to get out to did arise, he’d take it in a second. He turned out the lights and collapsed onto his bed, not even bothering to remove his boots. The final bottle of beer sat on the bedside table, unopened, as he drifted off to sleep.
(The first part of this post comes courtesy of PaintSerf. :))
Azazeal849
04-10-2013, 10:47 PM
"Um, no, Ms. Black," Fredriq responded, trying to focus his racing mind. "There are no precedents to this in any Imperial encounters with the Necrontyr that I'm aware of. And I can with some confidence say that that is to mean that this is without precedence entirely. The architecture, weaponry and other information in the video all point to the planet Vitaris as the ancient homeworld of a branch of the Necrontyr xeno species, but Captain Noyer's... rebirth is startling in the extreme."
“Well that's not good.” Kelly said in understatement, rubbing the bridge of her nose as she sank into her own thoughts. She knew something about the Venatorans' so-called Necron War – although it had happened three thousand years ago, celebrations of the victory were still everywhere in statues, museums and church frescoes. But those Necrons had come from Venatora's moon, and had been destroyed when the Imperial Navy and their allies of convenience from Kaelor craftworld had blown the moon apart.
Fredriq began furiously scribbling notes in his datapad as he spoke, the speed of his words building as he went as his thought process built up a head of steam. "You said these people are definitely Noyer's crew? DNA and other test results show that. Have the same tests been carried out on Noyer? His skin, complexion, skeletal structure, all perfectly human in appearance. Further tests will need to be carried out to ascertain the anatomical composition of Noyer. Bone, blood and tissue samples... What does it remember? Does it think it's Noyer? Has consciousness been transferred, or copied? Are there inbuilt override protocols?"
By now Fredriq's voice was a low, rapid-fire mutter and it was clear that he was speaking more to himself than Kelly and Vizkop. His hand continued to scrawl across his dataslate at a frantic pace, recording his endless streams of questions and observations.
Despite the suddenly increased gravity of the situation, Kelly felt a smile of amusement tugging at the corner of her mouth. She imagined this was how her brother would sound if he thought out loud. If Marc were here he'd no doubt be spinning a dozen other theories, like how long this second Necron base had been active, and why they might have remained hidden and not come to the aid of their fellows. But Kelly didn't like the idea of delving into alien motives and psychology, and her more structured mind arrived at a single conclusion: Vitaris was a time bomb, and they had a smaller but no less lethal one right here in the spaceport. Fredriq was right – testing the doppelganger to make sure he wasn't a bigger threat than he appeared was now just as high a priority as finding out what his agenda was in impersonating the original Noyer.
Her smile vanishing, Kelly took a step towards the internal vox set mounted on the wall. She stopped and turned back to Fredriq as she belatedly registered how nervous he was, and had indeed been since he had stepped into the mortuary. Spending the bulk of her time around other verispex investigators and autopsy specialists sometimes made her forget how unsettling her line of work could be for normal people.
“Take it through the house, Fred.” she suggested, not unkindly, “It's easier working around books than bodies. And Schafer's going to need everything you can tell him about the Necrons.” She turned and headed back towards the wall vox. “I'll get the bio-auger results straight to you.”
+ + + + + +
Back in the interrogation suite, Julianus' vox bead crackled to life. The ever-ready stormtrooper made a habit of never taking the small machine spirit out of his ear in case one of the team needed him on short notice, and this looked like one of those times.
“Trooper Remus?” the voice in his ear queried. “It's Kelly Black down in the morgue. Where's Schafer?”
The interrogator was back in the observation room, conferring with the other agents.
“You need to tell him that the man we've got in custody isn't Noyer. It's some sort of xenos copy, possibly Necron in origin. I strongly recommend we run a full bio-augery to determine its threat level and possibly move it to a more secure location before carrying on with the interrogation.”
+ + + + + +
Marc reached the door to the lounge where Kally and Vincent were still watching Lia, and hesitated with his hand halfway to the brass doorknob. He paused there for a moment, subconsciously shifting his weight onto his left foot to lessen the slight ache in his right leg. The cold Venatoran winter was still aggravating the healed gun wound. Marc's active role in Noyer's interrogation had come to an end with the failure of Second Action threats, and being a man who was always more comfortable doing something than nothing, he had headed back to his previous charge of supervising Lia until the young psyker woke up and was deemed safe.
It wasn't the effective end of his involvement with Noyer that was distracting him – at least not entirely. He wasn't cleared for higher intensity interrogation, even though he would have had few qualms about bringing his fists to bear on a traitor like Noyer. The psych-evaluators had said that he wasn't detached enough – 'insufficiently impartial', it had said on his report. While Marc understood that reasoning, he sometimes wondered if it was really a weakness. Marc possessed a simmering hatred for traitors of any kind, and it wasn't just because of his background in the Makita Hive Enforcers. Traitors had maimed his father during the cultist uprising, and after that Marc had insisted on watching when the perpetrators were finally caught and executed by firing squad. Later, he had killed two more traitors personally. Although Nasreen Massani and her men had never been branded as such, for fear of impugning her former mentor Sidonis, Marc couldn't think of any other name for the people who had deliberately targeted Imperial lawmen, civilians, and his own sister. Houseman had planned it, Massani had sanctioned it, and Marc had killed them both.
Marc closed his eyes and exhaled as he tried to shake off the dark memories. They weren't the main reason for his hesitation, but they were related to it. Memories of the Pembroke incident inevitably ended with the flight from Makita as Sidonis levelled the hive to destroy the C'tan shard that had subsumed Massani's former warp-savant. He remembered standing on the bridge of Massani's captured flagship, now piloted by a Sons of Plutarch techmarine, following a squad of astartes picking him up - they had found him standing over Massani's body after the rogue inquisitor had tried to flee her safehouse.
“Evacuation is in progress, but the hive will die.” the techmarine said, completely without emotion. “As for your people, agent Van Der Mir just contacted us saying that he had two of them and was on his way out. Another apparently escaped in an Arvus and is requesting to dock with the flagship. A fifth, von Hoffman, was found dead at your leader’s apartment. We have no intel on Kally Sonder or the heretic Arcolin DeRei.”
Marc swore under his breath, cursing all of the things he could do nothing about. Dravid’s death. The imminent destruction of hive Makita, and the fact that they would never be able to evacuate more than a few of its 2 billion inhabitants in time. The fact that Kally was still out there somewhere, missing.
“Can you scan the underhive and find Kally?” he asked.
“If we had a signal to lock onto we could teleport her straight here.” the techmarine said, as his bionic hands worked the control consoles to disengage the remaining docking arms and activate the grav-repulsors that would raise the captured Matriarch back into orbit. “But with nothing to lock onto and a whole hive level to scan for just one person...it could not be accomplished within the necessary timeframe. The whole company is aboard and accounted for; we must launch now.”
“Let me take a grav-car.” Marc said, “I have to go and find her.”
“Not possible.” the marine behind Marc rumbled through his vox-grille. “Our orders are to extract, and you are coming with us.”
Frak your orders! was what Marc wanted to say, but the words choked off in his throat as he looked up at the massive Angel of Death towering over him. He had to do something. As Kally had confessed to him on Frank’s rooftop, she was a Pariah – and despite the uncontrollable revulsion that that caused in him, the fact remained that she had put her life on the line back uphive, trying to negotiate with Kadath and save Marc’s own. Now he was the one with a chance to save her, and just as before it flew in the face of both reasonable chance and self-preservation. He couldn’t do any less than she had now.
Marc’s eye suddenly fell on a microbead lying discarded on top of one of the consoles, its nearly invisible behind-ear wire coiled around it. A desperate plan came to him.
“A vox signal.” he said, pulling himself along on consoles and chair backs to take the weight off his screaming leg as he stumbled towards the techmarine. “Could the teleporter lock onto that?”
The techmarine turned his head briefly away from his work. “Potentially, if the signal was strong enough. But we would need the specific vox frequency to isolate the location.”
“The ship’s datalinks.” Marc pressed, “Do you have access to them?”
“Naturally.”
“One of Massani’s men got hold of Arcolin’s vox-bead. They must have analysed it to try and tap into our communications.”
His hands still occupied with the delicate take-off, the techmarine extended one of his servo-arms towards a command cogitator on his right. The huge grasping claw folded back and instead deployed a needle, which tapped the console runes with all the dexterity of a human finger.
“You are correct.” the techmarine rumbled softly. “The data was logged by her agent Houseman. I have the frequency. If Kally Sonder still has an active vox-caster, I will endeavour to retrieve her.”
Keeping one hand on a command lectern for balance, Marc twisted away from the techmarine towards one of the ship's tech-adepts, who was still pressing himself flat against the wall and held at bay by a marine’s bolter.
“You!” he barked, “Where’s the external vox caster?”
What Marc hadn't realised until later was that he might have indeed been better going after Kally himself, rather than delivering her into the hands of cold-minded superhumans who saw everything in terms of potential threat. After finding out that Kally had had direct contact with Pembroke, the Sons had recommended stern measures - and Sidonis had dispatched Nethaniel Strelilov. Marc couldn't help but feel partly responsible for the six months of hell that Kally had had to endure as a result, and that was the real reason behind his reticence to enter the apartment lounge.
He exhaled again, and turned the handle.
Inside the worn living area with its homely collection of dataslates, caff-cups and empty beer bottles, Lia was still asleep on the sofa. Covered by a blanket and with her head pillowed on a cushion, Marc was struck yet again by how incongruously harmless the young psyker looked. His eyes moved from Lia to Kally, who was slumped in her chair staring off into space. A passing glance around the rest of the room revealed the conspicuous absence of a third person. Marc cleared his throat to get Kally's attention, a friendlier greeting failing to find its way to his mouth.
“Where's Vince gone?” he asked.
childsouldier
04-11-2013, 09:52 PM
So many possibilities, a plethora of unknowns; if Fredriq's mind were a computer it would be giving off sparks. His hand continued to trace a frantic pattern of inquisition and speculation across his dataslate even as his murmuring descended into a whisper of excited breathing. This really was most perturbatory.
He glanced up briefly as he felt eyes fall upon him. Kelly Black stood half-turned, facing him with a benevolent expression on her face. He cast a weak half-smile her way, hoping to allay the worry she obviously felt for him. Despite the alarming turn of events, he felt more in control than he had at any point since being dispatched to this Throne-forsaken rock. At least now he had a purpose, an avenue of inquiry. And a most intriguing one at that...
“Take it through the house, Fred.” Kelly suggested, not unkindly, “It's easier working around books than bodies. And Schafer's going to need everything you can tell him about the Necrons.” She turned and headed back towards the wall vox. “I'll get the bio-auger results straight to you.”
"Um, yes, quite, Ms. Black," he responded, glad of her suggestion and of his immanent departure from this room of charnel horror. "Thank you." He quickly made his way to the door, careful not to allow his gaze stray too far from his path lest he be reminded of the dangers they yet faced. A feeling of great relief washed over him as he fled the morgue. Alone in the corridor beyond, he paused for a moment, drew a deep breath, and made off towards the team's shared living quarters.
House, he mumbled. Having grown up in the Schola Progenium such words had always sounded strange to Fredriq's ears, and certainly like nothing that he might ever have. "Let's go home, Fred," he thought to himself, though the voice that echoed inside his head was not his own but that of Kelly, imperfectly replicated. How odd.
Replicated. The word brought his attention back to the matter at hand. Perhaps, yes, he supposed that that might be a fitting way to describe this Noyer-double. He was familiar with some similar practices in the history of the Imperium; it was said that Mehuidi Phraxan, the Tyrant of Irae, had many dozens of body doubles to protect himself from the machinations of his subjected peoples. Doppelgangers, if memory served. But there was still only one real Tyrant, the others merely copies.
How real was this Noyer that sat in their midst? What had been replicated, and what had been lost, lying to rot in that cavern on Vitaris? Adrift in a sea of questions with no easy answers, Fredriq's feet trod on auto-pilot, making their way home.
Atrum Daemon
04-14-2013, 10:09 AM
Vizkop informed Black that he was taking the visual data to the Interrogator and showed himself out just as Fredriq got into his tirade. He heard the man mention Necron tech and an unseen shudder shot through his body. He decided to take a more protracted route to get to the interrogation room. He needed time. Time to think. And time to copy the visual data.
The evening swirled around him, as no other time could, with distant memories, a foggy evening of blazing horror, when the weather had turned to flames. Those years ago he had seen a sky split open and fire course through the air, a grand calamity like the fire of ancient sky-faring lizards spoken of in legend, demanding, with thunderous bellows, satisfaction for their being woken from slumber and loosed upon the unsuspecting world while the lords and ladies of the techno-aristocracy sat upon steel chairs with straight spines too refined for bending, which they saw as the task of the menial workers burning in the streets, and watch with confidence alongside the red-robed magi as they burn a world to rid their minds of a single beast. The memory and the fires of that past wrought a doubt in him (as certain sounds with perfect pitch bring harmonious ecstasy to those attuned to music before succumbing to sonar decay) that troubled him for a time. He had walked through the streets in the aftermath of the flames, his eyes stinging from the ashes of the victims thrown about on the winds that blew softly between the decimated buildings. His faith and convictions were strong and he understood why the fire had been unleashed; that did not stop him from wondering if anyone had time to even scream each time he walked through an evening fog.
He removed the data stick from his personal data storage when the copy was complete. His mind went over the possibilities again and again. The green glow and the pyramid structure were consistent with some Necron artifacts the Mechanicus had records about locked deep in storage vaults. But to create a full human replica…Just how alive was the second Noyer? Was he fully organic? Mostly machine? Too many questions that could only be answered by a body. The Interrogator wanted the Noyer copy to speak. Vizkop was certain that the recovered data would speak plenty for everyone involved.
She sat next to him, all concern and comfort. Her hand moved across his back in an attempt at comfort. He appreciated the gesture. It was little help, but he thanked her anyway. She could be counted on. In times of uncertainly, that much he could be certain about. “I’ve got a job,” she said to him. “Something to get your mind active again. We can do it together.”
She did not have to say any more after that.
Vizkop approached the interrogation chamber in confident stride. He entered the room that looked into the observation chamber that held Noyer and the storm trooper. Vizkop approached Schafer and presented the recording to him already prepped on a spare data slate. “Interrogator Schafer,” he said in his neutral tone. “I believe you will be interested in seeing what we recovered from miss De Reuter.”
PaintSerf
04-15-2013, 06:29 AM
[OOC- Schafer and Clement’s dialogue is either directly belongs to, or is directly inspired by Azazeal’s input. The Litany of Duty has been directly pulled from – BL’s The Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer. Thank you, everyone, for your overwhelming patience in waiting for this post.]
+++
“Letting that man die isn't an option.” Schafer said curtly, which drew a brief, eyebrow raised glance from Sapphira. It wasn’t in her nature to give up on a patient until the Emperor called them home, and she wasn’t about to start now. While Schafer spoke she handed him the slate she knelt down next to the adept. “I want to know how he survived and why Noyer didn't kill him too. Those other three in there look like they were put down very efficiently.”
“Get us back to the apartment,” Sapphira replied, just as curtly, and directed her drone to cut aside the patients robes. While the drone economically sheared away, she pulled on fresh surgical gloves and prayed while she worked.
“Merciful Emperor, I humbly ask you to guide my hands so I might save this man…”
---
Sapphira stifled a yawn as she walked towards Schafer’s office. For several hours, which felt like weeks of effort in the moment, she’d been secluded with Adept Farrier. Fortunately the man’s condition had leveled out after the first few hours of treatment and prayer. He was at the point where she could feel comfortable enough to leave him and make her report to the Interrogator, and then go and treat the other wounded. After taking a moment to brush smooth her fresh robes, and brush and errant lock of hair into position, Sapphira knocked on the door.
“Come,” growled the voice from within, and she stepped into the room. Unsurprisingly, Interrogator Schafer was perched behind his desk and intently occupied by paperwork. She immediately noted fresh gauze pad taped over his right brow. Schafer spared a brief glance up at her, gestured towards an empty seat with his quill, and asked as he went back to his documentation, “I presume Farrier isn’t dead?”
“Adept Farrier is unconscious, and in serious condition, but he’s stable nonetheless.” Sapphira confirmed as she took the seat, all the while silently scrutinizing Schafer’s condition as she reported on her other patient, “I cleaned out the wound, stemmed off the blood loss, and applied some tissue regenerators to prevent further complications from necrosis to his organs. He’s also being dosed with an antibiotic cocktail to combat the sepsis, plus another transfusion and fluids to rehydrate him. As a precaution I’ve got him on a ventilator and the dialysis apparatus is on standby – if necessary.”
“I’m an interrogator, Sister,” Schafer commented dryly while he still scratched away with his quill. “I know appraising looks. Please don’t use them on me like I’m some common heretic.”
“I’d be concerned if you hadn’t noticed my scrutiny. But seeing as we’re both here…” Sapphira mildly continued as she opened a file with her stylus. When ready, she favored Schafer with another blatantly clinical look. “Interrogator Schafer, have you experienced any of these symptoms: nausea, sensitivity to light or noise, headaches?”
“I’ve only a slight headache, and before you ask I’m taking Profen tablets to manage it.” Schafer responded grudgingly, not exactly pleased to have to have his work interrupted. He put aside the quill and turned to face the Sister and her questionnaire.
“Not ideal, but better than I expected,” Sapphira said as she made a brief notation, “What are your name, rank, and identifier?”
“Javid Schafer, interrogator, ordo Ixiniad. Sigil one five seven kilo seven.”
“Okay, where are we now?
“Venatora, planetary capital, Angelos spaceport - in an apartment suite that makes me wonder if the governor is taking us as seriously as he should be.”
“In all fairness to the locals, Javid, our team’s intended mission was lower priority.” Sapphira countered as she lowered her stylus and slate, the examination clearly on hold. She softly tapped the slate frame with the stylus in idle distraction as she spoke, “The Inquisitor might have chosen different agents... if he’d any reason to expect the current situation.”
“Perhaps,” Schafer commented after briefly considered her point with a thoughtful expression. Any further speculation was dismissed with a shrug as he gestured for her to continue, “We both have real work to get back to, Sister.”
“Right,” Sapphira replied, quickly dismissing the what-if’s as she refocused and resumed her observation, “Why are we here?”
“To determine the origin and any xenos threat presented by the vox signal that was detected emanating from Vitaris.”
“I suppose it is now,” she conceded with an arched brow and sideways tilt of her head, “Who sent us and what are their titles?”
“Lord Immanuel Sidonis, may the Emperor watch over him; arch high inquisitor of the ordo Calixis, et cetera et cetera.”
“I hereby declare you fit enough to do the Emperor’s work, Interrogator Schafer,” Sapphira declared flatly as she wrote one final note onto her slate. With that finished she powered the device down and glanced at him, “Not that you’d listen to me if I ordered you to rest, of course.”
“As I said before, Sister, I’ll rest when I’m dead.” Schafer affirmed as he picked up the quill and reviewed the document in front of him. It appeared as if he believed their conversation was finished. Sapphira remained seated for a moment with a slightly disapproving frown. No time like the present.
“You shouldn’t push yourself too much, Javid, at least so soon.” Sapphira advised with a note concern, “Motivation is an admirable quality, and is expected of an Interrogator, but it needs to be tempered. Your predecessor-”
“Nasreen was a manipulative bitch who didn’t know how to handle the responsibility of her rosette.” Schafer definitively cut in, without even bothering to look up, after he’d cut her off with an almost insulted snort, “Spare me the lecture, Sister, and save it for Alia. Throne knows she needs it. Now go see to your other patients.”
“Of course, Interrogator. Go with the Emperor’s grace.” Sapphira replied, somewhat stiffly, after her abrupt dismissal. The sound of the quill scratching away followed her out until she closed the door. Interrogators. She shook her head and sighed before making her way to find Kally. If the Emperor had the mercy to spare, she’d be less of a struggle than Javid was.
---
Sapphira gently turned the handle and slowly eased open the door to her room. On the ride back to the apartment she’d directed Arval here to rest. True to her instructions he was laid out on the sofa, with eyes closed and feet propped up on the armrest. That was a relief. After how loudly Vincent slammed the door, she’d been certain he’d be awake. With small and quiet steps she snuck in to gather up the equipment she’d need for Noyer’s interrogation.
“If you’re the bastard slamming doors, mission accomplished, I’m wide awake.” Clement called out from his recumbent position. After a moment he opened his eyes, which widened in surprise at her presence, as he started to stand up, “Oh! I apologize for the language, Sister. I didn’t realize it was you.”
“Please, don’t stand on my account; or apologize for the language – I’ve heard worse.” Sapphira urged while she waved him back down as guilty smile reached her face, “If anything, I owe you the apology, Arval. I’m afraid the noise was indirectly my doing.”
“Not a problem, Sister.”
“If you’re up, and I’m here, we should properly treat that wound of yours.”
After she snapped on another set of gloves, Sapphira began to address Clement’s lacerated scalp. She peeled back the old gauze, which had dutifully stemmed the blood loss, and began to properly clean the site with antibiotic swabs. Once she was satisfied that there’d be no real chance of infection, fresh gauze was placed over the wound and then secured by another bandage around his head. This time she didn’t need to rush through the process, so Sapphira ended up talking with Clement as she worked.
“I have absolutely no experience with piloting,” Sapphira confessed as she gently ran a swab over the raw wound in Clement’s scalp, “but it looked like you handled that crash very well. Have you ever done anything like that before, Arval?”
“I always hate crash landings, Sister. There’s never a right time or place to practice them.” Clement offered with a grin, which Sapphira matched with a smile of her own, before he became marginally more serious. “But not really. Last time I was in a T-bolt that got hit that badly I knew well enough to eject rather than try and ditch the thing. Unfortunately our void-runner didn’t have that option.”
“You maintained control of the shuttle though, even with your injury. That’s no small feat.” Sapphira noted as she wrapped the fresh bandage around his scalp. “If you don’t mind me asking, how’d you manage it?”
“The Emperor guides these hands, Sister. I just follow his lead.” Clement responded with complete sincerity and conviction. That brought an approving smile to Sapphira’s face as she peeled off her surgical gloves and packed up the narthecium.
“He guides us all.” Sapphira affirmed with a nod, “If it’s not a bother to your rest, I’d like to offer some prayers before I join the interrogation.”
“Don’t let me stop you, Sister.”
Sapphira quietly thanked him and went over to the small shrine she’d set up underneath the window. Just next to it was the open casket where her armor rested. It was glossy black carapace embossed with metallic fleur-de-lys and Aquila. Parchments that declared the Imperial Creed and abjured the unclean were secured to it by arterial red wax seals. Even with the weak light from the window it seemed to radiantly gleam. The sight heartened her as she knelt before the small triptych and began to pray.
With eyes closed, and her chaplet intertwined in her fingers, Sapphira spoke the holy words without error or hesitation. Of course The Emperor’s Prayer was first – and it was shortly followed by the Profession of Faith. Her last prayer was the Litany to Duty. It was after her third repetition of the verses that Sapphira consciously noted that Clement had been repeating the words with her.
“Give me the strength to carry my duty through, and smite those who seek to thwart me. Ave Imperator.” Sapphira got up in time to catch Clement raise his head. He broke the Aquila and held up both hands before she could speak. “I figured you wouldn’t mind the assist, Sister. It sounds like you’re expecting him to resist.”
“Thank you, and yes, it can be difficult to get someone to talk.” Sapphira confirmed with a faint smile, “Especially when they don’t want to. Marcus was with him for hours without results.”
“Noyer’s in deep ga-” Clement started before he paused to catch his language, “Trouble. He could’ve just panicked under fire, and now he’s staying silent because he thinks there’s no way to convince Schafer not to execute him.”
“Noyer sounded rather composed over the vox, and he did know you were Inquisition before he fired back.” Sapphira pointed out skeptically. “He was also mostly successful in murdering his crew.”
“Hey, I’m just the shuttle driver.” Clement relented with a shrug as he leaned back into the sofa. “But I think he’s suspicious as all hell. I just wanted to make sure you considered all the possibilities, Sister.”
“I always try to, Arval.” Sapphira said with a nod before she reassuringly patted his arm. “I should make my way to the interrogation room. Do try and get some rest?”
“Only if you try and keep the noise down, Sister.” Clement countered with a grin before he resumed his eyes closed and feet up position on the couch.
---
“Your friend in the suit already explained your devices. And I think you'll be granting me freedom soon enough. Still, do what you have to do, stormtrooper.”
Sapphira’s eyes narrowed fractionally at Noyer’s reaction, or real lack thereof, to the imminent threat. Up until that point she’d silently observed the proceedings, and hadn’t moved other than to nod in agreement as Remus spoke. Frankly, in her experience it was never a good sign when a subject invited an escalation. That read as someone who’d been conditioned to withstand base methods of physical interrogation. While she highly doubted Noyer’s conviction about being released so soon, she didn’t doubt that beating an answer from him would take too long.
“There’s no point beating a captive when they’re asking for one. Also, I’ve never particularly cared to give a heretic what they desire.” Sapphira commented before she turned away from the observation screen, and her resplendently armored reflection, to look at Schafer directly. “Do you want to escalate past the threats, Interrogator?”
Azazeal849
04-18-2013, 01:53 PM
"Do you want to escalate past the threats, Interrogator?"
Schafer's thought train evidently ran parallel to Sapphira's. He grunted in agreement as he glowered through the two-way glass at the incongruously calm prisoner, his fists pressed against the window sill.
"What's he doing?" he asked suddenly, jerking his chin towards Remus who had suddenly stopped and cocked his head as if receiving a vox message through his helmet caster. Before anyone could answer, the door behind them clicked open and tech-adept Vizkop strode into the room. He paused for a moment to look into the observation chamber that held Noyer and the stormtrooper, but any questions about his intrusion on the interrogation were pre-empted as he approached Schafer and presented a recording to him, already prepped on a spare data slate.
"Interrogator Schafer," he said in his neutral tone, "I believe you will be interested in seeing what we recovered from adept De Reuter."
"The other tech adept?" Schafer queried, raising a suspicious eyebrow at Vizkop before dropping his gaze to the green wire-grid of the dataslate. He tapped a rune, watched the silent vid log, and then watched it again without a word. At the end of the second viewing, his face pulled down into an angry scowl.
"You're sure whatever machine spirit produced this spoke the truth?" he asked Vizkop sharply, and then turned back to the window. As Sapphira and John began to raise questions, he tossed the dataslate down on the table, the vid reel frozen with the image of Noyer's eyes backlit in sickly green.
"Xenos witchcraft." he growled. "That thing in there isn't Noyer. It's not even human." He beckoned the psyker and the Sister Hospitaller forward. "Sister, I want that blasphemy sedated with the strongest stuff you've got. Then I want him moved to the med-lab for a full bio-scan. I want to know what I'm dealing with here. Tech-adept, vox the astropathic choir and tell them to clear a space for a priority report to the ordos. Psyker, guard the door."
That last was to John, whose powers would be hampered inside the room itself by the precautionary wards that Schafer had set up around Noyer.
As soon as they were ready, the three agents barged into the small interrogation room. The air was cold, and smelled of metal and the incense that Schafer had used to annoint the psychic wards. Noyer started slightly and twisted in his seat to see who the newcomers were. Schafer noted that the man - or whatever he was - was still remarkably calm. He wasn't even sweating, and the small heart rate monitor clamped to the chair arm with a wire running up the prisoner's sleeve still showed a steady 57 bpm on its digital face.
"Remus." Schafer said sharply, "If the prisoner moves, shoot him."
Noyer didn't move as Sapphira stepped forward and administered the intravenous sedative. One would assume that it was because of the threat of Remus' lasgun, except for the fact that he stared levelly at Schafer the whole time. However, his eyes quickly began to glaze as the tranquiliser took effect, finally closing as the man slumped forward in his restraint chair. Sapphira watched the digits on the heart rate monitor drop, and then level out again.
"Keep watching him." Schafer growled as he pulled a sigil key from a zip pocket at his thigh and unlocked the hexagrammic manacle holding Noyer's left arm to the chair. He stood to the side of the chair as he worked, ensuring that Remus had a clear shot. Then he walked round the back of the chair and began to unlock the second silver-lined cuff.
A beep was their only warning - a beep from the heart rate monitor as its reading shot up at a speed consistent with the most savage of adrenaline spikes. Noyer's arm snapped up and seized the front of Schafer's black fatigue jacket, dragging the unprepared man sideways to put him between Noyer and the barrel of Remus' lasrifle. Though Schafer was caught off guard he was hardly defenceless, and the trained interrogator's left hand struck out at Noyer even as his right drew his laspistol from its hip holster in an eyeblink. Noyer's other hand closed around the gun and twisted it sideways, directing the muzzle away. There was a sharp snap and a flashburn line across the agents' vision as a thread of blue light flickered across the room and blew a fist-sized chunk out of the floor.
The heart monitor continued to beep shrilly. Schafer had just enough time to shout in pain as Noyer twisted the gun against his thumb and out of his grip, dislocating his trigger finger in the process, before heaving him sideways into Sapphira and sending both agents sprawling. Before the two had even collided with the wall, Noyer had turned his stolen gun and snapped another two shots into stormtrooper Remus, causing the ablative plates of his armour to explode in molten gobbets. The frantic screeching of the heart monitor finally ceased as it was torn free, by the act of Noyer leaping from his chair and firing a third shot into the two-way mirror along the side wall. The reinforced armourglass cracked and shattered from the thermal gradient, spitting shards through the observation room as the lasbeam itself seared past Vizkop, narrowly missing his head.
dakkagor
04-18-2013, 03:26 PM
“Where's Vince gone?” he asked.
"Oh, Marc!" Kally looked up, smiling sheepishly. "Didn't hear you come in." She glanced quickly at Lia to check she hadn't grown a second head or started speaking in tongues. She still seemed to be asleep. "What's up?"
"Where is Vince?" Marc repeated, his temper fraying slightly. His eyes drifted to her neck, and noticed that her collar was missing. The room had a tense, unpleasant air to it that only seemed to intensify as he looked at Kally.
"He ducked out to get some sleep. I've got Lia covered, trust me. I thought you would be busy with Noyer for a few more hours yet."
Marc sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "He didn't crack under action two. They've stepped up to action three."
She hung limply in the shackles, her shoulders burning with the weight, but it was easier than trying to stand. Her head lolled on her chest as blood drooled from her nose and mouth. She could tell that Strelilov was only a few meters away, watching, sitting, taking notes. The guard circled back into her limited field of view, rubbing his bruised knuckles.
"Stand up, Prisoner." he barked, like a drilll sergeant on the parade field.
She stayed where she was. Her legs and knees where bruised from repeated kicks and she had taken so many blows to the chest that she was sure that they must have broken something. Blood bubbled from her split lip as she tried to lift her head to spit at the frakker who had spent who knows how long working her over. They hadn't even bothered to ask her any questions this time. She gave it up as a bad effort and let her head drop to her chest again. Strelilov looked up from his notes and tutted.
"Pathetic. Sergeant, feel free to break or dislocate something non vital."
The sergeant moved behind her and suddenly her neck was caught in the crook of his elbow, while his other arm circled her torso. For a brief second she was convinced it was all over, and he was just going to snap her neck, finally finish it. Then he started to pull down. Even as she started to choke she willed strength to her legs to try and push back against him. She was too late, and too weak. The weight dislocated first her left, and then her right shoulder. Her scream was strangled in her throat by the weight of the armoured sergeant as he maintained the hold, piling his weight onto the abused tendons and ligaments in her joints and shoulders.
"Now then." muttered Nathaniel as he stood up from his chair in the corner and the sergeant stepped back from the sobbing, choking wreck of a human being. "I was about to hear your confessions to a variety of minor crimes. I'll just work down this list and you say 'yes' or 'no'. For every 'no', I'll let Sergeant Borza break something else you don't need."
That was the first time Kally lied under interrogation, but not the last. It was the tenth day. The second day of 'action three' interrogation.
"I feel sorry for the poor bastard" she muttered, her left hand coming up to unconsciously massage her right shoulder.
"How can you say that?!" Marc exclaimed. "Noyer is a Traitor! He shot Schaffer out the sky and nearly killed him! He nearly killed YOU! A Traitor deserves everything they get! How can you feel sorry for someone like that?"
"Hey!" Kally snapped back, storming up to Marc, anger flaring in her eyes. "I just said I feel sorry for him, not that he should get a gakking free pass! You haven't been through Action Three! You don't know what its like! Traitor or not he's still a human being!"
Marc stepped back, detecting the conversational minefield he had stepped into a touch too late. "Kally, I.. . "
"DON'T YOU FRAKKING KALLY ME!" Kally shouted. "YOU DON'T HAVE THE THRONE DAMNED RIGHT TO TELL ME HOW I SHOULD FEEL! HOW DARE YOU!"
Something bubbled up in Marc, a combination of anger and shame, fuelled by the unnatural aura Kally was projecting. It took all his willpower not to strike her. "AGENT SONDER, I'M THE REASON YOU'RE NOT STILL IN THAT DUNGEON, OR DEAD! I STUCK MY NECK OUT FOR YOU, AND THIS IS HOW YOU RESPOND?"
The punch came out of nowhere, sending Marc sprawling to the floor. For a moment silence descended on the apartment. When Marc looked up, rubbing his suddenly aching jaw, he saw Kally had covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes wide.
"Marc. . I. . ."
She fled, dashing to her room. Her door slammed and Marc hung his head. Great. That's torn it.. Marc hauled himself to his feet in time for the door to see her door swing open again. The tense, uncomfortable aura fled as Kally strapped her collar in place.
"I'm so sorry! I just. . .I just freaked! Let me get you a compress, and a drink, and. . ."
Kally dashed into the kitchen, leaving Marc bewildered and sore. He followed her into the kitchen as she crashed around it, pulling out a med-kit and preparing a compress.
"Kally, I'm fine. Its ok, no harm done. It wasn't your fault, it was because you weren't wearing your collar." He rubbed his jaw again. "You didn't hit me that hard."
"I should have kept it on me, I should have put it on as soon as you came in." She walked up to Marc, compress in hand and an amasec with ice in the other. "Let me look at that."
He obliged, pulling his hand away, taking the Amasec. Kally let out a sigh of relief.
"Throne, I hit like a girl" she muttered, pressing the compress to Marc's jaw. "I am so sorry Marc. . .I just. . .you're right, of course. I shouldn't feel sorry for Noyer."
Felwether
04-18-2013, 06:39 PM
Vincent was on his back in a shallow sand dune, the twin suns of Aphra Sela blindingly bright above him. On the horizon he could make out Kalidasa, the Slave-City, soaring up into the heavens like a massive ant hill; it’s many viaducts and water sluices glinting like silver veins in the sunlight.
Why the fok was I out there again?
Shot impacted in the ground around him, throwing up great cloud of golden sand as they struck the lip of his shallow foxhole. There were three, maybe four of them, occupying elevated position and trying to blow him to pieces with high-powered hunting rifles and if he knew anything there’d be another one flanking his position. Anysa was with them.
That was it.
He’d cut that traitorous bitch’s head off for what she did. Another volley of las rounds came, almost simultaneously. Vincent primed a smoke grenade and prepared to throw it.
Wait. Las rounds? The fokkers were using rifles.
****
Vincent opened his eyes and found himself in the darkness of his room. The sound came again, the barely audible but unmistakable crack of a las weapon being discharged. He sprang out of his cot, almost falling flat on his face as he scrambled to his feet. Vincent groped around in the gloom in an attempt to find a weapon; Lupara his sawn-off shotgun was closest to hand. He bounded towards the door, not bothering to fish his augmetic from the pile of dirty laundry it had wound up in.
Vincent burst into the hallway one-armed and dressed only in his fatigues and boots and quickly made his way to the common area, weapon ready. He heard another shot.
Noyer.
He found Kally and Marc in the living room – they had heard it too.
“What the fok is going on?” He snapped as he strode past them in the direction of the interrogation chamber.
Azazeal849
04-18-2013, 11:31 PM
Marc had dropped the compress and reached inside his jacket, instinctively going for the laspistol that he now made a habit of carrying everywhere. He took a step after Vincent, before realising that the three of them were about to leave Lia alone and unguarded. The investigator checked, visibly torn between his instinct and his orders, and cursed under his breath.
"You two go." he said, all business. "I'll watch Lia."
With the last 24 hours having proven trouble-free, he didn't seriously expect a demon to pick this moment to rip its way out of Lia's ribcage, but he did want to make sure whoever had fired the shots didn't come across the young psyker while she was asleep and defenceless.
dakkagor
04-19-2013, 12:22 PM
Kally looked at Marc, frowning.
"Just be damn careful with her. Who knows what's going on in that pretty little head of hers."
She scooped up her steel burner pistol from the table and checked the charge on the pack before slapping it back into place. She had another of them strapped in a pancake holster on her back. Her boltgun was partially disassembled on a table in her room, it didn't sound like they had enough time to wait for her to painstakingly consecrate it.
"Lets go Vince, and see what the gakking fuss is about."
Jarms48
04-19-2013, 01:17 PM
“Your friend in the suit already explained your devices.” he said in a neutral voice. “And I think you'll be granting me freedom soon enough.” He cocked an eyebrow at Remus, his lantern jaw set. “Still, do what you have to do, stormtrooper.”
The man seemed so sure of himself, so confident, this man clearly had some kind of resistance training. No doubt the ex-navy pilot could take a hit or two, but Remus, he was still unsure. He didn't want to hit a man so sure of his innocents, he at least wanted proof, reason or a distinct order, he pitied him though on the other hand he was also enraged. This man tried to murder him and his companions, that in itself was punishable, even if he claimed it was in self defense.
"Any possibility it could be narcotics? Perhaps he did this whilst under the effect of say, yelodes? I'm sure you've heard of them, powerful hallucinogen, cultists use it to try and commune with their so called gods. He probably doesn't remember a thing." Remus mussed, looking over to Sapphira as he made his piece.
* * * * *
Back in the interrogation suite, Julianus' vox bead crackled to life. The ever-ready stormtrooper made a habit of never taking the small machine spirit out of his ear in case one of the team needed him on short notice, and this looked like one of those times. Remus turned on the sole of his boots, walking idly towards the partition and a hand raising to cup the side of his helmet. He cleared his throat, canted his head to the left and right, his neck ringing out a light crack.
“Trooper Remus?” the voice in his ear queried. “It's Kelly Black down in the morgue. Where's Schafer?”
"This is Remus of TFC, one moment Miss Black," Julianus glanced into the one-way glass, absentmindedly trying to look passed it as if he could plot the Interrogators exact position, of course this proved useless, he was no psyker, nor did he have the time to play with his re-breathers visual modes. He made his way back to the table, taking his carapace gauntlets from its surface and worked them back over his arms. His digits secured and adjusted the fastens with a small satisfying click with rehearsed precision, such a medial task became instinct.
"The interrogator is watching the proceedings in the other room Miss Black, would you like me to get him for you?" Remus questioned, stretching his back and making a pass around the room. He smirked, shaking his head and clicking together his fingers on his right hand. The sister of investigator Black, he never really had a chance to speak with her, as he did with most of this team. From first impressions she seemed the type to have a lot of theoretical knowledge but little field experience, the type you ask for a textbook definition or whatever a quick search through a logic engines databanks came up with. Inexperienced, that's how he judged her character, just as he did her brother, to young for this position, they should have been the ones assigned to a security detail, the ones assigned to the militant of the ordo.
“You need to tell him that the man we've got in custody isn't Noyer. It's some sort of xenos copy, possibly Necron in origin. I strongly recommend we run a full bio-augery to determine its threat level and possibly move it to a more secure location before carrying on with the interrogation.”
"Can you repeat that?" He said lowly, his voice ringing in disbelief. He looked to the man in the interrogation chair, the man who was Noyer but wasn't Noyer. A perfect copy, a clone, every detail seemed accounted for, or at least from a superficial prospective.
* * * * *
"Remus." Schafer said sharply, "If the prisoner moves, shoot him.
"It will be done interrogator." He answered, unslinging his hotshot lasgun and leveled it at Noyer, his finger was pressing the trigger. Waiting the man to make a move or the order to be cast.
* * * * *
Before the two had even collided with the wall, Noyer had turned his stolen gun and snapped another two shots into stormtrooper Remus, causing the ablative plates of his armour to explode in molten gobbets. The frantic screeching of the heart monitor finally ceased as it was torn free, by the act of Noyer leaping from his chair and firing a third shot into the two-way mirror along the side wall. Remus recoiled, the repeated impacts were enough to throw him off balance, he lost his footing, cascaded back into the wall behind him. He groaned, a breath leaving his lungs, he didn't have a shot, why didn't that fool Schafer keep him restrained?
"Full alert, prisoner is armed and has escaped from his bounds." Remus worded into his micro-bead as he recompiled himself and rose back to a stand. "Opening fire! Watch your yourselves!" He warned, releveling his hotshot and impacting his trigger.
DoughGuy
04-19-2013, 01:48 PM
John simply listened as Remus moved forward and threatened the man. It seemed they would be approaching the part he disliked, yet the prisoner appeared so confident. The man was certainly suspicious but what could he do? He wasn't a psyker and he had been thoroughly searched. And faced with a stormtrooper, a psyker and his bonds there was little chance for anything he did to succeed.
Once Schafer called them out to give them new info he took up a guard position at the door as ordered. Knowing that the runes would hinder his powers he made sure to draw his pistol even as the door was swinging shut as a precaution. Noyer had already shown a willingness to go against Imperial Authority when outmatched, he might try to make a move here. And if he was was some xenos monster who knew what weapons he could be hiding.
When John heard gunshots he immediately raised his gun and went for the door. He took him a second tug to pull it open and by then there had been multiple gun shots. Finally pulling it open he located Noyer and immediately levelled his gun at the man's back. Just as he was about to fire Remus opened up. In order to dodge the salvohe let his feet go from under him and fell, firing, though inaccurately, as he went down.
PaintSerf
04-19-2013, 05:46 PM
"Any possibility it could be narcotics? Perhaps he did this whilst under the effect of say, yelodes? I'm sure you've heard of them, powerful hallucinogen, cultists use it to try and commune with there so called gods. He probably doesn't remember a thing."
“The only substance in his bloodstream was Kally’s tranquilizers.” Sapphira gently pointed out even though she shook her head negatively behind the glass. “But they would’ve cleared his system before Marcus started the interrogation hours ago. Noyer’s also been rather coherent when he’s decided to speak.”
---
"You're sure whatever machine spirit produced this spoke the truth?" he asked Vizkop sharply, and then turned back to the window. Sapphira immediately narrowed her eyes in suspicion, but Schafer cut off her unvoiced question and tossed the dataslate down on the table. The vid reel frozen with the image of Noyer's eyes backlit in sickly green. She immediately tensed up at the abominable sight and out of instinct made the Aquila.
"Xenos witchcraft." Schafer growled even as Sapphira continued to hold the Aquila. "That thing in there isn't Noyer. It's not even human. Sister, I want that blasphemy sedated with the strongest stuff you've got. Then I want him moved to the med-lab for a full bio-scan. I want to know what I'm dealing with here.”
Sapphira immediately went over to the side table where she’d left her equipment. The excruciator device was completely ignored as she rummaged through her narthecium kit. With deft hands she uncapped an injector and filled it with a heavy dose of Paralytum. In her experience it would be more than enough to incapacitate a man of what appeared to be Noyer’s size in short order. Sapphira nodded affirmatively to Schafer when she was ready to continue.
"Remus. If the prisoner moves, shoot him."
Sapphira followed Schafer through the door and immediately moved next to… it. With a not too gentle clench of the thing’s arm she manipulated it until she found the vein and administered the sedative. It sickened her to touch the blasphemous facsimile, even through the consecrated armor of her gauntlet. His eyes quickly began to glaze as the tranquiliser took effect, finally closing as the man slumped forward in his restraint chair. Sapphira watched the digits on the heart rate monitor drop, and then level out again. “He’s out.” She positively concluded after a long moment of severe scrutiny, and then stepped back to give Schafer room.
"Keep watching him."
A beep was their only warning - a beep from the heart rate monitor as its reading shot up at a speed consistent with the most savage of adrenaline spikes. No… Holy Throne… that can’t be… Sapphira thought as her eyes widened in perplexed surprise as she watched monitor. For a crucial moment she froze as Schafer and Noyer grappled with one another. Situations like this did not happen in the True Bane’s infirmary. Before the blink of an eye Schafer’s las pistol was out and it discharged in the scrum. Sapphira staggered back and yelped back as the part of the floor exploded in front of her.
“Damnation comes for you, xenos filth!” Sapphira shouted, with a touch of hellfire and brimstone, as she stepped forward to assist Schafer. Before she’d taken three steps the interrogator was bodily hurled into her. Even as the hit knocked her back as she grabbed onto the staggering Schafer. Sapphira made the effort to turn so that her armored form would be between Schafer, the wall, and Noyer. In a loud clatter of plate she impacted the wall and dropped heavily onto the ground. The monitor’s bleat, which loudly proclaimed her colossal failure, died as Noyer leaped up and fired off several more shots. Dazedly, she fought to catch her breath and detach from Schafer. He couldn’t be allowed to escape.
“For the Emperor!” Sapphira called out with what breath she found, and depressed the activation stirrup of her left gauntlet. The bone saw attached to her carapace shrilled out in the confines of the interrogation room. She desperately lunged forward on hand and knees to slash at the back of the doppelganger’s legs.
Atrum Daemon
04-20-2013, 05:10 AM
Vizkop gave a curt nod to the Interrogator. He crossed his arms and turned his attention to the observation window as Schafer went about his business. He nodded again at Schafer’s order and keyed in the code on the room’s vox to contact the choir.
“This is Tech-Adept Vizkop on behalf of the Inquisitorial team.”
“Roger, Tech-Adept. What is your request?”
“The Interrogator wishes for a space cleared for a priority report to the ordos.”
“Understood.”
They walked together, faces hidden by the hoods of brown robes. Infiltrating the monastery had been easy. A bit of synthetic flesh to cover the bionics and a few name changes got them access. He glanced at her as they walked with the crowd, waiting for her subtle hand signal to unleash death upon the traitors.
Vizkop’s eyes narrowed as Schafer took a few into the observation room. He observed Noyer, sure he was waiting for just the right moment to act. His moment came when the restraints were removed and Schafer in arms reach. Vizkop followed the action as best he could with the clutter of bodies and definitely noticed the shot sear past his head.
With a growl, Vizkop uncrossed his arms and let the two power blades slide out of hiding and activated the fields. He put himself blocking the door ready to keep Noyer from escaping should he get out of the observation room in one piece.
childsouldier
04-20-2013, 12:39 PM
The Replication of Humanoid Physiology and Characteristics by the Necrontyr Menace. Yes, Fredriq smiled to himself. He liked the sound of that. The repercussions of his findings would resonate far and wide. He didn't think it too fanciful to imagine that this paper might spread beyond the sector, even the Segmentum perhaps.
He stopped on his route to the team's living quarters, closing his eyes and picturing for a moment the Hall of Synods back at Ixaniad Sector Inquisitorial Command, thronged with renowned xenologists called together for a Grand Symposium. And he, Fredriq L'Hoace, would be the one to deliver the key note speech.
A shudder of excitement ran through Fredriq's body from the tips of his toes to the crown of his head, lifting him onto the balls of his feet. But, of course, he was getting rather far ahead of himself. It would be months before his findings were complete, and they would have to be meticulously compiled and collated. There was no room for error, no time for complacency. Much work, much to do.
And so he resumed his hurried pace back to the apartment, continuing to input questions and speculations into his datapad. Already his notes would take up twelve pages of foolscap had he used such antiquated technology. There was something refreshing in the tangibility of it, no doubt, but he had often chided fellow xenologists who refused to move with the times and opt for the superior practicality that the datapad offered.
Thus distracted, it came as a surprise to find himself suddenly at the door of the team's apartment. The greater surprise was yet to come, as the door burst open and a crazed hunk of flesh and metal bowled Fredriq off his feet. His glasses, perched as ever on the tip of his nose, flew across the floor of the hallway and the right lens cobwebbed as the glass cracked.
Staring up in shock, Fredriq thought for a moment that they were under attack. But with relief he noted that it was just Vincent. The fellow cut a peculiar figure, bare to the waist, his patchwork torso rippling. Belatedly Fredriq realised what was odd. Vincent's body was lopsided, the brutal metal connector for his bionic arm empty, poking from puckered flesh like black viscera. And in his remaining hand, an antique firearm.
"Fok," Vincent grunted bluntly, before dashing off down the corridor at a pace Fredriq could hardly credit from a man of his bulky stature, with nary a backwards glance to ensure that Fredriq had not come to any harm. He harrumphed loudly in protest and began to push himself to his feet when another rushing object passed by at breakneck speed. Kally tore after Vincent, who had already disappeared around the corner in the direction of the morgue. And the interrogation suite, he realised coldly.
Just before she rounded the corner, mid-stride, Kally turned and shouted over her shoulder, "Fred, get inside. See if you can free up Marc. Are you still armed?" She didn't wait for a reply, already out of view. Flustered, Fredriq raised himself fully and pulled out his laspistol. His instructions were to carry it at all times, and it was quickly becoming apparent why.
Shook and confused, Fredriq turned and entered the apartment, wary of more bodies yet to come flying through the doorway.
Azazeal849
04-22-2013, 01:47 PM
Shaken and confused, Fredriq turned and entered the apartment, wary of more bodies yet to come flying through the doorway. He came within a hair's breadth of being shot through the heart by Marc, who had been standing on the blind side of the room with his laspistol aimed at the door. Lia was still comatose on the sofa.
"Fredriq." Marc exhaled, arresting his trigger finger just in time and lowering the gun, "What's going on?"
+ + + + + +
"Opening fire! Watch yourselves!" Remus worded into his micro-bead as he recompiled himself and rose back to a stand.
In the time it had taken him to shout the warning, Noyer had lunged for the door. At that exact moment John opened it, located Noyer and immediately levelled his gun at the man. Just as he was about to fire Remus opened up, a pair of lasbeams cracking over Noyer's shoulder as he instinctively ducked and bursting the doorframe into smouldering matchwood.
Out of instinct, John let his feet go out from under him and fell, firing as he went down. His plasma pistol discharged with a blinding flash and blew a metre-wide hole in the ceiling of the interrogation room. The light sputtered out and a choking rain of red-hot plaster and brick dust cascaded down to fill the room. Noyer barrelled into John with his shoulder, and lost his footing.
"For the Emperor!" Sapphria called out with what breath she found, and depressed the activation stirrup of her left gauntlet. The bone saw attached to her carapace shrilled out in the confines of the interrogation room. She desperately lunged forward on hand and knees to slash at the back of the doppelganger's legs as he fell past her, and Noyer cursed as the saw ripped a glancing blow across the back of his calf. He rolled with John, landing on top of his gun arm and driving his elbow into the psyker's throat, scrambling to regain his feet. He rose only to find Vizkop blocking his exit.
With a growl, Vizkop uncrossed his arms and let the two power blades slide out out of hiding, activating the fields. Still on one knee, Noyer fired his stolen laspistol into the tech-priest's helmet visor. Two shots sent the red-robed soldier onto the back foot as the impacts battered him backwards and temporarily flooded his optic trench with static. Noyer ran forwards as a second salvo from Remus demolished what was left of the two-way glass separating the observation room from the holding cell. Switching with a thought from visual augmetics to audio, Vizkop swiped at the doppelganger. The humming power blade scythed a blue contrail through the air over Noyer's head as the man twisted past him and broke out into the corridor beyond.
Schafer was swearing loudly as he coughed through the dust in the suddenly-dark interrogation room. His second pistol was already in his left hand as he ignored the broken glass along the bottom edge of the smashed observation window and vaulted through into the light. His black fatigues grey with brick dust, he crunched down into the broken glass next to John.
"Take that thing down!" he shouted to the others who were still on their feet, ignoring the agents who had fallen. "Shoot to kill!"
He shouldered his way out into the corridor behind Vizkop, his head and pistol snapping first one way and then the other, but Noyer had already disappeared. He couldn't have gone far, and the hall only went one way - leading first to the kitchen and Sapphira's ad-hoc medlab, then to the communal lounge and sleeping quarters, and ultimately the security-locked door to the stairwell and lifts that led down to the rest of the spaceport facilities. If Noyer didn't want to shoot his way through a window and brave a 300 metre drop, there was nowhere for him to go.
"After him." the interrogator barked, slashing his mauled free hand down the corridor in a curt signal. Anger and adrenaline killed the pain from the cuts on his palm and the dislocated fingertip. "That alien bastard isn't getting out of here alive."
Felwether
04-22-2013, 06:47 PM
Vincent cursed again as he righted himself after barrelling into Fredriq, it was considerably more difficult to maintain his balance without the augmetic in place. Vincent was aware that being stationed with a bunch of combat operatives probably wasn’t Fredriq’s choice but he couldn’t help but feel that the Xenologist should not have been there, his complete lack of combat experience made him as much of a liability as he was a burden. It was possible that he owed the scholar an apology but there’d be time for that later. He carried on, bolting around the corner, with Kally on his heels. He slowed his pace a fraction as he passed the open door of the the apartments makeshift Med lab, briefly scanning the room for any sign of Noyer. A flurry of gunfire up ahead told him they would not find him there.
Vincent cocked both barrels of Lupara and picked up his pace again. He heard Schafer shouting something up ahead and wished he had taken his microbead. Without warning the buildings sprinkler system burst into life and warning klaxons began to screech all around – a fire had started somewhere. The floor was soaked in seconds and nearly lost his footing as he slid to a halt near the kitchen. Up ahead he spotted the escapee and he was instantly brought back to his days in The Wilderness.
Noyer was a blur of motion, moving faster than any human he’d ever seen. The laspistol in his hand flashed twice as he opened fire. Vincent raised Lupara and fired off both barrels, filling the hallway with flesh shredding scattershot, as the first shot struck him, grazing the ribs on his left side and knocking the air from his lungs. The wound sizzled under the sprinklers. The second hit the glanced the overlapping plates of his right shoulder, doing little damage but sending him crashing backwards onto the ground. Vincent snarled as he went down, unsure of whether he had found his mark. Winded and disorientated, Vincent could only watch as Kally opened up with her pistols.
dakkagor
04-23-2013, 10:32 AM
Kally stepped over Vincent, focused on the quarry, just like the good old days. Even with the sprinklers pelting her face with water she was staying focused on the target, keeping the nightmares pinned tight in her subconscious. She trained her pistols on him as he somehow kept running despite being full of buckshot.
Should have killed the frakker when I had the chance and excuse.
"Die you Frakker!"
Noyer turned, and Kally spotted, in the split second before her lasbolt fire converged on him, that Vincent had indeed probably already killed him. His chest was a red ruin of mangled flesh from the old Guardsman's buckshot. He raised his pistol to fire, and Kally instinctively pulled the triggers on her pistols. The corridor filled with pulses of ruby light, hissing under the sprinklers water. Noyer fired of three shots. The first grazed her shin, the second flashed down her left side and the third snapped past her head.
Three very close misses. Kally instinctively threw herself to her left out of Noyers fire. She fired six shots, the pulses filling the corridor. Two exploded into Noyers upper torso as the rest sizzled past him, blowing steaming craters out of his flesh and setting his prisoners clothes briefly on fire before he fell, face first, into the pooling water. Kally crashed into the floor a split second later, laying still for a second.
After realising by some miracle she wasn't dead from that near point blank exchange, she pressed her commbead.
"Target down. Repeat, target down. And Vincent could do with medical treatment"
She hefted herself to her feet, ignoring the burns to her legs and chest (and the worrying adrenalin based numbness from her ear) and stared at the pool of blood pouring from Noyers ruined torso, mingling with the water. She waited to see if he would get up, unlikely as that was.
Azazeal849
04-23-2013, 05:31 PM
Schafer and the others rounded the corner behind Noyer a moment later. The interrogator stepped forward past the las-scarred wall, his wispy hair plastered to his head by the deluge system. He looked at Noyer on the floor, then at Vincent and Kally, and lowered his autopistol.
"Good shooting you two." he said, raising his voice to make himself heard over the still-screeching fire alarm. "Vizkop, will you please find a way to kill that Emperor-damn racket?"
Clement came running from the kitchen with his gun-belt hastily slung around his waist, coming to a halt as he looked down at the body on the floor. The alien replicant lay in a pool of his own blood, a pool which was fraying at the edges as it was diluted by the steady downpour of the sprinker system. Schafer turned the body over with his foot to reveal the clearly fatal mess of wounds puncturing its torso. Noyer's lantern-jawed face was ashen, his eyes staring glassily at the ceiling. He wouldn't be telling them anything now, but at least whatever objective he had been planning died with him. And there were plenty of questions that could still be answered by his body.
"It's not getting up from that." Schafer growled, before noticing Clement and raising his voice again to address the pilot. "Where's Farrier?"
"Still on the ventilator, why?"
"Well bloody well go back and guard him! Whatever tests you run on this thing," He shifted a foot to kick Noyer's corpse, then aborted the move as if he didn't want to contaminate himself further by touching the alien doppelganger unnecessarily. "I want them run on him too. If he's one of them I don't want the risk of him suddenly laughing off his sedatives like this one just did."
He turned to Sapphira, his voice maintaining its volume, but dropping into a slightly less harsh tone.
"Sister, I want you, miss Black and Mr L'Houce to stay here and take care of the bio-augeries. Trooper Remus will stay as security detail. I need people I can trust not to frak this up. Make sure you deal with Lia too - if she's still comatose, I want her moved to a warded cell so we don't have to spare men to watch her the whole time. The rest of you, get your wounds dressed - you're coming with me to pay the governor a visit. Noyer seemed very anxious to get to him first before we shot him down and I want to know why." The interrogator gave an amused grunt. "Besides, he's been demanding an explanation off us since yesterday. We should probably let him know what he's dealing with so he can get his arse in gear mobilising the appropriate precautions. Black?"
"Sir?" said Marc, who had just appeared from the other end of the flat along with Fredriq. His jaw was still red with the early signs of bruising, though if Schafer noticed he made no comment.
"Find out whether governor Faroven's at home or out on business, and requisition us another Arvus."
"Yes sir."
Marc flicked a glance towards Vincent and Kally as if to ascertain that they weren't seriously injured before falling to command. At that moment, the piercing beep of the fire klaxons was undercut by the deeper tone of the door alarm, a signal that someone was trying to gain access to the apartment from outside. Schafer and several others rushed to the mag-locked outer door, just in time to see it swing open before a PDF sergeant with his face hidden by a black gas mask. The man dropped his hand from the security keypad as Schafer stalked forward to meet him. Behind the sergeant were a full squad of spaceport security - also wearing rebreathers - two fire suppression servitors, and Kelly Black.
"What are you lot doing here?" Schafer asked tersely, as the servitors immediately pushed past him with their infrared visors turned towards the ceiling and trundled off in the direction of the demolished interrogation room.
"I heard Remus' warning over the internal vox, sir." Kelly said, with a slightly defensive edge. "I got the administrator to lock the building down and send up a security team."
Schafer grunted by way of approval, as behind him the shrieking alarms belatedly ceased. "Fair enough. But it's under control now, and since this is still an inquisition operation, dealing with potential moral threat material..." He turned to the masked sergeant. "You and your men can return to station. Vizkop? I want those two servitors scrubbed once they're done."
"What in the Emperor's name is going on up here?" a voice thundered from the stairwell, as a red-faced man in expensive robes shouldered his way towards the door. The agents recognised him as the spaceport administrator, who had welcomed them to Venatora several weeks ago. None of the cautious deference he had displayed there was in evidence now that there was gunfire, fire alarms and a peremptory summoning of one of his security teams.
"We will need new accomodation arrangements." Schafer told the man simply as he made to walk past him. The administrator took a step backwards to block his path.
"Look here." he said sharply. "It's not just me who's asking! The station's in panic - I'm going to need some sort of exp-"
"Tell them it was just a fire. One of my men got careless."
"But what about the lockdown? And what did you want security for?"
Schafer cut him off by reaching into the chest pocket of his fatigue jacket and pulling out a leather flip wallet, the inside pockets laminated against the damp. He opened it to display his inquisitorial rosette and, below it, his warrant of investigation folded to clearly display the signature of inquisitor lord Sidonis.
"Hail to the Emperor." he said curtly, and turned on his heel to leave the spaceport administrator open-mouthed on the landing.
+ + + + + +
From a distance, the governor's palace was a soaring piece of architecture, buttressed by gothic arches and overlooked by weathered aquila gargoyles. The perimeter wall was high enough to hide everything but the towers from an observer at ground level, topped with crenulated ferrocrete battlements and fronted by frowning skull carvings that hid automated defence turrets. Within a second perimeter wall lined with crackling psy-shields was a cylindrical building fronted with the wireframe eye of the adeptus astra telepathica. The spire of the amp array, into which the astropaths plugged themselves to boost their signals over interstellar distances, jutted up from it like a metal arm clawing at the sky. Schafer put down his dataslate and the report he was still composing one-handed for Sidonis, and frowned when he saw the palace and the AAT complex in such close proximity. Doubtless it gave the governor and his people quick and exclusive access to an astropathic choir, but it was slightly unusual for a planetary regent to associate so closely with people that most Imperial citizens regarded with healthy suspicion.
Hydra turrets and hunter-killer missile batteries slaved to servitor gunners rotated lazily to follow the team's Arvus as it passed the palace walls, but the palace was not the team's destination. Still, their pilot remained nervous until they had flown clear and the multiple target locks had faded from his auger display. Like their pilots of the previous day he was conspicuously hairless beneath his helmet, something which prompted Marc to ask if it was some sort of tradition among Venatoran pilots. The man replied that it wasn't a mark of the bulk hauler clans, but of the city working class in general. Apparently this part of the continent was home to a particular species of keratin-eating mite, that only the relatively wealthy could afford the regular chem treatments to keep at bay. As such, hair was something of a status symbol on Venatora.
"Just be thankful the stuff in your nails is too tough for 'em." the pilot said, as he set them down at their true destination and pressed the button that pistoned up the Arvus' rear hatch. "I'm guessing you've not been here that long, but if you don't want the little bastards eating your hair down to the roots I recommend you book yourselves in for either a shave or a chem-wash in the next week or so."
Schafer just grunted and led the others down from the raised landing pad towards the forbidding grey block of the administratum complex. Apparently, governor Faroven was here on business, meeting with some dignitaries from the opposite side of the planet. When he had heard of the location, Schafer had had some reservations about the amount of red tape they might have to negotiate to reach the governor, but an inquisitorial rosette did wonders for cutting through such things.
The administratum complex was no governor's palace, but it was still impressive. Entering through a door beneath a massive black-painted aquila that easily measured ten metres from wingtip to wingtip, they found themselves in an entrance hall lined with stone columns. Each one was flared at the top and bottom to give an impression of the Imperial "I", with a wide bulb near the top which had been flattened on the cardinal sides and carved with a spiral device to complete the icon of the Administratum. Spaced between each symbolic column were austere receptionists in grey tunics, seated at tall lecterns where most scratched away with quills or worried at dataslates and typewriters. Like the pilots, Marc noted, they all had shaved heads and eyebrows, and no eyelashes. The sterile ceiling lamps reflected brightly off their bald heads. An unoccupied adept raised his eyebrows at the newcomers by way of acknowledgement as the tall doors closed behind them, the vast space of the hall stealing the wood-on-wood bang and giving it back as a weak echo. Schafer headed straight for the receptionist and flashed his rosette.
"Where is governor Faroven?" he asked bluntly. He wore his weapons openly; his laspistol back in its holster after being reconsecrated by Vizkop, even though he couldn't easily wield it with his right hand palm and index finger bandaged.
After some initial floundering and vox calls between departments that clearly irritated Schafer, the man clambered down from his podium and led them through a warren of brightly-lit passageways into the east wing of the building. They passed many office doors, most of them closed, though a harassed-looking adept occasionally ducked across the hall from one room to another. The team's guide halted them outside a grander set of double doors, inlaid with carved script.
"This is the conference centre." the man said, smoothing his tunic. "We called ahead, but it didn't sound like he was expecting you."
"Most people don't." Schafer said dryly, and placed a hand on each of the iron door rings to split the wooden arch and push the double doors open. Inside however was not the conference centre proper but yet another antechamber, occupied by a man in black carapace armour, a smaller woman robed in green, and a mid-level adept who had just pushed through a door in the left wall to hand a dataslate to the first man.
"The governor's answer." he said briskly, "If you'd be so kind as to have astropath Fitzgerald transmit it to the Holtzmann embassy."
The black-armoured man nodded silently, passed the dataslate to the green robed figure, and began to lead her across the stone floor towards the door the inquisition team had just entered by. Although he carried a laspistol at his waist, he appeared to be supporting as much as ushering the astropath, offering his armoured forearm for her to steady herself on. The astropath herself seemed frail, with wispy blonde hair and a pointed face whose skin had been drawn tight by advanced middle age.
The administratum adept, who had stepped back rather quickly from the psyker and her handler after delivering his message, uttered a quiet "Oh." as he registered the team and disappeared back through the door.*
+ + + + + +
Inquisition field HQ, Angelos starport
This time the morgue was empty save for Kelly Black as she finished taking her pict-captures of Noyer's corpse and its various fatal injuries, and shunted it into the bio-auger coffin, keying the spider-like auger servitor hanging from the ceiling to begin its scan of the corpse. She stood back and watched the vid-screen on the side of the coffin as the servitor fired its electromagnetic cameras into the body, working its invisible beams in a steady pattern down from the doppelganger's head to its feet. In response, a cross-section began to build up on the screen, materialising slice by slice. Kelly frowned at what to her experienced eye looked like an entirely ordinary human brain, then suddenly stopped and looked closer.
"What the Horus is that?" she whispered to herself, before peeling off her plastek gloves and turning quickly away from the autopsy table to go and find Sapphira.
Sapphira was in the medlab next door, watching over Farrier as he lay on a more conventional medicae bed. She had cautiously removed him from the respirator an hour ago, and his chest still rose and fell with the reassuring rhythm of steady breathing. The sleeping tech adept was still pale and bony-faced, but at least now it was not the emaciation of near death. Sapphira's servo skull panned its blue light up and down the man's body as he slept. It was telling her the same as the last two scans: augmetics functional, human tissue recovering well, and by every measure Sapphira's drone could make, perfectly human - even down to the genetic level. Then again, the bio-scanner had given her the exact same returns for Noyer.
Fredriq sat outside of the medlab proper, finding himself a comfortable chair in the waiting room. Piled beside him, in both paper and dataslate format, were several accounts of Venatora's Necron War. He noted that every single one omitted the involvement of Kaelor craftworld, which according to the classified inquisition files had assisted in the final bombardment that had destroyed Venatora's moon. Then again, what Imperial historian would want to mar a glorious victory with the footnote that the triumph had required xenos help? The accounts were, however, relatively informative on the rest of the war, with minimal embellishment. They even told in detail about the initial awakenings on Venatora's moon, although unlike Vitaris they had not been pre-empted by any strange vox signals. The thought had occurred to Fredriq that the signal itself might have been some sort of lure. But to what end? Were these "replicants" (as he had come to think of them) a by-product, or the plan itself?
Fredriq was still deep in the books when the automatic door in front of him hissed open. He looked up, and saw the intimidating figure of a hooded and cloaked tech-priest, who shook out his loose sleeves with their white crenulated stripes along the cuffs as he stepped into the waiting room. One hand was dusky-skinned human flesh, while the other was covered in jagged grey metal with some sort of bulky auspex built into the back. It was difficult to tell if the device was an augmetic, or simply some sort of manipulator glove. The priest's face was mostly hidden beneath a hood with the same cog-patterned hem, though Fredriq caught a grimpse of a thick, dark-skinned neck and a strong jaw beneath the softly glowing lights of optic implants. One of the optics played a yellow laser pointer across Fredriq's chest as the tech-priest regarded him. The priest opened his mouth to reveal silver teeth.
"My name is Corvan Tharrick." he said to Fredriq, in a slow and careful voice. "Ordained Magos Physic of the cult mechanicus, and primary superior to tech-adept Julius Farrier. I am here to demand his immediate release."
dakkagor
04-25-2013, 01:41 PM
"Good shooting you two." he said, raising his voice to make himself heard over the still-screeching fire alarm. "Vizkop, will you please find a way to kill that Emperor-damn racket?"
"you should see me when I'm actually aiming" Kally quipped. She looked down the corridor at the holes her and Vince's fire had made in the wall behind their target, half listening to Schafers barked orders. Going to see the Governor. Whoopee. She'd have to be careful not to fall asleep.
Marc flicked a glance towards Vincent and Kally as if to ascertain that they weren't seriously injured before falling to command.
Kally returned the glance, then looked away, feeling guilty already. After they dealt with the owner of the building she headed back to her room, applying her own basic first aid and getting ready for the trip to the Governors office.
+ + + + + +
"Just be thankful the stuff in your nails is too tough for 'em." the pilot said, as he set them down at their true destination and pressed the button that pistoned up the Arvus' rear hatch. "I'm guessing you've not been here that long, but if you don't want the little bastards eating your hair down to the roots I recommend you book yourselves in for either a shave or a chem-wash in the next week or so."
Kally grimaced and ran a hand through her hair, imagining it falling out in clumps. . . she suppressed a shudder at the thought. She took pride in her appearance, always had. In many ways the toughest part of surviving interrogation had been seeing herself deteriorate. . .
She shook the memory off as they left the Arvus and walked behind Schaffer, just to his left, boltgun in hand but held idle.
The administratum complex was no governor's palace, but it was still impressive. Entering through a door beneath a massive black-painted aquila that easily measured ten metres from wingtip to wingtip, they found themselves in an entrance hall lined with stone columns. Each one was flared at the top and bottom to give an impression of the Imperial "I", with a wide bulb near the top which had been flattened on the cardinal sides and carved with a spiral device to complete the icon of the Administratum. Spaced between each symbolic column were austere receptionists in grey tunics, seated at tall lecterns where most scratched away with quills or worried at dataslates and typewriters. Like the pilots, Marc noted, they all had shaved heads and eyebrows, and no eyelashes. The sterile ceiling lamps reflected brightly off their bald heads. An unoccupied adept raised his eyebrows at the newcomers by way of acknowledgement as the tall doors closed behind them, the vast space of the hall stealing the wood-on-wood bang and giving it back as a weak echo. Schafer headed straight for the receptionist and flashed his rosette.
Kally let out a low whistle as they stepped into the entrance hall. For a second she took in the high vaulted stone ceiling and the stylised columns. She hadn't seen anything this impressive in all her years on Makita Hive and certainly nothing of this size on the True Bane.
After some initial floundering and vox calls between departments that clearly irritated Schafer, the man clambered down from his podium and led them through a warren of brightly-lit passageways into the east wing of the building. They passed many office doors, most of them closed, though a harassed-looking adept occasionally ducked across the hall from one room to another. The team's guide halted them outside a grander set of double doors, inlaid with carved script.
"This is the conference centre." the man said, smoothing his tunic. "We called ahead, but it didn't sound like he was expecting you."
"Most people don't." Schafer said dryly
Kally chuckled at that. It must be nice to be able to barge in on people that could normally execute you on the spot, and she got the feeling Schafer enjoyed throwing that authority around on occasion. She couldn't blame him, though she was impressed at how quickly they had cut through the red tape here.
When they arrived in the conference room, Kally's eyes settled on the astropath immediately. Her left hand drifted up to her collar and turned its dampening effect up to its highest setting. No need to freak the poor woman out unnecessarily.
As the astropath left, she turned to look at Kally, then pressed closer to her bodyguard. Kally watched the green clad woman go, wondering briefly what it must be like to rely on that psychic sixth sense to see, then seeing something, someone, that you couldn't see at all, a void? She remembered how badly the evaluator for the Black Ships had freaked when she had been rounded up as part of Makita's psyker cull years ago now. Then she turned back to the room and waited for the Governor to appear. This could be interesting after all, especially if Schafer continued to barge through all the obstacles in his way.
Jarms48
04-30-2013, 01:13 AM
"Good shooting you two." he said, raising his voice to make himself heard over the still-screeching fire alarm.
Yeah, yeah, grox shit, a narrow hall with little room to maneuver anyone could have made that shot. Bastard never even stood a chance, hell even an unflowered white shield could have dropped him. Remus kept his hotshot trained, waiting to make sure this thing was dead. He studied the xenos throughout his years, though he was no expert like Fredriq, most of his information was scraped up from detailed accounts and after action reports. These things had a tendency to comeback, resurrect, reconstruct, each report differed in its description, though each lead to the same conclusion. But this creature before him was no living machine, it was still flesh and blood. Surely that meant its end had come.
"I heard Remus' warning over the internal vox, sir." Kelly said, with a slightly defensive edge. "I got the administrator to lock the building down and send up a security team."
Remus smirked under his faceplate, his opinion on the Black family daughter steadily changing. She had thus far proven to be more competent than her older sibling, he glanced towards her and gave her a nod.
* * * * *
Remus stood in the corner of the waiting room, his hands at his sides and his eyes transfixed on the door. Security detail, he knew it, all he would be doing is standing around in full kit, watching the eggheads as they played with their toys and the building fire. He pondered talking to the professor, though he wasn't the type to start chit chat, or at least when he was on duty.
"My name is Corvan Tharrick." he said to Fredriq, in a slow and careful voice. "Ordained Magos Physic of the cult mechanicus, and primary superior to tech-adept Julius Farrier. I am here to demand his immediate release."
He was almost relieved to see the red robed figure enter. He pushed himself from the wall, taking a step closer and listened to his piece.
"Under who's authority?" He questioned.
Atrum Daemon
04-30-2013, 06:32 PM
By the time Vizkop’s vision returned to normal, the excitement was all said and done. Noyer was dead and the only remaining reminder that he had almost gotten away was the screeching fire alarm. He shook his head to straighten out the last of the visuals in his display.
“Good shooting, you two,” he said, raising his voice to make himself heard over the still screeching fire alarm. “Vizkop, will you please find a way to kill that Emperor-damn racket.”
Vizkop nodded mutely and stepped to an access panel on the wall. With just the right amount of fiddling about and some sub-vocalized prayer, the fire alarm ceased its screaming. In the wake of the alarm, Vizkop took note of Kelly arriving with a small PDF contingent and a pair of servitors.
“Vizkop? I want those two servitors scrubbed once they’re done.”
“Affirmative,” Vizkop replied with a nod, walking after the servitors as they entered the interrogation room to do their job.
They sat together on the roof. Her head rested on his shoulder as they looked out at the grand cityscape. His arm around her held them close together. No words passed between the pair. None were needed.
Vizkop sent the two servitors on their way once their rather limited memory space had been wiped clean of what they had observed before and during their cleaning. He was rather interested to meet the governor and gauge the man’s reactions to all these wonderful events over the past few hours. He spent his prep time before the new Arvus arrived getting himself presentable and making sure the rest of the team’s weapons were re-consecrated.
His pistols were once more on his person by the time they took off in the Arvus. He was comforted by the weight of the revolver at his hip and the stub pistol under his shoulder. He remained silent for the trip, listening to the conversation around him and feeling very fortunate that he had to keep his hair very short so it would not interfere with the interface ports for his helmet.
Vizkop kept his silence throughout the walk to the conference center where the group would meet with the governor. He was taking note of visual details. Faces, clothing, room layouts, anything that could prove useful should something happen to send the situation spiraling down like faulty code.
Azazeal849
04-30-2013, 08:25 PM
"Under who's authority?" He questioned.
The tech-priest called Tharrick swung his yellow laser dot over from Fredriq to Remus. The glowing optics under his hood tilted slightly as he cocked his head to one side.
"My own." he replied, in the same careful tone. "And that of the priesthood of Mars, by whom adept Farrier is protected, and over which your inquisition has no jurisdiction. I demand to know why my acolyte, after being found alive, is being detained here instead of returned to the cult for debriefing."
DoughGuy
05-03-2013, 01:34 PM
John had chosen to accompany Schafer to the governor’s palace while the rest of the team was spread out doing other work. With their only prisoner dead there wasn’t anything for him to guard or read which meant either staying in the church again all day or walking the hall of the palace. That was really no choice when it came down to it. Thus he found himself flying over the city towards the grandiose building which was the governor’s palace.
He was happy to be flying over the walls and able to see everything within. Even if most of it was defence batteries and weapons of war there was still a perfection there, a representation of the Imperial order and all that it gave its citizens. He stood in the lander, looking directly out the cockpit at everything as they passed.
“I could always burn it off for you.” he chuckled as Schafer asked the pilot about his hair. The pilot looked at him with a horrified look on his face thinking he was serious. “Don’t be like that.” John laughed, patting the man on the shoulder, “I’m only playing around. We’re not all as stuck up as him.” he finished jerking a thumb towards Schafer.
As the lander swerved away from the palace John gave a saddened look. The administratum complex was a much more bland building and wouldn’t be anywhere near as enjoyable on the inside. Sighing he returned to his seat waiting out the rest of the flight.
As the team entered the complex below the giant aquilla John made the sign with his hands whispering the Emperor’s name. The complex was austere in its decoration, beautiful with efficiency though John would have much rathered to be at the governor’s. As Schafer ploughed through the complex and its bureaucrats John followed along silently, entertaining himself with complex war games in his mind.
Finally as they ended up in the conference room John was disappointed to see the only occupants leaving. “Well this is disappointing.” he said.
Azazeal849
05-03-2013, 09:10 PM
“Don't be like that.” John laughed, patting the man on the shoulder, “I'm only playing around. We're not all as stuck up as him.” he finished, jerking a thumb towards Schafer.
“Careful, Shere.” Schafer growled, apparently unconcerned about proving the psyker's point with a verbal dressing down. “You can call me what you like behind my back, but do it to my face and I'll see to it that you spend the rest of your life being watched by a commissar.”
+ + + + + +
“Well this is disappointing.” he said.
“The Administratum do have a taste for the monochrome, I'll give you that.” said a voice in roughly-accented Venatoran gothic. A tall woman with windchafed skin and a body that was all hard muscle under an olive dress uniform stepped out into the antechamber, her flat-soled boots clicking on the stone. Her brown hair was pinned up beneath an officer's cap and her eyes betrayed a slight surprise as she looked over the group. It was understandable, as the team ran the entire spectrum of respectability: from Vizkop in his red kimono and cross-visored helmet, to Schafer in his no-nonsense black uniform, to John with his imposing staff and conspicuous yellow bodyglove. Vincent looked grim and grizzled in his drab carapace armour, Marc would have looked professional in his black suit if it wasn't for the bruise shadowing his jaw, and Kally still had a livid red line across her ear from the searing kiss of Noyer's laspistol.
The officer tactfully said nothing as she looked at them for a moment more, as if trying to work out which of the motley group was in charge. She settled for introducing herself instead.
“Vitani Craddock, the regent's chief of security.” she said, gesturing the team through the open door behind her. “If you'll follow me please, governor Faroven will see you now.”
Through the door the team found themselves in a large circular room, dominated by a polished wood table with high-backed chairs. A quartet of servo-skulls with underslung vox-casters hovered around the table, beaming light from their eye sockets to project a series of 3D hololiths showing the faces of truculent-looking men and women. A fifth skull with a quill and inkpot held in the callipers mounted to its jawbone orbited around the others, spooling out a ream of parchment as it recorded the words of both the projected heads and the dignitaries seated around the table. The sitting men and women wore padded jackets or elaborate robes mostly of layered red and black, contrasting with the guards who stood at ease around the walls and wore the same subdued olive as security chief Craddock.
The servo-skulls deactivated their hololiths just as the team entered, and so it wasn't long before all the seated dignitaries turned in their seats to stare at the newcomers. One of the men along the far side of the table stood up to meet them. He had a strong, middle-aged face given a sense of authority by a downturned mouth and an appraising gaze. He wore a black jacket with elbow-length sleeves, widely flared over a red silk shirt. Most immediately noticeable, however, was the fact that he was the only one at the table with a shaved head, giving his commanding face an austere cast. While the other dignitaries looked curious, disapproving or even a little nervous at the team's interruption, the bald man remained neutral; indeed, he appeared to be delegating orders.
“Ghani,” he said in a soft baritone, “If we're done here, now would be a good time to inspect the ordinate's records.”
“Records, my lord?” said a woman with elaborately curled hair, snapping her attention away from the inquisition agents.
“They've obviously cleared up the departments they want us to see; since we're here, let's see how they stand up to a surprise inspection.”
“Yes, my lord.” the woman said hurriedly, gathering up the sheaf of notes in front of her as the bald man pushed his chair back and made his way around the table to meet the agents.
“May I ask who commands your group?” he asked, looking them over with the same interest that Craddock had done.
“That would be me.” Schafer said gruffly, stepping forward and flashing his rosette. “Interrogator Schafer, ordo Ixiniad, with the authority of lord inquisitor Immanuel Sidonis. And I assume that you are governor Faroven.”
“That would be me.” the bald man echoed Schafer's words, inclining his head in a shallow nod. “I hope the wait didn't inconvenience you. There's some trouble in the southern provinces, mining colonies skirmishing with each other and refusing to ship their resources for the tithing stockpile until the routes are safe. But I've convinced them to sit down to peace talks.”
“Last time I checked, governor Faroven,” Schafer said, frowning, “The standard response to heretics was to make an example of them, not negotiate with them.”
“They're not heretics, interrogator, just restive. The ecclesiarchy might have united this world under one religion, but there's still a lot of old cultural tension between the southern tribes. I've got rather good at defusing these little bouts of sabre-rattling.”
“I imagine they'd stop arguing permanently,” Schafer pointed out, “If you bombed one of them back to the stone age.”
Governor Faroven smiled a half-moon grin. “Being a great warrior is just one way to lead, interrogator. And not necessarily the best. I'd rather keep the mining infrastructure intact, as well as my reputation as a trusted mediator. But regardless – I know the inquisition does not make appointments lightly; how can I help you further the Emperor's will?”
+ + + + + +
As Remus and the tech priest regarded each other coldly, they saw Kelly Black hurry past the glass-fronted waiting room door. Obviously catching the scene out of the corner of her eye, Kelly stopped, doubled back, and frowned in confusion through the window before pushing her way through the door and into the waiting room.
“Who the bloody hell is this?” she asked, gesturing towards magos Tharrick. “This is an inquisition operation – shouldn't this area be restricted?”
“It was.” magos Tharrick said from beneath his hood. “But I leveraged the spaceport overseer with the twenty Skitarii I have brought with me.”
Kelly was visibly shocked, but managed to smooth her face back into an impassive mask. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“As I have already explained to your associate, I am magos Corvan Tharrick, and I am here to demand the release of my fellow tech-priest adept Julius Farrier. I am here alone as a courtesy, but if you continue to detain him without explanation I will see his Knowledge returned to the cult by force.”
His voice was still measured and supremely calm, despite the obvious threat.
Kelly paused as she processed the gravity of the situation. Unfortunately, there was a practical difference between the theoretical inviolability of the inquisition and the practical authority of a few agents on a remote world. Especially to the Martian priesthood, whose tendency to use their industrial monopoly as an excuse to act as a law unto themselves sometimes confounded the wrath of even the holy inquisition. Kelly was objective enough not to be angered by that. But she did recognise that if magos Tharrick took Farrier away by force, he could be inadvertently setting another xenos replicant loose on Venatora.
“I can give you an explanation.” she said, glancing nervously at Remus and Fredriq.
“Show me adept Farrier first.” magos Tharrick answered.
Kelly nodded. “Alright.”
Gesturing for Remus and Fredriq to follow, she led the magos through to the secure ward where Farrier was being held, unlocking the door with her inquisition cypher card. Inside the sterile white room, sister Sapphira still waited by the unconscious Farrier. The sleeping tech-priest was secured to his bed by thick leather straps, and a medicae servitor swung a censer of warding incense back and forth by the head of the bed, reciting hymnals in a toneless loop. After Noyer, the team had taken no chances.
“Sister.” Kelly said, biting the inside of her cheek as she attempted to explain things to Sapphira. “This is Ad Mech representative magos Tharrick.”
“Why is adept Farrier restrained?” magos Tharrick asked; calmly, but visibly baring his metal teeth.
“Because we are not sure right now if that is Julius Farrier.” Kelly replied levelly. “The explorator crew went to Vitaris, but something else came back. The other survivor we found wasn't group captain Noyer, but some sort of xenos copy. We've been ordered to keep Farrier under guard until we know he's not the same thing.”
To her satisfaction, magos Tharrick took a slight step backward, his yellow designator light playing warily up and down Farrier's immobilised body. But then the magos slowly folded his arms and turned towards the assembled agents.
“My internal augers read his DNA as human. Explain further.”
“Noyer was the same.” Kelly said, again glancing at her fellow agents. “Let me show you him.”
“On the assumption that it will explain this continued violation of mechanicus rights.” Tharrick said, still with an unnerving lack of intonation to the threat.
Noyer's mangled body lay where Kelly had left it, under the now-dormant auger servitor. Kelly went straight to the cogitator beside the table, and struck a rune to eject a copy of the image on the screen on a transparent sheet of acetate. She distractedly traced a cog circle on the cogitator's top with her fingertip as she turned away. Magos Tharrick obviously found this brief benediction insufficient, as he stepped forward and laid his steel-jacketed hand over the cogitator for a more thorough machine prayer.
“Do you want to see this or not?” Kelly challenged the magos, a note of irritation entering her voice as she pulled a second sheet of paper from a desk on one side of the bed. Magos Tharrick turned slowly to face her, without responding.
“Noyer was shot trying to escape, after throwing off a complete dose of sedative.” Kelly said, grinding her teeth when she realised that the magos was completely disregarding her annoyance and simply waiting for her to continue. She held up the sheet of printed notes. “These are the results of Noyer's blood tests They show traces of metabolites perfectly suited to neutralising sister Sapphira's anaesthetic. But there's no way a human body could have produced them, certainly not that fast or in that quantity. More importantly, there's this.”
She held up the acetate sheet for all to see. It looked like a cross-section of a human brain, with the skull as a ghostly outline, but there was a speck of solid white nestled among the translucent brain matter.
“That's not organic. But it's smaller than any neural implant I've ever seen.”
“Group captain Noyer was not cybernetically augmented.” Tharrick stated.
“No.” Kelly agreed. “He wasn't.”
Hoping that she had given the magos enough information to take pause and think, she turned to Remus and the others.
“Keep him busy.” she whispered, and hurried out of the room. Magos Tharrick took no notice of the verispex analyst's hasty exit, and continued to stare down at Noyer's pallid corpse.
“An alien mechanism...” he said, and for the first time his voice took on a dangerous edge. “That mocks the perfection of the human form and mind. There is no greater blasphemy to either of our creeds. What else do you know of this thing?”
+ + + + + +
Marc Black found himself quietly admiring governor Faroven, and wondering if the man's ostentatiously shaved head was a holdover from a poorer upbringing or, more likely, a deliberate and clever show of solidarity with the city's proletarian class. He was brought out of his musing by a chime from the PDA in his inside pocket. Pulling it out, he saw his sister's name flashing on the pict-screen. He tapped the 'answer' rune.
“Kel?” he said, stepping back from the group.
“Marc,” his sister answered, slipping back into the midhive dialect of Makita spire 13, a brand of Solomon low gothic that only a few survivors from the Pembroke incident could understand easily.
“We've got a problem back at our bit. There's a magos here the now with a squad of Skitarii, and he wants us to release Farrier.”
“Right.” Marc said, and immediately turned to Schafer. “Sir? Something you need to hear.”
Schafer cocked an eyebrow and withdrew to the side of the room with Marc, leaving the others with governor Faroven. The planetary regent raised his own eyebrows at the interruption, but didn't seem perturbed.
“His truest servants never stop working, eh?” he observed. “So, what's your story? My cabinet and I are rather hoping you're finally going to tell us why you quarantined the explorators and their lander's crash site.”
dakkagor
05-07-2013, 06:37 PM
“The Administratum do have a taste for the monochrome, I'll give you that.” said a voice in roughly-accented Venatoran gothic. A tall woman with windchafed skin and a body that was all hard muscle under an olive dress uniform stepped out into the antechamber, her flat-soled boots clicking on the stone. Her brown hair was pinned up beneath an officer's cap and her eyes betrayed a slight surprise as she looked over the group.
“Vitani Craddock, the regent's chief of security.” she said, gesturing the team through the open door behind her. “If you'll follow me please, governor Faroven will see you now.”
"Charmed, I'm sure" Kally muttered, eyeing Vitani up. She looked like a real piece of work, all muscle and no flash. She looked like an gang Enforcer to Kally's eye's, the kind of person you sent to get money out of people or make an example. The kind of person that would waste you soon as breathe. Its just a job to them. Not a psycho, no. A professional.
She walked in the rear of the group for the moment, keeping an eye on the exits. She listened with interest as the Governer Faroven commanded his people then turned his attention to Schafer.
“I imagine they'd stop arguing permanently,” Schafer pointed out, “If you bombed one of them back to the stone age.”
Or they'd all rise up and fight you to the death, asshat.
Governor Faroven smiled a half-moon grin. “Being a great warrior is just one way to lead, interrogator. And not necessarily the best. I'd rather keep the mining infrastructure intact, as well as my reputation as a trusted mediator. But regardless – I know the inquisition does not make appointments lightly; how can I help you further the Emperor's will?”
Kally nodded slightly. Yeah, that was the long view of a true leader. She kind of liked Faroven already.
“Kel?” he said, stepping back from the group.
“Marc,” his sister answered, slipping back into the midhive dialect of Makita spire 13, a brand of Solomon low gothic that only a few survivors from the Pembroke incident could understand easily.
“We've got a problem back at camp. There's a magos here the now with a squad of Skitarii, and he wants us to release Farrier.”
“Right.” Marc said, and immediately turned to Schafer. “Sir? Something you need to hear.”
Kally had half listened to that midhive argot that Marc used. She could follow the words just about. Her own hive dialect had more swearwords in it, but she caught the jist. Big trouble back at the base camp.
“His truest servants never stop working, eh?” he observed. “So, what's your story? My cabinet and I are rather hoping you're finally going to tell us why you quarantined the explorators and their lander's crash site.”
"Sir." she responded. "I'm Agent Kally Sonder. We've quarantined the site and the Explorators because they represent a moral threat to your people. The Explorators found something on that mission and it came back with them."
She glanced at Schafer and Marc. Schafer looked pissed about something. She took a deep breath, wondering if she should plunge on. She decided to be vague, and let Schafer fill in the gaps if he choose to.
"I think I should let Interrogator fill you in on the details you need, but I feel. . .confident that we've got it contained. We had an incident" and her hand unconsciously brushed her hair away from the grazing lasgun wound. "But we got it under control. I don't think you're world is under immediate threat. But I would take this seriously and follow any advice Schafer has for you. Sir."
Azazeal849
05-16-2013, 10:00 AM
"The Explorators found something on that mission and it came back with them."
Faroven raised a shaved eyebrow. Then he clicked his fingers towards the servo-skulls still drifting around the table, and the one with the quill in its claws immediately stopped writing and retracted its callipers. The governor's staff seated around the table began to mutter quietly amongst themselves.
"Something?" Faroven repeated, folding his arms. "Such as whatever was broadcasting that signal?"
Kally glanced at Schafer and Marc. Schafer looked pissed about something.
"Has he been tested yet?" he was asking, taking an obvious effort to keep his voice down as he held Marc's PDA up to his ear with his bandaged hand. Kelly evidently replied with a negative, which caused the interrogator's free hand to clench into a fist. "Verispex Black, listen to me very carefully. If the cogboy is stupid enough to try it, I want you to shoot the detainee in the head. We are not letting another one of those things loose."
Behind Schafer, Marc caught Vizkop's eye and jerked his head, hoping that their ad-mech liaison would pick up on the visual cue that his assistance might be useful.
"Detainee." Faroven said quietly, not taking his eyes off Kally but obviously hearing Schafer's words. "Noyer or Farrier I presume. What sort of moral threat are we talking about here?"
Kally took a deep breath, wondering if she should plunge on. She decided to be vague, and let Schafer fill in the gaps if he chose to.
"I think I should let the interrogator fill you in on the details you need, but I feel...confident that we've got it contained. We had an incident," Her hand unconsciously brushed her hair away from the grazing lasgun wound. "But we got it under control. I don't think your world is under immediate threat. But I would take this seriously and follow any advice Schafer has for you. Sir."
Faroven looked at Kally appraisingly, weighing her words. Some of the dignitaries around the table were more vocal.
"How can we prepare for a threat if you won't tell us what it is? Should we mobilise the PDF?"
"Are you mad?" the man next to the speaker snapped back at his colleague. "Do you want mass panic?"
"Vitaris is dead!" called out a third, "What's making the signal, a crashed xenos ship?"
+ + + + + +
Back in the starport morgue, magos Tharrick had begun to slowly circle the table that supported Noyer's corpse, studiously ignoring Fredriq, Remus and Sapphira. He clearly couldn't bring himself to touch the xenos abomination with his hands, organic or mechanical, but his yellow eye light metronomed feverishly up and down the man's head and bullet-riddled torso.
"I believe," he said suddenly, in a low tone, "That the xenotech your verispex identified is some kind of transponder. Are you aware that although it is connected to dead nerves, it is still receiving a signal?"
Atrum Daemon
05-24-2013, 03:08 AM
Vizkop blinked behind his helmet. He detested the term “cogboy” for describing members of the Priesthood of Mars. He found it derogatory and ignorant. But, he kept his silence on that matter and instead spoke up on another. “I can offer assistance in making sure everything is…what is the phrase…smooth sailing? With the Explorators. It’s what I was brought on to do and I am more than happy to do so.”
He gave a small bow to Schafer and Faroven after he spoke, turning his gaze respectfully to the floor. He had his own reasons for wanting to act as such, of course. His assignment had multiple layers and he had to be sure to follow them all to the best of his ability.
The power fields coating his blades crackled with life. He stared at his opponent from behind the mask. He watched his skeletal opponent move with a strange, practiced grace. His own enhancements were the only things allowing him to keep up with it. The two barely moved, gauging one another carefully. One of them did not have time to waist. He had to get moving. But…he knew that if he made the wrong move that scythe would bisect him in the blink of an eye.
Vizkop straightened up, folding his hands neatly behind his back and awaiting a response from either the governor or the Interrogator.
DoughGuy
05-24-2013, 03:41 AM
John chuckled at the officer's words as she entered though did not reply. He then stood quietly for the most part as the governor and interrogator conversed. He frowned at Schafer's suggestion of bombing the miners. It was not a thing a man like the interrogator should joke about, but what worried John more is he knew Schafer wouldn't be joking. He watched silently as the others spoke, noting the call coming in over the PDA.
"This is the type of threat the Inquisition was founded to handle sir." he said, finally weighing in, "If you wish to prepare for it you should keep a line open to Interrogator Schafer and be ready to do as he instructs." he looked around the room as he spoke, making eye contact with everyone in the room. The rest of the team were distracted by the situation back at their base of operations and he would try to cover for them. He didn't hold much hope his words would have any effect on the dignitaries around the room but if the Governor had as much authority over them as he looked to his words might do something.
Azazeal849
05-28-2013, 09:00 PM
“I can offer assistance in making sure everything is…what is the phrase…smooth sailing? With the Explorators. It’s what I was brought on to do and I am more than happy to do so.”
Marc nodded and beckoned Vizkop over as Schafer handed the PDA back to him.
“Kel,” he said into the device, “Put the magos on. Vizkop is going to try and talk him down.”
He passed his PDA to Vizkop, and the ad mech liaison took it silently.
“Aye, that'll be right...” Kelly murmured doubtfully under her breath. Now with a snub-nosed enforcer's auto in her hand and trained on the comatose Farrier, she reached across to a wall terminal with her free hand and tapped a few runes. Then she pulled out a lead, and linked it to the vox unit in her hand. A moment later, her voice projected tinnily from a caster on the desk in the morgue.
“Magos Tharrick,” she said, switching back to more formal Venatoran from her hiver's cant, “We have another member of the cult who wishes to talk to you.”
Looking up from Noyer's corpse, Tharrick didn't respond verbally. Instead, he swung his optic designator around to play its yellow beam across the vox unit. There was a click as he activated some sort of noospheric implant, and in the other room Kelly was forced to jerk the vox unit away from her ear as a modulated screech wailed across the three-way channel, overlaid with a Morse-like staccato of beeps. She couldn't understand it, as was probably magos Tharrick's intention, but Vizkop could.
+ + + + + +
“This is the type of threat the Inquisition was founded to handle sir.” John said, finally weighing in, “If you wish to prepare for it you should keep a line open to Interrogator Schafer and be ready to do as he instructs.” he looked around the room as he spoke, making eye contact with everyone in the room. Several of the dignitaries renewed their queries, some with hostile interjections about taking orders from a psyker, but to John's approval governor Faroven was able to silence them with a simple upraised hand.
“And what might interrogator Schafer recommend?” he asked levelly, as Schafer stepped away from Vizkop and Marc to rejoin the group.
“I recommend,” the interrogator answered, in a voice that showed he was still agitated by the events unfolding at the spaceport, “That you prepare an expeditionary force, to root out the xenos threat on Vitaris. How long would it take to train and equip your PDF with exo-suits for offworld combat?”
A frown creased the governor's forehead, as if perturbed by the lack of clarification on the 'xenos threat', but when he spoke it revealed thoughts turned towards the logistics of the operation.
“Some time.” he said, folding his arms. “We haven't needed a force equipped for inimical atmospheres since the moon was destroyed. The real challenge would be organising the ships to move them.”
“I can pull some strings with the navy.” Schafer said, with quiet assurance.
“I'll have to take this to the astropaths at the palace. They'll need their amp arrays to send their messages beyond the system.”
“My men will escort you back to the palace.”
At that last, security chief Craddock stepped forward. “I don't think that's necessary, interrogator.”
Schafer cut her off with a peremptory wave, before turning back to Faroven. “The moral threat seemed very keen to speak to you personally, governor. If you're a target, for whatever reason, then I won't take the chance that they have other threats nearby that we don't yet know about.”
Craddock appeared to be chewing the inside of her cheek. “With due respect, interrogator, my men and I are perfectly capable of doing our jobs.”
“And my men are inquisition.” Schafer countered. “You can't get any more capable.”
Faroven unfolded his arms to put his hands up placatingly. “We can compromise here. A little extra security never hurt anyone.” He cocked a shaved eyebrow at interrogator Schafer. “Shall we?”
+ + + + + +
The sky was heavy and flat white as the convoy cruised slowly above the snow-capped buildings back into the city proper, floodlights cutting a path ahead of them. Leading the way were Faroven's Aquila and a PDF Vulture, while several other gunships including Craddock's AWACS - a converted Valkyrie - formed a wider perimeter. It was barely afternoon, but the horizon was already dimming to a gloomy twilight. They had a word for that, Marc thought to himself, back in Spire 13. Dreich. Although in a hive that usually applied to the poor light in a badly-maintained hab district than an actual sky.
The dull, uneasy light matched the investigator's mood. Even as he continually scanned the ground and the sky above for threats, he couldn't help turning the new developments over in his head. Noyer was dead, but what about Farrier? Was he one of those replicant things too? Magos Tharrick was an unwelcome variable, but as much as he didn't trust the enigmatic tech-priests, Marc was more concerned about the xenos threat. From what little he knew of the Necrons, and from cruel experience during the Pembroke case, he knew that even a few of the mechanical aliens were a deadly and unknowable threat. And he doubted that Noyer was all they had in store. What had been the point of their first gambit? And more importantly, what kind of escalation might its apparent failure lead to?
He took his eyes off the front window for a moment to glance sidelong at Vincent and Kally who were in the grav-car with him. There was something else that had been nagging at the back of his mind since that morning, but he was ignoring that until he could speak privately.
His mood was alleviated slightly by the controls under his hands as he increased power slightly to stay level with the raptor-like Aquila soaring fifty metres to their left. With some of Faroven's cabinet staying behind to see to affairs at the administratum, Schafer had appropriated one of their grav-cars. Such vehicles were generally the purview of the elite no matter which Imperial world you came from, if they were available at all, and Marc had only had the pleasure of driving one twice before. Grav-cars were expensive and impractical, status symbols more than practical vehicles. But even a practically-inclined man like Marc had to admit that they were damn cool to drive.
“So.” he said aloud, turning serious again. “What do you think about Schafer's idea for a counterattack?”
+ + + + + +
“Are you done yet?” Schafer demanded of Vizkop, his tone betraying a hint of anxiety as their Arvus carried them back towards the starport, streaking through the sky on pale contrails in stark contrast to the stately convoy they had left behind. Schafer had taken Shere along with them, wanting the team's heavy pyromancer on board if Vizkop failed to keep the interfering magos placid. He would rather be overseeing the others than sorting out this mess, but he had contented himself with stationing Clement in the governor's Aquila along with the others flying in support. Clement was one of the few members of the team that Schafer knew he could rely on. Beside him Vizkop continued to speak to his colleague over a vox mounted to the Arvus cabin, and the fact that Schafer couldn't understand the priests' stuttering binary cant and therefore had no idea how the conversation was progressing did not help his temper.
Back in the starport, Kelly was being made similarly uneasy from being locked out of the conversation. More to the point, the visual feeds from the starport's pict-stealer system, which Vizkop had routed to a dataslate for her before leaving, still showed Tharrick's twenty skitarii waiting downstairs. They stood motionless in their heavy carapace and mirrored visors, not overtly covering the exits, but nevertheless barring the way of anyone who tried to get into or out of the medical wing.
“Would you mind talking gothic?” she interjected through Vizkop and Tharrick's machine-gun bursts of code.
Magos Tharrick, who in the morgue had began to circle Noyer's body again, stopped and held the vox caster up to his unaugmented mouth.
“In the hope that clarification will prevent further interruptions.” he said tonelessly, “I was explaining to your revered adept that the signal being picked up by the xeno-construct's implant is consistent with the signal that is emanating from Vitaris.”
“What?” Kelly said.
“The priesthood has been monitoring developments on the dead planet very carefully - especially since we have been refused access to the surviving representative of our joint explorator mission.”
The magos added no apparent accusation to the statement as he extended a communion cable from his metal glove and plugged it into the cogitator that was still cycling picts of Noyer's brain scans. It flickered and was shunted into a corner of the screen to make room for a second image, this one some sort of oscillating wave form that scrolled from right to left.
“Strange.” Tharrick said after a long silence.
“What is?” asked Fredriq who was hovering nearby.
"This is a real-time feed from our satellite station in the temple spire. It has just synchronised with the output from the xenos implant that I began recording four minutes and fifteen seconds ago, and is continuing to follow it.”
“What does that mean exactly?” Kelly cut in over the vox.
“Vitaris is currently in opposition, at a distance of approximately 0.5 AU. There is a delay of several minutes between the vox signal broadcasting from Vitaris and arriving on Venatora. But the signal we are picking up now, this implant appears to have received several minutes ago. Essentially, this implant is receiving the signal in real time.”
Back in Farrier's room, Kelly frowned. Although most of the science related to the practical building of technology was jealously guarded by the ad mech, scholem physics had taught her enough to know that vox signals were limited by the speed of light. That was why the Imperium employed the necessary evil of astropaths, to keep a relevant speed of communication throughout its sprawling empire.
“That shouldn't be possible.” she said.
“No.” magos Tharrick admitted, and pulled his robe closer around himself as if cold before making the sign of the Cog to ward off the techno-heresy that his instruments were telling him. “It should not. Whatever machine spirit inhabits that device is shackled to an abomination. It must be destroyed so the spirit can return to grace.”
“I'm calling a medicus to cut it out.” Kelly said decisively. “Whether we're studying it or destroying it, I want that thing out of the body where I know it can't do any more harm.”
She broke off as there was a sudden noise from the bed. A groan; a rustle of sheets as Farrier tried to move and found himself immobilised by the restraint straps. He was waking up. Kelly immediately regripped her autopistol, and turned to her vox unit before the tech-adept could fully surface from his fugue.
“Sister.” she said, very calmly, and trusting for her voice to carry over the vox to the others still in the morgue with Tharrick, “Could you join me in the ward please?”
dakkagor
05-29-2013, 08:58 AM
Kally stared out at the leaden sky. The half light reminded her of home, but the openness unnerved her. On the glacier it had been less obvious, and the cities felt like home to a lesser or greater extent, but the massive open plains made her feel homesick and a little exposed. How did people live in areas like that without going insane?
“So.” he said aloud, turning serious again. “What do you think about Schafer's idea for a counterattack?”
Kally snapped out of her musings and turned to Marc.
"I didn't have exo-suit training on the True Bane, so I'll be joining their PDF for that. But if you're looking for an opinion. . ." She looked away, then looked back at Marc, wincing at the bruise on his jaw.
"I think its suicide. I think Schaefer has something to prove here, and he's going to grind us into that moon to prove it. If I was the interrogator, I'd just get the navy to bomb that planet into damp gravel, pour ferrorcrete over the top and then interdict the whole damn mess."
She looked out of the window and spotted the Vulture flying ahead of them. Something made her frown when she saw it, but she wasn't sure what. It was like the feeling she got when she was in a fight, and some part of her sub-concious was telling her something bad was about to go down. Something bad and unexpected.
"A lot of kids from the PDF are going to die on Vitaris." she muttered, still looking out the window at the high flying gunship. And I don't feel like joining them."
Atrum Daemon
06-04-2013, 04:10 AM
Vizkop kept a neutral face behind his helmet as Magos Tharrick began conversing to him in binary. He listened as the Magos went through about what expected as far as rants go. <I understand your frustration, Magos,> Vizkop cut in, <but this is an unfortunate necessity.>
<Enlighten me> Tharrick all but demanded.
<The clearly alien nature of the Noyer copy and the implants has left the entire operation troubled. The facilities they have to do not have the needed equipment to gain a full understanding of the possible implications. And I doubt they would understand them anyway.>
<I am pleased we agree on that point.>
<The nature of these copies is dangerous, as we have discovered. The Noyer copy clearly had violent intentions and they simply wish to take steps to ensure that such an incident does not happen again. Clarification, good Magos. That is what is needed.>
<Then in the interest of clarification know the following: the signals coming from the implants within the constructs is consistent with the signal coming from Vitaris. A troubling development.>
<Then perhaps->
“Are you done yet?” Schafer demanded of Vizkop, his tone betraying a hint of anxiety as their Arvus carried them back toward the starport, streaking through the sky on pale contrails in stark contrast to the stately convoy they left behind.
<The interrogator calls me away, Magos. I hope this has smoothed things somewhat.>
<Yes, yes. Clarification, as you said.>
The weapons clashed, power fields sparking briefly before the two danced away from one another once again. He nimbly dodged to the side to avoid the hammer as it came swooping down to crash into the floor where he had been seconds before. He had gotten plenty of experience fighting against such two-handed weapons in his encounters with xenos. He jumped as his opponent turned the axe to try to take out his legs and brought his foot up to connect with the heretek’s chest, making him stagger back.
The hammer came up and he blocked it with one of his blades, managing to push it off with a strain of servos and mechanical tendons.
“I am finished now, Interrogator,” Vizkop said as soon as he was done with Tharrick. “I believe the Magos will be more compliant now.”
PaintSerf
06-06-2013, 10:56 PM
Sapphira was an absolute wreck as she stared, stern faced and eyes burning, down at the gutted remains of faux-Noyer. Plaster and brick dust, which had frosted her previously immaculate armor, slowly wept away under the steady downpour. Her previously crisp robes and devotional parchment papers hung heavy and limp. Defiant abjurations and proud declarations of faith began to bleed. She’d held back and let Remus, John, Vizkop pursue first, as she’d refrained from bringing her revolver into the interrogation to avoid a situation like they’d just gone through. Yet somehow that’d happened, despite her best efforts, and an abomination had almost been able to escape. Fellow operatives had almost been killed because of a mistake – one that she must have made.
"Sister, I want you, miss Black and Mr L'Houce to stay here and take care of the bio-augeries. Trooper Remus will stay as security detail. I need people I can trust not to frak this up. Make sure you deal with Lia too - if she's still comatose, I want her moved to a warded cell so we don't have to spare men to watch her the whole time.”
“It will be done, Interrogator.” Sapphira stiffly replied, with an even stiffer nod, and moved off past the others towards her improvised medical suite. On her way she passed Marcus approaching from the other direction. She noted the developing bruise on his chin, and acknowledged them both with a singular quizzical eyebrow, as they continued their separate way. Each of them had more important things to be doing right now.
---
“Holy Throne of Terra.” Sapphira breathed out tensely, the words drowned out by the monotone hymnals emanating from the medicae servitor, as she reviewed the most recent data being uploaded onto the slate. The third comprehensive scan she’d ordered had come back like the predecessors – Julius Farrier was completely human, albeit for his mechanical augmentations, and recovering from his injuries. Normally these results would be exactly what she’d want to see; a wholly human patient on a return to health after critical injury. That was a cold comfort, because she’d gotten similar results from what they – correction, she’d – presumed to be Conrad Noyer. The though made her shiver beneath her carapace exterior at the thought of what was in the next room, and potentially in front of her.
She watched the Adept’s shallow respiration while intertwining her fingers through a loop of the chaplets beads. The adamantine spheres represented dozens of penitent acts, and they softly rattled off her armor while she worked them between fingers and thumb while quietly recited the Emperor’s Prayer. Sapphira knew she was due to earn several more after this assignment was concluded, but after the attempted escape, she had no doubt the chain would be much longer than before. It bothered her immensely that there was no explanation for how the xenos had reacted the way it did. Before they’d relocated, and out of sight from the others, she’d triple checked her kit to make sure the injection had been correct. It had, of course, but that didn’t relieve her completely.
“You can stand down, guardsman.” Sapphira sighed and recovered her hand to wave her servo-skull away after it finished the scan with an affirmative bleep. It turned to face her, slightly off balance as if an invisible body tilted its head, before he nodded forward and hovered off. Behind her the medicae ward doors opened and several people entered.
“Sister.” Kelly said, biting the inside of her cheek as she attempted to explain things to Sapphira. “This is Ad Mech representative magos Tharrick.”
“Magos Tharrick.” Sapphira said acknowledgement with a slight inclination of the neck as she turned to face the entrants. Her greeting and expression was tinged with wary curiosity. The Magos’ presence was an unexpected development. She rested the data slate on a side table and followed the others out of the ward to where Kelly had been studying the abomination. For her part Sapphira kept silent and contented herself by keeping an eye on the interloper. He couldn’t be allowed to intervene and let a potential heresy loose on the planet.
“Noyer was shot trying to escape, after throwing off a complete dose of sedative. These are the results of Noyer's blood tests. They show traces of metabolites perfectly suited to neutralising sister Sapphira's anaesthetic,” Sapphira inhaled softly and felt a sense of relief in spite of the further revelation of xenos perversion. At least the doppelganger’s reaction hadn’t been caused by an error in her work. Furthermore, now they knew a fraction more about the xenos and its unnatural capabilities.
“But there's no way a human body could have produced them, certainly not that fast or in that quantity. More importantly, there's this.”
Kelly held up the acetate sheet for all to see. It looked like a cross-section of a human brain, with the skull as a ghostly outline, but there was a speck of solid white nestled among the translucent brain matter. Sapphira leaned in to observe the image with a critical eye of her own, and distractedly nodded along with both their points – and Kelly’s plan to distract Tharrick. While the red robed interloper continued his examination of the duplicate, with Throne knew what type of technology, she continued to regard the cross-section. Perhaps she’d missed that detail on the scans copied onto her slate?
“An alien mechanism...” Tharrick said, and for the first time his voice took on a dangerous edge. “That mocks the perfection of the human form and mind. There is no greater blasphemy to either of our creeds. What else do you know of this thing?”
“This vile desecration will not go unpunished.” Sapphira confirmed with a nod, while subconsciously thumbing her palm, even while she noted the Magos’ own augmented form. The Imperial Creed and Cult Mechanicus had vastly different ideals of how that perfection took form. But now hardly seemed like an appropriate or tactful time to engage in theological discourse and discord.
“Not much, as we’re early into the discovery phase.” Sapphira qualified before she gestured to the corpse and continued. “That murdered adept De Reuter on the surface. It had already assumed Noyer’s appearance, almost immediately after he’d been killed by xenos weapons fire. Adept Farrier was critically wounded, and the other Aeronautica explorators murdered, sometime in the transit back. The doppelganger was insistent on a direct meeting with the Governor when Interrogator Schafer intercepted him.”
"I believe," Tharrick said suddenly, in a low tone, "That the xenotech your verispex identified is some kind of transponder. Are you aware that although it is connected to dead nerves, it is still receiving a signal?"
“We weren’t.” Sapphira conceded, while shifting slightly to cross her arms apprehensively, as she once again coldly regarded the abomination. After a moment of contemplation she looked askance at Tharrick. “Theoretically, Magos, would it be possible to trace that signal or others like it? For all we know there are other xenos infiltrators in place on Venatora.”
“Sister.” Kelly said, very calmly, over the vox, “Could you join me in the ward please?”
“I’m on my way.” Sapphira replied before turning to the others. “Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me.”
Sapphira could hear the change in Farrier’s condition before she crossed the threshold. For a moment she just stood and watched the Adept as he began to rose, before looked over at Kelly and nodded approvingly. The younger woman had the right idea about being ready to execute the patient if it was what they feared. She’d been ready to do the same since the truth about Noyer had been discovered. Not keen for another repeat of the interrogation room, Sapphira removed her gun belt and rested it on the side table next to the data-slate and gauntlets.
“Keep it up,” Sapphira encouraged Kelly as an aside before she closed in on Farrier’s bed and ordered her assistants into action, “Initiate scan four, Nico. Medicae servitor VI-J, suspend hymnal recitation.”
“Adept Farrier, remain still and just breathe regularly,” Sapphira neutrally directed the man as she reached down to manually check his vitals. “Don’t struggle with the restraints. They are as much for your protection as ours. If you can speak without difficulty, you may do so.”
Azazeal849
06-10-2013, 05:02 PM
"I am finished now, Interrogator." Vizkop said. "I believe the Magos will be more compliant now."
Schafer continued to frown at Vizkop for a moment, before nodding. "Good work, adept. But you'd better be right."
The Arvus tore on towards the starport.
+ + + + + +
"Theoretically, Magos, would it be possible to trace that signal or others like it? For all we know there are other xenos infiltrators in place on Venatora."
"Theoretically." the magos replied, still fixed on the cogitator and the impossible information it was projecting. If Sapphira didn't know better, she would have called it horrified fascination. "But without knowing how this abomination is circumventing the Omnissiah's laws to receive the transmission instantly..." He made the sign of the Cog again.
"Sister." Kelly said, very calmly, over the vox, "Could you join me in the ward please?"
"I'm on my way." Sapphira replied before turning to the others. "Gentlemen, if you'll excuse me."
+ + + + + +
"Adept Farrier, remain still and just breathe regularly." Sapphira neutrally directed the man as she reached down to manually check his vitals. "Don't struggle with the restraints. They are as much for your protection as ours. If you can speak without difficulty, you may do so."
"Noyer." Farrier croaked, forcing the words out of his dry throat. "Where's Noyer?"
"He's dead." Kelly spoke up from behind Sapphira, her voice neutral.
The restrained tech adept tried to turn his head to find the source of the voice, before fixing back on Sapphira. His eyes were wide and dilated, his face a mask of animal terror that no amount of mechanicus training could suppress.
"No." he rasped. "No he's not. You can't kill him!"
+ + + + + +
Back in the morgue, all of the lights suddenly blew out, raining glass and sparks down onto the tiled floor. At the same time, there was a screech of involuntary machine code as magos Tharrick all but ripped his arm free of the cogitator beside Noyer's slab. The freed communion cable whipped back into his arm like a wounded snake.
"The machine spirits!" the magos howled, yellow lights flickering in the sudden darkness as his optic laser switched left and right, "They recoil in the face of heresy!"*
The yellow light was suddenly joined by a green one, an ugly emerald glow that slid and scintillated across the metal slab where Noyer lay. In the sudden illumination, Fredriq and Remus could see that Noyer's wounds were disappearing. Not closing and reknitting, but simply vanishing under a sheen of jade lightning.
"That's...that's not possible!" Tharrick shouted in the dark, holding up his steel-jacketed hand as if to ward off the green light. The contrast to his previous demeanor was shocking. The magos sounded genuinely terrified. "Matter cannot be created!"
Just as Remus was bringing up his lasgun, the green light vanished. Just before the implosion, he saw the corpse on the table move. One arm jerked outwards, pointing towards magos Tharrick.
"No," Noyer's voice said in the dark. "But it can be teleported."
There was a sudden agonised howl of scrap code, one which caused the display of Remus' night vision visor to shatter into static. Magos Tharrick was screaming with both his human mouth and his code-caster, the sounds harmonising into a single discordant screech. The magos' yellow optic lights flared bright white, before snuffing out abruptly as the magos fell to the floor with a heavy thud.
In the dark, Fredriq felt something grab him - something that dragged his laspistol from the pocket of his robes and used it to fire a volley of shots across the room at Remus. His attacker's other arm made a stunning strike to his diaphragm before spinning him round and pinning him against their chest. He found himself being dragged backwards across the room, his vision dazzled by the snap and flash of duelling las weapons.
+ + + + + +
Kelly and Sapphira heard the distinctive crack of las, looked at each other, and tore off as one towards the morgue.
"Magos?" Kelly shouted into her vox as she barged through the door out into the corridor, pausing only to lock it securely behind her. "Trooper Remus? Anybody?" Her caster howled with static and went dead.
The two women sprinted along the main corridor of the medical suite, passing pairs of doors on each side that led into ward rooms like the one they had just left, and ran straight into two of Tharrick's skitarii coming the other way. They were tall men in crimson flak armour, faces hidden behind reflective silver visors. When they had abruptly lost the comm signal from their commanding magos, they had reacted predictably and aggressively, and now all twenty of them were storming into the medlab from all sides. The two who had just rounded the corner in front of Kelly and Sapphira raised lasguns that were linked to their arms by MMU data cables.
"Bloody hell!" Kelly swore, old enforcer reflexes just enough to send her shoulder-barging through the ward door to her immediate right. An eyeblink later, a stuttering stream of las ripped down the corridor. "Inquisition! Cease fire!"
The leading tech-guard responded with a second pinning volley, flattening himself against the wall as his companion pulled a grenade from his belt and started forward at a crouching run.
+ + + + + +
The side door of the small ward room was smashed open and banged back against the wall as the heavily armoured skitarius toppled back through it. His visor was fissured and melted, and a jet of vapourised blood squirted back out of the ragged hole. His lasgun, peeled apart by a beam that had struck the barrel, clattered down beside the man as he crashed backwards onto the floor. He was followed through by Noyer, with a smoking laspistol in one hand and dragging his reluctant human shield with the other. He put a foot in Fredriq's back, sending him skidding across the floor, and paused for a moment as he registered the aged scholar's terrified face.
"Do you want to know what the Masters think of you?" Noyer asked. He was still gaunt, unshaven and clad only in his ragged prisoner's clothes, but his lantern jaw was defiantly set. "Your fear of death? They pity you. Because they were once like you."
"They'll find you." a weak voice gasped from the other side of the room. "They'll stop you."
Noyer looked up and saw adept Farrier, still tied to his bed by thick leather straps. He stepped away from Fredriq to begin tugging at the dead tech-guard's webbing.
"That would be extremely ambitious of them." he said levelly.
"What are you planning on doing?" Farrier challenged his former mission commander. His face was contorted in an ugly mix of fear and anger. "Just you? Have you got enough hubris in your heretic mind that you think you can take on this whole planet? The whole of humanity?"
Noyer raised Fredriq's laspistol, and blew Farrier's brains out against the bed and the wall behind. "It's only hubris if we fail."
His angular face set, Noyer stooped back over the still-smoking body of the tech guard, pulled a pair of krak charges from the dead man's webbing, and disappeared through the door.
+ + + + + +
"I have to say, my lord." Clement said, his hands resting easily on his gun belt as he leaned back and listened to the rhythm of the Aquila's engines, softened by the intervening hull into an almost musical whine. Light filtered down through the lander's hemispherical observation dome, but both men were seated in the thick-walled passenger compartment below. "This is a different flying experience for me, and that's unusual."
"You haven't piloted one of these?" Faroven asked, turning his head towards the inquisition pilot seated next to him.
"I've flown a T-Bolt, an Arvus, a Fury and several patterns of void shuttle." Clement reeled off cheerfully, "But the lord inquisitor has his own pilot, so I've never needed to fly an Aquila. Still, first time for everything." The dark-skinned pilot paused as he glanced towards the pict screen on their right, projecting a view of the city from the lander's chin camera. "Looks like we're coming up on the palace already."
No sooner had the governor's eyes flicked away towards the screen, Clement yanked his navy autopistol from its holster. Faroven only just caught the movement in time, but he reacted instinctively. He swept his arm up, a firm strike to Clement's wrist with the edge of his hand that knocked the gun to one side. He wasn't ready for the real threat which was a punch to his neck from Clement's other fist, the ring on his middle finger now jutting a narrow needle from the inquisition sigil on its thick front. Faroven felt a sharp pain as the needle pierced his throat, and then his airway suddenly constricted, choking off the warning he was about to shout to his pilot. Restrained by the straps of his grav-couch, he hit out at Clement. The pilot caught the governor's arm by the wrist and twisted it down, pinning him. The agent was deceptively strong, or else Faroven's own strength was failing him - a sudden cold numbness was spreading through his limbs and his ears were roaring with a sound like crashing surf.
"You...fething...traitor..." he forced out as his vision began to darken at the edges, the words coming out as the merest whisper.
"No, my lord." Clement replied, and through his blurring vision Faroven could see that the pilot was no longer smiling. "Fething replicant."
The last thing governor Faroven saw before he lost consciousness was a stab of green, stemming from the pilots eyes as a wash of emerald lightning crackled across them.
Quickly, the thing that had been masquerading as Arval Clement snapped open his grav-couch restraints and hauled himself up towards the panel that controlled the closed cockpit door.
+ + + + + +
"A lot of kids from the PDF are going to die on Vitaris," Kally muttered, still looking out the window at the high flying gunship. "And I don't feel like joining them.
Marc chewed the inside of his unbruised cheek, but didn't reply. Looking past him, Kally could see Faroven's Aquila hovering twenty metres away as Marc kept station. At that exact moment, a fan of crimson splashed across the inside of the angular cockpit windows.
+ + + + + +
Noyer hurried along the corridor out of the medlab, holding his hand up towards each security pict-stealer as he passed them. One after the other, they switched themselves off. As he rounded the corner into the stairwell he met two more of Tharrick's skitarii coming the other way; one he shot with Fredriq's laspistol, the other spun towards him just in time to have his shot deflected into the white-pannelled wall as Noyer seized his lasgun's barrel. He levered the weapon and smashed the butt into the tech-guard's face, knocking him to the floor. Another shot finished the downed soldier, and Noyer paused to rip out the communion lead joining the lasgun to the implant jack in the back of the skitarius' forearm.
The panic was slow to spread through the starport, even three minutes later when Noyer stepped through the sliding doors of checkpoint A beneath the great marble Aquila sigil, the lasgun in one hand and Fredriq's pistol in the other. Raising his arms almost casually, he shot the storm-coated guards standing either side of the door through the head. People in the windswept plaza outside began screaming, but Noyer was already running across the street, dropping the now-empty guns into the blood-flecked snow.
Jarms48
06-11-2013, 01:03 PM
Back in the morgue, all of the lights suddenly blew out, raining glass and sparks down onto the tiled floor. At the same time, there was a screech of involuntary machine code as magos Tharrick all but ripped his arm free of the cogitator beside Noyer's slab. The freed communion cable whipped back into his arm like a wounded snake.
"What the? What's wrong?" Julianus queried as he rose a hand flicking on his night vision, the device plunging the room into a dull green haze. He glanced to the slab where Noyer lay, his hands still clasped on his hotshots grips. He didn't like this, though at the back of his mind he had the urge to contact a technician or a janitor, someone was going to have to clean this up and it wasn't going to be him. He closed his eyes, hoping it was just the machines spirit having a tantrum, a series of blown light bulbs, but in this line of work he had his doubts.
"The machine spirits!" The magos howled, yellow lights flickering in the sudden darkness as his optic laser switched left and right, "They recoil in the face of heresy!"
Julianus bowed his head, wording the litany of protection under his breath. The words of course rang through his mind and he thought back the sudden urge to make the sign of Aquila across his chest. "What have you done magos? What's happening?"
The yellow light was suddenly joined by a green one, an ugly emerald glow that slid and scintillated across the metal slab where Noyer lay. In the sudden illumination, Fredriq and Remus could see that Noyer's wounds were disappearing. Not closing and reknitting, but simply vanishing under a sheen of jade lightning.
The storm trooper averted his gaze, his eyes squinting in an attempt to ward off the blinding glare that swept across his visor. He could barely make it out, the eerie green light mirrored that of his own visual equipment.
"That's...that's not possible!" Tharrick shouted in the dark, holding up his steel-jacketed hand as if to ward off the green light. The contrast to his previous demeanor was shocking. The magos sounded genuinely terrified. "Matter cannot be created!"
The words were taken straight out of Remus' own mouth, though where he suppressed his own fear with conditioning, the magos was making his own known and that, seeing a member of the priesthood, men known to be cold and calculating, men so devoid of emotion, displaying their primal instinct. He found that more fearful than the events unfolding before him. He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes falling on the professor. "Fredriq, I suggest you arm yourself or get out of here. Now."
Remus felt like someone was shining a light in his eyes, he rose his weapon and cursed himself for not being able to single out his target, he couldn't risk hitting Tharrick or Fredriq. He was fast on the draw once, he knew he should of protested sooner, this abomination should have been incinerated.
* * * * *
There was a sudden agonised howl of scrap code, one which caused the display of Remus' night vision visor to shatter into static. Magos Tharrick was screaming with both his human mouth and his code-caster, the sounds harmonising into a single discordant screech. The magos' yellow optic lights flared bright white, before snuffing out abruptly as the magos fell to the floor with a heavy thud.
Darkness consumed him once again and on instinct Remus took a step back, his weapon snapping to the sound of Tharrick falling to the floor. He couldn't see, his eyes were still adjusting to the sudden pitch of black. He took a slow breath, he had to do something.
"I'm going to tear you limb from limb you xenos bastard." His words snarled from clenched teeth. "You have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, we know your face, we are His majesties Imperial Inquisition, we can muster an army at will, all it takes is a few words."
In the dark, Fredriq felt something grab him - something that dragged his laspistol from the pocket of his robes and used it to fire a volley of shots across the room at Remus. His attacker's other arm made a stunning strike to his diaphragm before spinning him round and pinning him against their chest. He found himself being dragged backwards across the room, his vision dazzled by the snap and flash of duelling las weapons.
Remus' eyes went wide as he saw the flash of lasfire, he dove to the side, a lasbolt impacting into his left shoulder pauldron. He grimaced, his armour cracked inwards, the force enough to throw him off balance and fall to the floor. He recovered, weapon raised as he watched Noyer drag Fredriq out as a human shield. He activated his microbead someone had to be warned.
"This is Remus to all Inquisitorial personnel, we have a situation. Noyer is not dead, repeat Noyer is not dead, magos Tharrick is down and Fredriq has been taken hostage. This building needs to be locked down now, security personal need to be alerted. This needs to be contained, contact Task Force Carbon, the local militia or the PDF if you have to. We need to revise our tactics, incapacitate and incinerate. Aim for the limbs, who knows how many times he can come back."
PaintSerf
06-14-2013, 06:10 PM
"Noyer." Farrier croaked, forcing the words out of his dry throat. "Where's Noyer?"
"He's dead." Kelly spoke up from behind Sapphira, her voice neutral.
The restrained tech adept tried to turn his head to find the source of the voice, before fixing back on Sapphira. His eyes were wide and dilated, his face a mask of animal terror that no amount of mechanicus training could suppress. Sapphira could feel the chill run though Farrier as his heart rate suddenly spiked. Never before had she seen such an emotional reaction from a machine cultist, and that immediately put her on edge. She withdrew her hands from his pallid torso and frowned with deep concern while Farrier quietly, but insistently, rasped the warning.
"No. No he's not. You can't kill him!"
That’s not possible. Sapphira though, and started to say, but only got the two words out before she tapered off into silence. The xenos possessed fell technologies that bypassed the very laws of reality. Farrier had evidently tried when aboard the exploratory shuttle, and must have witnessed the resurrection to have this reaction. She made the Aquila and glanced at the servo skull that rocked gently in the air nearby. At least your return was for a righteous cause. Sapphira blinked as a noise interrupted her thoughts.
Kelly and Sapphira heard the distinctive crack of las, looked at each other, and tore off as one towards the morgue. Sapphira reached over and grabbed her gun belt as she sprinted after Kelly. She left the communications to Kelly and Trooper Remus, as there was no need to clog the already strangled vox any further. Near the end of the corridor, and much to Sapphira’s surprise, two skitarii approached from the other direction. They were tall men in crimson flak armour, faces hidden behind reflective silver visors. The two who had just rounded the corner in front of Kelly and Sapphira raised lasguns that were linked to their arms by MMU data cables.
"Bloody hell!" Kelly swore, old enforcer reflexes just enough to send her shoulder-barging through the ward door to her immediate right. Sapphira mirrored Kelly’s action and barreled through the opposite door. She snapped out her revolver and retreated a few steps into the ward as the skitarii continued to barrage the frame. Kelly’s appeal had evidently been unacceptable to the clockwork soldiers, as their fire pattern kept them both pinned. With few options left, Sapphira decided to give the skitarii one last chance to save themselves from death and damnation.
“There is an abomination on the loose that profanes the holy form of man!” Sapphira called out as she continued to cover the doorway and Kelly’s side of the corridor. “By engaging us you aid the xeno and its diabolical agenda! Stand down or be purged as heretical collaborators!”
Azazeal849
06-14-2013, 08:55 PM
Sapphira was worried that her voice wouldn't carry over the crack of wall plaster exploding under lasfire, but by the Emperor's grace it must have, because the fusillade temporarily ceased.
"Where is magos Tharrick?" shouted a voice. It was devoid of anger, but not of threat. "You have five seconds to respond!"
"He's in the morgue!" Kelly shouted back from opposite Sapphira. She was blinking hard in the smoke haze thrown up by the gunfire.
"We lost contact!" the voice barked. "Explain further! You have five seconds!"
PaintSerf
06-15-2013, 08:26 AM
Sapphira was worried that her voice wouldn't carry over the crack of wall plaster exploding under lasfire, but by the Emperor's grace it must have, because the fusillade temporarily ceased. She blinked several times, and not just because of the now pervasive smoke. The attempt to parlay had been a desperate last chance for both sides to avoid murdering one another while Noyer escaped. Evidently the Emperor had approved and granted them a momentary reprieve. Sapphira knew she couldn’t let the moment, or the opportunity for collaboration, be pointlessly wasted.
"Where is magos Tharrick?" shouted a voice. It was devoid of anger, but not of threat. "You have five seconds to respond!"
"He's in the morgue!" Kelly shouted back from opposite Sapphira. She was blinking hard in the smoke haze thrown up by the gunfire. While Kelly responded for the Inquisitorial side of the debate Sapphira dropped her gun belt so she could pull up her respirator. Now would be a terrible time for a coughing spell when the situation was so precarious. Although they were talking, and the smoke made it difficult to see, Sapphira kept her weapon trained.
"We lost contact!" the voice barked. "Explain further! You have five seconds!"
“Magos Tharrick was incapacitated by a xeno infiltrator that’s also taken one of our team a hostage!” Sapphira replied with the scant but crucial details of Julianus’ last transmission. “The creature is definitely dangerous, possibly armed, and on the loose! Now, if you two are done trying to murder us, how’d you like to help us kill an alien?”
Azazeal849
06-17-2013, 11:43 AM
<OOC note - For timing purposes, the events of this post happen immediately prior to Noyer breaking into Farrier's room.>
"Now, if you two are done trying to murder us, how'd you like to help us kill an alien?"
If the silver-visored skitarii were at all affected by Sapphira's scathing response, they did not show it. "Step out into the corridor."
From behind the shelter of her door-frame, Kelly exchanged another look with Sapphira before complying. She kept her enforcer's autopistol lowered towards the floor, but maintained her two-handed grip on the weapon. The tech-guard who had spoken compromised by lowering his lasgun slightly, although now it was merely aimed at the woman's knees instead of her centre of mass. His companion kept a hold of his grenade, although he had moved his gloved hand away from the pin.
"Which way is the morgue?" the first tech-guard barked.
Kelly dropped a hand from her gun to point. "That way."
"Stay within visual range." said the tech-guard as both men regripped their lasguns. He began talking into what Sapphira and Kelly assumed was a vox unit in the back of his crimson vambrace. "Alpha, this is Kappa - magos Tharrick is in the morgue. Be advised, alleged xenos entity somewhere in the building."
The other tech-guard turned his mirrored visor back towards the two women as they all started forward. "Describe the xenos infiltrator."
+ + + + + +
"No grenades." snapped a tech-guard, visually indistinguishable from the others, but with an authority that the other skitarii automatically deferred to. He was speaking to the two tech-guards crouched either side of the morgue's south door, and the third who had just pulled out a frag grenade. "Kappa reports magos Tharrick is inside. On my order, breach and secure."
The red-armoured men, who had stacked up by the door to await further orders after hearing the lasfire inside, stood up slightly.
"Breach!"
+ + + + + +
"Aim for the limbs," Remus said into his microbead as he started after Noyer and Fredriq. "Who knows how many times he can come back."
Behind him, the morgue's other door was suddenly kicked open and three men in angular red armour barged through. Two immediately pivoted left and right, while the third shouted something and fired a single shot across the room at Remus. The thread of light ended in a crack which vaporised part of Remus' backplate and knocked him forward onto the floor behind the autopsy slab.
dakkagor
06-17-2013, 11:47 AM
Kally could see Faroven's Aquila hovering twenty metres away as Marc kept station. At that exact moment, a fan of crimson splashed across the inside of the angular cockpit windows.
"Throne!" she shouted, recoiling from the window. She drew her boltgun (tricky in a confined space like the backseat of a hovercar) and centred the scope on the the cockpit of the Aquila as it briefly dropped in the air, then regained altitude and changed course, heading south.
"Gak me." She had seen someone enter the cockpit seat just briefly, but who she wasn't sure. She activated her vox bead and flipped it to Clements frequency
"Clement, come in! This is Kally, what the hell just happened up there?"
There was no reply and she cursed again as she flicked to the channel being used by the aerial escort, and Schaffer.
"Schaffer, Kally here. I think the Governors flier has been compromised. We need to follow it and if possible force it down."
"What did you see agent?" came the agitated reply. Kally kept watching the flier as Marc followed it in the car. Pretty soon it would leave them behind, and Schaffer sounded as if he had already guessed something was up from the radio silence and the sudden unannounced course change.
"Big blood splash across the cockpit. I think its safe to say the pilot has been killed. No idea what the Governors status is though."
"We need to get into that shuttle." Came the reply. Good thinking genius.
"We can't while its in the air. Give the order to force it down. If the Governors still alive me and Marc can get him out safely."
kardar233
06-19-2013, 08:49 AM
Lia awoke sharply, her mind and body slamming immediately into high gear as they were trained to do. She cocked her head and her keen ears strained for the sound that had woken her, eventually discerning a slight piston hiss. She frowned and grasped for her hand vox beside the bed, slipping it into a pocket of her vest before swinging her legs over the edge of her bed and standing. She breathed a sigh of relief as her bare feet touched the tiled floor and stabilized her.
She focused for several long moments, searching with her ears and more eldritch senses for the others in the building. It seemed most of the team had left, but she noted five people clustered around the infirmary, one of them far heavier than the others: the likely source of the mechanical sounds that woke her.
She took a step forward and froze. More people. Heavy people. She reached behind her and snagged the belt holding her hellpistol, carefully buckling it around her waist as she slowly made her way down the hall towards the infirmary, balanced on the balls of her feet.
She felt another person gain their feet, and she felt the metal man hit the floor. She broke into a run, bare foot gaining perfect purchase on the slick tiles. The weight of the other metal men communicated their motion to her and she raced them towards the infirmary.
Dashing ahead, she caught a glimpse of a green-glowing man dragging the old man. At nearly the same time, lasfire echoed out from the direction of the infirmary. Dozens of combat situations once hammered into her skull flicked through her mind and settled on the correct course of action: she retained her course, speeding towards the lasfire.
One field of fire had ceased, but another was still going strong at a heavy person in the morgue. Her skin smoothed down as she prepared herself for the fight. She turned a corner and nearly ran headlong into a red-robed robot man blasting away with a lasgun. She ducked down and wrapped her hands around the nearest of the Skitarius' thick mechanical legs (her small hands not even reaching around its girth) and wrenched it out from underneath the robot.
Tiles cracked and concrete groaned beneath her feet as she used her grip to spin the Tech-Guardsman in a horizontal circle before releasing him to fly through the air. The flying servitor slammed bodily into another of its allies, the two metal masses smashing messily through a dull-coloured wall.
Lia ran on to the open doors of the morgue to see a third robot man firing at someone behind a big solid table. She sped up right behind the Skitarius, reached up to grab his arms, hauled them back and hammered her right foot straight through its back plating. Something smashed inside. She pulled her foot out of the servitor's torso, took two quick steps and used her grip on its arms to send it spinning, crashing through the side wall of the morgue with an awful ruckus.
Looking over at the solid table, she saw the man who had been pinned by the Skitarii. The Guardsman. Mr. Grumpy. She looked right at him and lifted her bare right foot; a section of snapped wire slithered off it as she pointed at it. "See? No shoes." And then she was running again.
She raced through the morgue door, setting one foot firmly on the tile to let her pivot around, taking the hard left into the corridor without losing any speed. She sped down the hall and took another turn to see the doctor lady and another woman unarmed, walking with one of the robots. It had its lasgun out but wasn't shooting, so Lia made a hard stop several metres away and frowned at it.
She looked at the doctor lady. "Are... are you okay? Should I punch the robot?"
Azazeal849
06-19-2013, 04:15 PM
"Are...are you okay? Should I punch the robot?"
"Identify!" one of the tech-guard barked at her before Sapphira could respond, both men's lasguns snapping up into their shoulders with serpentine speed. The two augmented soldiers were clearly stimming hard on adrenaline.
"That's Lia, she's one of ours." Kelly snapped, her head turning to check the corridor behind them before coming back to Lia and the two tech-guard.
"How many more of you on this level?"
"Two. A stormtrooper and a savant."
The tech-guard went back to his wrist vox as they resumed their advance. "Unit, Kappa, update. Two other inquisition in the mission zone: one stormtrooper, one savant. Designate non-targets."
"Unit, Epsilon." voxed back another tech-guard who had just burst into the ward room at the other end of the medlab to find Fredriq, his mouth working silently as he sat in the middle of the violence Noyer had left. "Savant located. Xi has been nullified. Have also located adept Farrier, subject deceased."
Kelly and the others supposed that it was a testament to mechanicus conditioning that the tech-guard called Kappa didn't swear loudly when he heard this.
"Alpha." he said instead, "Request order update." There was a pause. "Alpha?"
The reason for the silence became clear a moment later when they rounded the corner and Lia's handiwork came into view. Seeing the bodies lying in the corridor, the two tech-guard pulled up short and flattened themselves against the hole in the morgue wall that Lia's first throw had left.
"Alpha through Delta nullified!"
The skitarii activated helmet-mounted torches which scattered across the smoke-shrouded morgue as they advanced into it. Kappa swept the room with the barrel of his lasgun while his companion ran forward towards the fallen magos Tharrick.
"Unit, Kappa." the skitarius voxed. "Magos Tharrick located, position of xenos threat still unknown. Confirm all level exits secure."
He received three affirmitive pips, and one ominous silence.
"Theta, Kappa. Status?"
His curt request crackled in the helmet of one of the two corpses Noyer had left by the southwest fire exit.
"What are you waiting for?" Kelly shouted, her analyst's mind jumping to a conclusion quicker than the tech-guard's conditioned one. She ran towards the internal vox array nestled into the far wall to connect with the other teams and warn Schafer. "Get after it!"
+ + + + + +
"Big blood splash across the cockpit. I think it's safe to say the pilot has been killed. No idea what the governor's status is though."
"The vox has gone dead." crackled a voice that Kally recognised as security chief Craddock's.
Marc was cursing under his breath as he gunned the soft-skinned vehicle's power plant; Vincent was swearing rather more loudly as he tried to unlimber his own weapons.
"We need to get into that shuttle." came Schafer's reply.
Good thinking, genius was Kally's sarcastic thought. "We can't while it's in the air. Give the order to force it down. If the governor's still alive me and Marc can get him out safely."
"We're en route." Schafer voxed.
"We can't risk hitting the governor." came Craddock's voice, hazed with static. "Eagle 2, try and box him in. Eagle 3 put a shot across his nose-cone."
The Valkyries and Vultures around them heeled round in the air, engines flaring.
"Imperial One, Imperial One, resume original course and speed immediately." a male voice carried across the vox net. "Resume original course or we will open fire."
Bright streaks of ionised air flashed past the Aquila as the Valkyrie behind it opened up with its multilaser. In response, the rogue flyer tipped back its nose, fanning its forward-swept wings towards the gunship trying to overhaul it, and began to climb. The vox channel stuttered with reports.
"He's not turning."
"If he keeps climbing we'll lose him."
"I'm calling the PDF to scramble interceptors." Craddock voxed.
In the padded driver's seat in front of Kally and Vincent, Marc cursed again. Anything that could catch the rogue flyer was precious minutes away from launching. The Aquila was a transorbital lander, and could fly both higher and faster than the gunships escorting it, never mind their grav-car. But to gain height it was fighting gravity, its 40-tonne bulk temporarily slowing it down before its main engines could kick it into the stratosphere. Marc didn't know the first thing about the techno-wizardly behind their own vehicle's anti-grav plates, but from the name alone he knew that they didn't have the same problem.
The hum of the grav-plates rose to a shriek as he cranked their output to maximum, accompanied by a roar from the rear rockets as he floored the accelerator.
"The fok you doing, kid?" Vincent yelled, grabbing the back of Marc's headrest with his bionic hand to stop himself being thrown violently sideways.
"Improvising." Marc replied through gritted teeth. They had maybe a few seconds, if that.
"Shoot it!" he shouted to Kally and Vincent. He thumbed a rune on the steering column, and the passenger side windows retracted into the doors. The sound of the straining grav motor was replaced by a booming rush of air, that hit the three occupants like a physical force and made any further communication impossible.
In an instant they were over the Aquila's wing, barely five metres from the blood-streaked cockpit and the air intake of the rocket engine mounted alongside it. The howl of the ramjet was a physically painful white wall of noise, totally drowning the shriek of stressed metal as the Aquila's slipstream began to tear the grav-car apart.
Atrum Daemon
06-25-2013, 11:59 PM
Vizkop had kept his peace for the most part, being a silent observer as the situation went down. He did not want to risk compromising himself by overstepping his bounds within his role. His disposition changed when the news came that Noyer was back up and moving again. ‘Well this just got uncomfortably difficult,’ he thought.
He was on autopilot. The job was so tedious and monotonous that he just switched off after the first thirty minutes. Sitting at a desk and typing on a cogitator for four hours gave him a newfound respect for Administratum adepts. Cataloging dates, names, locations. It was all very simple and his mental implants allowed him to process the information at a good pace. It was going to be one of THOSE jobs. The kind that required a lot of prep time. And in this case a lot of time posing as an information adept and typing away.
Vizkop jumped to his feet when the situation with the governor’s Aquila changed. They needed to get it to land and from what he could tell, one of the team was firing a boltgun at it. Not a bad idea, but the bird needed to go down. “Excuse me,” he said, sliding past Schafer to get closer to the cockpit. “Pilot, keep us in range of the Aquila.”
He tapped into the noosphere and brought up the full display. A green head’s up display danced in front of him complete with a keyboard. His haptics skills were up to snuff and he started typing away, locating the systems of the Aquila he needed. His fingers typed on runes only visible to him and at his gestures, screens moved aside and others came into the forefront. He grinned when he located the entrance he needed. Getting into the navigation systems of a simple Aquila was a small thing. Blurts of binary came out of him as he vocalized prayers to the machine spirits and the Deus Machina. His streams danced through the nav systems and he switched from haptics to gestures, appearing almost like a conductor. His data stream was directed through the nav system and into the engines. The systems within the Aquila would soon start experiencing swift and unusual failure, starting with all the navigations. “Let’s see how good they are flying blind. And with a failing engine,” Vizkop said, a smirk in his voice as he returned the interface to its normal, side-lined position in his vision.
dakkagor
06-26-2013, 10:06 AM
"Shoot it!" he shouted to Kally and Vincent. He thumbed a rune on the steering column, and the passenger side windows retracted into the doors. The sound of the straining grav motor was replaced by a booming rush of air, that hit the three occupants like a physical force and made any further communication impossible.
"Oh hell." muttered Kally as she flicked her Boltgun to kraken rounds. She didn't like where this was going.
In an instant they were over the Aquila's wing, barely five metres from the blood-streaked cockpit and the air intake of the rocket engine mounted alongside it. The howl of the ramjet was a physically painful white wall of noise, totally drowning the shriek of stressed metal as the Aquila's slipstream began to tear the grav-car apart.
She settled the bolter into the crook her shoulder, then centred the scope on the plexi-glass window. The bolters distinctive crack-bang sound was lost in the howl of air as she banged off 5 quick shots.
None of them hit. A few cratered the reentry armour towards the back of the craft, but that was it.
She pursed her lips, quickly thinking the problem through. The bolter's shells where being dragged off course by the wind turbulence before the primary rocket charge could fire. Her laspistol shots would probably dissipate in the turbulence before they could reach the cockpit canopy.
"I'm stepping out for a bit." She shouted as she grabbed a seat belt and a combat knife. She cut away the unnecessary straps and quickly looped it around her waist and belt. Good enough.
"What the hell are you doing?" yelled Marc as she levered herself half way out of the open window and into the slipstream. She gritted her teeth and ignored him. Hanging onto the car's roof with her left hand, firmly planting her feet in the foot well and on the plush leather seats, she nestled the bolter in the crook of her elbow and fired from the hip.
This time, three rounds cratered the glass before she held fire. She needed to hit those same spots again, and this wasn't an accurate shooting position. If she could hit a weakened spot, again, whoever was in the cockpit would know about it.
Whoever was in the Aquilla seemed to agree with her assessment. It began to swerve towards them, obviously intent on smashing them from the sky with its armoured bulk before jetting clear. Kally let go of the roof and twisted round. For a second she thought she heard Marc scream something before she completed the move. Now she was hanging upside down from the door, her legs hooking her into place as her head was level with the grav plate, her hair whipping around her in a half halo thanks to the turbulence and the effects of the anti-grav motor.
But she had both arms to hold the boltgun now. She levelled the gun and muttered a prayer to the weapons machine spirit, before firing a short, sharp burst into the canopy.
Right where she had hit before.
Azazeal849
06-28-2013, 04:27 PM
The last of the red-robed ground crew dropped with a smoking hole in the back of his head, expiring with a brief, violent seizure as destroyed synapses fired a terminal burst through his shoulder-mounted mechadendrites. Conrad Noyer stepped over the spasming corpse, his ragged clothes now hidden beneath an aeronautica greatcoat as he crossed the hanger with quick, purposeful strides. He swept his hand around the walls as he walked, security pict-stealers, smoke detectors and automatic fire suppressors clicking off one by one in his wake.
At the PDF airbase near the starport, the hydraulic whine of launch ramps angling upward was replaced by a roar of turbojets as the base's standby Lightnings were catapulted into the grey sky. The snub nosed aircraft with their twin tails and wide, forward-swept wings thundered skyward leaving a slash of smoke and water vapour across the air, while below the airbase's scramble alarm continued to wail. Inside the hanger, the klaxons were drowned out by the rising whistle of the Avenger strike fighter as it powered up to join its more nimble comrades. Already enclosed in his cockpit, the pilot didn't notice the fate of his ground crew; nor did he notice Noyer as the replicant primed one of his stolen krak grenades and hurled it with perfect accuracy towards the Avenger's barrel fuselage. The grenade locked with a click of mag-clamps just below the cockpit, and the pilot was still concentrating on his pre-flight checks when an orange fireball tore up through his station a heartbeat later, blowing the angular canopy out against the roof of the hanger. Suddenly bereft of guidance, the Avenger stayed with its engines idling as the fire was swallowed by a column of smoke that billowed up and across the ceiling.
Noyer just stood in place, his eyes fixed expectantly on the empty space in front of the grounded Avenger as a green light blazed into life along the floor. Green lightning crackled, throwing lurid shadows across the Avenger, the fuel and munitions stacked nearby, and the contorted bodies of the hanger's attendant tech-priests. The sickly fire washed upwards, flowing around a dark shape that began to materialise from the ground up in front of Noyer. The green lightning boiled away to reveal heavy undercarriage, joined to a thick fuselage with a multi-barrelled bolt cannon jutting evilly from the front. Thick, forward-swept wings crackled into existance, forming round a pair of heavy jet engines that began to spin up even as the green glow faded. Emerald light tapered and solidified into a wide tail and twin vertical stabilisers as the last of the caged lightning fizzled out to reveal a second Avenger fighter, identical in every way to the one that was now a smoking ruin behind it.
Noyer stepped forward, climbed into the open cockpit, and pulled the armoured canopy shut behind him.
"Clement." he said, pulling the air mask with its integral vox caster around his mouth and nose while his other hand flicked a sequence of start-up controls with practiced ease. "Is the governor still alive?"
In his hijacked Aquila, the replicant Clement glanced back over his shoulder as the Valkyrie behind him made good on its threat to open fire. A tight fan of lasbeams scorched past the hull, setting off a shrill alarm from the flyer's machine spirit. Clement silenced it with a snap of his wrist, without actually touching any controls.
"Yes." he answered as he turned back to his dashboard. The original pilot's blood was all over the windscreen, but an aviator as good as Arval Clement didn't need an external viewpoint to fly by. Realising the game was up, Clement hauled back on the flight stick.
"Make sure he stays that way." Noyer warned him calmly as he taxied his doppelganger aircraft out of the hanger. The disabled fighter he had left behind was beginning to fill the enclosure with smoke, but he would be airborne before anyone noticed. "I'll rendezvous with you over Ardent."
"Copy." Clement replied, and clenched his jaw and stomach muscles against the g-forces as his Aquila began to climb. It was then that the lander's skittish machine spirit screeched again - this time with the lower tone of a proximity warning. Clement's eyes snapped to the green wireframe of the auger disc, and then a heavy impact to the right side of the blood-streaked canopy made him look up, just in time to see the grav-car pulling level with him.
"Emperor's..."
Kally levelled her gun and muttered a prayer to the weapon's machine spirit, before firing a short, sharp burst into the canopy. Right where she had hit before.
Clement heard the splintering crack, and realised what it meant even as the Aquila's afterburners engaged to belatedly kick him skyward. Half a second later, the side of the cockpit canopy blew out in a hail of glittering transparisteel. Clement reacted to the explosive decompression the only way he could - by putting the Aquila into a headlong dive. He reversed his hold on the flight stick, slamming it forward as a boom of air drowned out the squeal of stressed metal and yet another alarm as the manoeuvre exceeded the tolerances of the lander's grav compensators. The Aquila crested its parabola, and Clement felt a brief lurch of weightlessness that his original mind had known only too well, followed by a painful surge of blood towards his head as the Aquila dived. He fought the red haze bursting at the edges of his vision as the altimeter needle went into a wild downward spin. If the rest of the canopy failed and left him fully exposed to the elements, the slipstream alone could kill him; and more importantly the governor.
G-force dragged at Clement's arms and legs as he activated manoeuvring thrusters, attempting to slow the Aquila's descent and level it out at a safer altitude. It was then that Vizkop's machine curse made itself felt, and his entire dashboard lit up amber with flashing warning runes.
"Oh." the replicant said through gritted teeth. "Oh shit!"
+ + + + + +
Marc wrenched the grav-car to the side, sideslipping away from the Aquila's white-hot jetwash only just in time. Kally, still hanging out the side window, was nearly roasted alive by the afterburners, and only Vincent lurching across the back seat to seize her legs stopped the sideways motion from ripping her clean out of the vehicle. Marc killed the grav-car's speed as quickly as he dared, giving his fellow agent a chance to haul Kally back in.
"I thought my idea was stupid, but you topped it!" he shouted over the howling wind as Kally and Vincent tumbled back into the back seat. The sliding windows were no longer working, the grav-car's side doors deformed by the buffeting slipstream.
Far below them, beneath Craddock's diving Valkyries, the compromised Aquila pulled up from its terminal descent too late. Slowed by Vizkop's machine curse, it clipped the glass and concrete front of a hab spire as it flashed between the high rise buildings. Its wing raked a long gash in the eagle-carved buttresses before shearing off, sending the lander into a lateral spin before it plowed into a multi-story vehicle park between a mag-lev station and a marble-fronted administratum complex.
Interrogator Schafer swore at what the auger screens and shouted vox reports were telling him, as the Arvus carrying Vizkop, Shere and himself streaked into the chaotic airspace above the business district.
"Put us down there!" Schafer said, pointing to the roof of the multi-story as the Arvus banked round to circle the crash site.
"Are you crazy?" their pilot exclaimed, his shaved eyebrows shooting up towards his helmet rim in alarm. The roof of the vehicle park was not designed to take the weight of a landing shuttle, especially with its structure compromised by the massive hole that the governor's Aquila had just ripped in the side of it.
"No." Schafer snarled in reply, "I'm an Emperor-damn interrogator. Now either land this thing or hover and drop us, or I'll have you executed as a fething traitor!" He seized the vox with his bandaged hand. "Black, Nyl, Sonder, get your arses down here so we can apprehend this bastard heretic!"
Vehicles were screeching to a halt in the streets around the crash site, and pedestrians stood paralysed in shock as the Arvus descended, accompanied by Craddock's Valkyries. Civilians scattered from the howling downwash as armoured men and women began to drop from the gunship hatches and rush towards the multi-story. The Vulture hovered above, lascannon turrets swivelling left and right as it strafed a circle around the smoking structure. Looking ridiculously small and fragile compared to the brutal, angular flyers, Marc's grav car dropped towards the roof with them, aiming for the corner opposite that was still free from the rising pillar of oily black smoke.
dakkagor
07-02-2013, 04:26 PM
Kally's eyes widened as the grav car lurched away from the nose diving Aquilla. She tried to haul herself back up into the window but felt herself slipping even as she tried. Internally she cursed Strelilov for keeping her cooped up for so long (This used to be an easy move! She used to be stronger than this!) and herself for doing something so damned stupid in the first place.
Then the afterburner nearly cooked her alive. She reflexively pulled her arms round to cover her face, and she slipped completely.
Before she had time to let her short, messy life flash before her eyes, a powerful metal hand clamped on her ankle and hauled her back into the grav car.
"I thought my idea was stupid, but you topped it!" shouted Marc. For a second Kally sat in stunned silence, then burst into sudden laughter.
"Are you joking? That was FRACKING AWESOME!" she expertly swapped out the expended kraken mag for a mag of standard bolt shells. "And I don't remember anyone packing an anti-aircraft weapon for this jaunt, so what the hell else where we meant to do?"
Marc drew in a breath to say the first thing that came into his head ("I didn't pull you out of that cell so you could smear yourself all over a hab roof") but bit down on the horribly tactless remark before he could voice it. She had got the job done. And, if nothing else, he didn't want to take up Schafer's mantle as the authoritarian of the group.
Kally settled back into the chair, and winced slightly. Despite her near baking she thought she had got away with out any injuries, but her ankle, where Vincent had grabbed her, was suddenly throbbing. She looked over and smiled at the grizzled veteran in a kind of maniacal way, pleased to be alive and happy to have been saved. She'd get it in the neck later but at the moment she couldn't give a frack, not with the sudden surge of adrenalin singing in her veins.
The grav car came in low over the top of the parking lot and landed near the column of black smoke. Kally kicked the door open and jumped out, wincing and nearly stumbling as she landed. The ankle wasn't dislocated but it sure hurt like hell.
"You ok?" Vincent was just behind her.
"Nothing to worry about." she lied, letting him move ahead towards the crash site. She grabbed a stimm from her pack and jabbed it into her wrist. Keep moving, and worry about the damage later.
The same thought from earlier stopped Marc from saying anything when Kally 'stimmed up' in front of him despite the fact she had been using too many of them recently. He watched Kally discard the needle and break into a jog to catch up with Vincent. Without time to grab his overcoat as he set the car down and popped the driver's side door, Marc immediately felt the cold knife through him as he dropped onto the tarmac and headed after the others. The chill brought a familiar twinge to his healed leg, but it wasn't too bad to ignore as he drew his laspistol from inside his suit jacket and broke into a run, after the grizzled mercenary and the damaged ganger.
+ + + + + +
The Replicant calling itself Arval Clement sucked in a breath as broken ribs snapped back into place, a green spark earthing itself against the dashboard as he jerked upright in his seat. He couldn't see much through the smoke and the bloodstained, spider-webbed canopy, but he knew that the others would be coming. He fumbled with the release catch for his four-point grav harness. They didn't have much time.
+ + + + + +
The crash site was a mess, but the Aquila was mostly intact. It had buried itself in-between two floors of the carpark block, its nose pointing towards the middle of the structure and the access ramp. A few bewildered citizens were crouching behind their vehicles or trying to approach the crashed lander, squinting against the hot dust that now filled the air and the acrid stink of the smoke rising from the Aquila.
"Inquisition!" Marc shouted in his best enforcer's voice. "In the name of the Emperor, clear the area right now!"
As the civilians scattered, a familiar figure stumbled from the Aquila's open rear ramp, pulling an unconscious man behind him.
"I got him!" Clement called across to Kally and the others. He was dragging the red-and-black-clad governor awkwardly with one hand, a scorch-barrelled laspistol gripped in the other even as he used the arm to cradle his bruised ribs. "Emperor's mercy, the pilot was one of those Replicants! I don't know how he killed the original but when I broke down the cockpit hatch there was blood all over the canopy. I shot him but I couldn't take control before we hit the ground."
"Help him get Faroven out of there." Marc said to Kally. Dragging the injured regent out of the Aquila was probably only doing him more damage, but it was preferable to remaining in the Aquila when a spark or fuel leaking onto hot metal could still cause the lander's prometheum tanks to explode. "I'll get the frakking xenos."
"On it. Be careful" Kally eyed the wreckage warily as she approached Clement and the Governer. She went to support the Governor but Clement shied away.
"I've got him." Clement looked back to the shuttle "You should help Marc, make sure that thing is dead."
Kally paused, about to jump to it, then she thought again, her gaze flicking to Vincent, who nodded.
"Me and Vince should take the Principal. You're injured and possibly contaminated by close proximity. You know that's how it works, standard procedure."
"I've got him this far!" Clement snapped. "If it wasn't for me that damn Replicant would have shot him!"
Kally stepped back, surprised. Something just didn't add up here. There was an odd feeling in the back of her head. That 'oh shit ambush' tingle.
"Why didn't you respond to vox?" she asked, calmly. Vince caught the tone in her voice and began reaching for a pistol.
"Don't you think we should be moving away from the stricken lander?" Clement snapped. "Like right damn now?"
"Drop him." Kally responded, a terrible clarity settling on her as her subconscious provided the missing pieces. The vox silence, the state of his uniform, the way everything had fitted together.
Or didn't.
Clement shifted slightly, looking to Vince for support. He already had a pistol drawn, held at his thigh.
"There's only one body!" Marc's voice came over the comm. "If the pilot was replicated, where's the second body? Get Clement away from the Governer!"
Kally went for a pistol, but the Replicant was faster. His laspistol made the journey from his side to level with Kally's forehead in the time it took her unhook hers from its holster.
"Drop it." He snarled, shifting his grip on the Governor. "Or I'll drop you."
She paused, looked at Vince, he was already speaking quietly into his comms, backing off. Good Call. She thought. Let this pan out. Marc is still in the shuttle. Remain calm, keep your head, and do what Schafer recommended: rely on your friends.
"OK. . you win." she dropped the laspistol onto the cracked concrete and kicked it away, while raising her hands into the air.. "What now smart guy. This place is about to be swarming with Inquisitorial agents and you have to know Schafer would rather level the whole block than let you get away."
Azazeal849
07-15-2013, 05:00 PM
Kally paused, and looked at Vince; he was already speaking quietly into his comm, backing off. Good call. she thought. Let this pan out. Marc is still in the shuttle. Remain calm, keep your head, and do what Schafer recommended: rely on your friends.
+ + + + + +
Schafer leapt from the hovering Arvus with his autopistol cocked in his good hand, and dropped to one knee to absorb the impact as he landed right behind Vizkop and Shere. Straightening, he sprinted after them. From the team vox chatter, something had gone very wrong. Clement! Clement was the Replicant! The interrogator swore, more at himself than anything. He had been knocked senseless when the shuttle's lascannons had blown up on him - he hadn't actually seen Clement wake up and regain control of the lander. Had he been out long enough for the Replicant Clement to appear and somehow dispose of his original pilot's body? They still knew next to nothing about these xenos constructs and their capabilities.
Schafer gritted his teeth as he ran. Arval Clement had served the inquisition faithfully for six years. He was going to personally eviscerate the alien abomination that was wearing his friend's face.
Vincent's voice on the comm forcibly cut through the interrogator's rage. "Hostage situation."
"Wait!" Schafer hissed, stopping halfway down the stairs. Shere halted in his tracks; Vizkop whipped his helmeted head back towards the interrogator. Schafer snapped a hand signal towards the tech-priest.
+ + + + + +
"Okay...you win."
Kally dropped the laspistol onto the cracked concrete and kicked it away, while raising her hands into the air.
"What now, smart guy? This place is about to be swarming with inquisitorial agents and you have to know Schafer would rather level the whole block than let you get away."
Clement's gun was still pointed between Kally's eyes. "Good thing I can't die then." he said, and pulled the trigger.
The trigger clicked back against the grip, but the gun didn't fire. At the same moment, Marc ducked round the open rear hatch of the Aquila and opened fire. The first thread of las caught Clement in the left shoulder; the second caught him in the other, battering him back towards the collapsed edge of the floor until the third shot hit him in the face, snapping his head back and pitching him backwards off the ledge and down onto the level below.
"Got the bastard." the ex-enforcer reported as he ran to the edge, leading the way with his laspistol as he stopped and looked down at the Replicant broken across the rubble below. He snapped his head round to look at Vince and Kally. "You two alright?"
Turning round, Kally saw Vizkop rise from the cover of a support pillar near the stairwell, Schafer and Shere close behind him.
"Secure the governor." Schafer said, running forward and pointing towards the still-unconscious Faroven. He paused for a second to nod at Vizkop, and then at Kally and the others. "Good work."
"What the frak?" Marc said suddenly. Turning his gaze back to the level below, where he expected to see Craddock's stormtroopers converging on Clement's body, he instead saw only a glaze of blood across the concrete. Clement was gone.
And then the whip-crack sound of lasfire rang out from the level below.
+ + + + + +
"What are you waiting for?" Kelly shouted, her analyst's mind jumping to a conclusion quicker than the tech-guard's conditioned one. She ran towards the internal*vox array nestled into the far wall to connect with the other teams and warn Schafer. "Get after it!"
She turned back to the vox array, stabbing at the runes. "Schafer? HQ. Scha-" She broke off mid sentence, and pulled the handset away from her ear. With a look of horror on her face she turned back to her fellow agents. "The vox net's dead."
PaintSerf
07-19-2013, 09:40 AM
Behind him, the morgue's other door was suddenly kicked open and three men in angular red armour barged through. Two immediately pivoted left and right, while the third shouted something and fired a single shot across the room at Remus. The thread of light ended in a crack which vaporised part of Remus' backplate and knocked him forward onto the floor behind the autopsy slab. He lurched forward, his hotshot slipping from his fingers as he caught the ground with both palms. He shook his head, closed his eyes and sighed. He should have expected that, but how could he have predicted to be fired upon by friendly forces; not that he ever considered the Mechanicus as friendly, being at best a mutual benefactor. He grunted, almost breaking into silent laughter at least the gearbox wasn't kidding about his bodyguard, not that they were much help...
He drew a hand forth and wrapped it around his rifles undergrip, the effort putting him on an awkward slant as he tried to hold himself up with only his opposite. His hand tensed and seized thanks to the dead weight that fell upon it; his armour kit though saving his life several times today alone was proving to be taxing. His digits wrapped around the weapons rear grip, his index finger pressing against the trigger guard, waiting for subconscious command to indent. Remus moved to press against the slab that stood between the three Skitarii and himself, it wasn't the cover he would have chosen but anything was better than open air. Going against 3 heavily armed men was suicide, these were not some untrained rabble that took up arms against an unfavoured planetary lord or xeno collaborators he was accustom to back at the ends of the Imperium, but members of the Mechanicus personal military.
“I am a militant of the Ordo Xenos! You will stand down immediately or be declared as enemies to Imperial sovereignty. A xeno agent has escaped our trammels, neutralised your priest and taken one of our personnel hostage. He is your enemy!” Julianus stated, his voice conveying over the lasfire that blanked the wall above him. The storm trooper received no response, only succeeding to hear the crackle of vox-grills and nonsensical replies in machine code. His only reward was another fury of laser bolts peppering the medical slab, blasting apart metal and showering the floor in sparks and molten.
You made your choice, slagging drones. A hand drifted to his webbing grasping at a pair of fragment grenades, let's see how a 'nade bouquet serves you. Stupid bastards. His mind continuing to keep his tongue stayed as a finger wove into his grenades pins. Then the suppression fire ceased. Energy bolts snapping in rough patterns and slamming randomly into the rooms walls. Remus hazarded a glance, catching a glimpse of the squads telekinetic as she did her unholy work. He moved into action, coming to a stand and levelling his hotshot in support.
It was over in a second and Remus hadn't even fired a shot.
* * * * *
Looking over at the solid table, she saw the man who had been pinned by the Skitarii. The Guardsman. Mr. Grumpy. She looked right at him and lifted her bare right foot; a section of snapped wire slithered off it as she pointed at it. "See? No shoes." And then she was running again.
“Oi! Where in the warp are you going?” He blared, watching as she bolted out of the morgue. “Stupid kid,” he muttered as he stepped over a few of the corpses and took in the remnants of the violent display. A low approving whistle leaving his lips as he slowly motioned out of the door after her. Remus had to admit, she was an effective tool in destruction, but his reservations about allowing children into inquisitorial ranks still stood and he drafted numerous reasons why Lia was undeserving of her position, perhaps his largest being her inexperience. She was young and immature, a child’s mind still developing even in her adolescence, a mind unprepared from the attacks of the unknown. If it came to that... He didn't want to think about it, but he knew he would do his duty.
He shook away the thought, concentrating on the matter at hand. There was no time in chasing after children, as much as he hated it, she, at least in combat, could look after herself. He glanced down the halls, his head moving from left to right before making his final decision.
* * * * *
The other tech-guard turned his mirrored visor back towards the two women as they all started forward. "Describe the xenos infiltrator."
"Are...are you okay? Should I punch the robot?"
"Identify!" one of the tech-guard barked at her before Sapphira could respond, both men's lasguns snapping up into their shoulders with serpentine speed. The two augmented soldiers were clearly stimming hard on adrenaline. Sapphira noted their stimulant use with a muted look of professional disapproval while she unclasped her rebreather.
"That's Lia, she's one of ours." Kelly snapped, her head turning to check the corridor behind them before coming back to Lia and the two tech-guard.
“No, Lia, don’t punch them.” Sapphira quickly answered with a negative shake of her head, before she arched an eyebrow and added. “We're alright. These men are our friends.”
The tech-guard went back to his wrist vox as they resumed their advance. "Unit, Kappa, update. Two other inquisition in the mission zone: one stormtrooper, one savant. Designate non-targets."
“Check fire on the skitarii, Julianus.” Sapphira reciprocated into the after their escort cleared their presence. She hadn’t heard the bodyguard acknowledge the Mechanicus breach, so hopefully that meant he was in pursuit of the hostile and the hostage.
* * * * *
Julianus was making his way down a stair, his boots ringing down the metal of two or three steps at a time. They had wasted too much time; there was no telling how much distance the now xeno-Noyer had gotten between them. He had hoped he had made the right decision after he had passed a pair of limp Mechanicus troopers, and bolted down the fire excapes stairwell. He began to wonder why the facilities fire alarms had not triggered, though due to its activation from Noyers prior escape attempt he assumed it was still in the process of being reset. A smart move.
His thoughts were soon interrupted as his helmets vox chimed with the unexpected voice of Sister Sapphira. “Check fire?” He questioned almost in disbelief, his voice holding back his sarcasm.
“Begging your pardon Sister but these gear heads shot me first.” His sentence was cut short as he rounded a stair wide and slammed his shoulder into the wall. “In fact they did shoot me, blew a chunk out of my back plates. I'd be dead if it wasn't for the kid pasting them against the furnishings. But acknowledged Sister. Has word gone down the chain about my requested support?”
* * * * *
“Unknown. We’ve received nothing from either the Interrogator or starport administration.” Sapphira responded with a look of consternation. Julianus had been shot, Fredriq’s status was unknown, and Lia had terminated several skitarii. She shot a serious look over to Kelly and shook her head slightly in warning. There was no doubt he’d had told the truth, but that didn’t mean the skitarii needed to know it. “May the Emperor be with you in your hunt, Julianus.”
"Unit, Epsilon." voxed back another tech-guard who had just burst into the ward room at the other end of the medlab to find Fredriq, his mouth working silently as he sat in the middle of the violence Noyer had left. "Savant located. Xi has been nullified. Have also located adept Farrier, subject deceased."
“Emperor enthroned!” Sapphira seethed through clenched teeth at the grim revelation. While they marched down the corridor she almost seemed to vibrate slightly. The knuckles of her exposed hands whitened as they clutched tightly. She’d never had a patient flatly executed without justification. Once again this beast in man’s flesh had gotten the better of her profession, and made a mockery of her calling. It would not succeed again.
"Alpha." he said instead, "Request order update." There was a pause. "Alpha?"
The reason for the silence became clear a moment later when they rounded the corner and Lia's handiwork came into view. Seeing the bodies lying in the corridor, the two tech-guards pulled up short and flattened themselves against the hole in the morgue wall that Lia's first throw had left.
"Alpha through Delta nullified!"
Sapphira’s face darkened when she witnessed the cybernetic and masonry wreckage. She tensely shook her head at the unnecessary waste of the scene. There was no time to dwell on the what-if’s and repercussions with a damnable xeno spawn on the loose. What was critical right now was that the survivors of Tharrick’s detail be allies rather than enemies. If the skitarii assumed Noyer was responsible for these casualties, than Sapphira wasn’t about to disabuse them of that notion.
"Unit, Kappa." the skitarius voxed. "Magos Tharrick located, position of xenos threat still unknown. Confirm all level exits secure."
"Theta, Kappa. Status?"
"What are you waiting for?" Kelly shouted as she ran towards the internal vox array nestled into the far wall. "Get after it!"
* * * * *
The storm trooper shouldered his way through the gathering crowd, workers and civs staring at the mass of blood smeared at the bottom of the stairwell. No doubt it was the work of their abomination, “Inquistorial storm trooper! Get out of my frakking way!” He barked, his patience wearing thin. He glided and squeezed his way through panicking crowds; the starports security were only now acting to move the civs to internment until the situation was resolved.
He motioned back into a run, slamming his side into an unlucky sod who was unfortunate enough to not see the agent coming. Remus dropped his hand into his pocket and drew a single Imperial crown, flicking it over his head to the sorry individual. Compensation enough, though he was unaware of their local commerce and didn't give much thought whether it was legal tender or if it could be exchanged or not.
* * * * *
“Your authority is invalid. Our imperative is to secure Magos Tharrick.” Kappa countered with an almost painful lack of emotion or irony. The prone priest had been permanently deactivated – as the soldier who checked him confirmed - which made their imperative rather moot. Sapphira paused to mentally phrase her argument before speaking. Doing so also spared her from making the first few comments she had in mind because of their obstinacy.
“Skitarius Kappa,” Sapphira addressed the soldier, whist Kelly focused on the vox array, as she looked up into his reflective visor. “We need you to work with us. Your late master declared the creature as an abomination. It murdered him and two of his disciples. Now it has breached your perimeter and nullified several of your team. Worse desecrations will happen if it successfully escapes. Will you help us deny the alien?”
With a look of horror on her face Kelly turned back to her fellow agents. "The vox net's dead."
“Affirmative. Follow me.” Kappa abruptly responded as he turned and double timed down the corridor, his partner left to stand watch over the late Magos. The lead skitarii efficiently relayed orders while he ran, Sapphira charging along in his wake. By the time they’d reached the southwest fire exit, there were eight other tech-guardsmen awaiting them. One remained to cover the door as the others filed down the stairs without a second look at their fatalities. Sapphira reflexively made the Aquila over the dead and descended after the other skitarii. From above she could hear muffled shouts and cries.
“Target appears as a male in his late twenties to early thirties with light skin, blue-gray eyes, and dark hair. Unshaven with a prominent jaw, and attired in PDF flight fatigues. It disguises itself as Group Captain Noyer, if that helps your identification. I would ask for your discretion about revealing its true nature. There’s no need to cause a greater panic.” Sapphira belatedly answered Kappa’s question, and asked for a favor, as they hustled down the stairs side by side. The skitarii merely repeated the target’s details to his subordinates in acknowledgement while she re-secured her gun belt. Before long they reached the bottom of the stairs. Now she could accurately hear the commotion and see what caused it – and that only stoked her desire to burn the creature they hunted.
“He came back! Oh Holy… God… Emperor… it was a miracle…” wailed blood-spattered man who knelt by the impact site of where a man had jumped to his dead and rebirth. He made the Aquila and openly wept when he saw her. “Sister! Bless me! I’ve seen a miracle! He came back to life! He died and came back to life!”
The man who’d called to her hadn’t been the only one to appeal to her. Of those witnesses coherent enough to speak half of them called what they’d seen something holy. The other half decried it as something unholy. Unable to spare any further time, or offer anything approaching the truth, Sapphira merely ground her teeth and briskly swept past the scene with her appropriated entourage. They went in the direction of screams and moans. Noyer had evidently gotten into a brief firefight on his way out. Two starport secuirty officers and a civilian bystander were sprawled in the exit corridor, which still smelt of gun smoke and las discharge. The sounds of pain they made told her they were very much alive.
“Hospitaller…” struggled one of the security guards, who had been blasted back and down against the wall, as he recognized her distinctive attire. She somehow knew he’d have reached out for her if he could’ve. Both hands were occupied attempting to hold in the cooked remnants of intestines. “He… hel… help me… pl… plea… please…”
“I’m deeply sorry, but help is on the way. The Emperor is with you now and always.” Sapphira softly, but genuinely, replied as she whisked past. The skitarii lead the way towards the exit without reaction. She allowed herself to remember the anguished sobs and whimpers of pain from those she couldn’t stop for. They would be remembered when she next had time for rigorous penance. Her chaplet would have a longer chain for certain by the end of this assignment.
* * * * *
“I've lost contact.” Julianus worded into his microbead. The frost chipping away at his armour and managing to fill every gap in his carapace that even his suits heating unit was having trouble keeping him warm. A crisp white fogged up his visor piece as he motioned around the civilian runway, making his way along the facilities edges to sweep the exit where the trail of bodies where no doubt leading him.
“We're going to need medicae staff and local coroners to attend to the dead.” He said, whilst he leaned against the wall of the ports exit. Pondering what and how to tell this failure to the rest of the team. It was then Julianus heard the roar of a Lightnings turbine and watched as flame and smoke bellowed from its exhaust.
“Shit... Shit... Shit. Bastards a pilot right?” He asked himself, his head falling to the wall that parted the civilian space port to that of the local PDFs airbase. “Remus to team, belay that last. Target is moving to airbase, repeat target is moving to airbase.”
* * * * *
No sooner had Sapphira finished overhearing Julianus’ last transmission than she was pummeled by the cold. Just outside the threshold were two more security – very dead – and the weapons that killed them. So far as she could see there was pandemonium; groups of panicked civilians being herded into safety by teams of tightly wound security personnel. Once more shouts and cries rang out heavy in the air. The one sound missing was gunfire, which was fortunate for the masses infront of them. But it was unfortunate for the hunters as that meant the faux-Noyer wasn’t being engaged.
“What the Horus have you lot done now?!” bellowed a voice in the near distance. Sapphira and her unconventional escort turned to face a clutch of facility administrators escorted by an even larger contingent of guards. The foremost of them was the same extravagantly robed functionary who’d arrived after the first attempted escape. As before he was livid, and his peers were barely less so. Fortunately for them their escorts were thoughtful enough not to appear overtly threating to the skitarii.
“This is an inconceivable disruption to commerce! Unfathomably more disruptive than the nearly infrequent outbreaks of peculiarly sizable rodents!” warbled the second official, an almost abhumanly short and nearly bald man in an unwise fuchsia ensemble that did him no favors. Several other administrators began to voice their complains.
“Be silent!” Sapphira barked over the noise, her patience officially shot through, as she stepped out from behind the wall of skitarii that she’d been obscured by. The inane babble ended immediately at the sight of a fully armed and armored sororita – who just so happened to be holding forth an Inquisitorial medallion for all to see and obey. Several of the officials quailed slightly while their guards shuffled uneasily. In particular the first administrator, having mentioned the Great Betrayer in his anger, looked exceptionally discomforted by her unexpected presence. She pointed at that man first, then to the most senior looking security officer, and finally to the two tense local peacekeepers who stood out from the starport guards.
“Security is to detain all non-Inquisitorial or Mechanicus personnel who try to enter or exit this building! The rest of you can go and be useful elsewhere!” Sapphira sharply ordered as she waved forward those indicated. Now dismissed, the herd thinned out quickly as she pinned the summoned administrator, security official, and the more senior peacekeeper with an intent look. “You’ll coordinate with Agent Black to lock down this facility. Comply with her directives or I’ll have you remanded to the Mechanicus on Ophelia VII for arco-flagellation. Am I understood?”
“Excellent. Go carry out the Emperor’s work. Officer, you'll come with me.” Sapphira dismissed the stunned clique while she turned and gestured for the others to follow. “Inform your command that anything you or your partner request comes straight from the Inquisition, and that their prompt acquiescence is expected. Now, if you could please inquire about anything suspicious between here and the PDF airbase?”
“Kelly, you’re now in operational control of the port. Representatives from the administration, security, and local law enforcement are at your complete disposal. Go with His guidance and grace.” Sapphira relayed to Kelly before glancing up at Kappa. “I don’t suppose you have any transportation?”
* * * * *
Remus stopped at the nearest entrance to the airbase, glancing attentively at the scanners that were positioned at height on the bases wall. “Inquisition!” He called out, waiting for a moment in case his first idea didn't work. The trooper looked down at his gauntlet, using his other hand to pry off the protective device. He prayed that his print was on file for the duration of their visit, they were given a representative from the PDF. No doubt they should have been given access to basic military infrastructure. The cold already began to bite at his exposed flesh as he reached out and placed his hand on the print scanner.
* * * * *
“Stand by.” Kappa advised and gestured in the direction of a sudden throaty roar of engines. Sapphira blinked once in surprise as the boxy silhouettes of two Chimera tanks clanked into sight. Both of them were muted red and embellished with Mechanicus iconography rather than the ubiquitous Aquila. She immediately overlooked that detail in favor of the vox aerials that sprouted from the rear of both tank turrets. This'll do nicely. Throne bless the Mechaniucs Sapphira thought to herself while she nodded her gratitude to the (new?) lead skitarii, which went unacknowledged. When the tanks ground to a halt in front of them, the tech-guardsmen didn’t wait to clamber aboard. Sapphira pushed the young peacekeeper into the vehicle ahead of her and pulled the rear hatch shut. While the interior was unencumbered by comforts, and some safety apparatus, at least it was out of the cold.
“Please take us to the PDF airbase, quick as you can.” Sapphira asked of Kappa, who she trusted would relay that to their driver, while she goaded the young law enforcer with her over onto the vox station bench. While she checked over the vox device, with keen attention paid to the proper rituals, Sapphira spared an eye to the peacekeeper long enough to ask, “What do the peacekeepers have for me, Officer?”
“Well… there’s the rogue witch. The… er… young girl apparently…” The enforcer cleared their throat, evidently uncomfortable with the message and how non- routine their day had suddenly become, “apparently breached the airbase perimeter wall, Sister. PDF forces on site are responding to put her down as we speak."
“The girl is sanctioned and an Inquisitorial asset.” Sapphira responded, as if pained, while she screwed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose. “She’s not the primary threat. Order all units, regardless of their service, not to engage and give her a wide berth. Skitarius Kappa will give you an accurate description and identity of the primary threat to relay.”
“Lia!” Sapphira snapped into her personal vox, unsure if the girl had her vox on or was even paying attention to it, “Noyer is your target! Don’t harm the PDF or anyone else, even if they’re shooting at you!”
“Oh, m- Sister, there was also a body discovered in an alley.” Sapphira opened an eye, turned towards rookie, and gestured for them to continue. “Flight Officer Franc Derval by his identity tags. He was PDF Aeronatuctica, stripped of his coat and shoes, and hastily hidden in some trash.”
“Thank you. Now consult with Skitarius Kappa.” Sapphira left it to them to handle the details while she input the Interrogator’s vox identifier. He needed to know what was going on, and now. After a further moment of ritual fiddling she pulled on the headset and picked up the microphone.
“Interrogator, Noyer has reactivated and escaped the starport. Confirmed destination is the PDF airbase, and the target is likely inside as Lia has breached their perimeter. Julianus and I are in pursuit, but we could use support.”
OOC - Laurels to Jarms, Azazeal, kardar for their contributions.
Atrum Daemon
07-22-2013, 04:02 AM
“Interrogator,” Vizkop said to Schafer. “If I may speak privately with you.”
He stepped aside with the Interrogator and turned to face him, folding his hands in front of him. “This is a matter of great import that I must speak with you about. It concerns my true reasons for being on this mission.”
He removed his blades from the politician’s face. His co-conspirator cowered in the corner. He had soiled himself. Half-formed words stammered from his mouth as the masked assassin stalked toward him. “Your words will serve you nothing here,” he said. He lunged, simultaneously decapitating and disemboweling the traitor.
Schafer narrowed his eyes at the tech-priest. “While acting as a liaison is part of my mission, it is not the most important. Lord Sidonis assigned me to this mission because of my other abilities as well. I serve a faction within the Mechanicus that has a vested interest in seeing the Imperium protected. Due to this system’s…history, I was put forth. If anyone on the team were to show signs of xenotech corruption, I am to kill them. First and foremost I am an assassin, Interrogator. And Clement just has made my list. As will everyone else involved in this who becomes like him.”
His tone turned grave very fast and his physical manner changed. Where before he had stood with an aloof manner, he now stood with purpose. His mission revealed, he had no reason to hide his abilities from the Interrogator. “My cards are revealed, Schafer,” he said. “What happens next is up to you.”
Azazeal849
07-22-2013, 04:19 PM
"My cards are revealed, Schafer." he said. "What happens next is up to you."
The interrogator looked at the tech adept, and for a moment a familiar expression of anger seemed to be fighting its way onto his face.
"That bastard." he said, in apparent disconnection with the subject until he stepped closer to Vizkop and lowered his voice. "You're not the only one watching this team, Vizkop. But I wish lord fething Sidonis had seen fit to appraise me of his whole plan before sending me here."
Vizkop was astute enough around the unaugmented to be able to tell that the interrogator's resentment wasn't directed towards him. He had, after all, just come clean about why he had been sent to Venatora separately from Schafer. Marc's sudden shout, however, interrupted any further conversation on the matter.
"What the frak?"
"What's wrong?" Schafer barked.
Marc had turned his gaze back to the level below, where he had expected to see Craddock's stormtroopers converging on Clement's body, but instead he saw only a glaze of blood across the concrete. Clement was gone.
"The bastard's disappeared!"
Schafer swore violently as he pushed his way forward. "Don't they teach you people to double-tap?"
"I..."
"Get after him and bloody well finish the job this time! I want to see a fething body!"
He beckoned Vizkop closer with his bandaged hand as the team leapt to respond. "I'll see to the governor. You do your job and assassinate that thing that's pretending to be my pilot!"
+ + + + + +
"Kelly." Sapphira relayed.
"Sister?" the young verispex responded, pressing a finger to her in-ear microbead as she doubled back through the med lab in search of an internal vox that Noyer hadn't shorted out.
"You're now in operational control of the port. Representatives from the administration, security and local law enforcement are at your complete disposal. Go with His guidance and grace."
Kelly swallowed hard, and pulled up short in the middle of the corridor.
"Okay." she told herself, rubbing the bridge of her nose as she gathered her thoughts and cast her mind back to the procedures that had been drilled into her during her early days in the Makita Hive Enforcers. Lock down the complex. Cordon off any areas where Noyer had been. Have medicae see that the injured are treated. Bring in some other verispex to help her analyse the crime scene. Have the local enforcers interview the witnesses.
She started forward, just as a team of starport security rushed in with weapons drawn.
"They say it started up here." the man at the front snapped at her from behind his visor. "What happened?"
Kelly groped around in her blazer pocket for her identification card and the personal sigil of inquisitor lord Sidonis.
"Kelly Black, Imperial inquisition." she replied as she found it and held it up for the guards to see. "I need your vox set."
+ + + + + +
"Interrogator, Noyer has reactivated and escaped the starport. Confirmed destination is the PDF airbase, and the target is likely inside as Lia has breached their perimeter. Julianus and I are in pursuit, but we could use support."
"Uh..." came a reply from a voice that Sapphira didn't recognise. "This is shuttle pilot Gideon Thorpe...the interrogator and his men went down to the vehicle park after the crash..."
"Get off the line, pilot, and clear the airspace before I have to shoot you out of the way." interrupted a much more authoritive sounding voice. "Inquisition agent, this is Vitani Craddock, governor Faroven's chief of security. Someone compromised the governor's Aquila and it crash-landed on the multi-story on Street 45, Sector H. My men are on the ground with yours securing the governor and apprehending the heretic responsible."
The severe-faced chief of security leaned out of her Valkyrie's open side door, the howling wind tugging at her tightly-bound hair. The pilot was firing the transport's swivel jets to bring it slowly down alongside the holed side of the building. The jetwash churned the rising smoke, but through the black haze and the collapsed concrete she could see the tail of the downed Aquila, and a man in black fatigues waving up at her. Craddock hooked a gloved hand round a handhold and swung herself back into the transport.
"Can you hover here?" she yelled to her pilot over the din of the engines.
"Not for long! Smoke's gonna clog the engines!"
Craddock pressed her hand back over her earpiece. "Inquisition agent, I've got a visual on your interrogator. He's with Faroven. I'm going to winch him up now."
Craddock nodded to one of her soldiers, who began to uncoil a length of thick black rope from an automatic winch and snap a recue harness onto it with practiced hands.
"Closer!" the security chief shouted to her pilot.
Together, she and her assistant cast the rope down towards Schafer, who caught it in his good hand before it could swing back and away from the opened flank of the building. With some cursing of his bandaged trigger finger, the interrogator eased governor Faroven into the rescue harness. The governor himself seemed to be coming to, as he was at least partially helping to secure the straps and metal carabiners. He looked like he was trying to tell Schafer something, but there was no way Craddock could hear the words over the Valkyrie jets. Schafer finished securing the governor's harness, grabbed the line himself, and hung on with apparent ease as Craddock triggered the winch to pull them up and away from the building.
"It was Clement!" Schafer spat as several PDF soldiers pulled him into the Valkyrie and the pilot hauled back on his flight stick to lift the aircraft out of the choking smoke plume.
"Clement?" Craddock repeated. "Your man Clement?"*
"Not my man, a xenos copy." Schafer growled.
Craddock looked at the interrogator for a long moment, an unreadable expression on her face. Behind the security chief, a female soldier with a medica's armband was offering the governor an oxygen mask.
"One of your agents is on the vox - said something about Noyer had reactivated and escaped the starport. Was she talking about group captain Noyer from the explorator mission?"
Schafer's good hand balled into a trembling fist, but his face remained neutral. Craddock wasn't certain if he was making a conscious effort to control an outburst, or had simply transcended normal anger into a kind of murderous nirvana. "Give me the vox." he said quietly.
"With respect, interrogator." said Craddock fearlessly. "I want answers and I want them now. You tell us there's a moral threat, but it turns out to be hiding in your own team?"
"Give interrogator Schafer the vox, chief." wheezed a voice from behind her. It was governor Faroven who, with an effort, was propping himself up against the inside hull as his muscles fought off the dose of paralytum that Clement had stabbed him with. "We'll be getting our answers as soon as this is over, but I've seen one of those things, and they're not human." The governor raised a hand and marked the points of the Aquila across the front of his black jacket. The hand was unsteady, but his baritone voice was level and his austere face was stony. "Let the man who knows what we're dealing with, deal with it."
Schafer nodded in curt thanks to the planetary regent, and snatched the Valkyrie's vox caster as it was handed back through the cabin to him.
"Report." he said. He listened for just a few seconds before pressing his other hand to his microbead. "Shere. Those things seem to have some sort of regeneration ability. After it's down, I want the fether immolated!"
+ + + + + +
Marc knew that this wasn't the time for apologies even if he had expected one from Schafer, and he managed to push the resentment to the back of his mind as he dropped through the hole in the shattered concrete into the blood-splashed debris below. Vince, Kally, John and Vizkop were with him. They immediately spread out, gravitating towards the columns that supported the ceiling for cover. All around them were shouts and the occasional snap of a lasgun. Craddock's PDF veterans had already blocked all the ramps and stairwells, and several were crouched behind the engine blocks of civilian vehicles with lasguns resting across the bonnets as their comrades leapfrogged forward. One man was dragging a wounded comrade into cover. All guns were trained towards the near corner of the car park level; a closed wall, which like the cargo 8 parked directly in front of it, was riddled with smoking lasgun craters.
"He's hunkered down there!"*called a PDF trooper with some sort of rank stripes on his flak-armoured shoulder. He pointed for the team's benefit before ducking back behind his column and slapping a new powerpack into his bullpup lasgun. "We've got him!"
"He ain't coming out, sarge!" reported a soldier from one of the positions closest to the las-riddled cargo 8.
"Watch your Emperor-damn fire!" the first trooper barked as he hand-signalled for a section on his right to move forward and flank. "I don't want anyone setting off any prometheum tanks!"
+ + + + + +
Watching from the top hatch of the mechanicus chimera, Sapphira saw both the PDF soldiers on top of the wall and the ones on the ground blocking a sizeable hole in it as her vehicle clanked to a halt. The skitarii team's servitor driver had stopped in front of a security gate, but the thick, spike-topped steel barrier showed no sign of moving for them. The PDF were fiddling with their lasguns and frowning warily at the two skull-and-cog emblazoned IFVs in front of them.
"The base is under lockdown!" shouted a voice with a thick accent from behind the barbed wire topping the rockrete curtain wall. "What do you cogboys want here?"
"We are here," the voice of hypaspist Kappa boomed from two blocky vox-casters mounted on the chimera's front, "In the company of the inquisition, to nullify the xenos threat claiming to be aeronautica group captain Conrad Noyer."
"Let them through, for the Emperor's sake!" shouted a soldier who had just run up to the breached wall clutching a vox set. "They're the people the colonel was talking about!"
There was an almost immediate crunch and whine of hydraulics, and the heavy gate began to retract into the ground. The other mechanicus chimera, which had come to a stop to Sapphira's right directly opposite the gate, gunned its engines. With a roar, a squeal and a jet of exhaust that was immediately cooled and baffled by its engine manifolds, the IFV crunched over the metal sleeper that had slid into place over the hole the spiked gate had sunk into.
+ + + + + +
The cold had already begun to bite at Remus' exposed flesh as he reached out and placed his hand on the print scanner. The LED eyes of the winged aeronautica skull above the reader turned from red to green, and the ballistic glass door clicked open, much to the surprise of the young soldier manning the checkpoint inside.
"Woah, woah, hold up!" he said, leaping to his feet behind the desk as he registered Remus' non-standard uniform. "Who the Horus are you?"
Remus guessed that the fresh-faced, buzzcut soldier was only 16 or 17 standard years old, probably at the very limit of whatever passed for adult age on this part of Venatora, and the greenhorn only avoided a very severe response by virtue of the base's klaxons suddenly wailing into life.
"Attention all personnel." blared a vox servitor as spinning yellow lights began to flash along the panelled ceiling, "A moral threat has penetrated the base. Lockdown protocol is in effect. Inquisition forces are en route and are to be afforded total cooperation. Ave Imperator."
The young guard looked again at Remus, and belatedly registered the letter I with its three crossbars stencilled into Remus' battered carapace.
"Oh, feth me." he said.
As grey-clad soldiers and tech adepts in red tabards rushed to and fro to secure vital areas of the base, Remus pounded towards the standby barracks and the hangers. Noyer was a pilot, and he probably wanted to get out of the city fast. He'd want an aircraft. It occurred to Remus that if they had told the locals earlier why they were holding Noyer, they might have revoked his Emperor-damn security clearance. The inquisition's preference for secrecy was a two-edged sword.
Shouldering past a squad of pilots who were pulling on their masks as they sprinted towards their ready stations, Remus heard a shout up ahead, and saw through the bulletproof windows a PDF soldier frantically gesturing his comrades towards the hanger he stood outside. Pushing through after the guards before the door could close and mag-lock, Remus sprinted forward and saw the smoke that was curling from the hanger's open mouth. It was coming from a fully fueled and armed Avenger strike fighter, whose cockpit had been smashed and peeled open by a small but very precise explosion. Several bodies lay around the decapitated aircraft.
"Why the hell didn't the fire guardians go off?" one of the PDF soldiers was shouting. He turned and pulled the vox caster on the shoulder of his webbing closer to his mouth. "Control! We need medicae and fire suppression in hanger 2A. Someone's sabotaged Hammer 1."
"Confirm?" Remus heard the man's vox crackle back. "Hammer 1 is already on the runway."
A whining, chattering roar suddenly assaulted Remus ears. It was like the rib-jarring thwak-thwak-thwak of a heavy bolter, only even more savage and a lot more rapid. Turning towards the hellish noise, Remus saw a second Avenger taxiing into position in the vast rockrete space beyond the raised Lightning catapult ramps and the servitor-manned missile turrets. A line of white and yellow flashes were spitting from beneath the Avenger's flared nosecone towards an open gate on the opposite side of the perimeter wall, and Remus realised he was looking at the rocket trails of self-propelled bolts as they began to blow massive chunks out of the wall's inside. A number of PDF soldiers manning the wall simply vanished in little red puffs, and a scarlet chimera that had just roared through the gate jerked to a halt with three holes in its glacis plate as a plume of fire lifted its multilaser turret and tossed it into the air. The turret flew in a steep arc before landing with a crash twenty metres away. A second chimera, following immediately behind the first, swerved to one side and started injecting raw promethium into its exhaust to throw up a pall of white smoke, simultaneously ejecting a second cloud ahead of it with spiralling smoke canisters. The Avenger's murderous fusilade ceased as it swung its nose away from the gate and down the centreline of the runway, its afterburners suddenly flaring into life.
Someone was sprinting along the runway directly towards the accelerating strike fighter. Someone who, dispite the cold, was dressed only in a thin leather jacket, and wasn't wearing shoes.
dakkagor
07-24-2013, 11:09 AM
Clement's gun was still pointed between Kally's eyes. She met his gaze unwaveringly. Time seemed to slow to a painful crawl.
"Good thing I can't die then." he said, and Kally watched as his finger slowly, smoothly, pulled back on the trigger. She let out a breathe she hadn't realised she had been holding. This was it, then. she felt oddly calm, rather than angry. Resigned to it.
The trigger clicked back against the grip, but the gun didn't fire. Kally stepped back, surprised to still be alive as confusion briefly flashed across the replicants face. She saw Marc step out of the crumpled wreckage of the lander and open fire, accurate las pulses tearing into Clements back and head before sending him falling over the edge.
"Got the bastard." the ex-enforcer reported as he ran to the edge, leading the way with his laspistol as he stopped and looked down at the Replicant broken across the rubble below. He snapped his head round to look at Vince and Kally. "You two alright?"
"I'm. . .I'm good. Yeah." She nodded, more to herself than Marc. Talk about close calls.
Turning round, Kally saw Vizkop rise from the cover of a support pillar near the stairwell, Schafer and Shere close behind him. Suddenly she wondered if Vizkop had jammed the gun remotely somehow. She sat down for a second, catching her breathe and trying to stop the trembling in her hand.
Too Close
"The bastard's disappeared!"
Schafer swore violently as he pushed his way forward. "Don't they teach you people to double-tap?"
"I..."
"Get after him and bloody well finish the job this time! I want to see a fething body!"
She looked up, and frowned. What the hell did it take to put a Replicant down? Shot three times and a fall onto concrete should leave any normal person dead.
She checked her bolter and switched the ammunition to hellfire rounds. Lets see the gakker survive mutagenic acid.
+++++
"He's hunkered down there!"*called a PDF trooper with some sort of rank stripes on his flak-armoured shoulder. He pointed for the team's benefit before ducking back behind his column and slapping a new powerpack into his bullpup lasgun. "We've got him!"
"He ain't coming out, sarge!" reported a soldier from one of the positions closest to the las-riddled cargo 8.
"Watch your Emperor-damn fire!" the first trooper barked as he hand-signalled for a section on his right to move forward and flank. "I don't want anyone setting off any prometheum tanks!"
Kally quickly assessed the situation. Cornered, with a solid barricade to his back, Clement could hold out for some time. But they had an advantage in numbers and firepower. But some of that firepower was being effectively muzzled by the environment. She toggled her vox to the squads band.
"Vince, you carrying any flash bangs?" she muttered. "I reckon we can dig him out of there with some suppression and a bit of careful movement."
Azazeal849
07-24-2013, 03:19 PM
"Do I have flashbangs..." Vincent muttered, in a tone that suggested Kally should know better. He chuckled and pulled a pair of cylinders from the webbing slung over his drab grey carapace, tossing one to Kally. As she caught it, she noticed that Marc was looking at her from his position behind the next column.
"You good to go?" he asked her. It seemed like an odd question, until she realised he must have seen her hands trembling after her 'close call'. An enforcer's eye for detail.
Atrum Daemon
07-25-2013, 09:36 PM
“I’ll see to the governor. You do your job and assassinate that thing that’s pretending to be my pilot!”
Vizkop gave a short nod to Schafer and started walking. He practically tore off the scarlet kimono, revealing the armored body glove beneath as well as the two pistols. His vision within the helmet had changed as well. Combat diagnostics were up as were readouts for all his various implant sub-systems and he kicked his cybernetics into full activation. He was ready to kill and Clement was cornered. At least for the moment.
Vizkop took off running, swerving around the cars in the lot with mechanical precision. His twin blades extended and the fields crackled to life. He vaulted over the cargo vehicle that was giving Clement cover and landed gracefully in the corner with the false Clement. He surged forth, denying the replicant proper time to react. His blades punched out and just barely missed Clement as he rolled away, plunging into the chassis of the vehicle. He ripped the blades out with ease and swung around at Clement, cutting small cuts into his face and chest as he backpeddled.
Through his vicious attack, Vizkop saw what he believed to be uncertainty on Clement’s face. He thrust again and hit home. The blade slid deep into the false Clement’s arm as he attempted to raise his pistol to fire. Clement countered with a punch to Vizkop’s head, which proved stronger than the assassin had expected.
“So here we stand again, assassin! You come again at me for faith.”
“Faith? Fuck you! This isn’t about faith anymore!” he roared. “This is about you and me!”
“Good!” the heretek Martell laughed. “I knew there was still emotion behind that mask! I think I see you for the first time now! Show it to me! Show me the blade of a Faceless One!”
He drew his power sword from it’s sheath with a burst of energy as the blade activated. He rushed Martell, his bionic legs driving him forward with no worry for pain or fatigue. His blade clashed with the heretek’s for a moment before a storm of blows filled the room with a screaming crackle of energy fields crashing against one another again and again. In the midst of the storm, he brought around his empty fist to crash like a cargo truck into Martell’s face and send him sprawling.
He sprang after Martell and delivered a kick to his chest that sent him flying through a window and out into the rainstorm to crash onto one of the facility’s lower roofs. He jumped down after him only to be caught in mid-air by magnetic force and slammed bodily into the ground. Martell dragged the assassin toward him, a smirk playing over his unnaturally handsome face. The assassin brought up his blade at the last moment, running Martell through as the magnetic force brought them nose to nose.
Martell backhanded him away and pulled the blade out, tossing it aside as the rain poured down. He sprang up to his feet and attacked, the bionic strength of his arms propelling his blows with monstrous force. He and Martell crashed into one another, struggling for position.
Clement’s kick sent Vizkop skidding back. The impact had winded him and would have surely broken several ribs. Clement had multiple lacerations on his arms and upper body from Vizkop’s blades while the assassin was favoring his right arm after a particularly nasty blow had damaged one of the main servo groups. Clement struck again, the blow to Vizkop’s head sending static dancing across his vision. A third blow to the assassin’s knee sent him down. Clement paused for a brief moment, enough time for Vizkop to spear through his foot and surge back to his feet with a mechanical grunt. He delivered a kick to Clement’s body that sent the replicant into the cargo vehicle. The impact was accompanied by the screech of the vehicle skidding a bit from the force. Clement decided to make a break for it while Vizkop took a moment. He had struck with his injured leg.
Lightning flashed as the assassin planted a fist into Martell’s face, shattering the heretek’s nose. Martell tackled the assassin to the ground and got the upper hand, getting on top and taking hold of an arm. He slammed his boot onto the bionic bicep as he pulled, ripping the arm in half and tossing it aside. There was no scream of agony to act as a chorus to the brutal act, just the creaking snap of metal breaking and pop of wires severing.
He reached out and grabbed a piece of glass from the broken window and stabbed it home into Martell’s side, making the heretek yelp in pain and release him.
Vizkop drew down on the replicant with his revolver and fired a single shot. The heavy round tore through Clement’s knee, severing the leg and sending him sprawling. The replicant crawled out of cover with Vizkop stalking after him. He began to squeeze the trigger again, but his finger stopped halfway. He had stopped moving as well. His legs were not responding and he was locked in place. Vizkop cursed to himself. He should have expected a xenotech creation to be capable of machine curses of its own. The false Clement continued to shuffle away from Vizkop.
Martell ripped out the glass shard and attacked with it. The knife bit deep into his side, blood mingling with the water soaking his body. When Martell attacked again, he caught the arm and grappled for position. Martell struck out with a powerful kick to his knee, nearly destroying the joint and sending bits of metal and sparks into the air. He released Martell and went down again. Martell struck and he grabbed him, flipping him over and bending his arm with the glass. The arm broke as he forced the glass through the roof of Martell’s mouth and into his brain.
dakkagor
07-30-2013, 11:45 AM
"Do I have flashbangs..." Vincent muttered, in a tone that suggested Kally should know better. He chuckled and pulled a pair of cylinders from the webbing slung over his drab grey carapace, tossing one to Kally. As she caught it, she noticed that Marc was looking at her from his position behind the next column.
"Plasma bottle, good call. Cold Flashbangs just don't pack the same punch." She hefted it in her palm, checking the weight and calculating just how far she could hurl it.
"You good to go?" she turned to look at Marc, and frowned.
"I'm fine." she responded, flatly. "Lets do this already. We have a Replicant Clement to kill."
She turned back and shuffled up to the edge of the car, flash bang in one hand and las pistol in the other.
"Alright, on the count of. . ."
A red blur vaulted the car she had been using as cover and sprinted towards repli-ments position, which it took a second for Kally to register as Vizkop, out of his robes.
"Gakking loon!" she shouted after him, watching the assassin easily vault Clements cover.
"Up, every one up and after him! Go! Everyone else hold your Throne Damned fire!" she vaulted the bonnet of the car and charged after the Mechanicum assassin, jamming the flashbang into a pocket for later. she could sense Vince and Marc a half step behind her as they closed on the fight in time to see Clement shuffling away, obviously crippled.
She slid to a halt and her laspistol snapped up. Two neat shots drilled into the Replicants torso and he flopped forwards over his knees like a puppet with its strings cut.
"Is he. . .?" she began to ask, then stopped as she saw green light wash over the body. They all stepped back, shielding themselves from the light.
"no frakking way." she muttered as her vision cleared. Clement was standing again, whole and undamaged. Even his pilots uniform was undamaged, laspistol in hand.
So Kally shot him again, sawing a burst of light across his knees. As he fell he slumped into a burst from Vince's shotgun, shredding his chest.
"Got an idea. Gimme a hand" She stepped up to the new corpse and kicked the laspistol away, then turned away as the Replicant regenerated again in a pulse of emerald light. She pulled the trigger and put another shot into the monsters knee, causing him to scream. It sounded eerily like Clement.
"grab him!" she shouted as she went for one of his arms. Vince got the other one and Kally gestured to a nearby Cargo Eight, parked up without its trailer. That had a fuel tank big enough for her needs.
"Over there, quickly." they hauled the thrashing and cursing Replicant to the truck, Marc following.
"what are you going to do?" Marc asked.
"Gang execution." Kally responded, looking over her shoulder as her and Vince dragged the cursing, struggling alien to the truck.
"I don't think shooting him again is going to work!" Marc pointed at the alien. "We've already shot him dead twice."
"Not going to shoot him." Kally responded, and watched an ugly, evil smile spread across Vince's scarred features. Yeah, he knew what was coming.
They reached the cargo eight and slammed Clement into its front, winding him. Kally quickly fished out two ziplock cuffs and tied him to the front of the cab.
"This won't work" Not-Clement hissed as she pried open the trucks engine compartment to get at the fuel tank. "I'll just keep coming back. We all will. You can't stop what you can't kill."
"Forgive me for trying asshole. Just so you know I liked Clement. This is for him."
She popped the cap of the fuel tank in the engine block and jammed Vince's flashbang into the now exposed fuel line.
"Whats the delay on these things?" she asked Vince.
"Five seconds. Plenty of time to get clear at a dead run."
She nodded, and yanked the pin. Then she ran her gakking ass off, yelling "fire in the hole" as she did.
There was a dull whomph and then an inhuman scream as the flash bang went nova hot and triggered the promethium tank of the Cargo Eight. The fireball engulfed the entire vehicle and the Replicant and rattled every car on the level, setting of automated alarms and shattering windows.
"Get up from that." Kally muttered darkly.
PaintSerf
08-06-2013, 08:12 AM
"Inquisition agent, this is Vitani Craddock, governor Faroven's chief of security. Someone compromised the governor's Aquila and it crash-landed on the multi-story on Street 45, Sector H. My men are on the ground with yours securing the governor and apprehending the heretic responsible."
It’s probably not a heretic and I doubt Javid would risk another capture… Sapphira thought even as she acknowledged the chief’s transmission and waited for an update on Schafer. That’s not to say the hijacker couldn’t be a more conventional enemy of mankind, taking advantage of the present discord. Heretic or replicant, neither option was any better than the other. Sapphira shivered, and not just because of the cold, as she contemplated the ramifications of a planetary government infiltrated or usurped by one of these abominations.
"Inquisition agent, I've got a visual on your interrogator. He's with Faroven. I'm going to winch him up now."
“Standing by.”
While waiting Sapphira bounced her legs to try and keep herself warm. The tank’s interior was all bare metal surfaces, and evidentially the Mechanicus thought interior heating was for the non-augmented. Her fingers restlessly tapped across the small table she was perched behind. Any noise they might have made was drowned out by the Chimera’s clank and rattle. That’s just because of the cold. She told herself that because she couldn’t afford to consider anything other than the replicant on the loose.
"Report."
“Noyer has a neural transmitter that’s receiving a constant and immediate signal from Vitaris. It’s probably the root of the profane regeneration. I doubt that anything less than catastrophic damage would really kill it.” Sapphira briefly reported before she heard the interrogator speak off the vox. She waited until he finished before asking, “Craddock mentioned a heretic. Has it been positively identified?”
"It's Clement. They must have switched while I was unconscious on the shuttle."
She slumped forward and braced herself on the table, as both eyes clenched shut and her nails scraped along the metallic surface into tight fists. Sapphira’s face tightened into a fierce scowl as she rocked slightly from the sheer amount of adrenaline and tempestuous emotions that raged through her. It felt like she’d been clubbed by a shock maul. Her heartbeat furiously and she felt as if her brain was about to explode. After a moment of indescribable sensation she opened her eyes and exhaled a sharp note of pain as the tremors stopped.
“Status update on Noyer?” Schafer’s voice cut in over the vox. There was still anger in his tone, but Sapphira knew the interrogator well enough by now to know it was directed internally. It had nothing on how she felt about herself – and that couldn’t hold a candle to how she felt about the replicants.
“Unknown,” Sapphira tensely replied as she tried to shake off her disquiet and rage, and refocus on the mission at hand, “but it’s almost certainly at the PDF airbase. Please stand by.”
“Are there any new developments from the starport?” Sapphira asked of the young law officer next to her as she peeled back one of the earpieces. The enforcer looked up from their intent listening to the vox and nodded affirmatively.
"They're locking down, like you asked. Don't know about your psyker..."
“I see… keep up the good work.” She quickly brushed back a fringe of hair and activated the vox in her ear. “Julianus. I’m inbound with armor support. What is your location and status?”
"Excellent." He answered approvingly. "I'm making my way to possible location, hanger bay on the far side of the airstrip it's bleaching smoke. Can't miss it."
“We’ll be there shortly.” Sapphira affirmed before she made an aside to relay the revised destination to Kappa, “Keep me apprised of any developments. I’m in contact with the Interrogator.”
“Interrogator.” Sapphira began after she slowed her whirlwind activity enough to take a breath. “The PDF are locking down. Julianus is on location and reports smoke from one of the hangar bays. Lia’s whereabouts are unknown since she went through the perimeter wall, and I’m headed to the airbase with the skitarii and their armor.”
“Sapphira,” She tensed and sat up slightly as Schafer unexpectedly used her given name. That was something he rarely did on mission - and never over the vox or in front of others. Throne preserve us… this really is an awful situation then. Sapphira knew what the interrogator meant when he said, “When you find Noyer, make sure that the bastard stays down once and for all.”
“It will be purged in His name.” Sapphira responded with absolute conviction, even as she felt the terrible weight of Schafer’s trust on her. I will do whatever is necessary to destroy the abomination. I will not hesitate. I will not fail. She swore that silently to the God Emperor and herself that it would die for its innumerable trespasses against mankind. It would die screaming, and that death would be more of a mercy than the creature deserved.
Resolved to her mission, Sapphira wordlessly stood and made her way up into the unoccupied turret. While the tanks trundled their way towards the airfield she made the appropriate benedictions to the weapon system and familiarized herself with the rotation controls. In the off chance she wouldn’t be able to dismember the faux-Noyer with her bare hands; Sapphira knew the multi-laser would be enough to obliterate the mortal coil the deviant xenos masqueraded in. It would be fortunate if she had to end its profane existence with the laser cannon.
* * *
“It commandeered an Avenger!” Sapphira warned Schafer and the other hunters, her tone somewhere between incredulity and outrage, as she instinctively ducked down while the cannon began to spit explosive destruction. The IFV’s avoidance maneuvers forced her reflexively brace against the interior plate to avoid being bounced around and broken. Through it she had felt the other tank explode and the smoke countermeasures fire off. Once the tank’s speed and direction steadied, Sapphira pushed off and reached up to close the turret hatch. The armor would be about as useful as a heathen’s prayer against the bolt cannon, but at least the seal would keep the smoke out of the confined space.
"Ma'am. I thought they had you for a second there. No doubt if it was me in your boots, I'd have the tenacity to ride in the lead vehicle. Confirmed, smoke trails origin comes from the hanger bay I just left. Avenger designation Hammer 1, these things can copy vehicles. Disable alarms."
“Take us in after it!” Sapphira roared into the crew bay rather than responding to Julianus. Now was the time for action and she trusted the veteran to act as necessary. Instead she hurriedly slid into the gunner's seat, gripped the control yokes, and sighted through the targeting aperture. The afterburners were visible despite the palls of smoke, and they were teeth rattling at this distance even through the vehicle’s armor. Moments later the noise worsened as the throaty roar of the engine growled louder and they cleared the smoke countermeasures. Ignoring the discomfort as much as humanly possible, Sapphira kept the Avenger in her sights and depressed the multi-laser’s fire activator.
The multi-laser shrieked and almost simultaneously her fire was joined by the heavy bolter below. Both kinds of shot burst against the rear armor with no discernible effect – the Avenger kept accelerating – and the Chimera would only be able to keep up for so long. You’re not flying away from your damnation, xenos! Sapphira thought as she snarled before she was struck by what had crossed her mind. Keep the plane from getting airborne! Inspired, and with the litany of accuracy on her lips, she redirected the multi-laser and hammered volley after volley of laser fire into the Avenger’s exposed landing gear.
[ooc - Credits to Az and Jarms for their character input.]
kardar233
08-06-2013, 11:29 AM
Lia hadn't waited for the rest of Kelly's sentence before dashing off after Noyer. Running full-tilt, she slipped through hallways, rounded a corner and saw Fredriq slumped against a wall. A momentary look indicated no obvious harm, and she didn't stop running.
Bursting into the next cross of corridors, she saw a pair of boots poking out of a crevice in the wall. A man slumped there, his next twisted all the way around. His undershirt carried the PDF Aeronautica emblem, and she frowned in thought for a moment. A memory rose from her subconscious, a woman's voice: "The nastiest types of all of 'em are the ones can pretend they're a loyal servant of the Throne and all that shit. Had t' take down one of those fuckers what got their hands on a Vulture, one of a time..." Her eyes widened and she ran for the exit.
She came to the emergency exit, a wrought-iron staircase winding down the side of the building, and looked down to see an messy blood splatter, an appalling press of injured civilians and a hint of sickly green light off in the distance. She made a sound of frustration deep in her throat and leaped, landing next to the blood splatter. The smells of half-cooked human and spilt innards assaulted her senses, but she shook her revulsion away. Then she took off towards the airbase, crouching down to make long leaps that ate up ground like an Ork at a buffet line.
Only minutes later she reached the airbase's curtain wall. She ran towards it, her pounding fists reaching it first and pulverizing large chunks of stone as she smashed her way through. She kept running as alarms sounded and focused herself, her skin smoothing and hardening. Lasfire began to crack around her, but it was still confused and uncoordinated, and the one round that caught her in the left shoulder only left a small patch of heated skin.
Her vox cracked on; she had nearly forgot she was carrying it. Sapphira's voice carried through it, and her keen ears picked up the words despite the ruckus around her. “Lia! Noyer is your target! Don’t harm the PDF or anyone else, even if they’re shooting at you!”
She didn't bother trying to dodge the incoming shots, even as they became more focused, hurtling single-mindedly towards the hangar. One hand moved to her belt, retrieving the vox and flicking it to send. She took in a breath, with the obvious intent of a scathing response (at least, by her standards) and hesitated, instead replying more civilly. "I know, I know... they're just stupid, not bad."
She managed to enter the hangar before the nearby flak cannon swung around to target her. Inside, several PDF and Mechanicus were shot or killed otherwise, one plane stood smoking and another was making its way out the doors; she looked intently after it and picked out her quarry in the cockpit. Her expression set.
Rushing over to the smoking plane, she took a quick look at its armaments. Hellstrikes blow up when they strike something, I think... She wrenched one missile off its wing mount, tapped two access points and spun the cap to arm it, and took two steps forward in a skipping motion. On the second step, she began to spin, whirling around until she released the missile to fly towards the taxiing plane.
It sailed through the hangar, bounced off the plane.... and detonated just off the fuselage, with no apparent damage. Her lips curled back in a snarl and her hands turned dark as she indulged her frustration momentarily. If you want something dead, punch it yourself... she thought to herself, and set off after the taxiing strike fighter.
Her leaping technique quickly gained ground on the fighter, restricted to its wheel motors, but its turbines spun up as she started to get closer. As it sped up, her speed advantage shrunk drastically, but she continued her chase.
Lia's first indication of the new arrivals was the telltale snap-crack of ionizing air as thick bolts of light zoomed past her to strike the fighter's tail. She looked back for just a moment to see Sapphira in the turret of a Chimera, raking the Avenger with fire. She focused back ahead of her at the moving fighter. I need to stop it from taking off...
She was so close to the Avenger, just out of reach, and her hands clenched into fists as she anticipated getting them on it and its pilot. A laser spat past her, uncomfortably close, and its corona of heated air singed the bottom of Lia's shirt and heated the skin beneath alarmingly. She raised the vox back to her mouth so that it could pick up her voice over the sound of the spinning turbines and the awakening roar of the afterburners. "Ow! Stoppit!"
She hooked the vox back on to her belt and took one more leap, hurtling spread-eagled through the air, and catching onto the Avenger's tail. A few moments of hand-over-hand got her to the stem of the tail, from which she swung down to touch her feet to the concrete of the runway. The connection made, she gritted her teeth and hauled backwards.
The Avenger bucked for a moment, its movement temporarily arrested. The toughened steel holding the tail to the fuselage groaned in protest as the tail bent slightly to the side as the plane lost a good chunk of its speed. Lia realized her position was untenable as the force of the engines pulled her to full extension and beyond. She quickly released her hold on the runway, allowing the Avenger to accelerate again, gritted her teeth, and started inexorably pulling herself up the tail towards the cockpit.
Jarms48
08-06-2013, 12:50 PM
"Oh, feth me." he said.
"Look kid," Remus began dropping his hand from his weapons undergrip and placed it upon the young PDF troopers shoulder pauldron. "Keep your head down, I don't want to see a boy just out of his youth thrown away." His words were full of haste and urgency and a brief tap to the lads armour plate was the only assurance he gave before heading deeper into the complex.
"I still have nightmares about the last one..." His tone was hushed for only himself to hear. His experience had came at a cost, the things he had seen, the things he was ordered to do, the things he had done. He could not forget that, he could never forget that, his subconscious would never allow it. Despite his own attempts, that at the bottom of a bottle in his off-duty hours across the bars and taverns of the furthest reaches of the Imperium during his time at the ends. Family, duty and focus kept him sane, how his mind strayed when he was alone.
Focus. He reminded himself, the ringing of heavy boots clattering upon the hard ground crept to his ears. A whistle parted dried, warn lips as he kept moving. A tune he recalled from a Guard marching regiment in a shared theater long ago, a symphony of drum and flute. A simple uplift designed for raising trooper morale. If there was one thing that echoed throughout the annals of Imperial record, it would be that of the simple drum.
* * * * *
“Julianus. I’m inbound with armor support. What is your location and status?”
"Excellent." He answered approvingly. "I'm making my way to possible location, hanger bay on the far side of the airstrip it's bleaching smoke. Can't miss it."
* * * * *
"Confirm?" Remus heard the man's vox crackle back. "Hammer 1 is already on the runway."
"That's our target and consequently yours, seeing the circumstances." Remus said, turning to face the operator. "I saw missile turrets curtaining the walls of this facility, have them track the traitors shuttle and blow him out of the sky."
"Sir..." The operator returned, the word dulled, confused and he was unsure if it was even appropriate. Though it was a formality and it had slipped from the tongue. "Automated defenses are servo operated, Hammer 1 is carrying an Imperial IFF there's nothing they can do."
"Then contact control and have them acquire target manually. Get a bead to deployed lightening squadrons, have one placed on standby at the chance he manages take off. Squawk to base security NCOs, get them to button the bastards cockpit with lasfire. Target its landing gears." He rattled off, listing the first things that came to mind. Frustration being to seep across his form.
"On who's authority?" The operator queried, looking up from his vox piece.
"Trooper Remus, Inquisition, any objections can be forwarded to my superiors. Get relaying. Now!" He demanded, his voice slick with anger and he wiped around to face the hanger bays entrance. Time. Time was not a luxury they had, on the other side of the hanger lay the bases wall. More importantly however was the launcher hard point on its surface. He moved into a run, his reliance on local forces had wavered to nonexistence, he'd see this through. He made a promise to Noyer, that bastard was going to pay for all the lives he had taken, all the blood he had spilled.
He ground to a halt as a whining, chattering roar suddenly assaulted Remus ears. It was like the rib-jarring thwak-thwak-thwak of a heavy bolter, only even more savage and a lot more rapid. Turning towards the hellish noise, Remus saw a second Avenger taxiing into position in the vast rockrete space beyond the raised Lightning catapult ramps and the servitor-manned missile turrets. A line of white and yellow flashes were spitting from beneath the Avenger's flared nosecone towards an open gate on the opposite side of the perimeter wall, and Remus realised he was looking at the rocket trails of self-propelled bolts as they began to blow massive chunks out of the wall's inside. A number of PDF soldiers manning the wall simply vanished in little red puffs, and a scarlet chimera that had just roared through the gate jerked to a halt with three holes in its glacis plate as a plume of fire lifted its multilaser turret and tossed it into the air. The turret flew in a steep arc before landing with a crash twenty metres away. A second chimera, following immediately behind the first, swerved to one side and started injecting raw promethium into its exhaust to throw up a pall of white smoke, simultaneously ejecting a second cloud ahead of it with spiralling smoke canisters. The Avenger's murderous fusilade ceased as it swung its nose away from the gate and down the centreline of the runway, its afterburners suddenly flaring into life.
"Emperor enthroned! Roxanna!" Remus screamed, his sisters name leaving his lips without warning or thought. His eyes went wide, watching as flames rose from the chimeras turret ring. For a second he was speechless, his mind went blank sending images of his sister to the forefront of his mind. He sighed as he realized his actual sister was light years away. Sapphira reminded him so much of her and he felt helpless, Julianus couldn't even recall having a complete conversation with her. He blinked. Regret, sorrow, each emotion stabbed at his core. He shook his head. He placed his right foot forward and took in a deep breath. He had to keep moving. Duty came first, sorrow was a luxury.
He grasped an access ladder, slinging his rifle over his shoulder; before he climbed the rungs. He could see his objective in view, he could taste bittersweet revenge on his lips. Remus managed a smile and he hadn't even realized it. Focus. That's all he reminded himself, training, experience and repetition would see to the rest. He was a cog, a tool, that's what they wanted him to be. An insectoid warrior drone tasked with defending the sprawling hive. He blinked. His thoughts once again drifting.
“It commandeered an Avenger!”
He was filled with a sense of relief, but with the sudden wash of freedom of burden came the constant reminder of his exclamation. Embarrassment sunk into every crevice and he was glad his microbead wasn't transmitting during his prior exclamation.
"Ma'am. I thought they had you for a second there. No doubt if it was me in your boots, I'd have the tenacity to ride in the lead vehicle." He paused, forgetting himself. "Confirmed, smoke trails origin comes from the hanger bay I just left. Avenger designation Hammer 1, these things can copy vehicles. Disable alarms."
Ahead of him was the flakk missile launcher, a simple surface to air weapon designed as a hard counter for aerial threats, using sophisticated logica engines and equip with an advanced machine spirit to acquire and continue tracking targets. The launcher itself, a pair of missile racks stacked atop of each other and numbering four to a rack, mounted to a revolving turntable for full 360 degrees of traverse and powerful hydraulics for elevation. About a metre beside it, behind a blast screen and dug slightly into the perimetre wall was the control station. Remus assumed with all automation and powerful cogitators it still required human aid. He spirited into the control station noticing a brain dead servitor siting idly in its chair, fingers positioned over the console waiting for command.
Julianus lifted his boot and placed it firmly into the human-machine hybrid, effectively knocking it into the rockcrete floor with a heavy thump. The devices wetware detecting the aggression screamed for assistance, bleaching machine code from its vox grill. Remus gave it another kick for good measure, in a futile attempt to shut the servo-slave up. He grunted from frustration and sat promptly behind the console. He slid his finger over the pict-slate, going through commands and adjusting appropriate elevation and traverse. The launchers hydroponics whined as the flakk racks lowered and its turntable cranked as it turned along its rails.
He acquired his target, eyes focused on the vid-screen as he watched rapid multi-fire and the trails of bolter shells skirt the jets fuselage. Remus pressed the foot pedal for launch, there was an angry beep and the vid-screen flashed in blood red designating an error. He looked back at the console, fingers readjusting his aim and he slammed down the pedal again. The launcher protested once more, its vid-screen flashed and the speakers crackled with an error tone. He gritted teeth, slamming a palm onto the controls.
"What the hell are you doing!?" A scarlet robed tech-adept blared at him, having investigated the distress calls of the fallen servitor.
"Inquisitorial agent Remus and I'm trying to launch these Emperor-damned missiles and take out the traitor on your bloody runway!" Remus yelled back. "Why won't this thing fire!?"
"Because its safety protocols haven't been overridden, that Avenger is carrying an Imperial transponder. Though the launcher still requires manual firing, basic machine code stops the user from firing upon friendly forces. Its a simple process to override, I can walk you through it if you like." The tech-adept offered.
"Quickly." Remus answered through gritted teeth. His eyes falling back to the vid-screen and he noticed Lia climbing across the fuselage. Shock overcame him, he could have became a murderer and he held back a silent gasp. The last thing he wanted was the death of a team member on his hands, not to mention the blood of a child. The storm trooper flicked on his comm-bead.
"Lia, stand clear. That Avengers going to taste a pair of flakk missiles in a few seconds." He warned.
Azazeal849
08-08-2013, 03:23 PM
Inspired, and with the litany of accuracy on her lips, Sapphira redirected the multi-laser and hammered volley after volley of laser fire into the Avenger's exposed landing gear. A flash and a fan of sparks as the Avenger's rear quarter hit the rockrete let her know that her aim had been true. She saw Noyer gun the afterburners, in a last-ditch attempt to bring the aircraft to take-off speed. Lia gritted her teeth against the white-hot backwash, her hair and clothes smouldering as the periphery of her bio-field began to break down. An ordinary human could neither have held on nor survived the heat, but Lia started inexorably pulling herself up the tail towards the cockpit.
Remus flicked on his comm-bead as the battered Avenger skidded down the runway, trailing smoke and sparks.
"Lia, stand clear! That Avenger's going to taste a pair of flakk missiles in a few seconds!"
To his consternation, Lia did not comply, leaving the stormtrooper to curse impotently with his foot still on the launch pedal. Instead she continued climbing up the aircraft, psychically locking her hands and feet to the fuselage. The Avenger's remaining undercarriage gave way, and it swerved into a sideways skid with fire spitting along its abraded underside. Noyer hit the explosive bolts to release the cockpit canopy, just as Lia reached it. She smacked away the tumbling armaglass panel and reached into the cockpit with one hand, hauling the replicant out of his seat. Noyer went bouncing and rolling like a broken mannequin down the runway behind, while Lia and the now-burning Avenger skidded off the runway in a welter of torn-up rockrete.
Now Remus had a target.
Bloodied and smashed, the replicant Noyer lurched to his feet, green lightning coiling up his legs and round his torso. And then he vanished in a yellow fireball as Remus sent a flakk missile streaking into the runway right at his feet.
+ + + + + +
There was a dull whomph and then an inhuman scream as the flash bang went nova hot and triggered the promethium tank of the Cargo Eight. At the same moment, Vizkop felt the Replicant's machine curse lift from his frozen limbs, restoring them to function. It was just enough time to throw himself to the ground as the fireball engulfed the entire vehicle and the Replicant, and rattled every car on the level, setting off automated alarms and shattering windows. The automated fire suppression systems burst into life, drenching the combatants with water from overhead sprinklers.
"Get up from that." Kally muttered darkly.
"What is with you dumb foks and counting to 3?" Vincent grumbled as he offered his mechanical hand to Vizkop and helped him up. "I can understand the psyker here, but you cogboys should at least be able to keep time!"
Behind them, Craddock's PDF soldiers rushed forward as soon as the sprinkler system had arrested the worst of the flames coming from the Cargo Eight. Covering their faces against the thick black smoke that had replaced the fire, they regarded the charred skeleton that was now hanging from the front of the driver's cabin.
"Who was that?" one of them asked, looking to Kally and the others for an answer.
"Not a who," said Shere, striding up behind them with the butt of his psykana staff striking rhythmically against the ground. "A what."
The yellow-clad psyker raised a fist, and opened it to fan the embers around Noyer's remains back into life, incinerating the bones. He ignored the PDF troopers making the sign of the Aquila behind him, not caring if it was for the dead alien or for his display of supernatural power.
+ + + + + +
Four hours later
"This isn't over, governor." Schafer said warningly.
On the flat vid-screen mounted on the wall of the small office, governor Faroven's austere face dipped into a nod. Rather like Schafer himself, the planetary regent had refused all but the most necessary medical treatment before throwing himself back into his work.
"I'm not naive enough to believe that it is, interrogator." he said. "I'm already working to up military readiness across the whole planet, and the Vitaris task force will be trained and ready within the month. The mechanicus have pledged to continue monitoring the alien transmission."
"That will have to do. I'm going to commandeer a sprint trader to recall our frigate from the edge of the system. It will provide transport for the PDF strike force."
"You're leaving?" Faroven asked, raising a shaved eyebrow, "Why not just signal your vessel?"
"A vox transmission would take hours to arrive, and could be intercepted." Schafer growled, "And after what happened to my pilot, I'm not sure if I can even trust astropaths. I'm warping out there myself."
"As you wish then, interrogator. Ave Imperator."
"Ave Imperator."
Schafer killed the link and let out a breath, flexing the fingers of his right hand. His dislocated index finger, still bandaged, remained stubbornly immobile. Growling, the interrogator turned on his heel and strode out of the office. The starport was almost deserted now; all of the civilians and non-essential staff turned away after the lockdown so that his team and the local verispex could pick up the pieces of the recent incidents. Schafer vastly preferred the new, quieter atmosphere.
"Team." he said, lifting one hand to his ear to activate the short-range comm-bead as he walked. "Status report."
He listened to the agents under his command sound off one by one. The reports finished with Marc who was cloistered away in the ops room with Kelly and Fredriq, white snow swirling mutely outside the soundproofed windows as they tried to pull together all the reports that had been made on the car park and airbase incidents over the last four hours. Both of the Black siblings had their sleeves rolled up to their elbows and the top buttons of their shirts undone for comfort as they worked.
"We might have something." Marc said as he put down a sheaf of papers next to an empty plate and caff cup and rubbed his eyes. They had been on task without any real pause since Noyer and Clement had been liquidated. Schafer had wanted every possible chance of another replicant on Venatora checked out, and so as the sky outside grew steadily darker the team continued their work - analysing casualty reports from the two incidents; cataloguing missing persons; and combing access logs that Vizkop had liberated from the PDF mainframes for the handprints of anyone who was supposed to be dead. It was arduous work, but at least the local Imperial and Ad Mech authorities were co-operating in providing them with the information they needed, thanks to the higher-ranking witnesses to the incidents, and no small amount of streamlining by governor Faroven himself.
Their current method was hardly foolproof; unless their quarry did something overt, the team needed to find an original body before they could reveal any xenos copy. Vizkop and Sapphira were working to correct that, modifying the auspex suite in Sapphira's servo skull to try and detect the micro-implants similar to the one Kelly had uncovered inside Noyer. And just ten minutes ago, Marc's PDA had flashed up with a report from the local peacekeepers that looked promising - promising enough for him to report it to Schafer now.
"What do you have?" Schafer pressed him.
"I got a report just now from the enforcers - there's been a dead body reported on a building roof in district 3. It's a real mess though, no positive identification yet."
"Look into it." Schafer replied, "I'm catching a shuttle into orbit so I can recall the Excubitor to the inner system."
Marc looked up at his sister, who stared back at him in identical surprise.
"You're leaving?" he asked after a second. "Sir?"
"You've got your orders, and your warrants of investigation. If any unexpected situations arise, Sister Sapphira has veto power on your course of action."
Marc paused again. "Yes sir." he said at length, before carefully removing the comm-bead from his ear and standing up. "Sorry guys, one second." he said to Kelly and Fredriq before making for the door. The thought had been nagging at him earlier in the grav-car, but now it couldn't wait.
Kelly rubbed the bridge of her nose, picking up on something in her brother's tone. Leaving her jacket over the back of her chair, she stood up to follow him.
Jarms48
08-09-2013, 01:32 AM
Remus made his way back to his quarters, his armour kit carefully discarded and placed neatly into his footlocker at the end of his bed. The rest of the team didn't need a blunt instrument and unless they specifically called for him he was going to use these off hours to the best of his ability. Remus did a quick circuit around the room, rolled his shoulder blades in a brief stretch and grimaced as he felt the twinge of developing bruises. He sighed; walking over to a full length mirror and took in his own reflection. His face was worn, tired and his features, at least chronologically, appeared to be ten years older then Julianus was himself. His black hair was greying around the edges, his fore wrinkled, he rose a hand and placed it on the glass plane, time was not kind. The storm trooper glanced over his winter fatigues, pitch white with blue highlights, it was an odd combination to his eyes, he had grown accustom to the issue tan he wore across the edges.
The train of thought only reminded him of his sister, how long had it been? Five years since he was transferred across the Ordo militant and allocated to Carbon. Chrysanta could easily look after herself, she had a way about her and he assumed she would have, at least by now, acquired a new retinue. His eyes found themselves in his reflection, his eldest sister was twelve years older than himself, yet she held the sparkling resemblance of youth. Rejuvenation techniques, she claimed it would extend her service within the Ordo, though he knew that was only a part truth, Chrysanta's primary reason was her own selfish desire, she had the power to retain her looks, how could she not abuse it? She had even offered it to Remus himself, which he blatantly refused, if the Ordo wanted to keep him they would have to offer such devices themselves.
He closed his eyes and retreated from his own image. Was he a fool to deny a luxury like that? No. With a shake of the head he rid himself of the thought. Remus looked over his shoulder, eyes focusing on his comm-bead which lay atop his footlocker, waiting for the device to crackle. He needed something to pass the time, then he remembered.
* * * * *
He walked into the common area, a small wooden box tucked under his arm. Remus stopped at a table, a chair at either end. He reached down with a hand and pulled one out, the legs scratching at the floor with a loud grind. He placed the box on the tabletop, opening the lid and pulling out a simple checkered gameboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. One by one he lay the pieces in there positions, one side a shined marble and the other mirrored in a glossy obsidian. Regicide, a game which Remus had much experience in, though variants differed across the Imperium and he made a habit of sampling each and every. His favourite however was the gift his eldest brother had given him, Kephas, taken from life and given to the Emperor before his time. The game before him was the only memory of family lost, a treasure, an heirloom, if he ever managed to have his own kin he'd make an effort to pass it down to the next generation.
His eyes grew heavy and a hand rose to grip the bridge of his nose. Remus took a heavy breath, followed by another to calm himself, his peers in TFC were right. With a blink he banished the emotions that plagued him, his face returning to the phlegmatic contrast he reserved for on the job hours. Julianus mindlessly continued setting up his game pieces, memories of long time passed blessing him as he ran a thumb across the back of a primarch and he began to recall the games he shared with his sister. He rose from his chair, navigating his way to the adjoining kitchen, hands opening cupboards seeking a glass. He gave a pleased mutter as digits wrapped around the implement and drew it under the faucet.
Flowing water sloshed against the glasses side and he pondered whether another might turn up to share a game or if he'd be playing by himself. Remus rose the glass to parched lips, letting the water cool the tongue; his free hand absentmindedly brushing through his hair. How it was the little things that pleased him, perhaps if he had time he would run through a batch of PT before complete dusk. That would get his blood pumping, tire himself out and let him sleep easier.
dakkagor
08-17-2013, 04:52 PM
She followed the others back to the apartment in silence.
Good thing I can't die then. . .
The moment replayed itself over and over in her mind. She kept going back and worrying over it, like it was a loose tooth.
Good thing I can't die then. . .
She walked into her room in silence. No one stopped her. She needed time to cool off, time to think it through. Time to control the damn shaking in her hands.
So frakking close. Too frakking close.
She ditched her weapons on the floor and flopped down on her bed, in full kit. Why was this digging at her? She had come closer before, that was for sure. Grazing head wounds from slug rounds, attacks by knife wielding scavs, the occasional telekine (she hated telekines). Why was this different? Hell, she'd had a couple of close calls in the last twenty four hours that rivalled this.
Was it how. . .alien his eyes had looked? Kally had stared right into them and seen. . .nothing. Not even the fear and revulsion she had come to expect. She shivered slightly.
Good thing I can't die then. . .
She got up with a sigh and padded into the bathroom. For a second she stared at the mirror and hated everything she saw there as she gripped the edge of the sink to stop her hands shaking. Then she reached a decision.
She stripped out of the bodysuit and went to the shower.
The hood peeled back from her mouth and nose and she gasped for air, sobbing. It wasn't drowning. It was worse. She heaved two great lungfuls of air in before the questions started.
She took a deep, cleansing breath and turned the shower on, setting the water as hot as she could bear. Kally was determined. She could do this. He hadn't taken this from her, and Clement hadn't rattled her. She was still the person she was in Makita, and if she could convince herself of that again then every other problem and fear would be small in comparison.
Nimble fingers pulled the sodden hood over her nose and mouth as she sucked in a breath. Pointless to beg. Should have learned that right away. The water fell again and she started to choke. It was like dying. No escape, barely any movement available to her that wasn't doing her more damage. She could feel herself unravelling, coming apart.
Hold on, Sapphira had said. She wanted the chance to thank her just once before she died. At least someone on this ship had shown her some human mercy.
She clenched her fists and stepped into the shower in one swift motion before she could lose her bottle. The hot water cascading down her face nearly made her cry out in panic, but she clamped her mouth shut hard against the impulse.
Her tongue snarled in her mouth as she stuttered over the lie she had been building. Her throat constricted of its own accord as she tried to force the words out. She made a choking, gargling sound as every muscle tensed and strained against the metal straps. It wouldn't come, it wouldn't come. There was something stopping her saying anything, even a lie.
“please. . .please. . .not the hood, please. . .”
It came down over her nose and mouth in one swift motion. No air left to scream.
She braced and let the shower run, fighting the memories and her desire to run from the bathroom, back to her room, to hide in her bed. She didn't pray for strength because she honestly believed that if there was an Immortal God Emperor, he didn't give half a shit about soulless Kally Sonder. She just tried to focus past the memories that tried to break her.
Good thing I can't die then. . .
The memory of staring into Clements pitiless eyes made her finally open her eyes. She gasped as another memory smashed into her mind like a shuttle into a building.
She started to laugh, and cry, at the same time. She remembered. And all it had taken was nearly dying at the hands of this sadistic idiot.
“What? Kally, what was it? Tell me!”
“He's not dead!” she managed between waves of hysterical laughter that had seized her. “You fracking morons thought you could kill a god with light and thunder” the laughter was more desperate, more terrified, as the memories flooded back into her skull, ebbing and flowing like the tide. “But he's not dead and when he wakes up he is going to kill us all!”
She slumped against the sides of the shower, shivering, wide eyed and terrified. A croak of a scream escaped her throat before she began to scramble for the shower door.
A gunshot echoed around the shower block. The shadow receded and the water stopped falling from above.
“That's enough! Step away from the table now! We are here for the prisoner on Lord Sidonis orders!”
The echo of hard boots came towards her and strong hands ripped the hood of her face and mouth. The straps came free. The hood came all the way off and strong arms hauled her clear of the table.
“Throne on Earth . . . what did they do to you?”
She didn't want to know. . .she didn't want to know. She got the shower door open and made it to the toilet before she threw up. The memory. . .the memory of it. . .
She could feel, through it all, the impossible heat of his hand as it pressed his thumb into her forehead.
She threw up again.
The shadow was looming over her, the massive vessel in orbit raining nuclear fire down on her home, but surrounded by a halo of light was the man who she had chased this far. His arm was reaching for her.
She shivered, retching. Slowly her composure returned. What the hell was that? Where the hell did it come from? Was. . .was it what happened when she had met Pembroke that final time?
Good thing I can't die then. . .
She breathed, regained her control. She looked back at the shower and smiled grimly. She had made it longer than last time. She'd made it into the shower. Next time she'd actually have a shower, and not a panic attack. And she knew what they had finally squeezed from her in the final moments of the interrogation.
She switched off the water and got dressed again in plain black clothes, leaving her body suit hanging up to air. She stepped into the main living area, and finding Vince there, she retrieved a pair of beers for both of them.
Then she slumped into one of the seats, and fell dead asleep.
Azazeal849
08-22-2013, 06:52 PM
"Marc!" Kelly called after her brother, slipping back to their old midhive cant in exasperation. "What's the script?"
Marc was striding purposefully through the arterial corridor towards the ward that had been set aside as the team's off-duty room. From a glance at her wrist-chron, Kelly knew that Vince, Kally and possibly Remus would be resting up there while she and the others handled the jigsaw work. They needed their heavy-hitters refreshed for when they came up with any new leads, but something told Kelly that her brother wasn't planning on telling them about the body on the roof of district 3.
"You're no gonnae radge about Schafer leaving without telling us, are you?" she challenged Marc as she drew level with him, her low-heeled shoes tapping gently against the tiled floor. The subliminal message behind Schafer's lack of advanced warning was pretty clear after what had happened with Clement. Schafer didn't think he could trust the rest of the team either, and so was giving them less chance to interfere with his plan or pass the information on to someone else. Kelly could see how such suspicion would annoy her brother, even if he probably understood the logic behind it as well as she did.
"It's no that." Marc said, to Kelly's surprise. The investigator stopped in the hallway so he could turn to face his sister, leaning back against the wall with his arms folded. "I want to talk to you about Sapphira. Have you spoke to her much lately? Off-mission, I mean."
Kelly frowned, and leaned back against the opposite wall, mirroring her brother's stance. "The other morning, aye. She was asking after Vince and Kally. And you, actually. But other than that, no."
"Aye," Marc nodded, his expression set in that neutral mask he always wore when he was connecting dots in his head. "She was asking me about Vince and Kally too. Never the others, just us Makita folk. Don't you think that's a bit odd?"
Kelly pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "It's her job; she's hardly being nebby. The team needs a medica to check up on everyone."
"They could've sent anybody to be our madicae. Why specifically a Sister?"
"They're the best. And they have combat experience."
"They also do purity checks." Marc said.
Kelly thought she could see where her brother was going, and she didn't like it. "What's the script, Marc? You're saying she's here to spy on us?"
"I'm saying," murmured Marc, "That inquisitors are, by definition, sleekit wee shits."
Kelly opened her mouth to reply, but Marc had already pushed off the wall and crossed the hallway to the team's R and R suite. She swore under her breath. If her brother had one weakness, it was thinking himself into knots. Great for seeing patterns in a case where incomplete data stalled more logical thinkers like herself; not so great here, where Kelly expected he was reading far too much into Schafer leaving sister Sapphira in charge.
Even if he was right, Kelly recognised the importance of watching the watchers. After all, a rogue inquisitor had killed her friend Sandra - and most of her other friends too, when that same inquisitor became indirectly responsible for the burning of Makita Hive. Those losses still hurt her like hell, but she was able to put them aside. You had to learn to switch off certain thoughts and feelings when you worked in Verispex.
Swearing again, she headed after Marc as he pushed through the door into the off-duty suite. Vincent and Kally were both there - Kally dozing against the cushions, Vincent as usual with a bottle in his hand and a lho behind his ear - though there was no sign of Shere or stormtrooper Remus.
"Both sides got it wrong." Vince was saying, apparently not aware or not bothered that his drinking companion was asleep. "Bottle half full or bottle half empty, doesn't matter. What matters is in both cases, there's room for more beer."
He drained the bottle in his hand, and made a face.
"And it still tastes like fokkin' pisswater."
Kelly braced herself for what she expected to be a slightly embarrassing conversation, but decided to bite her tongue as Marc's previous agitation visibly cooled upon entering the room. She noted that her brother stood straighter, stiffening just slightly, as his eyes moved from Vincent to Kally.
The sleeping woman had her limiter broach active, but Kelly's stomach still gave a slight, involuntary lurch as she looked at her. She knew though that agent Sonder's blank aura wasn't the sole reason for Marc's reaction.
Her brother had been feeling guilty as hell after he had guided the Sons techmarine to teleport Kally out of Makita, only for the astartes to immediately isolate her as a moral threat due to her close contact with Pembroke. It had been months before he had been able to argue her case and get her released. Marc had been mostly avoiding Kally since; out of the same guilt, Kelly supposed, and she wasn't close enough to Kally Sonder to get the ex-bounty hunter's view on the subject. Anything that got the two agents talking again could only be a good thing at the end of the day. Then again, the last attempt obviously hadn't gone so well - Kelly didn't know all the details, but the bruise on her brother's jaw was pretty frakking obvious.
Marc was apparently worrying the same thing.
"Mind if we join you?" he asked the room's two occupants. He spoke in the Solomon gothic of their mutual homeworld, rather than the Venatoran he had used almost exclusively since the mission began.
Vincent squinted up at him with his one good eye. It was lighter than stone but darker than milk, which suited the man quite well.
"Kid, I know you've had a stick up your arse ever since they gave you that signet ring, but that doesn't mean you ain't welcome.” He reached over and put his organic hand on Kally's shoulder, shaking her awake. “Rise and shine, Kally girl. Marcus and Kelly are here.”
Kelly sat down on the armchair next to Kally and Vince while her brother took the sofa opposite. She decided to stay quiet for a bit, and let the other two agents weigh in with their own views before she tried to convince him again.
Marc took a breath. “I think we need to be careful what we say around Sapphira.”
Vincent's mood visibly darkened. “The bitch getting on your case too?”
“Not exactly. But she's been asking me a lot of probing questions about you two specifically. Kelly and all.”
Realising that she would have to weigh in now whether she wanted to or not, Kelly bit the inside of her cheek and tried to choose her words carefully.
“She did ask after all of you the morning of the shuttle crash.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Marc thinks we're all still on probation and she's got us under surveillance.”
“And now Schafer's left her in charge of the mission.” Marc added.
There was a dull whine of servos as Vincent's augmetic hand curled into a fist.
“Well if that doesn't take the fokkin' cake.” the big ex-Guardsman growled.
“I'm not saying you should stop doing your jobs.” Marc said quickly, “And I'm not suggesting she's anything less than committed to her's. I'm just saying that we might need to be careful what we say around her.”
Atrum Daemon
08-23-2013, 07:15 PM
Vizkop pressed his palms into his eyes. His helmet sat nearby on a nearby table, the only indication it existed coming from the dull glow of the cross-visor. The damage to his limbs had been repaired by Craddok’s people and he had been squirreled away to a private work chamber to devise some way to detect implants like Noyer’s. The worktable he sat at was strewn with the tools to do that. But, he was having a hard time putting it all together. He knew the right option was to work with the other Mechanicus forces on the planet, but at that moment he craved solitude. Still, the rest of the team could find him if he was needed. He doubted any would come to him. Something tugged at him in the dark room lit only by the lights flooding the work bench and the glowing run pads of the cogitator by the east wall. Something he had thought to have gotten over years ago. What was it called again? That feeling that tugged at one in solitude? Lonesomeness?
He missed them all. The others in his parent organization. The amusement that came with Lanius’ brusque nature. Learning new things from Magos Liddel. Rhiannon’s eccentric nature. And Krystek. Her most of all. Vizkop allowed himself to slump in his chair and let feelings of lonesomeness, isolation, and even sadness wash over him. He would never connect with Schafer’s people he knew that. And with Schafer’s sudden disappearance and putting the Sister in charge…Vizkop had a feeling the rest of the team’s paranoia would shoot up to eleven.
A heavy sigh heaved through his body. Focus was proving hard to come by. Thoughts of Krystek filled his mind. Small things in the way she comported herself. A shine in the eyes. A small tugging at the corners of her mouth. The way she danced. All such things. He let himself slump in the chair. There were plenty of others working on the same project for him to take a moment. Someone to talk to would help. Such was the “burden of emotion” he supposed.
Azazeal849
08-25-2013, 10:14 PM
Vizkop’s wish was answered a moment later, though not in the way he expected. The eyes of the mechanicus cog and skull beside the door lit up as its counterpart on the other side detected an approaching figure, and the door swung open on automatic pistons to admit Fredriq L’Hoace. The ageing xenologist was wearing his faded sweater and corduroy trousers with his ubiquitous data slate stuffed into the back pocket, and beneath his unruly grey hair his face looked weary.
In a show of religious sensitivity, Fredriq touched his thumb to the cog-backed skull beside the door - a simple sign of respect to the Omnissiah that Vizkop hadn’t known any of the uninitiated team members to be aware of - before shuffling over to the seat beside the cogitator station and spinning it round to sit.
“I hope I’m not interrupting your holy work.” he said to Vizkop, smiling tiredly, “But miss Black and her brother rather rudely abandoned me at the table, so I thought I might drop by and see how the rest of our efforts were progressing.”
Fredriq had a certain respect for the priests of the mechanicus. Of course, they defended their independence with near paranoid zealotry, but the Imperium would not function without them. The ways and rules of the universe were not unknown to those Imperials who, like Fredriq, had the luxury of time and opportunity to study them, but to actually build a complex machine and breath life into it…ah, that was something only the priests of Mars could do.
Fredriq also liked their philosophy - what little of it was known to outsiders, anyway. The idea that all knowledge existed somewhere in the universe and was just waiting to be discovered appealed to him. The idea that one day they might discover a weapon to bring down all of mankind’s foes, or to travel the warp without fear, or perhaps even conquer death itself. Fredriq was old enough to have started contemplating his own mortality, but his recent near-lethal encounter with Noyer had thrown it in his face in the most shocking manner. Did the priests of Mars also fear death, he wondered. General consensus across the Imperium was that they didn’t think in quite the same way as good, honest, normal humans. Then again, Fredriq thought, the same could be said of almost anyone who worked for His Divine Majesty’s inquisition!
Looking at Vizkop for the first time without his cross-visored helmet, Fredriq was struck by how…human he looked. Many magi were almost unrecognisable beneath layers of implants, optic lights and steel-jacketed cables, but Vizkop looked almost normal - apart from the plugs where he interfaced with his helmet systems, and doubtless he hid many other bionic modifications beneath his red kimono. Fredriq himself bore a modest blessing of the red priests to help him continue his work for the inquisition: simple corrective implants in his failing eyes, although he still wore his thin-framed spectacles - now with just simple glass lenses - out of stubborn habit.
The eye implants also contained simple recording devices, which Fredriq sometimes used to take notes of particularly interesting specimens or texts that he would later download to his data slate through an unobtrusive communion port behind his left ear. As fate would have it, he had had the recorders active during Kelly and magos Tharrick’s examination of Noyer, and so had inadvertently captured the entire nightmare of Noyer’s reanimation and escape into the implant’s memory. Fredriq wanted nothing more than to forget the harrowing ordeal, but with the recorded vid-reel right there next to his own memory he had come back to it again and again, like a finger irresistibly probing a painful wound. Even after copying the recording to his slate for the others to see, he had rewatched the copy still in his head several times while he and the Black siblings worked. He did so again now, blinking three times in quick succession to activate the implant, thrice again to access its memory bank, and then glancing briefly to the left to scroll back to its last recording. Another double blink set the images streaming across his retina, the section of the long recording he always came back to - Farrier’s death, and Noyer’s gaunt face as he looked down at him with the still-smoking lasgun in his hand. The recording had no sound, but Fredriq’s own memory filled in the words as he watched Noyer’s lips move.
“Do you want to know what the Masters think of you? Your fear of death? They pity you. Because they were once like you.”
Adept Farrier’s desperate defiance. They'll find you. They'll stop you.
“That would be extremely ambitious of them.”
What are you planning on doing? Just you? Have you got enough hubris in your heretic mind that you think you can take on this whole planet? The whole of humanity?
The flash of the lasgun as it fired. “It's only hubris if we fail.”
Fredriq blinked himself out of the artificial memory, and realised that his hands were trembling.
“I beg your pardon.” he said to Vizkop, “That whole bad business earlier still has me quite shaken up.”
He paused, taking off his glasses and cleaning them distractedly against his sleeve.
“You’re a man privy to knowledge that most aren’t, adept Vizkop. Do you really think those Necron machines were once people like us? Do you think these Replicants of theirs are organic at all, or just something that mimics it? Can we really kill them?”
He caught himself rambling, and laughed uneasily.
“I’m sorry, I could be asking and helping on a much more relevant subject. Have you had any luck putting together something that can help us distinguish these Replicants from our own people?”
Atrum Daemon
08-27-2013, 04:06 AM
Vizkop’s reminiscing of tender moments was interrupted by the keying of his door. He had never expected to be joined in such a moment by the aging Fredriq. He let the man ramble on, happy to have some company for once while he tried to work. “Like us?” he wondered. “Probably not just like us…but it is a possibility. As for the Replicants themselves? I’m not about to enter discourse about whether or not they are organic or just a really good simulation. But, I do know that we can kill them. It takes catastrophic trauma to do so, but it can be done.”
He paused to look down at his work table, at all the things strewn across it. There were many different tools and a partially disassembled auspex unit. “I am attempting to modify an auspex unit to detect the implants…but technical engineering is not my forte. I will admit I am much better suited to subterfuge and combat.” He let out a heavy sigh. “I wish Elijah were here. Man is a genius when it comes to technology. He’d have this project done easily. But…I am making slow progress.”
It was the most open he had been with a member of the team since he disclosed his true purpose to the Interrogator. He felt comfortable around Fredriq. Like he could talk normally without having to pause to explain things. The aging man was not an initiated of the priesthood, but he had some understanding. At least more than the average Imperial did.
PaintSerf
08-27-2013, 11:46 AM
“Thank you.” Sapphira breathed in relieved acknowledgement, with a flick of her eyes upward, as a flash and a fan of sparks as the Avenger's rear quarter hit the rockrete. That let her know that her aim had been true and favored with the Emperor’s benevolence. She saw Noyer gun the afterburners, in a last-ditch attempt to bring the aircraft to take-off speed. Undeterred by the earlier and neigh on incomprehensible vox message from Lia, Sapphira aimed at and hammered its engines with bursts of multi-laser fire. Fortunately for the girl she was out of direct line of fire this time – but only because the Avenger hadn’t been rendered flightless yet.
"Lia, stand clear. That Avengers going to taste a pair of flakk missiles in a few seconds."
“For the Emperor’s sake!” Sapphira snapped exasperatedly after she ceased firing for those few seconds. Trooper Remus hadn’t fired and Lia kept clawing her way up the fighter’s spine while it continued to literally tear its way down the runway. With a soundless snarl she fired at the Avenger until it broke under the tremendous strain and Noyer was bodily hurled from the wreck by Lia.
Through the targeter screen Sapphira watched as Noyer went bouncing and rolling like a broken mannequin down the runway behind, while Lia and the now-burning Avenger skidded off the runway in a welter of torn-up rockrete. Bloodied and smashed, the replicant Noyer lurched to his feet, green lightning coiling up his legs and round his torso. And then he vanished in a yellow fireball as Remus sent a flakk missile streaking into the runway right at his feet. The Chimera chewed more rockrete up as it slewed to a halt as the explosion flared and dissipated ahead of it.
Sapphira pried open the cupola and surveyed the scene. What had become Conrad Noyer was nothing more than seared biological fragments on the runway. Further down it was the burning Avenger that had apparently been replicated by it. She grimaced at the sight of the wrecked attack-fighter. In what spare time she allotted for herself, Sapphira often chose to endure the elements for solitude up on the landing pad. There it was always possible to hear, and sometimes see, the PDF aeronautica in action. The Avenger flights had been a particular favorite due to their association with the holy crusade of Saint Thor.
“Target has been obliterated. Glory to the God Emperor.” Sapphira flatly informed Schafer as she averted her eyes and watched the PDF secure the scene.
“Indeed. Shere immolated what was left of Clement. Do the same with Noyer and get back to HQ.” Schafer’s familiar voice growled through the vox.
“It will be done.” Sapphira acknowledged before the link was severed.
Clement. The reminder of their former pilot made her features tightened with bitten down anger and shame. She had touched him. She had been reassured by him. She had prayed with him. But Clement hadn’t been himself – it had been a xenos the entire time – and she’d prayed with it. Prayed. Sapphira shivered in the cold and felt her skin crawl at that sense of violation. How was I to know? It was Arval Clement… it acted and sounded just like him! Javid said they must have…
They must have switched while I was unconscious on the shuttle.
“Holy Throne…” Sapphira breathed in surprise as she stood up straight in the cupola. Any further self-flagellating or doubting thoughts were swept aside by the recalled those words. Holy Throne… more of us could be like Clement. If they could subvert one Inquisitorial operative… then why wouldn’t they corrupt Javid? But we don’t know how the xenos subvert the sacred human body, which could mean anyone… Sapphira’s fists balled and her eyes narrowed at her conclusion. Anyone on the team could be a replicant.
“Ranking officer! Up here! Now!” Sapphira called out to the nearby soldiers while she produced a pad and stylus. The same information was written down three times as she waited for the officer to climb up to the turret.
“This scene is to be preserved for biological sample recovery. Have the verispex send what they find to the Mechanicus, Telepathica, and Hospitallers – and only to those organizations – for high priority analysis at Inquisitorial request.” Sapphira intently made eye contact to emphasize her seriousness. “The highest security and strictest of confidence are required from beginning to end. Is that understood?”
“I understand you, Sister.” He appeared uneasy but nodded affirmatively nonetheless. “Was there anything else?”
“Yes. I will be the Inquisitorial point of contact. Please forward my information with the samples.” Sapphira handed over her written notes and continued, “Have the rest immolated once the verispex scrape up enough.”
“It’ll be done, ma’am.” The officer replied and made an Aquila. “Ave Imperator.”
“Ave Imperator. Thank you.” She returned the devotional gesture before descending into the turret. Once Sapphira sealed the cupola hatch she activated her personal vox to recall Lia and Remus.
---
“I hope you’ve thanked Trooper Remus, Lia. He would’ve been justified in destroying the Avenger with you on it… and most others wouldn’t have hesitated to do so.” Sapphira briefly regarded Julianus as she spoke, and caught a glimpse of her own reflection in his visor. She recognized the same appraising look that Javid had somewhat seriously warned her about earlier.
Remus made a passing glance to Sister Sapphira, he bowed his head, eyes focusing on his hotshot lasrifle that sat limp between his legs. He cleared his throat, as if to gain their attention or subliminally hide the fact he had attempted to fire the launcher whilst Lia clambered across the fuselage, twice. Though to be fair he never even caught her moving across the fighter, concentration simply overcame him. His eyes, hidden behind his rebreather, fell back upon Sapphira, he'd have to tell her the truth, clean his conscience. He raised his head, turning it to face the infant psyker.
"That's right girly." He began, his tone boarding a mixture of harsh and clear approval. "What you did was certainly effective, I commend your ability and resourcefulness, however, it was foolhardy and dangerous. You charged through ongoing fusillades, you could have been fried by the engines and you nearly got plastered by friendly fire. It's my duty to keep you all safe; bull rushing headfirst is a suicidal gambit best you learn that sooner rather than later."
Lia started at Sapphira's words, ready to make an argument of the woman's criticism, but as her eyes flick down to the Hospitaller's distinctive uniform her expression softens and she smiles wanly before turning to Remus. She listens almost patiently to his evaluation of her actions, and then speaks softly. "Ummm... I don't know what you know about, well, me... but I wasn't in any real trouble there. I wasn't really going to get hurt there unless one of the rockets hit me instead of the plane. So..." She glances back to Sapphira momentarily. "Ummm... thanks. I guess." She smiles at Remus, somewhat uncertainly, noting his discomfort but not its source.
Remus held back a brief sigh; there was no point of arguing with the girl here, he certainly wouldn't want to embarrass her, and to a lesser extent himself, in front of their peers. The trooper may not have liked her response, but he stayed his tongue, for who and what she was. Her psychic abilities aside, he could almost see himself in her, after all, he was young and headstrong once. He remembered the vulgar sensations of power when he was first privileged to wear the Inquisitorial -I-, even if he was a glorified sentry or a common shock trooper, there was an overwhelming sensation of pride and duty in sporting that badge.
There’s less to know about you then there ought to be. Sapphira thought as she briefly eyed Lia and recollected the notable discrepancies in the girl’s buried personnel file. Negligible content, a redacted name of sanctioner, and - most gallingly - an auto-censorship function for newly input content. To say that was suspicious defined understatements. Normally those irregularities would’ve made the girl her center of attention… but the unprecedented xenos-infiltrator threat on hand made the psyker a more distant concern. Struck by the strange and bitter irony of the situation, Sapphira suppressed the beginnings of a rueful smile.
"Sapphira," Remus said as his gaze fell back upon her. "Back in the morgue, the Magos said something, something about matter not being able to be created, in which Noyer, or whatever the fok he is, answered with it could be teleported. What does that mean? Do these xenos have a stockpile of organic material that they can simply phase in? Does that mean they can simply manifest another Noyer from his remains no matter how small?
I'm familiar with Tyranid regenerative properties, but this, this just seems impossible. I suggest we muster up a PDF weapons team, complete with a few flamers from local armouries, any remains of Noyer, I say we burn it, burn it until it's clean."
“That information is good to know, although I couldn’t even begin to speculate on what it meant.” Sapphira acknowledged as she looked at him and subtly tilted her head towards the remnants of Magos Tharrick’s bodyguard detail. She looked him in the visor and smiled reassuringly as she added, “I’ve already had what was left of it taken care of, Trooper Remus. There’s no need to be concerned.”
"Very well." He answered, "I stand contempt in that regard."
He glanced around the transports compartment eyes motioning over the remaining Skitarii. "One of your lot shot me, and here I thought we were on the same side." He said in a rather cold amusement.
Sapphira’s expression became distinctly unimpressed when Remus’ decided to address the skitarii. And now I understand the animosity. With that revelation she brushed back her hair and glanced at Kappa. Tension always seemed to be a constant when field operatives and storm troopers mixed. Their distinctly different purposes and perceptions of disrespect seemed to fuel it. She didn’t see much point to the petty feud, as each group served the Emperor’s will in the way best suited to them.
"Oh," he paused, visor once again meeting Sapphira. "I think I might be overdue for a medical examination, I've been shot numerous times today alone, I'm hoping it's just a few cuts and bruises, but with all the adrenaline there could be a couple of fractures or broken bones."
“I suspect you do need that examination after today’s ordeal.” Sapphira agreed with a nod as her chilly look thawed into clinical scrutiny. When finished, she refocused on the visor and pointed back up compartment. “Now, if you’ll both excuse me, I’m going to vox ahead and make sure there’s a medicae on standby.”
"Much appreciated Sister."
“Of course.” Sapphira replied with the ghost of a smile as she turned. It dropped once her back was towards Lia and Remus.
---
"Team. Status report."
“I have nothing new to report, Interrogator.” Sapphira returned as she compared the analyses that had been sent to her data slate by their associate organizations. She was impressed by the thorough and prompt work that had been done by her unknown colleagues, and intrigued by their consensus. The xenos had been Conrad Noyer, confirmed by the DNA comparison between the samples and service records. However, the replicant had distinct hormone and chemical abnormalities that where physiologically impossible for an authentic human – particularly adrenaline, in this case.
Remus recounted that Noyer mentioned teleportation of matter… These abominations can die but not really be dead… It was enveloped in that green lightning on the runway… so that’s almost certainly the xenos recovering damage as it sustained it. In the interrogation my anesthetic was metabolized almost instantly… as it surged with an improbable amount adrenaline… so that would imply that chemicals are or can be teleported into the replicants.
“Interesting…” She murmured contemplatively and leaded back into her chair. Soft humming slowly drew her appraising eyes towards the rooms’ only other occupant. The servo-skull turned and stared back right on back through her. They fooled you just as much as they fooled me… and that’s no way for a saint to be treated. Sapphira smiled her first authentic smile since before the interrogation. With gentle fingers she traced around where the smooth brow and auspex occuli were fused.
“Time to see if this’ll work.” Sapphira determined as she stood up and stretched. Carapace wasn’t designed for several hours of research behind a desk, but she wasn’t about to forego its protection. She holstered her other protection that’d been within hands reach at all times without being re-snapped. Sapphira packed in her narthecium satchel, slung it over the shoulder, and deftly slipped on her gauntlets while she headed towards the exit. The servo-skull bobbed along behind her as she purposefully strode towards Vizkop’s workshop.
---
“But… I am making slow progress.”
“Then perhaps we might combine our efforts, Adept Vizkop?” Sapphira asked as she entered the room behind Fredriq. Although she spoke to the Adept, her eyes flicked over towards the scholar. “I have an idea that might expedite our hunt.”
[OOC - Honors to all the usual suspects and thanks to everyone for putting up with the wait!]
kardar233
08-27-2013, 02:05 PM
Lia waved farewell as Sapphira left the room, then wandered off herself. Her bare feet took her on a roundabout path through the spaceport and she found herself in a common room. The soldier, Julianus (or Remus or whatever his name was) was setting up something on a table, and she lightly stepped over to it.
Puzzled, she carefully picked up one of the pieces and examined it carefully for several seconds. A realization suddenly dawned on her. "Ze hegmon!" she exclaimed, then looked back up to the storm trooper and smiled sheepishly. "Ummm... I was saying that it's an Ecclesiarch. Oh, this is regicide!"
She plunked herself down in the seat across from Julianus and made her first move. Gazing down at the pieces, she spoke quietly. "It's a pretty set. Did you make it?"
Higurashi
08-27-2013, 09:52 PM
((Ignore this.))
dakkagor
08-27-2013, 10:45 PM
“Rise and shine, Kally girl. Marcus and Kelly are here.”
"hmm. . .wazzat?" her eyes flickered open and she started suddenly, reaching for a pistol before she registered it was Kelly and Marc. Her sleep had been blissfully empty, like normal, with no memories intruding. She felt better rested than she had in a while.
Kelly sat down on the armchair next to Kally and Vince while her brother took the sofa opposite. She decided to stay quiet for a bit, and let the other two agents weigh in with their own views before she tried to convince him again.
She shot a glance at Kelly after seeing the look on Marc's face. He looked like something was chewing on him and she guessed that meant more work or worry for her. Kelly's look back was. . .difficult to read. Worry maybe? She didn't know Kelly well at all and she decided that needed to be rectified with a drinking session at some later date.
Marc took a breath. “I think we need to be careful what we say around Sapphira.”
She blinked. Not what she was expecting.
Vincent's mood visibly darkened. “The bitch getting on your case too?”
“Not exactly. But she's been asking me a lot of probing questions about you two specifically. Kelly and all.”
Realising that she would have to weigh in now whether she wanted to or not, Kelly bit the inside of her cheek and tried to choose her words carefully.
“She did ask after all of you the morning of the shuttle crash.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Marc thinks we're all still on probation and she's got us under surveillance.”
“And now Schafer's left her in charge of the mission.” Marc added.
Kally went to say something, but she shut up when she heard the distinctive grind of servos as Vincent clenched his heavy augmetic fist. What the hell was going through Marc and Vincents testosterone addled brain?
“Well if that doesn't take the fokkin' cake.” the big ex-Guardsman growled.
“I'm not saying you should stop doing your jobs.” Marc said quickly, “And I'm not suggesting she's anything less than committed to her's. I'm just saying that we might need to be careful what we say around her.”
"Oh come the frak on guys!" She finally blurted out, then wished she hadn't when the others turned to look at her. She paused, then decided she was damned if she didn't and damned if she did, and decided to plow on.
"Look, yeah, it sucks not to be trusted, but Marc, you're a smart guy: would you trust us, in Sidonis's shoes? Sapphira stuck her neck out for me, without her you would never have known that I came out of Solomon alive. I trust her. So what she's reporting up the chain on us? What does that change exactly? If she is, that just means she doing her throne-damned job"
She looked round and thought for a second she caught a sly smile from Kelly. Was she agreeing with her? Emboldened, she decided to continue.
"Look, in any group, you've got snitches. And sometimes, those snitches are there for a reason. Why wouldn't she be asking questions about us? Vince has an augmetic limb, I've come of. . .come of a couple of months of morale in the shitter, you two lost friends in Solomon. . .and if you only just figured out she would be sending reports to Sidonis on our first mission, the veteran sister who was part of Sidonis organisation long before we arrived, then you two" and she looked at both Marc and Vincent "Haven't been frakking thinking!" She paused, thinking.
"I get it, I think. You're an enforcer, and you're a guardsmen." she looked at each of them in turn. "and you're used to the guy at the side having your back, thick and thin, no questions asked. But me, I'm a ganger first. And in a gang you get this whole. . shit, this whole web of peoples deals, who's watching who, who's trying to get in good with the boss or maybe become the boss, or his main squeeze. And sometime's you've got to wonder, if the boss hasn't got someone watching you, making sure you have the gang at heart and not yourself, making sure the loot gets split evenly and no one skims the take."
She stood up, pacing the room in full flow.
"But when the shit hits the re-cyc, you have to trust that gakker snitch, because you need him to cover your ass. This isn't a gang, and the stakes are higher, but the rules are the same! And maybe Sapphira is a snitch. But I don't think so. If anything, she cares too damn much about us. If she was really up to something, don't you think she'd keep quiet about it?"
She turned to face Marc, daring him to find the flaw in her argument.
Azazeal849
08-28-2013, 10:20 AM
"And if you only just figured out she would be sending reports to Sidonis on our first mission, the veteran sister who was part of Sidonis' organisation long before we arrived, then you two," She looked at Marc and Vincent. "Haven't been frakking thinking!"
"It's not that I'm getting at." Marc said, a little sharply. After all, one of the first things he had learned in the employ of inquisitor De Shilo was that nobody was above suspicion. He raised his hands defensively. "I just don't want to see either of you getting thrown back in a cell for some careless remark. Sisters don't frak about."
Kally paused, thinking. "I get it, I think. You're an enforcer, and you're a guardsman." She looked at each of them in turn. "And you're used to the guy at the side having your back, thick and thin, no questions asked.
...
And maybe Sapphira is a snitch. But I don't think so. If anything, she cares too damn much about us. If she was really up to something, don't you think she'd keep quiet about it?"
She turned to face Marc, daring him to find the flaw in her argument. The ex-enforcer bit the inside of his cheek, and said nothing. Vince on the other hand, with one of his trademark, alarming snaps between violence and affability, burst out laughing.
"Guard or inquisition, they still treat you like a mushroom, ya? Keep you in the dark and feed you shit." He reached over and clapped Kally on the shoulder with his bionic hand. "I suppose you've got the right of it, Kally girl. Nothing ever changes."
He gave the blank a meaningful look, as if to remind her of their previous conversation where he had told her about getting out as soon as he could. Kelly Black didn't notice it, even though she was sitting right next to them - she was too busy breathing a sigh of relief.
"Well, I'm glad some feminine sense sorted that out." the young verispex said, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards. Despite the smile she instinctively avoided Kally's eyes, which she felt slightly guilty for; due to working separately in the med-lab she was not as acclimatised to the blank's aura as some of the others. Even with Kally's limiter active, it was akin to the subconscious urge not to look at or touch someone who had some kind of horrible disfigurement. She felt guilty for that too, and tried to cover it by changing the subject. "Shall we get back to our job, then?"
* * * * * *
"Then perhaps we might combine our efforts, Adept Vizkop?" Sapphira asked as she entered the room behind Fredriq. Although she spoke to the adept, her eyes flicked over towards the scholar. "I have an idea that might expedite our hunt."
"Is that so?" Fredriq spoke up, visibly animated. He paused, catching himself, and raised his hands palms-upward towards Sapphira. "Congratulations on your promotion by the way, Sister."
kardar233
08-31-2013, 10:09 AM
Lia waved farewell as Sapphira left the room, then wandered off herself. Her bare feet took her on a roundabout path through the spaceport and she found herself in a common room. The soldier, Julianus (or Remus or whatever his name was) was setting up something on a table, and she lightly stepped over to it.
The trooper turned his head to regard her, watching silently as she approached. He leaned back in his chair, its front legs raising slightly from the floor as he rose his own placing his boots upon a free spot on the tabletop. He took another sip of water from his glass, eyes slowly motioning back to the assembled board and back to the young psyker. "Hello girly," he welcomed in a tone which could have been considered warm, or pleasant, despite its flatness.
Puzzled, she carefully picked up one of the pieces and examined it carefully for several seconds. "Careful there lass." Julianus warned as he slid his boots from the table and placed them firmly upon the floor.
She nodded absent-mindedly at the man's remark, studying the object carefully. A realization suddenly dawned on her. "Ze hegmon!" she exclaimed, then looked back up to the storm trooper and smiled sheepishly. "Ummm... I was saying that it's an Ecclesiarch. Oh, this is regicide!"
"Aye, that it is." He said with a brief nod, making sure to note the apparent childish nature of her exclamation. Julianus stretched his back, his teeth momentarily gritting from the pain of his numerous bruises.
She plunked herself down in the seat across from Julianus. Gazing down at the pieces, she spoke quietly. "It's a pretty set. Did you make it?" "No." He answered rather lightly and with a developing smile, it was surprisingly wholesome, genuine, something which he hadn't done very much in years.
"It was a gift from my brother, something I have to remember him." He started before adding, "I assume you play, not many have the time, or simple logic for mind games. Perhaps that's a common trait within the Imperium, I however, like the challenge, it builds focus, a sense tactics."
"Would you like to play?" He offered, gesturing a hand to the crafted obsidian pieces that Remus had only just begun positioning. "I should warn you however, I have played this since my days in the Progenium, that's about," he paused, reflecting, "forty years. It's a hobby that's been on and off, the odd game with patrons in the many thousands of taverns and bars during my times in the ends. Not to mention games with a one Inquisitor Chrysanta of the family Remus, my oldest sister. She rarely played fairly, being a psyker, she often used her talents for advantage."
Lia nodded in affirmation at the storm trooper's question, and sat patiently taking in his elaboration. She smiled. "I know, it's so annoying! But it was always:" Her voice changes, shifting downward and gaining a raspy, hard-bitten quality as she continues with an exaggeratedly truculent look on her face: "'t's good for your trainin', kid; gotta guard your mind n' all that shit. If some frakkin' warper bastard knows where you're gonna hit, then you're pretty much screwed, no?" Shaking her head in remembered irritation, she changes the subject. "I've been playing since I was old enough to know how; my tenth word was Tzareyach... ummm.... this one." She points to a citadel. "My first word was 'Ork'." Picking the piece up, she moves it to its proper position and starts setting up her side of the board. "I can't have any brothers or sisters. Is it nice?"
"You can't have any brothers or sisters?" Julianus repeated, "I'm not sure I follow. That's not a decision children can make, that ultimately relies on the parents, or are you just not sure you have any siblings?"
"It's impossible." Lia stated. "I'm only around because of a thoughtful doctor lady." She screwed her eyes shut for a second. "Hospitaller."
He sat pondering how best to answer her question. Fingers idly moving over the marble surface of a pawn. "I can't say I really knew them, either they were sent to the Schola Progenium before I was born or shortly thereafter. Even during training it may have been the odd chat or wave, it wasn't really until I graduated that I made the effort to actually get to know them. Then again with astro-communication as unreliable as it is, I may have only been able to get a handful of letters from each of them a Terran year. My eldest sister personally requested my services during her inquisitorial runs at the ends of the Imperium, even if it was just to rub in her success, I got to know her, it gave me a chance to catch up with the family."
"At least you weren't lonely, then..."
“Speaking of family. I don't suppose you've heard of the family Remus?” He asked, as if that answered her question. “It's a family of some renown, its sons and daughters having a long standing tradition of attending the Schola Progenium becoming members of the Inquisition, the Commissariat, Adepta Sororitas or the Imperial Guard. The Remus family is best described as an old tree, containing hundreds of branches and thousands of leaves. Withering and yet sprouting new life over the course of millennia. Each child of a successive generation has the ability to sprout another branch, but like most gardens it must be pruned. If one of its daughters marries out, their first born must be of the Remus name. Those exhibiting mutant traits are expunged or bastardized. Luckily for my eldest sister, the Remus family accepts those with psychic traits, however, any children she may foster will also be bastardized. Remus will only accept pure stock.”
Lia looked pensive, then started nodding enthusiastically. "Older sister, Chrysanta, Inquisitor Chrysanta Remus, I've heard of her!" Ducking her head, she smiles sheepishly. "Not good things, though. Kalvah ha-tzarich ktzat makah." Her smile grows and she covers it with one hand. "I'm not sure I should translate that."
"If that's an insult, please do, I've thought up many of names for my sister and I'm always willing to learn more." He said in the guise of a cackle. Lia giggled in unison and with an impish look, translated the phrase: "A bitch that needs a little punching." She looked momentarily worried, holding back another laugh. "That's... the literal translation."
Looking suddenly sad, she pauses. "I haven't had anyone to play against for a long time."
"Don't despair girly, you have someone to play you now." He said in an effort to cheer her up. "Thanks. It's.... nice to be around people again. It got really lonely with just animals and plants and orks."
"Bah, you make it seem like you grew up in the wild." "I did." Lia interjected. "Hah!" He snorted, "and it shows," he mused, "you seem to act a lot younger than you actually look, I was dropping targets, practicing parade drill and learning all manner of formalities when I was your age." "I've... I've been alone for a long time... the girl explained tentatively.
"Come now, your almost as depressing as old Remus now. Enough of that; we have a game to play." He said rather brashly.
Lia surrendered first play to Remus, and they set up the regicide board silently except for occasional corrections when Lia confused pieces. Julianus played like a well-oiled machine, every piece clicking into place with calculated precision into a greater strategy. Lia cautiously built a tough defence in depth, covering every angle of attack, but Julianus' pieces ground forwards, meticulously taking her defence apart with the benefit of his greater experience.
Lia tenaciously fought to the last, and as soon as her opponent declared victory she was already setting the pieces up again, claiming first move. The smile that had appeared during the game suddenly disappeared as she finished setting up the pieces, and she looked back up at Julianus.
"Why.... why are you always so angry when I'm around?"
Atrum Daemon
09-02-2013, 12:40 AM
“Then perhaps we might combine our efforts, Adept Vizkop? I have an idea that might expedite our hunt.”
“Well come in, then,” Vizkop said, motioning for her to step in from the doorway. “And let us discuss. And yes, congratulations on your promotion.”
Vizkop regarded the sister from the corner of his eye as he turned back to his work. He wondered if he should reveal to her his true mission. Or if the good Interrogator informed her of it himself when he set her in command. He gave a mental shrug and decided it was best that as few people as possible knew about what he was there for. He continued carefully removing parts from the auspex unit and said: “Do not mind my work, Sister. I am paying attention. So what is this idea you bring my way?”
PaintSerf
09-03-2013, 10:19 AM
"Is that so?" Fredriq spoke up, visibly animated. He paused, catching himself, and raised his hands palms-upward towards Sapphira. "Congratulations on your promotion by the way, Sister."
“Thank you, Doctor L’Hoace.” Sapphira acknowledged the scholar’s presence with a cordial smile and reserved eyes. Fredriq L’Hoace. The fruits of his indulgent lifestyle are sometimes useful and always suspect. But after being taken hostage by the replicant? Dr. L’Hoace’s unsavory knowledge is the least of my concerns about him at the moment.
“Well come in, then,” Vizkop said, motioning for her to step in from the doorway. “And let us discuss. And yes, congratulations on your promotion.”
“You have my thanks as well, Adept Vizkop,” Sapphira offered him cordial nod and entered the room. She stood with her back against the wall and squared to Fredriq, with the Adept and exit in her peripherals. Vizkop. I wasn’t expecting him to look so… human… or to be an assassin, let alone one sent by Lord Sidonis. His purpose and sudden arrival is disconcerting, to say the least.
Vizkop regarded the sister from the corner of his eye as he carefully removing parts from the auspex unit and said: “Do not mind my work, Sister. I am paying attention. So what is this idea you bring my way?”
“Please continue your work, Adept,” Sapphira approved with a nod before she turned to address Fredriq. “I don’t intend any rudeness, Doctor, but I would ask you to return to your work as well. Time is of the essence and results are required.”
Sapphira almost touched the diminutive Doctor as she politely and decisively ushered him out the room. When the nonagenarian disappeared around the corner she closed the door and relaxed fractionally. Her other hand dropped from next to the revolver as she produced the data-slate. Once the machine spirit was re-activated she accessed the files and perched herself on a stool across from the Adept.
“I had samples collected and processed by our respective institutions and the Telepathica.” Sapphira confessed as she placed the data-slate next to Vizkop. She kept eye contact with him and made sure to keep her hands in sight on the workbench. “The abominations are perfect biological copies of their victims, albeit the marked abnormalities indicated. Apparently before he killed Magos Tharrick, Noyer admitted that their regeneration is caused by some means of teleportation.”
“Would you be able to use any of this information to construct a viable replicant detector?” Sapphira asked before she sighed and admitted, “I have my suspicions that Arval Clement wasn’t the only compromised member of our team.”
Atrum Daemon
09-10-2013, 05:00 AM
{Props to PaintSerf for his contributions}
Vizkop stared at the data-slate for several long minutes. His eyes narrowed before snapping back open with a glitter of sudden insight. “This is perfect!” he said in an uncharacteristic moment of elation. “Apologies for that, but this is just what I need to make the adjustments. This will take time, so feel free to go about your normal business. Or wait if you have nothing better to do.”
“No need to apologize.” Sapphira replied as she suppressed a smile at the Adept’s unexpected reaction, in spite of the serious nature of their work. She shook her head negatively and said, “My hours of dredging through personnel files yielded nothing. If you wouldn’t object, I’d like to perform maintenance on my assistant.”
Vizkop fell into silence as his work absorbed all his attention. He seemed totally focused with his hands moving fluidly from tool to tool as needed to remove and adjust parts of the auspex. Three different fields were being set for the device to detect. First was residual energy from the teleported matter. The second was the material of the chip implants by scanning for non-standard metals within a person. The final, and in Vizkop’s opinion least effective, was hormone level detectors. The data suggested that a replicant had different hormone production than a true human. But, hormone differences could mean several other things as well. But, Vizkop wanted to cover as many bases as he could with the device.
The work took two hours to complete. When it was finished, Vizkop stood up from his chair and stretched himself out of his work hunch. He picked up his helmet and put it back on. With the helmet, he could interface directly to the auspex and walk among the others without arousing suspicion. He took the auspex and hooked it to his belt. In the corner of his HUD, a small auspex screen flickered to life. He turned his gaze to Sapphira and said: “Well, it works so far. Now we just need to test it fully on the team. Any suggestions on who to start with?”
“Excellent. I’d like the results linked into my data-slate as well.” Sapphira commented as she regarded Vizkop and peeled off her grease stained disposable gloves. “Seeing as we’re both here for similar reasons, and we’re about to run a purity check on our own team, it would be prudent to verify our own integrity.”
“Interrogator Schafer, Doctor L’Hoace, Trooper Remus, Kally Sonder, and Marcus Black have all had extended individual exposure to either or both of the moral threats.” Sapphira unwaveringly responded with clinical detachment. “Everyone on the team has interacted with at least one of those people.”
Vizkop nodded, tapping a few rune keys on the auspex to link it to Sapphira. Before running the test, he upholstered his revolver and held it loosely at his side. “Just a precaution, Sister,” he said.
“I understand, Adept,” Sapphira calmly replied as she mirrored his action, “and I’m sure you do as well.”
He accessed the diagnostic from his HUD and the auspex began its scan. Vizkop was silent for several seconds, holding in his breath until the auspex completed the scan. He let out a relieved sigh when the results came back negative for them both. “Well, that was not unexpected,” he said, holstering the gun again. “But, it is good to be certain all the same. I can set the auspex to be passively running the scan at all times and simply go about business as normal to scan the rest of the team. The Interrogator and the Governor will be different stories, though.”
“Knowing is a blessed reassurance,” Sapphira sighed with the ghost of a relieved grin as she holstered her sidearm as well. She looked away from her data-slate and back up at Vizkop. “I’ll order the team to assemble and present my assistant as the detector. After the team’s purity has been assessed I recommend that Interrogator Schafer be next in line. We need to know he’s not a replicant before he reaches the Excubitor.”
“Sister Sapphira to team - assemble in the common room immediately.” Sapphira ordered through the vox before she glanced back at the Adept. “Good hunting to you, Adept Vizkop.”
Azazeal849
09-19-2013, 12:29 PM
Despite the resolution to their previous discussion, Marc had to resist giving Vincent and Kally a meaningful glance as the others began to file into the common room. I just don't want to see either of you getting thrown back into a cell for some careless remark.
Shere offered them a friendly nod as he swept in, the butt of his sanctionite's staff thumping softly against the carpet. Lia and Remus followed, and then Fredriq L'Hoace, who looked slightly put out about something.
"Everything alright, Fred?" Marc asked the ageing xenologist.
"I don't know." Fredriq replied with a smile and a shake of his head, "First our good Sister tells me to get out and get back to work, but then she call us all in for a meeting...it's almost as if she doesn't want me around."
The older man's tone was light, but there was something rueful behind it. Sisters don't frak about, Marc thought. A moment later Vizkop and Sapphira herself stepped through the door, the Sister's servo skull bobbing quietly behind her on its small anti-grav plate. The sensor lens nestled in the skull's left eye socket swept a bar of light over the assembled agents as it came to a halt behind Sapphira's shoulder. Marc clasped his hands behind his back.
"Has Vizkop made a breakthrough with the detector, Sister?" he guessed hopefully.
“One moment, Mister Black,” Sapphira responded neutrally as she scrutinised the data-slate. She spared a glance up to regard Marcus and then the other assembled agents. “I’ll answer that, and any other questions you all might have, shortly.”
Several of the assembled agents glanced at each other. Marc must have guessed something about her intention because he nodded slowly, folded his hands and regarded her levelly. Vincent on the other hand was giving her a complicated look which could have meant either neutral indifference or a desire to use his mechanical fist to make splinters of her teeth. All, however, we're looking at her rather than Vizkop.
Vizkop had cleverly set his device to transmit its results to the visor screen of his helmet, meaning he didn't have to glance down at his auspex as he quietly glided over to join the others. On his overlayed vision, yellow outlines boxed in around each member of the team, blinking a few times before turning green. With a mental nudge, the tech priest activated his noosphere and streamed the results to Sapphira's data-slate.
Lia: Human.
Remus, J: Human.
Shere, J: Human.
“While we’re all here, and as some of you already know, Interrogator Schafer will be personally recalling the Excubitor.” Sapphira revealed as she impassively watched the agents and their reactions to her non-answer.
Nyl, V: Human. Vizkop's armour animus told him as he turned his head fractionally inside his helmet. Black, K: Human.
Sapphira's expression twitched tighter after another studious evaluation of the data-slate. The look was brief as she once again assessed the assembly. “In his absence, I’ve been appointed to lead the mission.”
"Did he leave us any other orders?" the psyker Shere asked, as Vizkop's auspex panned silently from Kelly to Marc. The ex-enforcer was frowning slightly, but his scan came back negative. Black, M: Human.
"Sit tight, watch out, and wait for the next xenos bastard to jump up for a purging?" Vince offered, nudging Kally as Vizkop turned his attention on her. The return flickered slightly, as sensors sometimes did under the hard-to-define blank aura, then turned green. Sonder, K: Human.
"If our good interrogator is recalling the frigate," said Fredriq, speaking up as if anxious to be useful, "Then perhaps he intends to use it to carry the expeditionary force to Vitaris? A standard Sword could make space for several thousand men, at a pinch."
Listening gave Vizkop an excuse to turn towards the xenologist, bringing the auspex hidden in his palm with him. His helmet display flickered for several seconds as it processed the final member of the team. Blink, blink, blink...green.
L'Hoace, F: Human.
If the mechanicus assassin breathed a very human sigh of relief, he hid it well. Sapphira saw the pre-arranged signal a moment later - two slight brushes of Vizkop's hand against his red robe, as if flicking away dust. She caught the gesture and inclined her head fractionally in acknowledgment. After a deep breath she cleared her throat to catch the attention of the group. She scrutinised them all once last time before speaking.
“Yes, Marcus, there has been a breakthrough with the detector. And the results of everyone’s scan have been processed.”
She paused to gauge reactions. Vincent seemed to settle back, warily. Marc, glancing from Sapphira to Vizkop after seeing her nod, let out a quiet "Ah." of understanding and smoothed his face into a neutral mask. Fred took off his glasses and began to polish them furiously.
"And?" the xenologist prompted, carefully.
“Everyone registers as human.” Sapphira revealed, her stoic demeanor easing somewhat with weary relief. She put down her data-slate on the center table so the others could see the results. “Thank you all for your patience while that was sorted out.”
"Well that's good to know." Fredriq said, with an ambiguous amount of irony. "Well, Sister, while your methods might not be good for my blood pressure, I'm glad we now have a way to track these things. Tell me, could we apply it on a larger scale?"
As the other agents clustered round the table to squint at the data-slate, Sapphira noticed Kelly Black glance at Kally, then at Marc, and offer the latter a shrug that seemed to say Told you.
"I'm going for a drink." Vincent announced testily, and stomped out of the room. Shere followed, although he had the grace to bow to Sapphira on his way out. Kelly started after him, but stopped next to Sapphira before she reached the door.
"With your permission, Sister," she said, "I'm going to crack on with a possible lead from the Peacekeepers." When Sapphira nodded assent, the young verispex bit the inside of her cheek. "Don't mind my brother. He's just been over-thinking things. Occupational hazard."
She turned and pushed through the door, leaving the rest of the team in the common room.
Jarms48
09-20-2013, 10:37 AM
Remus always loved PT, though he often pondered why that was, perhaps it was the underling necessity, the adrenaline, the heightened blood flow, or the simple fact that PT was loved or hated, and he was merely apart of the former. Remus was beginning his 3rd lap of the facility, jogging down the numerous access halls in full gear, conditioning, becoming accustom to the weight and feel of his armour kit. A routine he was drilled in constantly, and practiced even if he was away from the rest of the flock.
His comm-bead squawked, “Sister Sapphira to team - assemble in the common room immediately.”
He stopped, not saying a word, then looked down either corridor and headed back to the common room.
* * * * *
"How do we know it actually works?" Remus interrupted, "I mean, it's not like we have one of these xenos to use as a control, but for all intended purposes Noyer was as human as anyone of us, perhaps save the cog-boy over here, or at least he was until we pasted him with a flakk missile. It's all well and good that we're human, trust me when I say that knowledge gives me comfort, but I think I'll be safer knowing what your scanners parameters are and an assurance that this device actually works."
"And what about the interrogator or Clement? They're not present for this. Begging your pardons, but say our link in the chain is corrupted, he could very well be delivering an army under false pretenses right on our door or turning them into more of these things. If we were of the belief that these xenos have contaminated Inquisitorial operatives, shouldn't we have elected a 24hour quarantine? With the lovely Sapphira examining everyone of us? "
PaintSerf
09-20-2013, 04:18 PM
"Well that's good to know." Fredriq said, with an ambiguous amount of irony. "Well, Sister, while your methods might not be good for my blood pressure, I'm glad we now have a way to track these things. Tell me, could we apply it on a larger scale?"
“It had to be done, but I do apologize for any inconvenience.” Sapphira said with every appearance of sincerity, before she gestured differentially to the assassin. “Adept Vizkop made the necessary alterations, so he would be able to give you a more definitive answer.”
"I'm going for a drink." Vincent announced testily, and stomped out of the room. Shere followed, although he had the grace to bow to Sapphira on his way out. She watched the Vincent leave without comment, and returned a fractional nod to John. Kelly started after him, but stopped next to Sapphira before she reached the door.
"With your permission, Sister," she said, "I'm going to crack on with a possible lead from the Peacekeepers." When Sapphira nodded assent, the young verispex bit the inside of her cheek. "Don't mind my brother. He's just been over-thinking things. Occupational hazard."
“I understand that completely, and I won’t hold it against Marcus.” Sapphira replied with a slightly rueful, and knowing, smile as she waved off the other woman’s concern. “Keep me apprised on that lead, Kelly. We’ll move on it if it’s valid.”
"How do we know it actually works?" Remus interrupted, "I mean, it's not like we have one of these xenos to use as a control, but for all intended purposes Noyer was as human as anyone of us, perhaps save the cog-boy over here, or at least he was until we pasted him with a flakk missile. It's all well and good that we're human, trust me when I say that knowledge gives me comfort, but I think I'll be safer knowing what your scanners parameters are and an assurance that this device actually works."
“The honest answer, Julianus, is that we don’t know if the device worked. And we won’t know if it works until a replicants is detected or reveals itself for comparison. But I’m willing to take the results on faith because Adept Vizkop was sent directly by Lord Sidonis himself.” Sapphira faced the group as she spoke, but her eyes locked onto Remus with the last comment. “If you want assurances of your own safety, my only counsel would be to not hesitate if blessed with an opportunity to purge a xenos abomination.”
"And what about the interrogator or Clement? They're not present for this. Begging your pardons, but say our link in the chain is corrupted, he could very well be delivering an army under false pretenses right on our door or turning them into more of these things. If we were of the belief that these xenos have contaminated Inquisitorial operatives, shouldn't we have elected a 24 hour quarantine? With the lovely Sapphira examining everyone of us?"
“The thing masquerading as Arval Clement has been ash in the wind for hours now, God Emperor be praised. Quarantine would’ve been a waste of time and an exercise in futility anyhow...” Sapphira said quietly as her posture tensed to be aggressively defensive. For a moment her eyes were distant and betrayed a potent blend of lethality and vulnerability. Sapphira closed them and exhaled slowly as she physically relaxed, and appeared to be herself again when her eyes opened.
“Time is a precious commodity that cannot be wasted, hence why we moved forward with the detector. It was, and still is, the best of limited options and less time.” Sapphira conceded, clearly not thrilled by the undercurrent of uncertainty that remained. “Interrogator Schafer and Governor Faroven will be scanned next, as Adept Vizkop and I had always intended. Both of them had primary exposure, and they’re arguably the most powerful men in the system. The Interrogator has priority because we need to verify Inquisitorial integrity, and the prospect of an Imperial warship usurped by a moral threat cannot be abided.”
Higurashi
09-20-2013, 08:04 PM
((I just made some minor edits to the last paragraph.))
What was a Space Marine? A man? A man whom had been graced by the Emperor and granted extensive augmentation so that he could do what other men could not? This was a question that had often been asked in the Imperium, though no answer had ever been universally accepted. Perhaps the answer lay in the fact that there was no agreement. However, all this was conjecture to Brother Sergeant Icarus, as he was a space marine and inherently knew what he was. What he was, was many things, no two the exact same. Still, he often took time to contemplate exactly what he was, as better understanding of oneself allowed for better efficiency and self control.
His trip to local space had not allowed much time for such thoughts. Typically Space Marines were able to operate autonomously, answering to no one but themselves. Of course, their equipment and support still came from the Mechanicus and Imperial Forces, but it only the stupid demanded for a Space Marine to do anything. Sergeant Icarus had found in the course of his journeys that things changed when one was alone. Perhaps if he had a squad with him, things such as what he was currently going through wouldn't have happened.
In short, he had to do a lot of favors for people he didn't like or want to associate with, in order to reach his destination. Whatever sway Space Marines might have, starship travel was still expensive and risky. This made it rather difficult to acquire direct transport to any given place, especially backwater worlds. Ventura was no different and Icarus had to navigate a tiresome and complicated web of trade routs in order to finally arrive. Sure, he could have just commandeered a vessel and flown there himself, but he wasn't likely to get far, or even survive, if he did not have a Navigator with him. This being said, Navigators were notoriously difficult to deal with at the best of times, and charged exorbinate fee's no matter how far the journey was. His payment for finally reaching his desired location had been to single handedly wipe out crime in one valuable production sector of an expansive Hive by the name of Centarius.
As one could probably imagine, this had been a mind-numbing and quite possibly endless task. Crime was practically engraved into the paving stones on the street. Eventually his benefactor had been satisfied with crime dropping seventy four percent, and granted him his ship. Even so, it had been a rather blatant when he actually claimed the ship itself. Quite frankly, it was a piece of grox dung. There were several garbage scows in the vicinity that looked better suited to space travel. He'd been delayed a week making enough repairs for his disdain of the craft to subside to tolerable levels. That meant almost entirely disassembling it and putting it back together with new(er) parts. The Navigator and five man crew he'd been given were all rather surly individuals, but at least they did their job.
So when Sergeant Icarus finally arrived in the system Ventura was located in, he was rather impatient to get on the ground and start his search. The SDF lackey that had tried to stop him from making an immediate landing experienced nervous break downs for months afterward, after the scare Icarus had given him. The starship he had pretty much built from the ground up was a measly exploration/mining vessel by the name of 'Ignorance is Bliss'. Icarus found the name ironic, as whomever had built and maintained the sorry excuse for a ship had clearly not known a thing about mechanics or technology.
Having forcefully ejected the landing pad's previous occupants, Icarus had finally left the ship and set about his work. Part of this was ensuring that word of his arrival didn't get out of hand. A combination of strong-arming and stern glares had managed to convince all but the most stubborn of port officials to tell no one he was here. Of course, the governor probably found out that he had arrived by some spy or another, but that was acceptable for now. This being accomplished, he went off to find his contacts after giving his crews orders for while they were land-bound.
What he found made him mad, very mad. The message he had been sent alerting him to the presence of several powerful artifacts had been... exagerated, quite a bit. How he dealt with this probably didn't make him many fans amongst the local heirarchy, but he did acquire a couple of loyal (out of fear) serfs that wouldn't make the same mistake again. He did, however, gain some useful information. Quite a bit had been going on during his trip to Ventura and much had changed. In rather non-typical Space Marine fashion, he decided that he might as well do something worth while, as he was already here. Despite his... reluctance to help, or even be nearby the Inquisition, it seemed to be a good idea to present himself to whomever was in charge hereabouts and offer his services.
His mission had been intended to be one of tech recovery, but his duties also extended to destroying dangerous Xenos tech when needed. It probably seemed contradictory to others whom had met the Space Marine Bone Guardians Chapter, as there had been quite a few vicious conflicts between the Chapter and outsiders over what do do with Alien Artifacts, most of which had occurred when some overly cautious Inquisitor had destroyed something before it could be studied. However, that was the way things were. Perhaps it would have been a good idea to introduce himself -before- making himself known, but his patience was rather limited at this point.
Entering the building by walking full in the open left him open. It was more his style to work from the shadows, so blatantly walking in the front door chafed against his nerves. As he considered his time rather valuable, he wasted not a moment. One of the building maintenance staff was close at hand, cowering behind a desk. Picking up the man by the collar of his shirt, Icarus made him stare into the cold ceramite plating of his helmet. "You will alert the Inquisition entourage that has taken residence in this structure that Veteran Sergeant Icarus of the Bone Guardians Space Marine Chapter calls on them forth with. You are to phrase it as an order. That is all." He unclenched his fist, allowing the poor wretch to scramble into the nearest exit he could reach. So Icarus waited in the lobby, accosting most everyone he met and diverting them to the same task. That would equate to a skittish parade of cowed workers doing what they could to catch the Inquisition's attention, either by standing in front of security cameras or trying to access their quarters. More than likely none of them would be able to accomplish much, but it would probably draw enough attention to get the point across.
kardar233
09-20-2013, 08:35 PM
Lia sighed heavily when Julianus spoke to Sapphira, and then winced visibly when she responded. Irritatedly rolling her eyes upward, she muttered to herself."Ima, madua anashim hem tipshim? She rubbed her temples for a moment in a motion that looked far older and wearier than her usual demeanour, and looked up at Sapphira.
"Nonono. Your, your data has negative or maaaybe zero intelligence value. You two made your replicanty-findy-machine, right?" One finger darted out at Sapphira, and then Vizkop, and Lia continued. "If I was the other side, and I was going to subvert any member of the team, it would be you or the half-metal man, because then I would have hands in the detection process. We know the replicanty-people can break machines just by looking at them frownily, so either of you are in a position to make the machine say what you want. If either of you have been subverted, then the data has negative value because you would be using it to cover yourselves and any other copy-people in the team."
Lia slowed down, took a deep breath and a worried look at Sapphira's expression, then continued. "Both of you have been out of contact at certain times. You were somewhere the time we first met up to get on the fly-y things. Robot guy came on a completely different fly-y bit than us, as well, and how do we even know he comes from our team?"
"So either one or both of you are compromised, in which case the data has negative value because any way we think about it is either doublethink or misinformation, or somehow both of you are fine in which case the data is still unhelpful because we don't have any confirmation that it works, and assuming it does is a negative-value solution.
Realizing the uncharacteristic vehemence with which she had been speaking, Lia sat back quietly, looking slightly sheepish. "Ummm.... sorry."
dakkagor
09-20-2013, 09:25 PM
“I’ll answer that, and any other questions you all might have, shortly.”
Kally's eyes flicked to Sister Sapphira, then she glanced to Vincent, standing on her left after the earlier discussion. She wasn't sure why, but she reached out and squeezed his wrist, sharply, once. She thought it was just to reassure him. I know, I know. she wanted that motion to say. Stay calm, and we'll get through this. Remember what Marc said. she just hoped that whatever was coming was good news.
"Sit tight, watch out, and wait for the next xenos bastard to jump up for a purging?" Vince offered, nudging Kally Kally chuckled slightly. "Yeah, sounds about par for the course." Internally she breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that Vince's mode had moved back from murder to camaraderie without any bloodshed between.
"With your permission, Sister," she said, "I'm going to crack on with a possible lead from the Peacekeepers." When Sapphira nodded assent, the young verispex bit the inside of her cheek. "Don't mind my brother. He's just been over-thinking things. Occupational hazard."
Kally looked at Sapphira and shrugged her shoulders. "Look, I had better go after her as escort. Just because we are clean now doesn't mean we should be wandering off on our own. Nothing to stop the bastards arranging something if we split up again."
She ducked out without really waiting for a response, grabbing her bolter and a heavy coat from her wardrobe rather than the bodyglove, which would take time to clamber into, before jogging after Kelly. It seemed like as good a time as any to get to know the other Black a bit better.
Azazeal849
09-21-2013, 02:56 PM
She ducked out without really waiting for a response, grabbing her bolter and a heavy coat from her wardrobe rather than the bodyglove, which would take time to clamber into, before jogging after Kelly. It seemed like as good a time as any to get to know the other Black a bit better.
“Was Vincent alright?” Kelly asked when the blank caught up with her. Unlike Kally, she hadn't spent enough time around the ex-Guardsman to recognise the difference between his genuine anger and his merely typical grouchy resignation.
A few moments later Kelly pulled up short as the vox at her hip crackled. She had been carrying it around ever since Sapphira putting her in charge of the starport lockdown had made her the de-facto contact for the Venatoran staff.
“Sorry.” she said to Kally, and then unclipped the vox set to raise it to her ear. The words from the transmitter were too quiet for Kally to make out, but from Kelly's reaction she surmised that the news was unwelcome. “A what? Who the Horus are the Bone Guardians? Oh. Thank you.”
She shoved the vox back into her belt and went for her comm-bead instead, muttering “Oh frak...” under her breath.
“Sister, the starport security people say there's a space marine downstairs. And apparently he's ordering us to come and meet him.”
Atrum Daemon
09-23-2013, 12:15 AM
Vizkop let out a held breath after the last of the gathered team registered as human. He knew that they would all have questions about this, or simply not be happy with the development. His suspicions were confirmed with Vincent stomped out of the room and the storm trooper spoke up.
Vizkop’s face twitched a little under the helmet as Remus spoke. The assassin nodded at the man when he had said his piece and turned his head slightly toward Sapphira while she tried to alleviated some of Remus’ concerns. “First off,” he said, “I find the term ‘cog-boy’ offensive and politely ask that you stop using it. Second, the Sister is right. We don’t know. And we need to move quickly now that we have a reasonable assurance that no one in this room is an abomination.”
His attention was then grabbed by the words of the small girl, which did not help his already fraying nerves. “If the two of us were subverted, then why give the entire team a clean bill?” he asked. “It would be more advantageous to the enemy to sow dissention among the team with such a device. And…”
Vizkop trailed off as he noticed the increase in communication chatter from one of his helmet feeds. He enlarged it and perused the information circulating. “Excuse me, something seems to be terrifying the building staff.”
Vizkop turned on his heel and swept out of the room. His brow furrowed beneath his helmet as he made his was downstairs. Sapphira had gotten a call just as walked out, so he was sure the rest of the team would be along in short order. It was a very interesting, and suspect, turn of events. He wove in-between people moving through the halls, keeping the new device turned on just in case they were dealing with something not what it appeared to be.
Vizkop pushed open a door to the ground-floor lobby and stopped. ‘Well, they were not kidding,’ he thought. ‘There’s really a space marine here.’
Jarms48
09-23-2013, 02:38 AM
“First off,” he said, “I find the term ‘cog-boy’ offensive and politely ask that you stop using it. Second, the Sister is right. We don’t know. And we need to move quickly now that we have a reasonable assurance that no one in this room is an abomination.”
"Yeah, is that right gear-head?" Remus shrugged, "seeing as I was shot by your lot today, I think a few hurtful comments are a little deserving."
* * * *
“Excuse me, something seems to be terrifying the building staff.”
"Mechanicus liaison Vizkop," he began, his professional demeanor returning as he came to realise his off-duty hours were coming to a foreseeable end. "I'll escort you down to the lobby, and provide security if anything gets out of hand. Besides, it's best we stay in pairs regardless."
* * * * *
Remus came into the starports lobby, two paces behind liaison Vizkop, hotshot pointed towards the ground as he came to a halt roughly 5 metres away from this uninvited guest. The man was tall, bulky, at least twice Remus' mass and towering half his height again. The trooper gave note of the mans odd choice of kit, forgoing traditional powered armour for carapace, with a long-scoped rifle slung over his back. Remus recalled memories of sighting the Astarte members of the Ordos Militant, the Deathwatch, during his time stationed in the Inquisitorial fortresses before he was called to serve under his accursed sister. They were often his only comparison, Space Marines were incredibly rare individuals, and for the last 30 years he had yet to see another.
Though that was until he was transferred to TFC, it seemed being under the gaze of Lord Sidonis was a turning point in his career. Not only was he to be deployed with Inquisitorial trainees left over from the black tape of the Pembroke incident, it seemed that Sidonis also had a Marine chapter attached to him. He supposed being in the Inquisition had its perks, if one wasn't sent to the ends of all creation.
"I believe we should wait for one of the Blacks or Sister Sapphira to make formal introductions." He commented, tilting his head to regard Vizkop.
PaintSerf
09-26-2013, 06:19 PM
“First off,” he said, “I find the term ‘cog-boy’ offensive and politely ask that you stop using it. Second, the Sister is right. We don’t know. And we need to move quickly now that we have a reasonable assurance that no one in this room is an abomination.”
"Yeah, is that right gear-head?" Remus shrugged, "seeing as I was shot by your lot today, I think a few hurtful comments are a little deserving."
“That’s enough!” Sapphira interjected sharply and gave the soldier a hard look as she admonished him. “Such pettiness is indecent and shameful, Trooper Remus. Unlike many caught up in today’s ordeal, you’re alive and almost completely uninjured. The God Emperor is deserving of praise for your wellbeing. Those who were affected worse are deserving of your prayers. Now lose the attitude and act like the professional you’re supposed to be.”
...
"Ummm.... sorry."
“As well you should be.” Sapphira said gravely. She had merely listened to the convoluted tirade and stared down at Lia, with arms folded and an unflinchingly grim expression. They remained in place as her eyes slowly panned over the remaining agents. “I caution all of you against trying to understand the perfidious xenos mind too well, as there will be adverse consequences.”
“If the two of us were subverted, then why give the entire team a clean bill?” Vizkop asked. “It would be more advantageous to the enemy to sow dissention among the team with such a device. And…”
“And we simply could’ve had anyone or everyone on this team executed.” Sapphira calmly continued as Adept Vizkop trailed off. There was no hint to any exaggeration, falsehood, or humor in her expression and delivery. She gave the operatives a chance to consider that fact before she spoke again. “We are empowered to do so by our respective organizations, and we won’t hesitate to do so if necessary. So, as I said before, take the results as a sign of good faith - at least until they can be more definitively verified.”
“Excuse me, something seems to be terrifying the building staff.”
“This discussion is over.” Sapphira concluded with a preemptively displeased frown as she reached down and recollected her data-slate. She had no further comments for anyone as the unlikely duo departed. After tense a moment of lip biting thought she opened a vox channel to the entire team. “Gear up as a precaution - full combat kit.”
“Sister, the starport security people say there's a space marine downstairs. And apparently he's ordering us to come and meet him.”
“For the love of the Throne… why did one of them have to be here?” Sapphira breathed quietly but with a hard and dark edge. It was impossible for her not to be infuriated with this unwelcome development. The Marine’s unexpected presence would delay, and maybe even prevent, their chance to verify Javid’s humanity before he claimed the frigate. No doubt Governor Faroven would soon be aware of the Angel of Death in his city - if he wasn't already. The two most likely and powerful replicant suspects could now be out of their reach - on her watch.
“Then he’s very incorrect and entirely out of line. I’m on my way with Marcus.” Sapphira replied as she sharply gestured for him to lead on. She voxed the team again as they briskly walked. “Lia and John come with us; everyone else continues to gear up and checks in when ready.”
“You two keep reviewing that lead. We can’t afford to be completely distracted by this nonsense.” Sapphira said to Kally and Kelly as they passed them, and she commandeered the hand vox to speak with the locals. With the others geared up she obtained the name and chapter of this Astarte, and had the staffer on the other end relinquish the vox to the post-human interloper. By that time they’d cleared the suite and were waiting by the elevator.
“I’m making contact. Be ready for potential hostilities.” Sapphira warned the team before she took a deep breath to settle her nerves and shared a here goes nothing look with Marcus. She activated the vox and spoke into it calmly and clearly. “This is Hospitaller Sapphira, agent prime of the Inquisitorial mission on Venatora. Veteran Sergeant Icarus of the Bone Guardians, as you should well know, the Astartes have no authority over the Inquisition. Therefore your order is baseless and denied with prejudice. Now explain your presence and behavior here immediately.”
dakkagor
09-29-2013, 11:02 AM
“Was Vincent alright?”
"Who knows?" Kally responded, shrugging, partly to resettle her under arm holsters.
"He's like a chemical sump. Whatever is bubbling away on the surface is no indication of what might be going on underneath." she paused. "I just wanted him to remember that theres more on the line than his own hurt pride."
"So. . .you agree with Marc then?" Kelly ventured.
"To a point. But I still think he's over thinking it."
A few moments later Kelly pulled up short as the vox at her hip crackled. She had been carrying it around ever since Sapphira putting her in charge of the starport lockdown had made her the de-facto contact for the Venatoran staff.
“Sorry.” she said to Kally, and then unclipped the vox set to raise it to her ear.
"Take your time, I'm in no rush." Kally responded. She paused, suddenly awkward to be out of the conversation. She felt she thought something suddenly scurry through her hair and she shuddered as she resisted the urge to scratch her scalp, remembering the words of the pilot from the trip to the governors palace.
“A what? Who the Horus are the Bone Guardians? Oh. Thank you.”
She shoved the vox back into her belt and went for her comm-bead instead, muttering “Oh frak...” under her breath.
"That . . .doesn't sound good." she muttered as he reached for one of her holstered pistols, waiting for Kelly to fill her in.
“Sister, the starport security people say there's a space marine downstairs. And apparently he's ordering us to come and meet him.”
"yep, not good."
“You two keep reviewing that lead. We can’t afford to be completely distracted by this nonsense.”
Kally paused, looking at the situation. "alright, but if this goes bad you might need all of us to bring it down."
She placed a hand on Kelly's shoulder to hold her up, then regretted it as she watched the Verispex shudder.
"Sorry."
“I’m making contact. Be ready for potential hostilities.”
“This is Hospitaller Sapphira, agent prime of the Inquisitorial mission on Venatora. Veteran Sergeant Icarus of the Bone Guardians, as you should well know, the Astartes have no authority over the Inquisition. Therefore your order is baseless and denied with prejudice. Now explain your presence and behavior here immediately.”
"Oh hell, she sounds pissed." Kally muttered of the comms. "We sit tight until this resolves and then we head out."
Kelly frowned "I thought Sapphira said we should keep going with the investigation." she crossed her arms. "That crime scene won't keep, especially if the locals get their hands on it and contaminate evidence."
"Yeah, that was before Sapphira picked a fight with a post human badass." Kally responded. "If this kicks off I want be close enough to offer support to the team. We wait until we figure out if this 'Bone Warden' jagoff is hostile. Your DOA will keep for a few more minutes."
Higurashi
10-02-2013, 01:43 AM
Icarus regarded the Inquisition agents as they grouped together. None of them seemed to have the spine to talk to him, at least that is what would be said by some of his battle brothers. Icarus was more inclined to think that they were simply being prudent, waiting until they had enough fire-power to stand a chance of winning a possible dispute or simply letting whomever was in command speak first. He was a little annoyed at the delay, but he supposed that he'd already skipped enough protocol to warrant the distraction. The one who introduced herself as Hospitaller Sapphira seemed to think much the same, though in a far more caustic manner. Her peers seemed equally unpleased, so he elected to sooth the inflamed passions as much as he could. The Emperor's servants quarreling did nobody any good.
"It is worth retorting," he said wryly. "That the Inquisition holds no authority over the Adeptus Astartes. Given in this case that none present are heretics or xenos, neither has equal cause over the other to be present." He reached up and detached his helmet with a hiss of escaping air and recycling filters. His features were not overly augmented as of yet, but there were a collection of service studs on his forehead which depicted over seven decades of service. He smiled in a consoling expression. "It is however known to me that my arrival and request is both sudden and unexpected. To paraphrase why I am here: One of my Chapter's servants was alerted to the presence of powerful and possibly useful xenos artifacts in this system. I was dispatched to assess and possibly recover these should it they prove beneficial. Given that the situation has changed much during my journey, I was alerted to the mistake upon entering the inner solar system. To cut it short, the trip was a waste of valuable resources and time, as what I came here for does not exist."
"Thus, I have elected to join in your investigation and assist in what manner that I can. I will not insult you with pretending this is entirely an action of good will. My chapter has a few interests in this system and those surrounding it. The threat described would undoubtably endanger these assets, as well as the region as a whole. In addition I will be collecting information on the threat so that any future encounters can be handled with more efficiency. To achieve this goal, I give and offer: Accept my assistance and all that it would entail, or do not. Either I work with you, with full clearance regarding information relevant to the investigation, or I go about doing the same on my own. Which... I find would complicate matters and stall progress. Also, while certain immunities are given to the agents of the Inquisition, I would request that those agents refrain from reffering to Adeptus Astartes as 'jagoffs'. I personally don't give a flying talon (aka a 'don't fucking care'), but its a matter of policy."
Jarms48
10-02-2013, 09:10 AM
A single bolt from his hotshot lasgun was all it would take, a small indent of the trigger, a brief crack of a weapon discharge and bam, problem solved. To the Astarties credit it would be quick, though, a rather messy and uninspired end for someone so abrupt. Remus rolled one of his shoulders in a flex, his left hand patting softly against his rifles grip as he waited for orders. The storm trooper was prepared to say so much in rebuttal, throw down this glory boys claims in an instant, after all, even the mighty Space Marines had to succumb to Inquisitorial jurisdiction under the authority of the Emperor of Mankind. To Remus' belief this man held no cards, no chips, and was surrounded by potential hostiles if Sister Sapphira was to turn space port security against him. A swift menial distraction, ended in an instant.
Remus had to admit, the Sister was indeed deserving of her position with that little statement, forceful and to the point, he even found himself holding back a rather smug smirk. He kept his rifle lowered, his gaze shifting to Vizkop, the steady influx of people that began to crowd around them; those who had the knowledge to understand who or what stood before them and the others who paid attention only to the commotion, and back to the Astartie himself. Again his eyes drifted to the teams liaison, Remus began to ponder if an apology was indeed in order, Viskop was not the one who had shot him in the back and no doubt wasn't even associated with the local Skitarii. But there were things the storm trooper had learned over the years, never come off as weak to those you know, hide your intellect wherever possible and hold those in other organizations in low regard.
In the end Julianus just stood in his position, weapon ready, waiting for an order. If the time came, this Marine could see how fast he was on the draw.
Atrum Daemon
10-04-2013, 08:40 PM
Vizkop glanced at the storm trooper who had accompanied him. He stepped forward into the room and replied to the Marine. “Your retrieval of any xenotech artifacts is not needed. If any are found that can be of use, they will be recovered by Mechanicus specialists and sequestered for observation to be dealt with at the correct time and under correct conditions. If any can be recovered.”
He stood a few feet from Icarus with his hands folded in front of him. “The Adeptus Mechanicus has claimed sovereign authority over any and all technological artifacts recovered over the course of this venture. Any attempt to prevent this action will be dealt with in appropriate fashion. As far as introductions go: I am Vizkop, liaison to the Adeptus Mechanicus.”
Vizkop knew that the Mechanicus and the Inquisition would fight over who actually got hold of any recoverable artifacts. But it would be undue to just let the Sergeant say such things unchallenged. He had to stay focused. His mind was done wandering through the past; done with “what ifs” and possibilities beyond what was in front of him. He was ready for this to be over.
Higurashi
10-04-2013, 09:48 PM
Icarus looked down at the Mechanicus agent of the Inquisition's entourage. It was impossibly for the Imperium to function without them, so they tended to be everywhere. That being said, there were many division of the Imperium which were absolutely necessary to its continued survival, underlining the urgency for co-operation. Though many seemed to forget that when hackles were raised. In answer he shifted his arm a bit to show fully the symbol emblazoned upon his pauldron. The Bone Guardian's icon was a human skeleton from the waist up, holding an aquila in one hand and the Mechanicus Cogwheel in the other. "Perhaps some clarification is in order," he said.
"My chapter, much like our father chapter the Iron Hands, is more closely associated with the Adeptus Mechanicus than most. I owe credit to your brethren on at least three planets in securing my passage her. Reflected in that is that we do not keep much of what we find. Our goals mirror that of the Mechanicus and Inquisition respectively: Acquire what is useful and destroy what is dangerous. The caviat in that imperative being that what we keep more often than not is simply handed over to the Enginseers and Magos's that are gathered in our midst. As a further clarification, its has been determined that I will -assist- you if at all possible. That meaning that if we -do- cooperate, I will be at your service until the mission is over, albeit with the conditions previously stated."
PaintSerf
10-09-2013, 05:01 AM
"It is worth retorting, that the Inquisition holds no authority over the Adeptus Astartes. Given in this case that none present are heretics or xenos, neither has equal cause over the other to be present."
Sapphira glared witheringly down at the vox in her hand with an almost offended expression. The Marine was still very incorrect, and much more so than he’d originally seemed. Irritated, she depressed the call button a few more times. As if the machine could feel her ire, and sought to avoid becoming the target of it, the doors compliantly opened. Once inside she decisively struck the rune for the atrum. Even as the others filed in she repeatedly stabbed the door close indicator until it obeyed.
"It is however known to me that my arrival and request is both sudden and unexpected. To paraphrase why I am here: One of my Chapter's servants was alerted to the presence of powerful and possibly useful xenos artifacts in this system. I was dispatched to assess and possibly recover these should it they prove beneficial…”
“You’ve got to be kidding me…” Sapphira breathed incredulously as she caught her own surprised reaction in elevator doors mirrored finish as they closed. The Marine had just spontaneous confessed of a major chapter deviance. Publically. To a Sororita. Assigned to the Ordo Xenos. She made the mental note to acquire an audio log and the hardcopy transcript. Several copies of both would be necessary. If Adept Vizkop hadn’t been recording the proceedings then she would be very surprised.
"Thus, I have elected to join in your investigation and assist in what manner that I can. I will not insult you with pretending this is entirely an action of good will. My chapter has a few interests in this system and those surrounding it. The threat described would undoubtedly endanger these assets, as well as the region as a whole.”
Sapphira felt an eye twinge and her jaw clench as Icarus continued to speak on regardless of the consequences. Now he had admitted that his chapter considered their agenda as more important than the Imperium. Publically. To a Sororita. Assigned to the Ordo Xenos. Of course what those ‘assets’ and ‘interests’ were would need to be thoroughly investigated. While she had never heard of the Bone Guardians chapter before, and given the attitude of this chapter veteran, Sapphira had the suspicion that they were already known to the Inquisition.
“In addition I will be collecting information on the threat so that any future encounters can be handled with more efficiency. To achieve this goal, I give and offer: Accept my assistance and all that it would entail, or do not. Either I work with you, with full clearance regarding information relevant to the investigation, or I go about doing the same on my own. Which... I find would complicate matters and stall progress.”
“Holy Throne…” Sapphira sighed as she pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head disbelievingly. Icarus had just declared his intent to interfere with an Inquisitorial investigation. Publically. To a Sororita. Assigned to the Ordo Xenos. To her knowledge this was an almost unprecedented situation. Before it would’ve been intolerable to let the Astarte and his indiscretions go unchallenged. Now he’d made it impossible to do so. She opened her eyes, and looked towards the pyromancer with an outstretched open hand. “I’ll need your sidearm, John.”
Shere flipped open his holster and pulled out the plasma pistol. The psyker flashily spun the weapon around; despite the serious expression he wore, and laid the grip in her palm. She gave him a measured nod of her thanks and took it. With deftly practiced hands she brought the pistol’s energy cell online, with an initial whine that petered out into a gentle hum, and released the safety. As the floors dwindled down to their destination Sapphira advised the others, “Spread out in case he resists.”
“…ication, it has been determined that I will -assist- you if at all possible. That meaning that if we -do- cooperate, I will be at your service until the mission is over, albeit with the conditions previously stated."
“Sergeant Icarus. You have confessed to moral deviance within your chapter, admitted apathy to the defense of the Imperium, and declared intent to interfere with an ongoing Inquisitorial investigation. Formal reports will be sent, at the very least, to Lord Inquisitor Sidonis of the Ordo Calixis, and the Ordo Ixaniad.” Sapphira calmly explained as she stalked out of the elevator. The plasma pistol was held vertically, snout towards the ground, with a steady grip and her finger against the trigger guard. She advanced into effective range and held position; ready to react appropriately if Icarus did anything untoward.
“You will cooperate with the Inquisition. You will be of service to the Inquisition. You will accept Inquisitorial terms and conditions on your service.” Sapphira’s voice remained calm as she stared down the Astarte. “Of course you may refuse… but then you will be considered as a threat to this investigation, an enemy of the Imperium, and dealt with accordingly. Bear in mind that your decision here reflects upon the Bone Guardians as a whole. Now take a moment to consider your decision, Sergeant.”
dakkagor
10-09-2013, 09:19 AM
“You will cooperate with the Inquisition. You will be of service to the Inquisition. You will accept Inquisitorial terms and conditions on your service.” Sapphira’s voice remained calm as she stared down the Astarte. “Of course you may refuse… but then you will be considered as a threat to this investigation, an enemy of the Imperium, and dealt with accordingly. Bear in mind that your decision here reflects upon the Bone Guardians as a whole. Now take a moment to consider your decision, Sergeant.”
Kally hissed through clenched teeth As Sapphira made her declaration. She had bunkered down on a side corridor with Kelly until this blew over. That now seemed like a waste of her talents.
"You're armed?" she muttered, looking down the corridor towards the atrium, not focusing on Kelly. Kelly nodded, pulling out a slim looking laspistol. Kally squelched her comm. bead twice, a request for confirmation. She chambered a hellfire round into her bolter and received one squelch back a few moments later. She was needed at the atrium. Now.
"Stay low and stay hidden." Kally muttered as she started to leave.
"I can look after myself." Kelly hissed. "I am trained for combat, you know."
"Not for this." Kally responded. "Not for anything like this."
Then again, she wasn't either.
She headed down the corridor, coming out on an overlooking balcony. She shouldered aside a gawking menial who turned to glare at her until he met Kally's withering glare.
"Frak off. Now. Thats an Inquisitorial order."
The man backed up a step, then nodded. People began to drift back from the balcony railing as Kally walked up to the metal railing and turned her blank powers briefly high enough to convince people to clear the hell out. Her bolter was held in both her hands, but held low and non threatening. The space marine didn't need to know how fast she could move it to a ready position.
Throne, he was big. Kally realized with a start this was the first space marine she had ever seen, but not the first she had ever interacted with. She had been unconscious when the Sons of Plutarch had plucked her from Makita hive. He looked kind of. . .misshapen wasn't the word. The proportions seemed wrong, somehow. Was that the same with all of them? It made her feel uncomfortable, and reminded her that what she was looking at wasn't really human any more. More like a living weapon.
A thought tickled her. This is how everyone else feels. All the time.
frowning, she watched the scene, halfway between curious and worried. Who knew how this would play out? She didn't like second guessing Space Marines.
Higurashi
10-10-2013, 01:50 AM
Icarus stared levelly at Sapphira, toggling through her miniature speech in his head. Of course, he'd made a lengthy exposition, so it was expected that she would do much the same. Quietly he unclasped a well thumbed volume from his belt, which was cased in metal far stronger and more lustrous than steel. Undoing the binding that held it closed, he tranquilly thumbed through the pages until he came to the appropriate passage, tapping it with his pointer finger. He didn't even need to read from it to quote it. " 'Be the simplicity of the steadfast and unchanging: the barrier between what is known and the unknowable. Let the Imperium of Man realise its manifold destiny within while without its mindless foes dash themselves against the constancy of our adamantium. In such uniformity of practice and purpose lies the perpetuity of mankind.' - Codicil CC-LXXX-IV.ii: The Coda of Balthus Dardanus."
Delicately he closed the book and secured the binding, keeping it in his hand. "Such says the Codex Astartes," he said with a cocked eyebrow. "That being written by a higher authority, which stood at the right hand of the Emperor himself. This being the words that true Astartes live by, your claim is false. If we are corrupted, then you will also be implicating numerous worlds and a significant presence of the Adeptus Mechanicus to the same corruption. What I have -said-, free from interpretation, is that the threat poses a threat to my chapter's assets and the region -as a whole-. Being that both my Chapter and this region are part of the Imperium, we are still dedicated to its defense. Whats more, I've received orders to assist with your investigation if at all possible. The exceptions to this being that your own personnel could have been compromised and the case that you refuse my help. In the case that you would, I've been commanded to initiate my own investigation."
"From this, it is concluded that there is no intention to meddle with the Inquisition in either case. The first being that I assist you. The second being that it is statistically likely that difficulties between the Inquisition and Bone Guardians will result if cooperation is not achieved. This being reported to me by one Magos Evidaner on the planet Ilivian IV in the Ilivian system. Given that his calculations were made before my trip and the knowledge recently acquired about the updated situation, his numbers will be off a little. But it seems that on the whole they remain sound."
"On a personal level I find it rather insulting that you would so freely question a Space Marine's honor without any evidence other than opinion to back it up. In the doing so you also accuse countless loyal servants of the Imperium by association. Whats more, you also soil the name of our forefather Primarch Ferrus Magnus with such claims. Our chapter and bloodline has and will continue to be faithful to the Emperor and the Imperium. Considering all of this, it seems rather strange that you would so quickly reject not only the help of a single Space Marine, but a working association with the Chapter as a whole. Summing all that up comes to a simple decision. Condemn me, my chapter, the Mechanicus paired with it, and all of the servants and planets we have hold in, or accept the -willing- help of a powerful warrior Astartes whom has always served the Emperor faithfully."
"It is honestly rather mind boggling how easily you burn an ace of cards that is given to you. Given that I've already accepted your offer beforehand in offering to serve you as this, the only question remaining is what you will choose about -my- offer."
((I'd like it if this was wrapped up soon.))
kardar233
10-10-2013, 10:14 AM
Lia sat fuming after Sapphira's abrupt dismissal of her intelligence assessment. She was just trying to help explain why they shouldn't let their guard down, but noooooo, the doctor lady had just looked at her like she was dumb and now she was going off to do something and blah blah blah....
She brought her legs up and rested her heels on the front of the chair, entertaining grim thoughts. I'm pretty sure either robot guy or doctor lady are fakes. Should stay by them to punch them just in case. Raising her head to see where Vizkop had gone, she instead spotted Marc motioning for her to follow him. She heaved a sigh. It's what I wanted, isn't it...
Extracting herself from her chair she stepped up to Marc, an uncharacteristic demeanour of grimness surrounding her. She followed him down to where the group had spread out, and was surprised to see them loaded for bear. Then she looked down the hallway.
"Whoa."
She'd never seen a Space Marine before, but even she had heard the legendary tales of the Angels of Death. Cunning warriors who anticipated their enemies' every move, which coincidentally sounded a lot like the legendary tales of Inquisition agents. She hadn't gotten many chances to do that yet, but it sounded like fun.
The doctor lady was inconspicuously brandishing a plasma pistol in dangerous proximity to the eight-foot mass of superhuman, and that seemed like all sorts of fun. Lia wasn't feeling very charitable to Sapphira at that moment, and wasn't particularly interested in getting into this.
An old memory rose to the surface. 't's always important for a team t' keep coherent in front, even 'f there's shit going on in the back. Th' Inq can be a backstabbing barrel of Hrud, but you stand together in front of the idiots. Lia sighed again, and heavily. A look back to Marc conveyed far more weariness and annoyance than someone of her age should rightly be able to, and walked forward to join Sapphira in front of the Marine.
He was tall; really, really tall. Her head only came up to his lower chest, but she'd seen bigger. She'd punched bigger, for that matter. She had to admit that he had a certain effect, though, that made him seem more imposing than even the larger Orks she'd dealt with. She came to a stop one step behind Sapphira and off to her side, placed her hands on her hips in a slightly confrontational manner and looked up at Icarus with a show of nonchalance. Lia'd decided to let Sapphira do the talking; if someone was going to start the fight, she didn't want to be the one responsible, and anyways, that plasma pistol was looking somewhat worrying.
Jarms48
10-10-2013, 12:35 PM
“You will cooperate with the Inquisition. You will be of service to the Inquisition. You will accept Inquisitorial terms and conditions on your service.” Sapphira’s voice remained calm as she stared down the Astarte. “Of course you may refuse… but then you will be considered as a threat to this investigation, an enemy of the Imperium, and dealt with accordingly. Bear in mind that your decision here reflects upon the Bone Guardians as a whole. Now take a moment to consider your decision, Sergeant.”
At a girl. Remus thought as he watched Sapphira from the corner of his eye. He took a step back, giving him the good fortune of a few extra feet between them, his rifle leveled in support should the situation turn sour, its sights beaded between the Astarties eyes. Idly he thumbed the weapons charge toggle, making damned sure his first lasbolt would penetrate the mans skull. Space Marines were notoriously hard to kill, even outside their armour, with flesh thick as hard leather and bone as stern as adamantium. He had little doubt in his hotshots effectiveness and even if the shot wasn't particularly fatal it still leave the man blind. He could do little more than wait, but for the Emperors grace he prayed the Marine had the right mind to just shut up.
Azazeal849
10-10-2013, 02:18 PM
Marc slowly flexed his fingers as he saw the tension in the atrium increasing. He could almost feel it prickling against his skin - or perhaps that was the static thrum of the marine's power armour. Kally was on overwatch from the balcony, Vincent and Remus had fingers held tense against trigger guards, and neither Sapphira nor the marine had dropped their pistols. Marc hadn't drawn his own laspistol from inside his suit jacket - against power armour it would be worse than useless, and the gesture would only escalate the situation further.
Instead, he stood his ground and tried to unpick the High Gothic that the marine had read out. He knew little of the codex astartes, save that one or two of the Sons of Plutarch had mentioned it during his brief moments of contact with them. He knew something of the gene-link between the Emperor's primarchs and the modern-day astartes, which was presumably the higher power the marine referred to. Every child in Makita Hive could name the ten sons of the Emperor: Sanguinius, Dorn, Horus the Betrayer, and the rest. But none of them had gone by the name of Dardanus. As an agent of the inquisition he had know something of the lore and ritual that each branch of the Imperium steeped itself in, but the astartes were more inscrutable than most - even those that served in alliance with lord Sidonis. With no point of reference, Marc couldn't fathom what the marine's jurisdiction with investigations and xenos artefacts was, in reality nor within the marine's own mind, but he knew what Sapphira's sisterhood thought of it.
But that was a dangerously narrow focus of the wider issue. Why was this marine here, now? There was no chapter fortress in this system. Any explanation would have been so bizarre that the one the marine had offered was as likely to be true as any other, but Marc backed Sapphira in not trusting him. At best, they were looking at a dangerous new variable. At worst, they were looking at another Necron replicant that had replaced one of the holy astartes. Was that even possible? No-one is above suspicion, Marc's first inquisitorial master had warned him. Marc glanced at Vizkop, looking for some sign from the tech-priest, before realising that Vizkop's still-unproven detector might not even work on a marine's inhuman physiology.
Sapphira was doing her best to leverage the marine into submission, but one thing Marc did know was that astartes could not be made to submit. The lesson he had learned on Solomon and after was that they did not think like normal men. Normal men and women, and Kally in particular, had paid the price for that.
Tearing his gaze away from the towering marine, Marc registered the knot of spaceport staff hovering near the doors. The starport was still under quarantine, but just as that meant no-one could come in, neither could the essential adepts and tech-priests leave. Those who hadn't simply fled from the marine had been drawn on in awe of actually seeing one of the Emperor's Angels, but now they were standing gaping in confusion as two legendary symbols of the Emperor stood face to face, apparently on the verge of open conflict.
Forget all your preconceptions. inquisitor De Shilo had told Marc in the understaffed and tension-filled enforcer precinct, back when Marc had been just a CID detective and Makita hive was reeling from the cultist insurrection. No-one is above suspicion.
Not even the inquisition? Marc had asked him wryly.
Especially the inquisition. De Shilo had replied with total seriousness. He had been right. But it was knowledge that wasn't shared with the Imperial public, and there were good reasons why. Marc knew then that he had to avoid repeating his previous mistakes and get the civilians out, for their own safety. Not just from the marine, compromised or not, but from his own organisation.
"Kelly." Marc said softly into his comm bead, switching from Venatoran gothic to the dead language of Makita midhive. "Call the starport administrator and tell him to keep all of his people away from the atrium."
He glanced towards Sapphira, just long enough to catch the Sister's attention and to flick his eyes meaningfully towards the starport staff with their bald heads and grey tunics. As she nodded, he crossed the panelled hall in quick strides.
"Step outside." he said, adopting a practiced lawman's tone. It worked just as well backing up an investigtor's rosette as it did an enforcer's badge.
The nearest adept blinked, and turned towards him. She had been so focused on the giant in his slab-plated power armour that she hadn't even registered Marc's approach.
"This meeting between the ordos and the holy astartes is classified." Marc told her, not loudly, but firmly. "Out."
By the time he had cleared the room of innocent bystanders, things had gotten worse. Remus had levelled his rifle, and Lia, catching Marc's eye with a look that conveyed far more weariness and annoyance than someone of her age should rightly be able to, had walked forward to join Sapphira in front of the marine. She came to a stop one step behind Sapphira and off to her side, placing her hands on her hips in a slightly confrontational manner.
Step back, you stupid girl. Marc thought, even as he realised that the team's options were already all but gone. He drifted closer to the stone fountain in the centre of the atrium, where four Imperial eagles faced outwards with water arcing from their shrieking beaks. Stopping next to the meagre cover, he locked eyes with Vincent behind a support pillar on the opposite wall, and then with Kally up on her balcony.
Trust Sapphira. Kally and his sister had both told him. He hoped they had been right, and that the Sister who was now in charge would make the right call.
PaintSerf
10-11-2013, 12:40 AM
“Agent Black, you’re now second in command.” Sapphira levelly stated, with a quick yet meaningful look at Marcus, before she focused back on Icarus. “Have security immediately detain everyone who witnessed this shameful farce.”
It was inelegant, and she should’ve done it sooner, but there needed to be an established successor if this escalated further. Sapphira took a few measured steps towards the Marine, which put her well into the open, in an effort to fix his attention on her rather than the other agents. She was responsible for this mission and team. If Icarus resorted to violence then he would have to deal with her first. The prospect of potentially imminent martyrdom made her curiously at ease with the situation.
“Spare us your righteous indignation and wounded honor, Marine. Nobody here is particularly trusting of anyone at the moment, for a very good reason. That goes double for strangers, particularly belligerent ones, regardless of whom or what they are and what titles or lineage they have.” Sapphira explained rather honestly, if brusquely. “If the Bone Guardians will be condemned, Sergeant Icarus, than it will be in part because of your own actions and indiscretions here. But that decision will be made by others much higher than either you or me, and definitely not now. The only immediate concern is the successful persecution of His enemies on Venatora and within this system.”
“Try to objectively consider your behavior since arriving here, Icarus. When you could’ve merely voxed and requested a meeting with the Holy Inquisition, you unnecessarily postured against us and threatened innocent citizens to do so. With full knowledge that you were speaking to a Sororita, invested with command authority by the Ordo Xenos, you made an unsolicited confession to a morally questionable chapter agenda.” Sapphira’s expression and tone shifted fractionally here, which made her own opinion of that detail fairly clear, but it was quickly subsumed again as she continued.
“Then there’s the matter of your reason for being here. First you claimed to solely offer unsolicited aid; without any reference to higher orders, after being in the area on a highly irregular - and still undisclosed – mission that failed. In a system where there’s no single prior reference to the Bone Guardians in planetary or Inquisitorial records. Now you claim to have standing orders of cooperation - and the presumed right to an independent investigation - without identifying that source, and providing corroboration by an Inquisitorial source we’d acknowledge. Instead of simply and clearly elaborating on these discrepancies, you quoted us obscure Astarte scripture and mentioned your slighted personal feelings of all things.”
“In addition to all of that, you have repeatedly challenged the Inquisition in public. Doing so undermines the requisite awe and fear the mere mention of our institution brings. That’s unacceptable. You have publically disclosed confidential and sensitive intelligence from an Inquisitorial inquiry. That’s unacceptable. You have provoked an armed standoff between two neigh-on mythical and dreaded enforcers of the Emperor’s Will. That’s unacceptable. If even a rumor of what has happened here reaches the public, then there could be severe repercussions for Imperial order on Venatora. That’s intolerable.” Sapphira let the summary seep in for a moment before she continued with the conclusion.
“It’s painfully clear that you’ve no aptitude to carry out an independent inquiry, Sergeant Icarus. I will not accept the unnecessary risk that you – without Inquisitorial supervision - represent to this planet, our ongoing investigation, and my agents. So that presumed right of yours is unequivocally denied by the Inquisition, and any attempt to proceed alone will be prohibited by force.”
“Hubris has caused you to dramatically overstep your authority, Sergeant. The Inquisition has tolerated that misstep, but that’s only because of your inherent value as an Adeptus Astarte. However there are limits to that tolerance, even for a Marine, and you’ve pushed us to the brink of them. We are dealing with an insidious xenos threat, and trust is a scarce commodity. You need to prove to us that you’re worthy of some trust.” Sapphira’s posture tensed somewhat as her tone took on a serious edge of warning.
“You need to take a step back in the right direction. Accept Inquisitorial authority and service in this matter - without conditions. It’s unreasonable for you to expect, let alone demand, a complete read in. Most of my team hasn’t been informed of all the specifics, and I’m sure there are details I’m unaware of, but I trust them all more than you. Let me be absolutely clear with you here, Icarus. This is the best and last offer that you’ll receive.”
Higurashi
10-11-2013, 01:36 AM
((Appealing to his honor. Hrm. Nice.))
Icarus rolled his thumbs over the book he was holding, thinking to himself. Most of what she said had a large degree of truth to it. Subtly was not something that came easy to him. Perhaps, in hindsight, that was why he was on near permanent solo recon in the first place. At the same time... this whole situation rankled him to the core. He'd -told- them what his intentions were, where he was from, and why he was here. Certainly he didn't expect them to accept it out-right, but this was ridiculous to him. Anyone less than the Inquisition would be executed for this. Though it certainly seemed that was what they were thinking about -him- as well, but from the opposite point of view.
Relenting was not something Astartes typically did. But then again, Icarus was far from typical by any measure. "Your words have merit," he said slowly. "For all my knowledge of battle and tactics, I am not a finely tuned speaker. This, combined with a severe level of irritation at the delays and unaccurate data I have received thus far, seems to have put me into an untenable position. I... apologize, for the disruption that this has caused you and yours. Perhaps I am a little too eager to simply stomp out whatever problem there is and be gone back to more useful ventures. Given that I am a blunt soldier, not suited to articulation, you might find more information in this."
He put his book back on his belt and tapped a section of his armor. A fairly large data-stud extended from a previously hidden opening and dropped into his hand. He held this out to Sapphira. "This should contain most everything you will need, including whom to contact to confirm my reason for being here as well as just how I got here. Of course there's the fairly common data restrictions that keeps my Chapter safe, but you shouldn't need most of that. This being done, I offer myself into your service."
Atrum Daemon
10-11-2013, 10:44 PM
Vizkop gave a slight nod at the Marine’s reply and said: “I was unaware of those details. I apologize for my dismissive speech and I am sure your assistance will be appreciated.”
His habits had caused Vizkop to be making audio and visual recordings of everything he witnessed during his missions. If he were to perish in the course of an assignment, whoever came after him would need all the data he gathered. It was for this reason and more that he had been recording every second of his time on Venatoria since he first approached the Inquisitorial party.
“Sergeant Icarus. You have confessed to moral deviance within your chapter, admitted apathy to the defense of the Imperium, and declared intent to interfere with an ongoing Inquisitorial investigation. Formal reports will be sent, at the very least, to Lord Inquisitor Sidonis of the Ordo Calixis, and the Ordo Ixaniad.” Sapphira calmly explained as she stalked out of the elevator. The plasma pistol was held vertically, snout towards the ground, with a steady grip and her finger against the trigger guard. She advanced into effective range and held position; ready to react appropriately if Icarus did anything untoward.
“Ah, scrap,” Vikop murmured. He had hoped Sapphira would have moved to diffuse the situation fully instead of more harsh words.
“You will cooperate with the Inquisition. You will be of service to the Inquisition. You will accept Inquisitorial terms and conditions on your service.” Sapphira’s voice remained calm as she stared down the Astarte. “Of course you may refuse… but then you will be considered as a threat to this investigation, an enemy of the Imperium, and dealt with accordingly. Bear in mind that your decision here reflects upon the Bone Guardians as a whole. Now take a moment to consider your decision, Sergeant.”
Vizkop remained stationary in the atrium, closing his eyes for a moment beneath the helmet. His arms were at his sides and he was ready at a moment’s notice to spring into action. He also had the modified auspex going just in case there was something that the initial scans missed. He no illusions about it working on Icarus. His mutated physiology was too different from a human already for the scanner to accurately determine anything.
He was content to let the verbal confrontation between Sapphira and Icarus play out. However, he had to restrain himself when Icarus offered the data stud containing information on him. Something like that had an inherent value that he was reasonably sure would be lost on most people. But, information collection was not part of his mission. He hoped Sapphira would accept Icarus’ peace offering so that they could get back to the issues at hand.
Azazeal849
10-15-2013, 03:24 PM
“Agent Black, you’re now second in command.” Sapphira levelly stated, with a quick yet meaningful look at Marcus, before she focused back on Icarus. “Have security immediately detain everyone who witnessed this shameful farce.”
Marc drew in a breath to speak, but then held it, much as he had when interrogator Schafer had chastised Kally back at the crashed shuttle - back before they had even known what they were dealing with. The agents and the marine had been conversing in HIgh Gothic as was typical for Imperial officials from different planets, and there was a good chance that most of the low-level starport staff hadn't really understood what had been going on. Marc knew how seriously the inquisition had to take potential vectors for heresy - they had already quarantined everyone who had seen the resurrected Noyer during his escape from the starport, but even with Vizkop's device to hopefully weed out any direct threats, they had had nothing like the time or the manpower to purity check the whole complement of staff and civilians. Despite governor Faroven's cooperation on supporting the lockdown, people both inside and outside the starport were getting cagey - even the administrator and his security personnel who were supposed to be enforcing the lockdown.
Now that even more of the starport staff were unwittingly party to things they shouldn't have seen, what did Sapphira plan to do to them? Imprison them? Or mind wipe them? Or worse.
Trust Sapphira. another voice countered, chorusing in both Kally and his sister's voices. She just made you second in command.
Marc suddenly realised that he had hesitated just a moment too long. "Yes, Sister." he said briskly, and turned towards the door to round up the people he had just sent outside.
"Marc, did I hear that right?" his sister's voice sounded through his in-ear comm bead, still speaking in their Makitan argot of Solomon gothic.
"Aye, you heard right." Marc replied.
"What's the script?"
"Hold off calling security the now; I'll try and round them up myself first."
"Damage limitation." said Kelly. Marc could picture her nodding and rubbing the bridge of her nose, as she often did when she was thinking.
"Aye."
+ + + + + +
Icarus put his book back on his belt and tapped a section of his armour. A fairly large data-stud extended from a previously hidden opening and dropped into his hand. He held this out to Sapphira. "This should contain most everything you will need, including whom to contact to confirm my reason for being here as well as just how I got here. Of course there's the fairly common data restrictions that keeps my Chapter safe, but you shouldn't need most of that. This being done, I offer myself into your service."
The assembled agents exchanged glances. Vincent maintained his flinty mask, not giving away whether he was thinking about lowering his lasgun or pulling its trigger. It was only when Sapphira lowered her own borrowed plasma pistol that he opted for the former, and the others began to follow suit. Shere was the first to speak, gesturing with his aquila-topped staff towards the matching emblem on Icarus' breastplate.
"One under the Aquila again, then?" the yellow-clad psyker said hopefully.
"Best be takin' things upstairs." Vincent growled as he slung his weapon over his augmetic shoulder.
The team began to file out - this time with the marine in tow, to receive whatever information Sapphira decided to share with him.
+ + + + + +
One hour later
"Can I offer you a hand?" Fredriq asked as he stepped into the room and spied Kelly hunched over a table strewn with pict-captures, her fists pressed into the wood.
"I know what I'm doing." Kelly murmured without looking up, much to the xenologist's chagrin. She pushed her hair behind her ear and pressed the tip of her tongue against her top lip as she pulled over another sheaf of picts. She was still puzzling through the mystery of the body that the PDF had turned up on the roof in District 3. How in the warp had it got there?
She raised her hands to tighten her ponytail and looked down at the picts again, which showed the barely-recognisable lump of a human being that had broken most of its bones on impact with hard rockrete. The body was northerner pale, and shaved in the manner of the local working class. He had been stripped to his underwear, which was the strangest part.
Eliminate the possibilities first. she told herself.
Could the John Doe have fallen when the machine-cursed Aquila crashed through the administratum building on its way to the vehicle park? No, the roof where they found him was too far away from the crash site. Could he have fallen from one of the tall buildings surrounding the rooftop - a night-shift worker, just getting up; perhaps out on his balcony for a breath of air before being startled into losing his balance when the low-flying PDF jets came diving overhead? No, he would have landed flat. The blood smear here suggests that he rolled.
Forward momentum...
Kelly reached over for the picts from the aerial chase, such as they were, captured by various city surveillance systems. There were several snapshots of Clement's Aquila from the front, showing its holed and blood-spattered canopy coming closer and closer in the final moments before it ploughed through the side of the Administratum complex and came to rest in the multi-story. She had been trying to find a decent shot of the pilot, but now she wanted to see the flyer from behind.
She found what she was looking for amid a pile of picts she had put aside. Taken by chance from a ground level security camera, it showed Clement's hijacked Aquila swooping overhead as its systems faltered and failed under Vizkop's machine curse. The image was grainy and monochrome, but there was a darker shadow of black at the Aquila's rear, between the white flares of its twin engine exhausts. The flyer's rear ramp had been open...before the crash.
"Son of a bitch..." Kelly whispered.
There were only two people that Clement could have thrown from the back of the Aquila.
"Fred." she said, spinning round to belatedly acknowledge the xenologist just as he was shaking his head and turning to leave. "We need to call up the peacekeepers, tell them to test the body for traces of paralytum."
"Paralytum?" Fredriq repeated, confusion momentarily replacing annoyance. He crossed the room to squint down at Kelly's chosen pictures, and then up at the woman herself. "The governor?"
+ + + + + +
Governor Faroven subconsciously fingered the dressing on his neck that covered the needle wound as he strode through a circular tunnel lit by pale amber lumoglobes. Ahead of him was a bulkhead supporting a pair of thick security doors, marked with both the Imperial Aquila and the insignia of the Venatora PDF. He paused to let the eye-scanner above the door switch back and forth across his retina, then stepped through the Aquila-carved doors as they swung open before him. Following in his wake were Vitani Craddock and the rest of his personal guard, their unshaved hair marking them out from the regular PDF soldiers ringing the walls even though most of them kept it cut regimentally short.
The war room in its hardened bunker beneath the regent's palace was never unstaffed, but now it was a veritable hive of activity. High-ranking officers in red and black stalked between vox stations where harassed operators talked into headsets, and robed tech-priests sat in circles around banks of logic engines. The chairs they sat in formed the protruding teeth around a circular work desk, so that viewed from above each work group formed a holy cog sign with the cogitator cores at its focus. Machine code chattered back and forth as the priests communed with their machines, and above them red-painted servo-skulls drifted in programmed patterns, dropping down every minute or so to brush streaks of holy oil across the top of the cogitator casings. Weaving among the mechanicus constructs were PDF quill skulls, taking down records of the officers' orders. Above everything hovered a pair of cyber cherubs - clockwork machines sheathed in synthskin and hooded robes, that used tiny silver scythes to nudge magnetised unit markers across the map board that covered one wall. Brass tokens representing PDF army, navy and aeronautica assets were congregating as Venatora mobilised for the expected conflict.
Faroven swept an appraising look across the war room, before crossing the tiled floor towards the orbital communications hub. As he rested one hand against the work station, a tiny green spark arced between his palm and the cogitator casing.
"Are the orbitals on alert, Brother?" Faroven asked one adept - a pale-skinned man with bionic eyes and ears, half-hidden beneath his mechanicus cowl.
"All defence orbitals have acknowledged code amber and are increasing optical sweeps of the planet Vitaris." the Martian priest intoned. "My brethren are continuing to monitor the xenos signal."
Faroven nodded approval, and moved onward to flag down one of his PDF officers.
+ + + + + +
Sensorium adept Marius Flint frowned down at what his display screen was telling him. On the dull green interface, the brighter icon of the nearest lance satellite was swinging out of alignment. He was about to call over tech priest Ramado, to see if the cogboy could sense any faults in the unmanned turret's thruster systems, when a number of other hotspots on his infrared scope indicated several more satellites powering up their thrusters. He turned to shout over his shoulder at his superior officer.
"Ordinate," he called out, "Did the commander give an order to fire up the lance satellites as well?"
The ordinate remained standing with his back to Flint for several moments, so that the sensorium adept wondered if he had been heard. He was about to repeat the shout when the ordinate suddenly turned and marched over towards Flint, his boots clinking on the grav-plated deck. The ordinate was a bulky, square-jawed man with his greying hair worn long and ponytailed in the manner of the PDF units from the southern islands. Flint kept all of his hair shaved out of habit, even though he was on an aggressively sterile orbital 300 km above the keratin mites that infested northern Venatora, and to him the ponytail looked sloppy and ostentatious. But there was nothing sloppy about the ordinate himself. If anything he was gratingly strict, and Flint's stomach dropped when he saw the trademark glimmer in the ordinate's eyes.
"Is this a village market or an Imperial space station, adept Flint?" the ordinate asked him pointedly. "Questions are not simply shouted across the deck in the general direction of their intended recepient."
Adept Flint flushed slightly. "Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."
"Now, what's the problem?"
"The lance satellites are powering up, but there's nothing new on the augers. Did the commander order them to change orbit?"
The ordinate frowned, his lips pressing into a thin line. "Not that I was informed of."
The unmanned lance satellites, which formed a secondary defence net around the hard bastions of the orbitals, were normally slaved to the orbitals themselves. However, they could also be controlled from the ground, from a few very specific command nodes, in case the stations were compromised in some way. But as adept Flint had said, there had been no new contacts on the augers since the beginning of the shift - just the ore haulers shuttling back and forth from the asteroid belt, the inquisition frigate prowling round the outskirts of the system, and the sprint trader that had jumped to warp a few minutes ago. And if the groundside PDF were redeploying the satellites, perhaps to strengthen the side of the planet facing Vitaris, they should have notified the orbitals first to prevent any collisions.
The ordinate tapped his chin. "Where are the satellites moving to?"
Flint looked back at his screen and the dish-shaped icons that represented the lance satellites. "They're turning..." He stopped, a sudden spike of adrenaline jolting through him. "This way. They're turning towards us."
The ordinate's eyes widened. "Ping a message up to SatCom. Tell them to assume manual control of the satellites immediately."
The infrared signatures on Flint's screen suddenly flared with heat buildup, and warning runes flashed all down the side of his monitor.
"Sir, the lances are charging."
The ordinate swore, and seized an internal voxnet caster from its hook on the wall. "CIC, this is spar 4 auger control. Raise shields immediately!"
The action stations alarm had just begun to blare when a searing burst of light cut through the arm spar of the star-shaped orbital. It instantly boiled through metres of armour and cut through into the sensorium hub, flash vaporising thirty PDF personnel, the ordinate, and sensorium adept Flint. Secondary explosions rippled back through the station as the spar arm sagged and tumbled away. Fire clawed up the auger masts and across the gun decks, squirting through ruptured hull armour before being swallowed by the hungry void. A second beam flashed through the defence orbital and then a third, methodically carving it apart. The fourth and fifth converged on the hub of the star-shaped orbital, boiling away the command sections and cutting through the adamantium struts that held the station together. Bracketed by the combined fire of eight surrounding lance satellites, the heavily armed space station came apart in a series of silent flashes and sputtering, jerking explosions. Above the blue band of the atmosphere, more brief flashes signified other orbitals and comms satellites exploding into molten fragments and puffs of flash-frozen atmosphere. The orbital drydock dissolved into glittering metal confetti, and the skies above Venatora began to glow with white streaks as the debris chunks were ejected down into the atmosphere.
The lance satellites flared their thrusters again, as they began to jet clear of the spiralling wreckage and turn their glowing lance barrels down towards the planet below.
+ + + + + +
There was panic in Faroven's command centre. Several tech-priests had risen from their seats, ripping headphones and communion cables away from their ears with surprised-sounding yelps of static. The human vox adepts were all fighting to make themselves heard.
"What in the warp just happened!?" governor Faroven roared over the combined din. Behind him, he sensed security chief Craddock ghosting to his side in response to the unexpected uproar, one gloved hand moving to her pistol holster.
"Our orbitals, sir!" called over a PDF officer with general's brocade across the front of his uniform, who had managed to extract some information from his howling subordinates. "They're gone!"
"What do you mean gone?" Faroven shouted back. "Which ones?"
"All of them!"
At the console Faroven had paused beside, the tech priest manning it emitted a burst of static. A senior priest rose from his seat and responded with a sharp machine-gun of beeps, to which the first priest responded with a protesting electronic squeal.
"Speak gothic." Faroven snapped, picking up on the exchange and striding over, with Craddock and two other guards following at his heel. "What's happened?"
The senior priest adjusted the output of his vox grille with an audible click. "The machine spirits of the lance network are no longer responding to our control. This is an abomination. I have never seen a machine curse so powerful."
The output from the priest's slatted*mask was*toneless, but the eyes above it were wide with fear.
"Honoured magos!" a priest from the far side of the cogitator bank spoke up, this one with an unmodified voicebox and therefore with his anxiety much more in evidence. "The lance satellites are orientating towards the planet!"
"Put up the void shields." Faroven cut in urgently. "Send a priority warning to the other province capitals, whether they've got their own void sensoria or not."
The order came not a moment too soon. A few seconds later, the entire bunker shook.
"Theatre shield raised and holding!" shouted a young adept.
Faroven and Craddock looked at each other, and the governor rubbed his chin with one hand. The capital city's void bubble was designed to shield the vital infrastructure from hits that would scour the surrounding terrain down to the mantle, but they wouldn't hold out forever against sustained lance bombardment.
"Governor!" called out a PDF officer with a vox receiver pressed to her ear. "I've got missile command on the line. Orbital silos outside the void shield aren't responding, but we still have the ones at Districts 12 and 17. Shall I have them target the satellites?"
Faroven bit the inside of his cheek, his brow furrowing beneath his shaved scalp. "Wait. If we take them out, that's our last line of defence against the xenos gone." He turned to the red-robed magos, who had lapsed back into machine code as he pulsed orders to his subordinates. "Honoured magos, how long will the void shield hold?"
The cowled magos looked up briefly. "We are under focused fire from fourteen orbital lances. Conservative estimate: two hours."
"You have until then to get those satellites back under our control."
"I don't understand it!" One of the PDF officers cursed, slamming a fist against his subordinate's workstation. "Those machine spirits only take orders from the orbitals or from here, right? Who sent the machine curse?"
"It's one of them!" one of Faroven's bodyguards yelled suddenly, turning towards the orbital comms hub where the magos and his adepts were now working and praying frantically. "One of the cogboys is a fething replicant!"
"Hold your fire." Faroven snapped back, slamming a palm down on the soldier's raised weapon to redirect it towards the ground. "Hold your fire!" he repeated as all around him people reacted to the raised lasgun by clawing for their own sidearms. The governor's brow furrowed again, even deeper, and he turned to his chief of security. Vitani Craddock had seized the other guard's arm to prevent him raising his own weapon, and she was looking at Faroven expectantly.
The governor took a deep breath. "Craddock, lock the palace down. No-one gets in or out!"
+ + + + + +
A blinding light suddenly streamed in through the windows of the common room, splashing its occupants' shadows against the wall in vivid black. Several of the agents turned, and had bright lines seared across their vision by a pillar of fire that lanced down from the heavens to strike the far eastern quadrant of the city. For a couple of seconds the vertical beam flickered, drawing up a vortex of dust and debris around it. Then it vanished in a thunderclap of imploding air, leaving an expanding ring of smoke that swept out across the city. The first buidings in the blast wave's path simply disintegrated. Others survived a few moments before stripping away as the superstructures buckled and tore. Ones further out lost all their windows in an explosion of glass. The floor beneath the agents' feet shuddered, before the blast front burst up the side of the starport like a wave breaking against a rock, instantly blocking out the sun with a pall of black dust. Everything not secured to the floor was violently hurled towards the back wall, although the reinforced windows held.
From the floor, the agents watched through the sudden gloom as the horizon flashed with more lance strikes. Belatedly, dome-shaped towers placed at strategic locations across the city thrummed into life, and a heat-haze shimmer distorted the skyline. The shimmer became a greenish stain against the sky, patchy at first, but over a few seconds the isolated patches spread and ran together like oil to form a refractive dome over the city. Another beam of light smote down, but this one terminated in a flash and sputter in the sky above the capital, held at bay by the void shield. Then the shield fully manifested, and the city was plunged into darkness as the one-way barrier blocked out the sunlight along with the radiation of the lances.
In the lurid glow of man-made lights that remained, the smoke around the starport began to thin, revealing a glowing crater where the city's eastern district had been. A grey mushroom cloud was unfurling slowly into the air above it, the red glow of the molten glass crater reflecting from its underside. The dome of the immense cloud visibly fractured as it passed through the one-way void shield and met the superheated air beyond. Around the mushroom cloud, smoke coiled up from a ring of burning buildings and prometheum stores, and the skeletal remains of hab-stacks that had survived the initial blast shuddered as they collapsed in on themselves.
"What the frak was that?" shouted Marc as he came stumbling into the room. He pulled up short as he registered the molten crater, and the pall of ash curling almost gracefully out of it. "Horus' teeth, that was the main PDF army base!" And a solid square kilometre of the city around it.
Jarms48
10-27-2013, 11:30 AM
"What the frak was that?" shouted Marc as he came stumbling into the room. He pulled up short as he registered the molten crater, and the pall of ash curling almost gracefully out of it. "Horus' teeth, that was the main PDF army base!"
"That," Remus said, dropping his hand from his hotshots undergrip and raising an index finger to the window. The situation now not requiring formalities, allowing him to part lips and voice his tongue. His tone remained level, masking the horror that began to spread across his form. "Is the power of the Imperial Navy, ship borne lance batteries. Which begs the question who's firing on us? If the interrogator was our man, err, our replicant," the trooper paused to correct himself. "That's what you're calling them right? I can recall orbital platforms ringing the planet, most civilized worlds maintain a ring of defensive platforms and defense monitors. If these are still active then why are we being bombarded?"
"Then again. We're also suppose to be eying the governor, the man has an entire planet at his very whim. It isn't beyond belief he's used his position to neutralize planetary assets for his xeno peers. Though, I was never a man to make strategic assessments, I'm just the blunt instrument." He took a step closer to the window, glancing down to look at the street lights running parallel to the surface roads.
"The real question is, how long can we sustain those shields?" His index finger rose to the dark sky. "I've been in situations like this before, albeit from the other side, from experience I can say they could remain active for a few hours to several days. Throne, they could be indefinite if the cities power infrastructure remains intact and can be reallocated to the shield systems, then they could shut off the cities secondary systems, be it mass transit, power to habitation zones, etc. etc."
He glanced over his shoulder, his hand moved to rub its opposites shoulder. The sudden force from the weapon strike had sent him reeling across the floor, he was tired, tired of getting tossed around and shot. How many times was he almost killed today alone? Of course his brief medical inspection with the buildings medicae staff hours prior had given him a clean bill of health, nothing a bit of bed rest and painkillers couldn't fix. Then the droning thought of the replicants seeing him as the more obvious threat filled him with a brief dissolution of pride. Such was hardly the time, every second was a moment closer to a sickly end. Each second aptly described as borrowed time, all dependent on how long the shields generators could hold out.
"If we're about to go, I've got a question for the blank." He turned to face her, giving a momentary shrug. "I'm curious what manufactorum stamp does your bolter carry? I've always fancied myself one of them."
He sighed, motioning his way to the door. Julianus wiped a hand across his mask, mentally trying to wipe away sweat beginning to ball on his temple. "If you need me vox, I'm going to check on the others. It's my duty, and," Julianus looked back at the team. "If we can't do anything to save our fates, I suppose we pray, perhaps the planets defense monitors will be able to neutralize the threats or maybe we'll hold out till reinforcements arrive." It was cynical but with their current situation, he could barely see a silver lining.
* * * **
Julianus jogged into the lab. The place was a mess, the force that had all but ruined the common room appeared to have not spared the lab. Instruments were strewn across the floor, wall cabinets were thrown open and their contents in pills across the rear wall. Liquid bottles burst and coated sections of the floor with chemicals Remus was unable to recognize, their powerful starch like odor was filtered by his kit.
"Miss Black, Fredriq, you alright?" He asked as he made his way over to the two agents pressed against the rear wall. Many of the rooms objects not privileged enough to be nailed down piled around them. Julianus crouched in front of them, lifting and moving some of the more larger objects out of the way. After which he offered Fredriq a hand and assisted him to a stand.
"Nothing personal ma'am, mans just a bit more fragile, that's all." He said offhand, before moving over to assist the teams verispex.
Azazeal849
10-31-2013, 10:31 AM
"That," Remus said, dropping his hand from his hotshots undergrip and raising an index finger to the window. The situation now not requiring formalities, allowing him to part lips and voice his tongue. His tone remained level, masking the horror that began to spread across his form. "Is the power of the Imperial Navy, ship borne lance batteries. Which begs the question who's firing on us? If the interrogator was our man, err, our replicant," the trooper paused to correct himself. "That's what you're calling them right?"
"It couldn't be Schafer?" Marc answered him. "He's only been gone an hour. Even if the warp hop from the inner system to the beacon at the outer jump point only took a couple of minutes he'd still have to dock with the Excubitor, turn it around..."
"I can recall orbital platforms ringing the planet, most civilized worlds maintain a ring of defensive platforms and defense monitors. If these are still active then why are we being bombarded?"
"Ya." Vincent growled in agreement. "Our frigate couldn't bulldoze through all that by itself."
"So what did that?" Marc asked, pointing to the horrific mushroom cloud still rising out of the glowing crater of districts 2 and 3. The windows were soundproofed, but it wasn't too hard to imagine the chaos of screaming and sirens ringing out in the city below. The PDF hub for the capital city had been in district 2, and that didn't seem like a coincidence. Whatever had fired down at them had been very selective in its destruction. The team could only count themselves lucky that the starport itself hadn't been the first target.
"Then again. We're also suppose to be eying the governor, the man has an entire planet at his very whim. It isn't beyond belief he's used his position to neutralize planetary assets for his xeno peers. Though, I was never a man to make strategic assessments, I'm just the blunt instrument." He took a step closer to the window, glancing down to look at the street lights running parallel to the surface roads. Every vehicle had skidded to a halt, jamming the streets.
...
Remus sighed, motioning his way to the door. Julianus wiped a hand across his mask, mentally trying to wipe away sweat beginning to ball on his temple. "If you need me vox, I'm going to check on the others. It's my duty, and," Julianus looked back at the team. "If we can't do anything to save our fates, I suppose we pray, perhaps the planets defense monitors will be able to neutralize the threats or maybe we'll hold out till reinforcements arrive." It was cynical but with their current situation, he could barely see a silver lining.
Marc, most notably, was looking at the stormtrooper as if he wanted to voice an opinion along the lines of "To frak with praying", but decided on a more diplomatic phrasing due to Sapphira's presence.
"We need an astropath." he said. "We need to warn HQ."
Vox by radio or maser would be too short ranged, and although the shielded city could still send out signals, any return vox would simply be absorbed by the one-way void shields. And maybe, if we get an answer from someone who can actually see what's going on, we might be able to stop this.
+ + + + + +
"Miss Black, Fredriq, you alright?" He asked as he made his way over to the two agents pressed against the rear wall.
"We're fine!" came Kelly's voice from behind an overturned table. "What the Horus was that?"
Many of the rooms objects not privileged enough to be nailed down piled around them. Julianus crouched in front of them, lifting and moving some of the larger objects out of the way, after which he offered Fredriq a hand and assisted him to a stand.
"Nothing personal ma'am, man's just a bit more fragile, that's all." he said offhand.
"I am not fragile!" Fredriq protested hotly as*Remus moved over to assist the team's verispex. "Now will you kindly explain what just happened? Did somebody bomb the starport? Are the others alright?"
Kelly was groping for her vox even as Remus tried to explain. "Adept? I need a line to the peacekeepers in district 3 and I need it now."
"I...I can't get through..." the starport vox supervisor stammered back to her. "Something hit the city, the voids have gone up..."
Kelly tried it herself, only to find that every single frequency on the external vox net was swamped with traffic - maydays, emergency service callsigns, and even the binary whine of tech priests as their frantic communications spilled over into the civilian frequencies in an attempt to find a clear channel. If the peacekeeper precinct in district 3 even still existed, there was no way she could make herself heard to them through all this. She swore and groped among the scattered papers on the floor for the pict capture she and Fredriq had been examining.
"Trooper." she hailed Remus, thrusting the glossy rectangle into his hands. "Where's Sapphira? I think the Replicants might have replaced governor Faroven."
+ + + + + +
"...and we're telling you to keep those witnesses quarantined!" the yellow-clad psyker Shere was snapping into the wall-mounted vox, presumably to the starport administrator, when the three came storming back into the common room.
Atrum Daemon
11-07-2013, 09:42 AM
Vizkop finally had some time to himself. Time to think. Time to fully process the day’s events without any kind of interruption. Tensions had been running too high for him to want to be around the rest of the team for too long. If they needed him, they knew where to find them. And he knew exactly where to find each of them if he needed to. His thoughts turned inward. Turned to how he would like to be handling the situation he was currently in. It was in these moments that he fondly thought of his time working with his old team. With Juggernaught and the rest of the strike team. He missed the efficiency with which that well-oiled machine had worked.
The cutter moved up parallel with the back of the land crawler, the access ramp opening to expose the specialized cargo to the target. The hatch on the crawler flew apart in a fiery blast and six heavily armed and armored warriors made the jump from the cutter to the crawler. The first one through grabbed one of the disoriented soldiers and threw him to the floor; a blow to the throat crushing his windpipe and most of the bones in his neck.
Other defenders got the same treatment as the strike team swarmed through the command deck. The team’s leader moved with almost casual grace while his men cleaned house. The newest addition to the team trailed close by the leader, taking in the brutal and efficient slaughter. “Think you are ready for this, Viz?” Juggernaught asked, looking down at the warrior.
“I might not be as big and armored up like you guys, but I can do this.”
“Good. Then help Blaster with the controls.”
Vizkop was brought out of his memory by a beeping light on his desk. It was connected to one of his data feeds. He opened the feed and looked through the information. Then he looked through it again. Then a third time. His expression growing tenser with each cycle through.
“Composure is everything,” she said, checking the data feed on her wrist. “You need to hold yourself together at all times. One slip and it’s game over.”
Vizkop paced back and forth in front of his desk. What needs to be done? Clean slate? No, not that. Not enough information to support that one of the team did it. Killing them would be an easy enough task though. Everyone being pretty isolated as they are already makes for easy prey. I’ve gotten the drop on more perceptive fighters and psykers are simple to dazzle. I would be able to rule out the Astarte because of his late arrival. It is an option…remove these potentially threatening variables and meet back with the Interrogator to work out the next move. Probably kill him too, though. But I need to focus. Conjecture can wait for another series of moments.
Systems like that have limited access. Would have noticed an attempted break in. If not me, someone else. But the satellites are not autonomous. Direction is needed for operation. I need to know where those exact points of operation exist within the city.
Vizkop swung into his chair, linking into the data network. Traffic was heavy, just as expected. No one knew what was going on and everyone was panicking. He needed to get beyond the communication layers and hit deeper. It was like swimming through mud to get to water. But, Vizkop broke through the heavy communication traffic into the network proper.
Need to locate my probes. Plenty of time to seed in. I can use them as waypoints to find my way. Security not a problem thanks to the authority passcodes. Reveal to me what I need to know. Whom do we need to destroy? There are limited options, but I need definite answers.
He needed to rule out all false options. The focus needed to be tightened. The lens had to be made more clear. Possible culprits needed to be slimmed down to one. Two at the very most. He knew he needed to act fast. Events were beginning to spiral faster and faster toward the center. And their side needed the advantage with the center could no longer hold.
He shoved himself away from the network port and over to his vox link, keying in on the team’s private channel. “The lance satellites that just hit the city are primarily controlled by the orbitals. Those went dead just before the bombardment hit. Other than that, there are only a few locations in the city that could otherwise access the satellites. The primary locations being the PDF main base and the governor’s palace. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have a handle on our next move.”
Jarms48
11-13-2013, 11:25 AM
"I am not fragile!" Fredriq protested hotly as Remus moved over to assist the team's verispex. "Now will you kindly explain what just happened? Did somebody bomb the starport? Are the others alright?"
"Well in comparison to Miss. Black, as was my intent, you are, and mind you I said more fragile. The descriptor alters the meaning, after all, or that is my understanding of the topic. Though another man might very well point out you're about twice my age and lacking certain physical conditioning." He answered conversationally, before getting to more pressing issues.
"We're currently in the process of being fragged by orbiting lance batteries. So bombing would be the shy why to put it, I suppose. Void shields are holding, but with their activation the city has plunged into an unnatural darkness, thankfully the street lights are still functioning."
"Trooper." she hailed Remus, thrusting the glossy rectangle into his hands. "Where's Sapphira? I think the Replicants might have replaced governor Faroven."
"In the common room with the others." He straightened the item in his hands, glancing at it. "What do you want me to do with this?"
Azazeal849
11-15-2013, 03:41 PM
"We're currently in the process of being fragged by orbiting lance batteries. So bombing would be the shy why to put it, I suppose.
"Orbital..." Fred repeated, and blanched.
Void shields are holding, but with their activation the city has plunged into an unnatural darkness, thankfully the street lights are still functioning."
"Er..." said Fred, and began furiously polishing his spectacles as he grappled with the revelation. "Well, yes, void shields absorb all energy from the outside whether it's laser, projectile, vox or sunlight, so..."
"Trooper." Kelly interjected, thrusting a glossy rectangle into his hands. "Where's Sapphira? I think the Replicants might have replaced governor Faroven."
"In the common room with the others." Remus straightened the item in his hands, glancing at it. "What do you want me to do with this?"
"Show it to Marc and the others." Kelly said as she strode towards the door and motioned for the two men to follow her. "I think it proves my idea."
+ + + + + +
"...and we're telling you to keep those witnesses quarantined!" the yellow-clad psyker Shere was snapping into the wall-mounted vox, presumably to the starport administrator, when the three came storming back into the common room.
“The lance satellites that just hit the city are primarily controlled by the orbitals. Vizkop's voice suddenly cut across the team's vox beads. "Those went dead just before the bombardment hit. Other than that, there are only a few locations in the city that could otherwise access the satellites. The primary locations being the PDF main base and the governor’s palace. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have a handle on our next move.”
"One of the PDF officers might have been replicated." Marc offered. He had already checked his laspistol and was shrugging on his coat. "They don't seem to care about killing themselves to get the job done."
"Governor Faroven had primary contact with one of the xenos, like the Sister said." Shere countered.
"There was only one body in the Aquila though. If Clement killed and replaced the governor, how did he get rid of it?"
"He threw it out the back before the crash." Kelly said, after tearing her eyes away from the ghastly mushroom cloud. "Him or the second Replicant, anyway." She showed her brother the pict that Remus was holding. "See, the rear hatch was open before the crash. And there was that body on the roof. If we can identify that body as Faroven's..."
"That body was in the district 3 peacekeeper precinct, which is now glass." Vincent grunted, pointing with his bionic hand at the red-lit mushroom cloud slowly dispersing near the edge of the city. "There goes your proof, sweetheart. And I don't think our investigation warrant extends to arresting planetary governors."
Marc laced his fingers behind his head, agitated at the current inaction but not knowing how to proceed. "We'd have real trouble trying to get into the palace without clearance, and we don't even know the layout. That place is practically impregnable."
"Eugene with a demo charge could impregnate the bitch." Vincent chuckled, "But since the skiving fokker isn't here..."
"You do have one thing wrong." Fred ventured, putting his glasses back on and pushing them up his nose. "We do know the layout of the palace. One of the books I was killing time with in the library was a study of its architecture."
The others turned and looked at him.
"Well I am on this team for a reason!" the ageing xenologist said hotly. "I'm not completely superfluous to requirement!"
Kelly looked from Fred to her brother, then to Vincent and Kally, and finally at Sapphira. "What's the call, Sister?"
dakkagor
11-17-2013, 06:16 PM
The light poured down from the sky. She had never seen the sky before now. The light had torn the roof of her home and left the towers burning and collapsing, melting like wax. The smell was atrocious, burning hive structure materials mixing with cloying organic ash and ozone. Bars of blazing neon connected the sky to the ground, and where they touched the ground the ground burned with white fire. . .
“The lance satellites that just hit the city are primarily controlled by the orbitals. Vizkop's voice suddenly cut across the team's vox beads. "Those went dead just before the bombardment hit. Other than that, there are only a few locations in the city that could otherwise access the satellites. The primary locations being the PDF main base and the governor’s palace. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have a handle on our next move.”
Kally blinked, catching her breath. She still had the bottle in her hand, and she had been leaning on the back of one of the overstuffed leather chairs. She willed her hand to loosen its death grip on the chairs high back, and on the second attempt her fingers relaxed. She put the bottle down on the table nearby and sat down.
I thought I'd never have to see that again. Stupid stupid stupid. . .
She shuddered and picked up the bottle again, draining it in one bitter swallow. The rest of the background shouting became white noise as she waited for the pulse of white light that would finish them all off.
She met Kelly's gaze, and realized that the younger Black wasn't panicking. Kally smiled wanly and shrugged her shoulders.
"Whatever we are going to do, can we do it soon?"
PaintSerf
11-25-2013, 07:23 AM
Kelly looked from Fred to her brother, then to Vincent and Kally, and finally at Sapphira. "What's the call, Sister?"
“Frak take the warrant, we’re going to do the God Emperor’s work.” Sapphira stated, with a decisively lethal expression, as she looked up from the pict to the other agents. The Sister made eye contact with each of them as she calmly spoke, “We’re going to the palace, to purge the xenos masquerading as Governor Faroven, and we’re going to stop this apocalypse.”
“I want everyone fully geared up and ready for combat, quickly as you can, with no exceptions this time. If anyone needs anything, commandeer from the security armory as necessary.” Sapphira brushed a lock of hair behind her ear as she walked forward and critically regarded the devastation. “We’ll also need to requisition aerial transport and make it somewhere with an astropath. I don’t intend for us to fail, but in case we do, the Inquisition needs to be aware of what happened here. While in transit we’re going to figure out an assault plan, and I’d really like to know if there are allies out there who could be of assistance.”
Sapphira folded her arms and turned back towards the others, back lit by the red glow of ruination beneath their feet. She gestured open handedly towards them and said, “Please, feel free to speak up. I’m open to suggestions, concerns, and alternatives.”
Azazeal849
11-25-2013, 03:01 PM
“Frak take the warrant, we’re going to do the God Emperor’s work.” Sapphira stated, with a decisively lethal expression, as she looked up from the pict to the other agents. The Sister made eye contact with each of them as she calmly spoke, “We’re going to the palace, to purge the xenos masquerading as Governor Faroven, and we’re going to stop this apocalypse. I want everyone fully geared up and ready for combat, quickly as you can, with no exceptions this time. If anyone needs anything, commandeer from the security armory as necessary.”
"Aye, Sister." Marc nodded, seeming to be in full, unhesitating agreement with Sapphira for the first time. "Come on Kel, we'll find you a flak vest."
Sapphira brushed a lock of hair behind her ear as she walked forward and critically regarded the devastation. “We’ll also need to requisition aerial transport and make it somewhere with an astropath. I don’t intend for us to fail, but in case we do, the Inquisition needs to be aware of what happened here.
"I'll get the administrator to cough up another Arvus." Shere nodded as he picked up the internal vox caster again. "I'm sure he's busy grounding everything as we speak, so there should be enough going spare."
"I...ah, I think we can kill two birds with one stone here." said Fredriq, fishing his dataslate out of his pocket and laying it down on the table. A few taps of the control runes brought up picts of some book pages the xenologist had found of interest, including one that detailed the construction and history of the governor's palace. "As you may remember from the last time we flew past, the governor's palace has its own astropathic choir stationed within the walls. I thought it was interesting because it's unusual for high-profile Imperials to associate so openly with the psykers that the common citizenry tend to distrust.
"No offence taken." Shere put in, dryly.
Fredriq adjusted his glasses. "Anyway, there is a connecting tunnel running between the choir and the command bunker beneath the palace, presumably for emergencies just like this one."
"So is that our way in to go ice the governor?" Vincent asked bluntly.
"The books don't give security details." Fredriq answered him stiffly. "But I would assume that there would be at least some blast doors protecting such a publicly-known way in."
"I'm sure Lia and I can get you through a few blast doors." Shere grinned.
"We'll figure out an assault plan while in transit." Sapphira said. "And I’d really like to know if there are allies out there who could be of assistance.”
Sapphira folded her arms and turned back towards the others, back lit by the red glow of ruination beneath their feet. She gestured open handedly towards them and said, “Please, feel free to speak up. I’m open to suggestions, concerns, and alternatives.”
+ + + + + +
"How d'you think they'll react to us showing up with a detector?" Kelly asked, as Marc tightened the straps of the flak vest over the top of her blouse. Marc was wearing his own flak underneath his dress shirt - the additional bulk would be effectively invisible underneath his heavy winter coat. Either old habits about a low-key approach died hard, Kelly thought, or he was hoping that a less-threatening appearance might delay the inevitable confrontation with the AAT and the palace staff.
"It didnae convince Lia, and she's on our team." Marc replied levelly.
"You okay?" Kelly asked, recognising the clench-jawed look on her brother's face.
Marc nodded. "The xenos just nuked the PDF, the peacekeepers, and anything up to several thousand civilians. They bastards are going down." He chewed the inside of his cheek as he slapped Kelly's shoulder with the heel of his hand, testing the flak vest's fit. Then he added, "But there's got to be a way to do it without going through Craddock and the rest ae Faroven's guards. They cannae all be Replicants. And what does that make us? Cop-killers like they cultists we fought back in Makita?"
Kelly bit her lip. "Sapphira managed to convince the Ad Mech and the PDF about Noyer." She managed a slight smile. "If she can get them telt, maybe she can convince Craddock too."
"Aye - maybe. If we had Schafer and a hundred marines from the Excubitor they might be more likely to stand down, rather than just a few low-rank agents." Marc exhaled through his nose. "We'll have to see how it plays out. You set?"
Kelly pursed her lips. "Well, I did all the standard MHE training you did, but Verispex dinnae see much front line action."
"Just stick close to Kally." Marc advised her. "You can count on her to watch your back."
There was something in the way he said it which caused his sister to pause and rub the bridge of her nose.
"Are you two okay?"
Marc twisted his mouth, focusing on the weapons rack behind them as he thought. "You ken what, I used to think about asking her about it. About back on Solomon, at Hollands. Why did she try and negotiate with Al-Omar instead of getting out ae there?"
Kelly exhaled sharply. "You're useless Marc. She might be a blank, but she's a lot more compassionate than anyone in her position has a right to be. And anyway, you repaid her for it."
"I got her locked up on the Sons' strike cruiser. Some repayment."
"You also got her out ae there."
Marc chewed the inside of his cheek, conceding the point. "Only with help."
"Aye, Sapphira's help. Which by the way should tell you something about her. She might be keeping an eye on us, but you can trust her to be fair. Even if, like you said, she doesnae frak about"
"Hmm." Marc grunted in agreement, and checked the power cell on his laspistol before thrusting it back into its shoulder holster. Before the shit hits the fan, I suppose I owe the girls an apology.
+ + + + + +
"Where to?" the Arvus pilot called back through the cabin. It was the same woman who had flown with Fredriq and the others to the first crash site, and she seemed both excited and nervous. "There's a lot of debris in the air from that lance strike, so I'm not sure how far I can take you."
"The governor's palace." Marc told her.
"And don't worry," Fred added. "I promise I'm not going to throw up out the side hatch this time."
The pilot almost smiled. "Do...do you know what's going on? My whole family's over in Sinuessa. It's only a minor city and it doesn't have a void shield."
"We don't..." Fred began uncomfortably.
"We need to get going." Vincent corrected him. The pilot took one look at the ex-Guardsman's mismatched eyes, bit her lip and began powering up the Arvus thrusters. They lurched skyward with a press of G-force and banked round towards the governor's palace. Vincent made a point of slamming the cockpit hatch. Shere cleared his throat.
"I'm sure the AAT will let us in to send an inquisition-priority message." the psyker said. "Governor's palaces and astropath spires are designed to keep people out, so if we're already inside we'll have less of a problem."
"Unless the AAT guards disagree." Vincent grunted. "They don't work for the governor, but they might get agitated if someone turns up to arrest him, even if it's inquisition."
"I'm not up for a shootout with the AAT or Faroven's guards." Marc said, his jaw clenched.
"Because we're outnumbered?" Shere said with a faint smile.
"No, because they're Imperial citizens." Marc said, repeating the worries he had earlier confided in Kelly. "If they won't let us through after we send the message, I say wait for Schafer's order. He's already on his way back."
"The Excubitor might not even be able to get close with the lance satellites compromised." Shere said carefully, looking at Vizkop for confirmation. "And we don't know exactly how long before said satellites overwhelm the voids and level the city."
Jarms48
11-29-2013, 03:44 PM
“Frak take the warrant, we’re going to do the God Emperor’s work.” Sapphira stated, with a decisively lethal expression, as she looked up from the pict to the other agents. The Sister made eye contact with each of them as she calmly spoke, “We’re going to the palace, to purge the xenos masquerading as Governor Faroven, and we’re going to stop this apocalypse. I want everyone fully geared up and ready for combat, quickly as you can, with no exceptions this time. If anyone needs anything, commandeer from the security armory as necessary.”
"Aye, Sister." Marc nodded, seeming to be in full, unhesitating agreement with Sapphira for the first time. "Come on Kel, we'll find you a flak vest."
"Let me get this straight." Remus interjected. Pulling out and planting himself upon a nearby dinning chair, he kicked up his boots, letting them rest upon the tabletop. "We're going to assault one of the most heavily fortified positions on the planet, whilst said planet is being frakked by those lance batteries."
"We know nothing of the size of the governors security forces there, we don't know how many or even if PDF troopers mobilised to defend it after the initial strikes. It's a no doubt locked down, surrounded by semi-automated defenses, I could hazard a guess of a hundred-plus foot mobiles. Who's to say how they'd even react when we show up, they might submit to Inquisitorial authority when we start waving the rosettes. Or they could be loyal to the governor, or worse, more of those bloody replicants."
"But then again." He mused. "We have little choice don't we, it's either this, or we see how long the voids hold out for. I for one don't want to die sitting down, and if we just happen to save a world. Kudos to us then."
* * * * *
Securing armaments, that was Julianus' only priority. Taking whatever he could liberate from the spaceports armoury, grenades, additional sidearms, a bolter; an uncommon sight to behold in local stores. It was lighter than he had expected, then again this one was designed for a mortal man and not the superhuman monstrosities. Different propellents, lighter rounds, lightweight stocks, this was loving crafted, designed for specific purpose. He stood for a moment wondering what exactly that purpose was, a magnificent weapon, he could pocket it, a future heirloom for the family Remus. He shook his head, a special weapon.
It was obvious, similar to Imperial Guard issue grenade launchers, designed to take down armoured targets. He doubted the Venatora spaceport would see anything heavier than flak armour, most criminals couldn't even get that. Civilian alternatives, flak and high density material infusions, good for stopping small calibre rounds but nothing else. He grabbed it from its holding, taking the sling and tossing it over his shoulder, he had a feeling it would come in handy if his hotshots battery fell drained at the most inconvenient of times.
He made final checks across his webbing, frag, flash and smoke grenades running diagonally across the front of his carapace. Bolter and hotshot magazines clamped upon his waist. His hotshot laspistol holstered off his right leg, and a liberated autopistol holstered on the left; their clips tucked neatly into shoulder pockets. If this was to be the end, he was going in prepared.
* * * * *
"Unless the AAT guards disagree." Vincent grunted. "They don't work for the governor, but they might get agitated if someone turns up to arrest him, even if it's inquisition."
"Perhaps, but there's power in those rosettes. If they aren't allied with the governor we could have a potential ally, I'd prefer good men die against evil, not miscommunication."
kardar233
12-01-2013, 09:24 AM
There had been a bright flash, and many more, and Lia had instinctively thrown her arm across her eyes before thought reasserted itself and she looked out at the columns of light as they struck at the city. She didn't know what had happened, but the glass craters couldn't be mistaken.
Marc's exclamation was enlightening, but Lia was still lost. She stayed at the edge of the conversation, trying to gather enough data to figure out what was going on.
Lia remained lost until Sapphira explained what was going on. A thrill of excitement shot through her. You get to take down a corrupted planetary governor on your first mission! And with a hint of sadness, another thought occurred. Mum would be proud.
She didn't speak until Sapphira started planning. "I don't know if a front attack is the right thing to do; most of you are kind of squishy. I could sneak into the palace; I can climb and hide and I've never seen a security system but I know what to do with one. You would have to send someone with me because I'm the person most likely to be able to fool your replicanty-person-finder and so if anyone is one of those in disguise it's probably me. "
dakkagor
12-03-2013, 04:47 PM
“Frak take the warrant, we’re going to do the God Emperor’s work.” Sapphira stated, with a decisively lethal expression, as she looked up from the pict to the other agents. The Sister made eye contact with each of them as she calmly spoke, “We’re going to the palace, to purge the xenos masquerading as Governor Faroven, and we’re going to stop this apocalypse. I want everyone fully geared up and ready for combat, quickly as you can, with no exceptions this time. If anyone needs anything, commandeer from the security armory as necessary.”
“Now this I can get behind” Kally smiled, dropping her bottle on the table and striding to her room. “I'd rather we do something than sit here and wait for the hammer to drop.” She closed the door behind her and leaned against it for a moment, thinking. For a second her fear threatened to overwhelm her, the memories of the death of Makita Hive. Then she beat it down and got started.
She stripped out of her civilian clothes and clambered into her bodyglove, checking the damaged armour plates had all been stripped out and replaced. Its basic environmental systems where powered by a small battery, and its readout showed an acceptable charge.
“I should look into some heavier armour.” she muttered to herself as she zipped up the suit up, stretching to get it to settle and fit. Heavy combat boots and trench coat followed. She tested her injured ankle and decided to pull of the boot again, bracing the injury with bandage tape and then pulling the boot back on. She reloaded both her Steel Burners from the chargers plugged into her rooms wall. Her chainblade, so far unused, was strapped into the small of her back.
Finally came the Boltgun. She had partially disassembled it earlier, and now she careful slotted its cleaned components back together, reciting the litany of armaments she had learnt from the Tech Priests aboard the True Bane. Once it was fully reassembled she checked the function on its slide and magazine port, experimentally working the trigger. Satisfied she had reassembled the powerful weapon correctly, she turned to its ammo. She had two magazines of standard ammunition remaining, and most of a magazine of Hellfire. Her Psybolt ammunition remained untouched, but her kraken rounds had been expended in the bringing down of the rogue Aquila and then the Replicant that had replaced poor, dead Clement. She clipped the complicated omni-sight to the equipment rail on top of the guns housing, then she checked the action of the concealed bayonet. Two boot knives quickly followed, the paired set Kahdar had given her. Finally she dragged a brush through her hair and tied it back in short ponytail. She resolved that after this a chemical bath would be in order to get rid of those damned lice. She hated the idea of something crawling on her skin, through her hair. . She shrugged of the feeling. She had other things to worry about.
She took a moment to look in the mirror, only a moment. She stared hard into her eyes, making sure she looked more ready than she felt. It was good to be doing something, but she knew this could turn nasty quickly depending on how much of the staff had been compromised already, on how the 'Governor' reacted. The idea that Kelly was wrong didn't enter her mind. She trusted the younger Black to do her job. She absent-mindedly ran a finger round the ornate choker that was her limiter collar, then she decided to do something she hadn't done in a while.
She pulled out one of her travelling bags, scrambling around in the toiletries for something she had 'borrowed' from an Interrogator who specialised in costume and infiltration. She smiled as she found it: a can of quick application hair dye, vivid red. She kept smiling as she fondly remembered getting dressed up for a fight, facing of against a rival gang with both sides in their best gaudy gang colours. It had always seemed so serious at the time but now, looking back, she saw it for what it was, kids posing and making noise.
Hell, one more time for old times sakes.
She undid her hair and sprayed the acrid smelling mousse into her scalp, emptying the can, then massaging it into her sandy blonde hair. She hoped whatever chemicals where in the can would kill some of those damned Keratin lice, at the very least. She let it set for 30 seconds, wrinkling her nose at the smell as she speed read the cans instructions. Apparently Sidonis staff used this stuff for quick changes in infiltration missions, when they needed an extreme image change quickly. She washed the gunk of in the sink and admired her handiwork, a shock of vivid red hair with only slight blonde roots and tips. She returned to the bag and grabbed out black lipstick and eye shadow, quickly completing the look. She couldn't help but grin at her old self in the mirror, grinning back at her.
She stepped back out into the common room, locked and ready to go. She looked round at the agents she'd be fighting alongside, and knew they would be ready too.
She sat out of the conversation, waiting until they where in the Arvus flying to the palace.
"No, because they're Imperial citizens." Marc said, repeating the worries he had earlier confided in Kelly. "If they won't let us through after we send the message, I say wait for Schafer's order. He's already on his way back."
"The*Excubitor*might not even be able to get close with the lance satellites compromised." Shere said carefully, looking at Vizkop for confirmation. "And we don't know exactly how long before said satellites overwhelm the voids and level the city."
“I don't think we have that luxury Marc.” She responded. “I think we need to trust that we have enough authority to do this ourselves, or it won't get done at all.”
Azazeal849
12-06-2013, 03:58 PM
Kally stepped back into the common room, locked and ready to go. She looked round at the agents she'd be fighting alongside, and knew they would be ready too.
Her transformed appearance drew surprised looks from some of the team, but Marc and Vincent actually smiled. This was the Kally Sonder they had known back on Solomon, and who they hadn't seen for nearly six months.
* * * * * *
"Unless the AAT guards disagree." Vincent grunted. "They don't work for the governor, but they might get agitated if someone turns up to arrest him, even if it's inquisition."
"Perhaps." Remus admitted. "But there's power in those rosettes."
Vincent chuckled. "Ask Marc about inquisitor Massani some time, and how far a rosette goes to save you when someone's waving a Tallarn auto in your face."
Marc chewed the inside of his cheek, but didn't say anything. Massani of course had gone rogue, and had no longer been fit to bear her rank. But it occured to him that from a skewed point of view, even a loyal agent's actions might be viewed the same way. No-one was above suspicion, even in the inquisition.
"If they aren't allied with the governor," Remus persisted, "We could have a potential ally. I'd prefer good men die against evil, not from miscommunication."
"If they try and shoot me, I'm counting the fokkers as evil." Vincent growled. Imperial law actually backed him up in this regard - obstructing the inquisition was grounds for immediate accusations of heresy, and the Imperium went to great pains to make sure everyone knew it. Exactly how enforceable that decree was, however, depended greatly on who one was talking to, and how much official, visible power was backing one up.
"I'm with Remus." Marc said, his jaw clenched. "I'm not up for a shootout with the AAT or Faroven's guards."
"Because we're outnumbered?" Shere said with a faint smile.
"No because they're Imperial citizens." Marc said, repeating the worries he had earlier confided in Kelly. "If they won't let us through after we send the message, I say wait for Schafer's order. He's already on his way back."
"The Excubitor might not be able to get close with the lance satellites compromised." Shere said carefully, looking at Vizkop for confirmation. "And we don't know exactly how long before said satellites overwhelm the voids and level the city."
"I don't think we have that luxury Marc." Kally agreed. "I think we need to trust that we have enough authority to do this ourselves, or it won't get done at all."
There were a few moments of silence, during which Marc bit the inside of his bruised cheek a second time. Kally had the right of it, as she often did.
"I don't know if a front attack is the right thing to do." Lia piped up. "Most of you are kind of squishy. I could sneak into the palace; I can climb and hide and I've never seen a security system but I know what to do with one."
"That sounds pretty crazy..." Shere ventured.
"Crazy?" Vincent snorted, remembering what Marc had told him about Lia jumping out of an Arvus to try and stop a crashing shuttle. "Have you met Lia?"
"No, no, she's quite right." Fred interjected. "A frontal attack would definitely not be a good idea."
"Who said anything about a frontal attack?" said Kelly. She looked somehow small sitting next to the heavily armed Kally, even though they were of a height, and she was wrapped up in a thick winter overcoat. "Aye, they'll probably try and stop us if we march up and call the governor a heretic, but we also need to astro Schafer, right? They'll surely let us in for that, and we can work from there."
"And if they don't?" Vincent grunted, patting his Accatran lasgun before jerking his thumb towards the even more heavily-armed Kally and Remus. "We're carrying a fairly eyebrow-raising amount of hardware here."
"Send us in first, Sister." Marc said, looking up and addressing Sapphira. "Fred, Kelly, and me are the least obviously armed...you and maybe Shere with his staff are the most visible signs of Imperial authority. We can talk them into opening the doors and then the rest can come through without panicking anyone."
The team had about a minute to discuss the idea and Lia's offer of sneaking in, before their pilot broke in over the Arvus cabin speakers.
"Uh...guys? We're approaching the palace and I'm getting multiple auger locks. They want to know why we're here unannounced."
"Give them Imperial clearance aquila three three mars terra seven." Marc replied through the vox caster sitting in a socket by his headrest, giving her a blue level code and hoping that it would be as good as something higher. "That should tell them that we're inquisition. And tell them we need to send a priority astropathic message."
There was a pause, followed by a very audible sigh of relief over the internal vox. "They're letting us land. The target locks seem to be dropping off."
Brief bursts from vector thrusters made the agents' stomachs lurch, and then they thumped down relatively gently. As the whine of the engines died away the rear hatch pistoned downwards, clanging against the snow-cleared landing pad and letting in the glow of the guide lights that studded its edges. In the distance sirens wailed and people screamed, but it was all hidden behind the palace's defensive curtain wall. Even the debris cloud of the lance strike was blocked out. The wall was just as imposing from inside as out; a buttressed ring of frowning ferrocrete with blocky casemates showing where defensive lascannons stood ready to unfurl and fire on any external threat. Missile turrets and point defence guns identical to the ones the team had seen at the airbase revolved slowly, returning to pre-programmed sweeps now that they had confirmed that the landing Arvus was no threat. There didn't seem to be anyone outside, making the plaza inside the wall seem surreally calm compared to the distant panic of the outer city.
Marc and Kelly, who were nearest the ramp, clicked themselves out of their seat restraints*and jumped down, taking stock of their surroundings. Behind them stood the governor's palace in all its gothic, snow-blanketed glory. It too carried defensive turrets, concealed from casual glances among flying buttresses, gargoyles, and winged statues of weathered marble. To one side was the AAT complex, little more than a squat octagon in contrast, but kept free of snow by its shimmering psy-field and topped with an amplifier spire that clawed up higher than the tallest tower of the palace next to it. With the void shields blocking out the sun, the only light came from the landing pad and the orange pools cast by the lamp posts that ringed the plaza. The orange, phosphor glow drained everything else of colour, rendering the splendidly decorated walls of the palace into shades of dull grey.
"No window lights." Kelly murmured, looking up at the palace.
Marc nodded, and pointed at the adamantium shutters that had been drawn down over the palace's rows of arched windows. "Faroven's already locked the place down."
As Sapphira, Vizkop and Fred joined them, they strode through the snow towards the Telepathica complex. The stuttering hum of the void shield above them was omnipresent, punctuated by shuddering booms as orbital lance fire hammered down on the protective dome.
The arched double door of the complex was emblazoned with the Imperial I and the wireframe eye of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. Flanking it were two stone angels with swords held above their heads, their eyes the shining black lenses of pict-stealers. In front of the door itself were two guards in full suits of black carapace armour, further protected from the elements by thick black cloaks. Their black-visored helmets were marked with the same AAT symbol, and each one carried a snub-nosed boltgun. Even though they couldn't see their faces, all four agents felt a lurch as they approached - the same creeping, skin-crawling sensation they sometimes felt around Kally. The two guards were Pariahs, and unlike Kally they hadn't bothered to turn their limiters up to maximum. They regarded the team, their heads turning from the agents in their long winter coats, to Vizkop in his red robes and T-visored helmet, to Sapphira in her fleur-de-lys stamped carapace armour.
"Command said you were inquisition, not ecclesiarchy." a female voice said from behind the helmet of the left-side guard.
"We are." said Marc. "We need to send a warning to our superiors about what's happened here, priority highest."
The guard cocked her head slightly. "Can I see your authentication?"
Marc stripped the coil-heated glove off his right hand and showed her the signet ring on his index finger. The guard nodded, tapped the back of her glove and held it up to her visor.
"ID confirmed. Open the gates."
There was a hiss of hydraulics that rose to a juddering grind as the thick doors split down the middle of the AAT emblem and folded back into the walls either side.
"Go ahead, sirs." the guard said, standing aside, and nodding again to Sapphira. "Sister."
Marc suppressed a sigh of relief and instead nodded his thanks to the guards as he pushed past them. Kelly followed, pressing a finger to the vox bead in her ear.
"We're clear." she voxed back to the others. "Come on in."
If the Telepathica guards were alarmed by the heavily armed group that disembarked from the shuttle after them, including two psykers, it was hidden behind their visors. The doors stayed open.
* * * * * *
The atmosphere inside the complex was gloomy, oppressive. There were more stone angels lining the circular corridor that made up the ground floor, although these were unarmed and had been carved with strips of cloth covering their eyes. The walls, ceiling and floor were all of the same dull grey metal. The lights, set in pairs along the ceiling, were muted, and even the air tasted stale. Along the length of the corridor were several guarded checkpoints, and as they passed under each arch Sapphira and the others felt the teeth-grating static of a null field wash over them. At Fred's direction they made their way down in an elevator that was the same featureless, dimly lit grey as the corridors. It too was null shielded, so that the agents were nearly suffocated by the time it opened up into the underground complex where the astropaths and their handlers presumably worked, ate and slept, the elevator their only access to the outside world.
And of course the tunnel to the palace...wherever that was.
Sapphira's servo skull bobbing ahead of them, they stepped out into a domed room dominated by a leviathan piece of machinery that coiled up into the ceiling, and presumably up through the spire that topped the complex. Servo skulls hovered around it with diagnostic augers clicking, and spindly-legged drones skittered up and down the spire under the direction of an enginseer who stood near the door with eyes closed and arms spread. Spaced around the base of the machine were baroque thrones covered in wires and mind-link cables, and in each throne sat an astropath.
Some of the green-robed men and women had glazed eyes rolled back in their heads, some had covered their eyes with strips of rune-embroidered silk, and some had removed their eyes entirely to leave empty black sockets, but all of them were blind. Their hair was cut short to accomodate the umbilical needles that were socketed in the backs of their necks, joining them to the complex MIU machinery of the thrones. More cables linked to sockets in their forearms, monitoring nerve impulses and ready to dispense medical drugs - or, if necessary, lethal poisons. The astropaths' lips moved in rapid whispers, seemingly babbling to themselves as the visions they received were reeled out from the thrones' printer spools in columns of numbers and symbols. The astropaths didn't need to understand a message to transmit or receive it, and as soon as each spool of parchment appeared it was torn away by a black-robed adept to be decrypted by one of the men who sat with cogitators and vox sets near the back of the room. The AAT adepts were almost shouting to make themselves heard over their fellow workers.
"Mayday to sector HQ is away!"
"Thoris reports void shields overheating, all contact lost with Mercano!"
"PDF still requesting orders!"
The AAT adepts were sweating - panicked, overworked - and the astropaths looked worse. Perhaps it was the strain of handling all the emergency traffic, especially with box to the rest of the planet nullified by the void shields, or perhaps they sensed some of the panic and death occuring in the city around them. As the agents watched, one of the astropaths coughed and slumped forward in his seat, blood running from his nose and tear ducts. A robed tech-adept immediately ran forward, tracing a hasty cog sign over the throne's control panel before slamming a rune with his palm. The umbilicals snapped back from the astropath's spine and wrists and the tech adept pulled one of the man's arms around his shoulders to help him away, covered all the way by an armed AAT stormtrooper.
"We need another one!" one of the adepts shouted, and a door to Sapphira's left opened to admit two more armed guards, ushering a frail-looking woman with wispy blonde hair and a pointed, age-lined face.
"Inquisition!" Marc interjected, flashing his signet ring at the three and at the adept who ran forward to intercept them. "We need a priority transmission!"
Thankfully someone must have told the adept about the team's arrival, because after looking from Marc to Sapphira he seemed to grasp the situation.
"What do you need sent?" he asked, fishing a dataslate from the pocket of his tunic and looking at Sapphira. "I'll feed it into the cogitator for you."
* * * * * *
The uniformed AAT adept and his Pariah guards had simply waved Sapphira's group through the checkpoints in the entry corridor, but he baulked when he saw the heavily armed men and women that formed the second group.
"Now wait just a minute!" he said as his eyes jumped from Kally to Remus. "What the Horus do you need all that for? We can't allow heavy weaponry around the psykers!"
dakkagor
12-08-2013, 08:38 PM
The uniformed AAT adept and his Pariah guards had simply waved Sapphira's group through the checkpoints in the entry corridor, but he baulked when he saw the heavily armed men and women that formed the second group.
"Now wait just a minute!" he said as his eyes jumped from Kally to Remus. "What the Horus do you need all that for? We can't allow heavy weaponry around the psykers!"
Kally didn't break stride, marching after Marc and the first team. She got up to the AAT adept and pushed him aside, only to find the two guards had stepped in front of the door.
"Out of my way." she snarled, turning to the adept and grabbing his collar before he could back up, yanking him off his feet and dragging him face to face with her. "We go where they go. And trust me, the shit we are facing, we need some big gakking guns."
She heard the two guards snap the safeties of their rifles off. For a second she debated actually just starting a fire fight then and there, but decided against it. She released the adept and stepped back from him, breathing out to calm down.
She shrugged her shoulders and walked back to the group, activating her comm bead.
"Kally to Team one. Door guards are giving us shit."
PaintSerf
12-10-2013, 07:56 AM
"But then again." Remus mused as Sapphira patiently waited for him to finish. If talking himself through their situation helped Julianus come to terms with it, then she wasn’t about to interrupt him. "We have little choice don't we, it's either this, or we see how long the voids hold out for. I for one don't want to die sitting down, and if we just happen to save a world. Kudos to us then."
“On your feet, Julianus. We won’t save Venatora by sitting down either.” Sapphira replied as she walked past Remus and gently clapped his booted ankle twice in an effort to goad him up. Almost everyone had dispersed to prepare themselves, so she offered him an encouraging nod and exited the common room. Slowly walking ahead of her down the corridor was Fredriq. While she would always be suspicious of his research, service to the God Emperor took many forms, and there was no denying that he had just given them a chance to save Venatora.
“Doctor L’Hoace,” Sapphira called out to get his attention. Fredriq barely had a chance to turn around, and look at her in annoyed surprise, before she leaned down to place a kiss on the diminutive scholar’s forehead. After a moment the Sister stepped back, and said with complete sincerity, “Thank you.”
---
"Perhaps, but there's power in those rosettes.”
"Ask Marc about inquisitor Massani some time, and how far a rosette goes to save you when someone's waving a Tallarn auto in your face."
While Vincent might’ve chuckled, Sapphira’s already grim expression darkened further when he referenced the heretical, and now deceased, former Inquisitor Nasreen Massani. It was bad enough that an alumnus of Lord Sidonis’ organization had been so thoroughly tainted, and so soon after severing ties. Now there was active xenos corruption within the ranks, and the only means of identifying them was speculative at best.
"If they aren't allied with the governor," Remus persisted, "We could have a potential ally. I'd prefer good men die against evil, not from miscommunication."
"If they try and shoot me, I'm counting the fokkers as evil." Vincent growled.
"I'm with Remus." Marc said, his jaw clenched. "I'm not up for a shootout with the AAT or Faroven's guards."
"Because we're outnumbered?" Shere said with a faint smile, which Sapphira didn’t share as she leaned back into her seat and listened to their rationale.
"No, because they're Imperial citizens." Marc said. "If they won't let us through after we send the message, I say wait for Schafer's order. He's already on his way back."
"The Excubitor might not even be able to get close with the lance satellites compromised." Shere said carefully, looking at Vizkop for confirmation. "And we don't know exactly how long before said satellites overwhelm the voids and level the city."
“I don't think we have that luxury Marc.” Kally responded. “I think we need to trust that we have enough authority to do this ourselves, or it won't get done at all.”
"I don't know if a front attack is the right thing to do." Lia piped up, and Sapphira shifted in her seat to look at the girl as she spoke. "Most of you are kind of squishy. I could sneak into the palace; I can climb and hide and I've never seen a security system but I know what to do with one."
Sapphira merely blinked after the young psyker finished. While the others started to debate this alternative, she regarded Lia with narrow eyed appraisal. How exactly does a teenaged feral worlder suddenly know of privileged Mechanicus lore without prior exposure? That’s one more question about her that will be asked and answered. Sapphira vowed as she glanced over to Adept Vizkop with a dubious expression, before turning to face Marcus as he caught her attention.
"Send us in first, Sister." Marc said, looking up and addressing Sapphira. "Fred, Kelly, and me are the least obviously armed...you and maybe Shere with his staff are the most visible signs of Imperial authority. We can talk them into opening the doors and then the rest can come through without panicking anyone."
“Adept Vizkop will come along instead of John. We’ll need him inside the AAT’s defenses if we’re forced to go through them. Besides, it tends to be noticed when the Ecclesiarchy and Mechanicus agree on something and work together.” Sapphira said, without any trace of humor, before she moved on to the next topic. “As to Lia’s offer to infiltrate… I’m going to say no. We know almost nothing about the palace security system, which no doubt has countermeasures that are extensive and redundant. The little we do know about their defense personnel is that they’re motivated professionals with competent leadership. They’re also likely on high alert after the – so far that they know – unsuccessful kidnap attempt by a xenos disguised as an Inquisitorial agent. Arval being a replicant has damaged our already tenuous influence, which we’ll need all of to sway the AAT into helping or at the very least not hindering us.”
---
Marc nodded to something Kelly had said, and pointed at the adamantium shutters that had been drawn down over the palace's rows of arched windows. "Faroven's already locked the place down."
“We need to move before the thing impersonating Faroven can react to our arrival.” Sapphira grimly speculated as she eyed the palatial fortress. They had to get the astropathic message away, and try to secure the Telepathica’s support, before the replicant governor could further undermine their position.
---
"Kally to Team one. Door guards are giving us shit.”
“Stand by and don’t escalate if it can be helped, Kally.” Sapphira voxed back as they entered the elevator. “We haven’t even reached the choir yet.”
kardar233
12-10-2013, 12:39 PM
Sapphira merely blinked after the young psyker finished. While the others started to debate this alternative, she regarded Lia with narrow eyed appraisal. How exactly does a teenaged feral worlder suddenly know of privileged Mechanicus lore without prior exposure? That’s one more question about her that will be asked and answered.
Lia caught the edge of Sapphira's look and shrank back into her seat, averting her eyes. She didn't know what she'd done to earn the woman's ire but she tried to look as contrite as possible.
“As to Lia’s offer to infiltrate… I’m going to say no. We know almost nothing about the palace security system, which no doubt has countermeasures that are extensive and redundant. The little we do know about their defense personnel is that they’re motivated professionals with competent leadership. They’re also likely on high alert after the – so far that they know – unsuccessful kidnap attempt by a xenos disguised as an Inquisitorial agent."
Looking extremely chastened, Lia stayed quiet through the whole shuttle ride. Her worries about the Sister's trustworthiness in the face of the current situation warred with her desire to be friendly the Hospitaller and the latter won for the moment, as she emerged from the depths of her seat cushions to speak a quick "Yes'm" to Sapphira's decision.
The uniformed AAT adept and his Pariah guards had simply waved Sapphira's group through the checkpoints in the entry corridor, but he baulked when he saw the heavily armed men and women that formed the second group.
"Now wait just a minute!" he said as his eyes jumped from Kally to Remus. "What the Horus do you need all that for? We can't allow heavy weaponry around the psykers!"
Lia could feel the aura of nothingness emanating from the black-armoured guards from several meters away, and shrank back behind the larger members of the group, nervously looking for objects to throw. She had just decided that her best bet was to pull a chunk out of the wall when the Adept objected to the group's presence. In response, she decided to look harmless, which resulted in her smiling nervously up at the guards, an effect (likely not all that effective in the first place) further cheapened by her present company, largely made of large, armoured and ominous warriors.
Jarms48
12-10-2013, 02:28 PM
"Now wait just a minute!" he said as his eyes jumped from Kally to Remus. "What the Horus do you need all that for? We can't allow heavy weaponry around the psykers!"
Remus feigned a cough, tapping a fist on the ornamental rosette upon his chestplate; it was worn, scratched, battle damaged and withered from the past day. But still it was recognizable, then again, if such was not the case, that same rosette still decorated one of his shoulder pads. He dropped a hand from his rifle, pointing it almost menacingly to one of the door guards.
"Trooper you have no right to question Inquisitorial operatives, our choice of kit is none of your concern. We are here to assure the safety and well being of our fellow operatives. Do I question your need for carapace, or physic nullification like my friend here?" He idly turned over his hand and pointed his thumb to Kally.
"Out of my way." she snarled, turning to the adept and grabbing his collar before he could back up, yanking him off his feet and dragging him face to face with her. "We go where they go. And trust me, the shit we are facing, we need some big gakking guns."
"You should pardon her, the current situation." His hand moved to the sky. "Seems to have left her rather anxious, I could try and calm her down, but I'm afraid I may only escalate the situation. Though at current you are intervening in business of the Inquisition and as such, we reserve the right to detain you, or worse. Now seeing as you already let our peers in, such should be pardoned for ourselves."
She shrugged her shoulders and walked back to the group, activating her comm bead.
He sighed, following the disgruntled Kally, giving the adept a gentle pat on the shoulder before he did.
"Kally to Team one. Door guards are giving us shit."
“Stand by and don’t escalate if it can be helped, Kally.” Sapphira voxed back as they entered the elevator. “We haven’t even reached the choir yet.” (I'm going to assume that's across a squad channel. If not I'll edit.)
"Rodge." Remus affirmed. Switching off his comm-bead after the static died down.
"You know." He said conversationally, as he followed Kally; roughly three paces behind her. His gaze shifting left and right. "There are better ways of doing things, especially in a situation like this, and especially when everyone is on edge."
Atrum Daemon
12-13-2013, 08:49 PM
Vizkop’s prayers were silent. A private affair not for the ears of the uninitiated. The time was fast coming upon them all. Sapphira had made it quite clear that they were making their move. The shrine was something he had made himself in his room. He was taking a moment before arming himself. He stood from his kneeling position and zipped into his body glove, armored at key locations. His blades remained hidden within his arms and he took a few moments to examine his firearms. The silenced pistol was just what it needed to be and was holstered. He took a little more time with the revolver. He had recently cleaned and maintained it after all the use it had been seeing. He picked up one of the non-standard round and examined it. It was a sharp-nosed slug similar to a standard armor-piercing round. However, Vizkop knew it to be made of a special compound that reacted to high-pressure impact by combusting. Armor-piercing incendiary. To Vizkop, they were a better choice for the kind of enemy they hunted than his usual payload of dual-purpose ammunition.
Vizkop loaded his revolver and holstered it. He wrapped himself in his red robes and fitted his helmet into place, waiting a moment for his HUD to kick in. He was ready, he hoped, for whatever was waiting.
***
He kept his silence while the team spoke. Though he did respond to Shere with a small shrug. “If the Excubitor is similarly armed, the ship should have only minor issue with lance satellites.”
His eyes narrowed beneath his helmet at Lia. He had far too many questions surrounding the teenager to be comfortable. But, it was neither the time nor place to act on them and Sapphira’s sharp response settled the suggestion anyway and he gave a small bow when she mentioned his coming along. He was mildly familiar with standard AAT defense practices and his technical skills were nothing to sneer at.
He kept his peace and let others do the talking. But he was ready should any of his skills be needed. In the meantime, he busied himself by taking in his surroundings once they were passed the AAT checkpoint.
Azazeal849
12-16-2013, 10:42 PM
"Trooper you have no right to question Inquisitorial operatives, our choice of kit is none of your concern. We are here to assure the safety and well being of our fellow operatives. Do I question your need for carapace, or psychic nullification like my friend here?" He idly turned over his hand and pointed his thumb to Kally.
"Normally not, sir." the Telepathica agent said, stiffly. "But we have a duty every bit as holy as yours and that involves keeping a bunch of highly volatile psykers under control. Provided whatever is pounding the gak out of the voids doesn't vaporise us first, I don't want to be the one standing before the Emperor explaining how I fethed his planet by letting a herd of deviants steal heavy weapons, break out of the spire and have devils crawling out of their skulls before you can say-"
"Out of my way." Kally snarled, turning to the adept and grabbing his collar before he could back up, yanking him off his feet and dragging him face to face with her. "We go where they go. And trust me, the shit we are facing, we need some big gakking guns."
"You should pardon her, the current situation." Remus' hand moved to the sky. "Seems to have left her rather anxious, I could try and calm her down, but I'm afraid I may only escalate the situation. Though at current you are intervening in business of the Inquisition and as such, we reserve the right to detain you, or worse. Now seeing as you already let our peers in, such should be pardoned for ourselves."
Kally shrugged her shoulders and walked back to the group, activating her comm bead. Remus sighed, following the disgruntled Kally, giving the adept a gentle pat on the shoulder before he did.
"Kally to Team One." Kally voxed. "Door guards are giving us shit."
“Stand by and don’t escalate if it can be helped, Kally.” Sapphira voxed back as they entered the elevator. “We haven’t even reached the choir yet.”
"Rodge." Remus affirmed, switching off his comm-bead after the static died down. "You know." He said conversationally, as he followed Kally; roughly three paces behind her. His gaze shifting left and right. "There are better ways of doing things, especially in a situation like this, and especially when everyone is on edge."
His words were somewhat prophetic. Behind them the visibly shaken Astropathica guard let out a breath, and tried to regain some dignity by straightening his collar. He turned and scowled at the featureless visors of his two guards.
"Let them through." he growled. "But place a squad at the top of the elevator. Anyone or anything coming back up better have triple cleared authorisation."
* * * * * *
Vizkop kept his peace and let others do the talking. But he was ready should any of his skills be needed. In the meantime, he busied himself by taking in his surroundings once they were past the AAT checkpoint. As he observed, his noosphere clicked with an incoming transmission from the tech priest who stood with arms spread near the back of the room. The other priest did not look at him, his focus still on the mind-linked drones skittering up and down the amplifying spire, but the microburst contained all of the most urgent code-markers.
Secutor. the message pulsed. Your assistance is urgently required. The satellite control network has been infected with a powerful xenos machine curse. My brothers' exorcism programs have so far had no effect on the malediction. They request your presence in the governor's command bunker immediately.
The tech priest shifted one rigid arm to point to the closed blast doors dominating the wall to Vizkop's right.
* * * * * *
"What do you want sent?" the AAT adept asked, fishing a dataslate from the pocket of his tunic and looking at Sapphira. "I'll feed it into the cogitator for you."
“Transmission destination is the in-system frigate Excubitor, and the recipient is Interrogator Schafer of the Ordo Xenos.” Sapphira said, and waited until the adept nodded that he was ready. “Message begins. We have evidence that indicates Governor Faroven was murdered. The replicant in his place has compromised the lance satellites and destroyed the defense orbitals. Military assets and civilian population centers are being eliminated. We will make an attempt on the palace to purge the xenos, and either reestablish control over the satellites or destroy them. For the God Emperor. Message ends. Transmit that once Mr. Black provides you with the appropriate encryptions, and please call for the supervising Telepathica adept and lead Mechanicus representative. We would like a word with them.”
The adept stared at her blankly for a moment. "Y-yes, Sister." he said, before realising that in his shock at the message's content he had forgotten to write any of it down. "Sorry...could you repeat...?"
"I'll do it." Marc said, stepping forward. "Where's your cogitator?"
The adept pointed, and tried to make himself useful by voxing the superiors that Sapphira had asked for while his colleagues guided the wispy-haired astropath to her throne. Up close, Sapphira recognised her as the astropath who had been at the administratum complex where they had first met Faroven. She seemed distracted, the crow's feet around her blind eyes drawn tight as she stared, seemingly, at Sapphira.
"He's a saint!" she whispered, and then pointed to reveal that she was looking not at Sapphira herself, but rather the medicae skull hovering behind her shoulder. "He knows my sister!"
"Easy, Liv..." one of the guards intoned as he manoeuvred one of the astropath's protesting arms into its manacle restraint.
"He knows my sister!" the astropath insisted, "Is she okay? Ask him!"
A low-level tech adept with no visible augmentation traced cog circles over the throne machinery as he pressed activation runes, and the astropath gasped sharply as a cable stabbed itself into the implant jack in the back of her neck, followed by a pair of hypodermic needles unfurling themselves from the chair arms and linking with the ports on the insides of her forearms. One of the guards began murmuring a meditative prayer, mixing with the tech-adept's Lingua Technis benedictions. It seemed to calm the astropath, who closed her eyes and took up the High Gothic chant.
"Ready to transmit." the adept called over his shoulder. "Hit the send rune for Throne 2 when you're ready."
"Just a second." Marc called back. He was at the adept's cogitator, pulling the inquisitorial signet ring off his finger. Flipping up the disc face with its stylised letter I revealed the communion jack for a miniature data wand, which he plugged into the side of the adept's cogitator. Striking keyboard runes in a rapid staccato, he used the ring's encryption programs to translate Sapphira's message into a blue-level inquistion cypher. What he didn't tell the adept was that he was also dropping one of the ring's stored worm djinns into the cogitator network. The inquisition had entire departments of tech-adepts dedicated to finding back doors into every cogitator code in the Imperium - mechanicus-crafted or otherwise - and Marc's superiors had loaded his ring with cracker programs for the most common machine languages on Venatora prior to his deployment.
He glanced at the cascade of data reeling down a side window as the cogitator's machine spirit continued placidly encrypting Sapphira's message. The outer doors of the tunnel linking the astropathic spire to the governor's command bunker were beyond the clearance of the adept, but they were part of the network, and Marc's worm djinns had appeased the network's guardian programs. He could open them, but the inner doors could only be accessed from within the command bunker. Shere or Lia would have to blast through those.
"Sending." Marc said aloud as the encryption program blinked green. He pressed the transmit rune as the adept had instructed, and next to Sapphira the astropath gasped again, her back arching as the cable in the back of her neck blasted the stream of encoded symbols into her head. Sapphira felt the air temperature around her drop tangibly as, with an effort, the struggling astropath focussed the message and cast it out into the warp.
* * * * * *
Interrogator Schafer had barely finished docking with the Excubitor, and was still crossing the pressurised umbilical that had extended from the side of the hanger to envelop the side hatch of his commandeered sprint trader. The two-man crew's loud questions about when they would get paid for their service had grated on his nerves, so that he stabbed the communicator on his wrist harder than intended when it chimed. He was rewarded by an answering stab from his dislocated finger, and the interrogator gritted his teeth to avoid swearing at the pain.
"Schafer here." he barked into the communicator as he raised it to his mouth, briefly returning the salute of the navy armsman who opened the inner airlock for him.
"Interrogator." replied the voice of one of the frigate's bridge lieutenants, "Message from your team on Venatora."
Her voice was slightly distorted by the thrum of elevator cables. She was on her way back up from the crew berths with the ship's astropath primus at her side. Despite being off shift and not plugged into the ship's amp array, the more experienced psyker had received the telepathic message before his less sensitive peers. Unable to simply stream the message through the ship's cogitators, he had scribbled the symbols in his head down onto a scrap of parchment which the lieutenant now clutched in her hand. She would have to get the astropath to the ship's warp mast soon - not only to send a reply, but to wipe the message from his mind. Aside from the security risk, astropaths had been known to go insane from the overload - scratching cyphers into their skin and smashing their heads against walls to try and get rid of the symbols whirlpooling across their warp-sight.
"What does it say?" Schafer demanded.
"It's still encrypted. I'm on my way to the amp array now."
"Just read it aloud."
Schafer, like Sapphira, was experienced enough to decipher the simple blue-level codes by ear alone. What he translated did not please him at all.
"Emperor's teeth..." he whispered in shock, and telling the lieutenant to stand by, he keyed in the frequency for the ship's chief auger. "Chief, this is interrogator Schafer. I need a report on the orbital defences around Venatora. Anything unusual?"
"Actually sir, I was just about to contact the captain." the chief answered. "I'm looking at the warp sensors, and we've got blooms that look like voids shunting energy into the warp. It looks like something's up, but we'll need 12 hours to confirm on thermal and optic."
To the warp with thermal and optic. Light speed lag was not something interrogator Schafer was prepared to wait for right now, even if the Excubitor's luminal sensors gave more definitive answers than the hazy warp augers.
"Too long." he snapped. "Get on the vox to the captain, tell him to jump us back in-system, and tell him to do it now."
* * * * * *
"Do you have a line to the governor's bunker?" Kelly Black asked one of the Telepathica adepts as she jogged over.
The adept nodded, and pointed towards a black handset mounted on a central desk. "The emergency vox."
"Thanks." Kelly nodded as she seized the vox and jabbed the only button with her thumb. There was a squeal of static before a familiar roughly-accented voice answered.
"Craddock."
Kelly wasn't sure whether to breathe a sigh of relief or not as she made contact with the governor's head bodyguard. "Security chief Craddock." she settled for saying, "This is inquisition agent Kelly Black."
"Agent Black." Craddock acknowledged curtly. "We saw you land on the external pict stealers. We assumed you were needing to send some sort of astropathic communique to your superiors."
"We were." Kelly agreed, "But there's something else. We need you to open the blast doors on the tunnel linking the AAT complex to the governor's bunker."
"Negative, agent Black. There's some sort of machine curse affecting the satellite network, and the governor thinks there may be a xenos replicant somewhere in the building. We've locked down to make sure no-one gets in or out."
Kelly rubbed the bridge of her nose with her free hand. "Chief, is governor Faroven there with you now?"
Something about the question made a frown cross Craddock's wind-chafed face. The vox she was talking on transmitted through a wall mounted loudspeaker, and it was sufficient for Faroven and the other two bodyguards flanking them to listen in even if the rest of the bunker was too loudly occupied to hear. Craddock looked at Faroven, who raised a shaved eyebrow.
"No." she lied. "Why?"
"Chief, we have strong evidence that governor Faroven is a replicant. Our tech priest has developed a detector that can prove it."
Craddock stiffened, as did her two guards. All three of them could have drawn their weapons in the time it would have taken Faroven to twitch, but Faroven just looked impassive.
"What kind of evidence?" Craddock asked, her frown deepening.
"The peacekeepers recovered what I believe was the real governor Faroven's body from a roof in District 3. Most likely it was thrown from the back of the Aquila before it crashed."
Craddock was silent for a moment. "Understood, agent Black. Stand by."
She hung up the vox caster and looked at her two guards in their olive drab uniforms. They were still looking uncertainly at Faroven.
"Let them in." the governor said.
"You're not a xenos, sir." Craddock replied. "If you were, you would have run the moment they blew your cover."
"Let them in." Faroven urged again. "If you defy the inquisition you're signing your own death warrant. If they have a detector, they'll see that I'm human and then we can see about unmasking the real traitor."
"Permission to speak freely, sir?" Craddock growled.
Faroven nodded. "Always."
"I don't trust them. How come none of the cogboys here know anything about a detector? The only other tech priest who saw one of the xenos up close was magos Tharrick, and he's dead. And they say their evidence was in district 3, which was conveniently vaporised."
Faroven rubbed his chin with one hand. "Vitani, I appreciate your loyalty, but..."
"Sir," Craddock insisted. "The last xenos was one of their own team, and it was after you personally. Now they're suddenly after you too? I don't buy it."
Faroven looked his chief of security in the eye, and ran a hand over his shaved scalp. His noble face looked tired. Abruptly, he turned on his heel and shouted across to the nearest tech priest. "Adept! Have you had any luck in breaking the machine curse?"
"Negative, governor." one of the hooded magi answered from the prayer circle around the cogitator banks. "Revised estimate for the void shields predicts overload and failure within one hour."
"Emperor preserve us." Faroven murmured. And then aloud, "Pass orders to prepare for evacuating the city."
The governor turned back to security chief Craddock, who was still eying him levelly.
"I'll retreat back up into the palace." he told her. "If it's me they're after, I don't want any of my staff here dying in the crossfire."
"As you wish, sir." Craddock replied. "But it won't come to that. I'm calling in the PDF."
* * * * * *
The elevator doors ground open a second time as Remus and the others entered the lower level. At the same moment, something in the spire above Sapphira's head emitted a shower of sparks, and two of the spider-legged drones clinging to the machine converged on the damaged element. Beside Sapphira the wispy-haired astropath spasmed, and the guard's hand twitched towards his pistol holster before relaxing.
"Brain activity rising, potential reply incoming." reported the tech adept who was hovering next to the throne. Sapphira didn't need to wait for the reply to pass through the mind-link to Marc's cogitator, because the astropath babbled it aloud. Her words seemed to resonate with an unnatural echo - an amalgamation of her own voice and that of the astropath on Excubitor who had sent the message.
"Eta sigma sigma aquila five four..." she stammered, her blind eyes wide open now and staring. Her pointed face was pale and her hands were rigid and trembling above the arm rests. "Gamma theta three phi three rho seven..."
The astropath couldn't have understood the code she was receiving - a necessary precaution - but it was familiar enough to Sapphira. She had translated it before Marc had even begun decrypting the signal. Proceed with all necessary force. Request clarification on compromised lance network: is orbital approach for Excubitor possible?
"The ordinate and the chief magos are on their way, Sister." the astropathica adept said to Sapphira as he put down his vox. "I suppose I'd better tell you that they're not happy at being pulled away from their duties..."
Jarms48
12-17-2013, 07:59 AM
.
(I'm dumb, ignore this.)
dakkagor
12-18-2013, 12:01 AM
"This doesn't make sense" muttered Kally as the second team piled into the elevator.
"What, the guards letting us past? Its like I said, you have to use a gentle touch sometimes" Remus responded.
Kally turned and scowled at the stormtrooper, but only met his impassive full face helmet back. She shrugged, nodding her head.
"Alright, alright. Point taken." She paused, looking the second team over. "But that''s not what I meant. I mean, why the hell are we still alive? The Replicant has all the access and influence he needs to subvert the lance grid, why not the void shields as well and make it a clean kill?"
She looked around the lift again, meeting everyone's gaze as the horrible thought settled in their minds.
"I mean, Thrones sake, we are in the only facility that communicates off world. The Governors palace is right next door. Tactically, if you wanted to take this world, those two locations would be expanding vapour clouds by now. So what does he really want?"
Vincent rubbed at his chin with his augmetic hand. "I dunno Kally girl. Its a Xenos, you can't understand what they want or how they think. That's why they are Xenos."
"But still." she pressed on. "I feel like I'm playing a part in someone else's plan. Why make such a fast, direct grab for the Governor? Why not work up to him slowly over months? The first thing Noyer asked for was the Governor. The first thing Faroven did was head back to the palace. Everything we've done. . .its only delayed that, if Kelly is right."
Vincent looked skywards. For a moment Kally thought that the old veteran was expecting a lance strike to burn them all to cinders, clattering elevator cage, stone elevator shaft and all, before he spoke again.
"The interrogator perhaps? Get an agent into the Ordo Xenos and they could do a lot of damage down the road. This is pretty much the perfect kind of crisis to draw a full flag Inquisitor, or capable interrogator out."
Kally shook her head. "They had him, if they wanted him, on the gun cutter. No, this is isn't about Schafer, or any one of us. This, the lances and the shields. This does something, something we can't see yet."
The door slid open to the astropathic chambers, and Kally double checked her limiter reflexively as they stepped out of the elevator cage. She looked around, at the vaulted roof, the arcane machinery, and the busy chaos, and couldn't shake the feeling that someone, somewhere, was moving ahead with their plans exactly as they intended.
"There's more to this than meets the eye."
Jarms48
12-18-2013, 04:10 AM
"I mean, Thrones sake, we are in the only facility that communicates off world. The Governors palace is right next door. Tactically, if you wanted to take this world, those two locations would be expanding vapour clouds by now. So what does he really want?"
"Time." Remus stated. "He might be a xeno, but he's not stupid. Why would he call a strike on himself, bastard doesn't want to be a martyr. He could use the void shields duration to escape the district. That's what I'd do, surely there's more than one entrance in and out of this bunker."
"There's more to this than meets the eye."
"Hah." Remus snorted. "Surely you can't be suggesting that of the dark gods? The worlds teetering on the edge of destruction, what we're doing is a desperate gamble. What if we're wrong? What then? We fail everyone on this world, every man, woman and child. Even if we neutralize the governor how do we expect to deactivate the lance batteries?"
He stepped out of the elevator, trailing a few feet behind Kally and Vincent. He glanced over his shoulder, back into the depths of the elevator that brought them here. A thought plagued him, wondering if or how long the rockcrete foundations would hold should the voids fail. Would it be instant? He managed a weak smile, his thoughts traveling to his sisters, his brother. He need only look to Sapphira to be reminded of Roxanna, last he recalled she was on Gravio II tending to plague. Chrysanta, he only assumed she would be continuing her rounds, the Imperium did not wait nor did the endless planetary cases on her step. Aeton, his smile turned to bared teeth, if he ever managed to meet him again, Julianus swore to put a las-bolt into him.
He closed his eyes, sinking away into personal reflection. He wondered if there'd be time to check with the staff in the odd chance he had any messages, Chrysanta would know where he was with all her anonymous sources and time did draw near to receiving her next biannual communication. Perhaps if he was certain this was the end he could send something outbound, remind them that he loved them.
"Corridors aren't great positions for counter offensives, should the governors men rush to greet us. I say when we get in position we set up some makeshift defenses, storage crates, scrap metals, whatever we can scrounge up. Probably won't stop penetrators, like autorifles but it'd stop standard infantry grade lasweapons. Well at least a few magazines worth, before the position degrades to slag." Julianus said, giving suggestion.
Azazeal849
12-20-2013, 07:26 PM
To the new arrivals, it seemed that their comrades were being bombarded with information and requests from all sides. Kelly was in amongst the cogitator desks with a vox set to her ear, cursing quietly in Makitan at someone who apparently hadn’t called her back fast enough.
“Schafer wants to know if he can bring the Excubitor back into orbit with all the lances compromised.” Marc was saying to Sapphira as he translated the astropathic message being downloaded to his terminal by the mind-machine interface of the spire. “You want me to advise against?”
As the last of the message streamed itself out of her mind and into the cogitators, a wispy-haired astropath seated next to Sapphira sucked in a ragged breath, her eyes and mouth flying open as if she had just surfaced from a long dive. Becoming aware of what was around her, her eyes immediately fixed their blind, unfocused stare back on Sapphira.
“The saint!” she babbled again, “Please, can you bring him here? I need to ask him something!”
“Up her dose.” the AAT guard standing next to the throne murmured to the tech adept at his side. He snapped his fingers several times in front of the astropath’s face. “Liv. Liv, look at me. You need to get back in the trance…”
“But I need to…” the astropath murmured, her expression already slackening as whatever sedatives the throne injected were pumped up her arm. Fred was standing back uncomfortably, either made uneasy by the astropaths themselves or by the way the AAT handlers were treating them.
“What the fok’s up with her?” Vincent grunted indifferently, and squinted past Sapphira to get a better look at the astropath. After a few seconds something dawned behind his good eye, but whatever he was about to do next was interrupted by two women striding from one of the room’s side doors. One of them wore the black tunic of the AAT with gold rank braid looped across the front, her pale scalp shadowed with blonde stubble where she was due another shave to keep the local keratin mites at bay. Although she looked aggrieved, she at least made an effort to hide the fact as she crossed the room towards Sapphira. The tech priestess beside her, a mahogany-skinned woman with gold bionics studding more than half of her bald head, made no such attempt at tact.
“Where is the one called Sister Sapphira?” she asked the room at large, an amplifier mic suspended in front of her mouth raising her voice above the other AAT personnel. “The current crisis requires my full attention and we are ill-served by this distraction.”
dakkagor
01-01-2014, 08:59 PM
Kally winced as the Tech Priestess made her announcement to the room. She bet that Faroven now knew they where in the Astropathic Chambers. She scanned the room, and found Kelly trying to throttle and answer out of a vox. She walked an arc around the astropath stations and approached the frustrated looking ex Verispex.
“Whats up?” Kally asked. “You look like you've got bad news.”
Kelly shook her head and put the vox down. “No news, to be exact, I was waiting for Craddock to get back to me.”
Kally paused, thinking that name over. “Craddock. The chief of security for the Governor Craddock?”
“Yes. I got hold of her earlier but now I'm being put through to PDF channels and then put on hold by some operator.”
“What did you say to Craddock?” Kally pressed, now worried.
“I just. . .oh throne.” Kelly started. “You don't think. . .”
“Think what? Kelly, help me out here.”
“I told Craddock about our suspicions. About Faroven.”
Kally grabbbed Kelly by the shoulders, staring into her eyes. “Exactly. What did you say Exactly?”
Kelly recoiled, but to her credit met Kally's gaze. “That we had strong evidence that Faroven was a Replicant, and we had a detector to prove it.”
Kally stepped back, letting go of Kellys shoulders.
“Shit! Shit shit shit shit! I knew it! Craddock is just the type. Too loyal by half. She'll go to the wall for Faroven rather than even contemplate he could be compromised. She'll face down the Inquisition for him. We're going to have to step over her to get to the Replicant”
“I. . .I didn't” Kelly began
Kally was already moving.
“Second team, form on me, we are moving.” she switched channel to the Sapphira and Marcs team. “Fredrique, follow me.”
“What, why?” the old scribe protested. Kally smiled. “I need a map, and you know the palace better than anyone. Marc, get the blast doors open. Faroven has been alerted and we need to move, now.”
Azazeal849
01-07-2014, 11:08 AM
"I need a map, and you know the place better than anyone. Marc, get the blast doors open. Faroven has been alerted and we need to move, now."
"Frak." Marc cursed feelingly, and jammed a finger down on his cogitator keyboard. There was a heavy clank of maglocks and the first blast door at the rear of the spire chamber began to slide upward, crenelated metal teeth disengaging from the floor.
"What?" the ordinate talking to Sapphira blurted, spinning round to see the two Blacks abandoning their terminals and shrugging off their heavy winter coats to reveal flak vests and even more weapons that the inquisition team had brought into her sanctum. "Who authorised...?"
The magos at her side was less confused, more furious as she rounded on Sapphira. "This is a breach of lockdown protocol, and of machine rights against outsider tampering. Explain!"
Shere didn't wait for either of them. He was already striding towards the wide trapezoidal door portal as the first blast shield retreated into the ceiling, exposing the second grey door behind it.
"We can't override that one from outside." Marc warned him.
"Duly noted." Shere replied cheerfully, a corona of witchfire already boiling over his hands. "Lia, give me a hand with this."
Psyoccula mounted around the walls began to blink red and wail alarms at the sudden spike in warp activity, and black needles ratcheted down from each throne to hover beside each astropath's throat, shrilling for a manual trigger order. The nearest telepathica guard to Shere instinctively twitched his hand towards his pistol holster, but Vincent's bionic fingers tightening around his shoulder stopped him in his tracks.
"Make my day, sunshine." the stocky ex-Guardsman growled.
"Tell him to fething stop!" one of the handlers yelled as he fought to calm one of the astropaths who was lucid enough to have noticed the syringe suddenly pointed at her neck.
The fire around Shere's hands hissed and spat as he pressed them against the thick metal of the door.
"Stand back." the psyker warned, gritting his teeth. His hands sank slightly into the metal as it softened, and the air around him began to develop a heat-haze shimmer. The weave of his armoured bodyglove darkened from yellow to ochre to black, and the sleeves caught fire and peeled away. The AAT personnel were making the sign of the Aquila, the astropaths who weren't deep enough in their trances were whimpering, and even the tech priests were backing away.
The door took less than a minute to begin glowing red and then white, fire spitting from its surface. With a final pulse of effort, Shere sent a last ripple of psychic fire spreading out across the metal, and the middle of the blast door exploded inwards. A shower of molten drops hissed against the floor and burned through Shere's clothing, but stopped at the psyker's skin. He stepped back, grinning, as smoke and steam filled the air.
The same smoke scattered a green thread of light which flickered from the door, wavering up and down for half a second before centring on Shere's chest. He looked down at it, sharply.
"Oh sh-" he began to say, before a violent crack and flash of lasfire sent him sprawling back against the blackened floor tiles. A second beam vaporised a chunk of metal from the spire in the centre of the room, just above one of the wired-in astropaths. The astropath, a haggard young man with a prematurely lined face, screamed and tried to wrench himself out of his restraints. AAT personnel ducked for cover or clawed for their weapons, shouting protests.
"Cease fire!" the ordinate was yelling, "Cease fire!"
Shere was choking on the floor, blood slopping from a ragged wound in his throat every time he gasped for breath.
Atrum Daemon
01-11-2014, 06:57 PM
Vizkop’s mind clicked into action when the psyker’s activity set off the alarms and he went to work on the door. The techpriest unhooked the modified auspex from his belt and said a series of binary prayers over the device. Take a deep breath to steel himself, he stepped over to Sapphira and pushed the device into her hands. “I apologize for the abruptness,” he intoned to her and her alone, speaking quickly.
“But there is a deadly xenos machine curse infecting the systems of the satellite control network and my attention is needed at the central server room in order to purge it. I need to go on my own from here. I can move faster that way. The auspex is blessed and running. If it detects a replicant it will begin beeping as though detecting toxic gasses. There’s a good chance that once I inload to purge this curse that I won’t be returning. But this must be done. Do I have your leave to go ahead with this, Sister?”
He finished his spiel just as the smoke and steam from Shere’s work billowed forth. The sudden barrage of laser fire made him rethink his position. ‘That should have gone differently,’ he thought, side-stepping from Sapphira and obscuring himself with a guard rail. He switched the visual spectrum of his helmet to better penetrate the smoke cloud to see what was beyond. “Potentially…five or so contacts beyond the door. Look like standard PDF armaments.”
Getting an exact read on the number of contacts was proving difficult thanks to how they were positioned.
dakkagor
01-14-2014, 01:19 PM
(OOC: different colored bits thanks to Paintserf)
Kally watched wide eyed as Shere flopped to the floor, blood pouring from the wound opened on his neck.
“COVERING FIRE!” she yelled, pulling up her boltgun and firing a long burst down the corridor. In seconds Vincent and others had added to the fire and Kally ducked low, under the lasbolts and solid slugs. She scrambled over the floor and grabbed Sheres arm, feeling for a second the incredible heat coming from his skin before her blank nature smothered it. She hauled him out of the line of fire while expecting another lasbolt to find her. One skimmed over her back with a distinctive hiss, and several bored into the stone floor around her, but she got out remarkably unscathed.
Shere was looking at her with wide eyes, his hands weakly clutching at his ruined throat. Kally pulled his hands away and clamped her own hands over the wound. Blood welled between her fingers no matter how hard she squeezed down, and suddenly she had an image of her choking Shere to death while trying to stop him bleeding out. He was weakly struggling against her, his eyes wide, his bloody hands clawing at her chest, and Kally realised her blank nature would be causing him intense pain and fear, over the top of the wound.
“Stop fighting me Shere, come on, stop fighting me, its me, stop fighting me.” She spoke as soothingly as she could, but it didn't seem to get through. His blood was everywhere, covering her fingers, under her nails. Even Kally, who was pretty hardened to this kind of grizly injury, was surprised at just how much blood seemed to be pouring from Shere.
“Kally, when my hands cover yours, I’m going to take over the pressure. I’ll need you let go, move back, and hold him as still as you can.” Sapphira directed as she knelt down next to Kally and the struggling psyker. She frowned at the amount of blood that was being pumped through the other woman’s fingers. It didn’t diminish when she took over the pressure. After a moment Sapphira critically eyed John, before she glanced over at the blood trail, and then around the room.
Kally simply pinned Shere's arms in place, glad that Sapphira was here to fix this. She was a sister, and a medic. She would fix this, and Shere would be fine.
“John. John Shere. Look at me, John.” Sapphira urged as she refocused on psyker, and leaned over him to meet his pained and searching eyes. One hand kept pressure and cradled his head as Sapphira dropped the other back to her holster. She bent down to kiss him on the forehead and then tilted her head to speak into his ear. “Thank you for your service, John. The God-Emperor loves you for your sacrifice. He absolves you of your sins for this act of faith. Be at eternal peace by His side.”
While she offered John his last rites, Sapphira eased out her revolver and quietly cocked back the hammer and brought it near to the side of his head. She kept John’s attention on her as she leaned back and smiled encouragingly down at him. He never knew the weapon was there as Sapphira pulled the trigger and ended his life and pain.
“Shit!” Kally responded, pulling back and letting go of Shere's now still form. “I mean. . Throne damnit. . . I just. . . ” She paused, stunned. She met Sapphira's gaze, and saw a steel there she found frankly intimidating. She nodded, understanding the brutal, necessary logic behind it. He couldn’t be saved, so don't make him suffer for a second longer than he had too.
“When its my time, do the same for me.” Kally got back to her feet and reloaded her bolter. “Don't let me suffer.” Sapphira nodded once, then gently closed Shere's eyes.
Kally stepped over Shere's cooling body and moved into cover near the smouldering bulkhead.
“Vince, spare please. Lets clear those gakkers out.”
Vince, turned from his covering position, and tossed Kally a frag grenade. She hooked her thumb into the standard issue munitorum 'pineapple' arming ring and held up three fingers from her left hand.
Three, She yanked the pin clear.
Two, she moved it from her right hand to her left.
One, she tossed it down the corridor, as Vince did the same.
The two grenades exploded with a pair of concussive bangs mid air, near the hunkered down PDF troopers. Vince and Kally stormed forwards in their wake, laying down fire and moving into close range.
Damn taking these frakkers alive. You kill one of us, you die for it.
PaintSerf
01-15-2014, 08:58 AM
"The ordinate and the chief magos are on their way, Sister." the astropathica adept said to Sapphira as he put down his vox. "I suppose I'd better tell you that they're not happy at being pulled away from their duties..."
“Thank you for the heads up,” Sapphira distractedly replied as she considered Javid’s message, before she turned back to the adept and asked, “With whom will I be speaking?”
“Overseer Manita and magos Primavesi, Sister.” The adept promptly reported, and she nodded her thanks to him. Sapphira had barely finished the acknowledgment when Trooper Remus spoke up behind her.
"Corridors aren't great positions for counter offensives, should the governors men rush to greet us. I say when we get in position we set up some makeshift defenses, storage crates, scrap metals, whatever we can scrounge up. Probably won't stop penetrators, like autorifles but it'd stop standard infantry grade lasweapons. Well at least a few magazines worth, before the position degrades to slag." Julianus said, giving suggestion.
“Astropathic choirs are no place for a firefight – even if we had the time for one.” Sapphira pointed out as she critically eyed the vulnerable psykers and sensitive equipment. Her expression was distinctly displeased as she gestured to the number of doors. “Unfortunately we don’t yet know which leads to the bunker. Ideally we’ll have the initiative, but even if we don’t, we’ll need to push them back and go on the offensive.”
“Schafer wants to know if he can bring the Excubitor back into orbit with all the lances compromised.” Marc was saying to Sapphira as he translated the astropathic message being downloaded to his terminal by the mind-machine interface of the spire. “You want me to advise against?”
“See what you can do about cover, Julianus, just in case.” Sapphira offered with an apologetic shrug as she turned to address Marcus. “That would be prudent, but you know the Interrogator is. Maybe someone here has the latest data on the satellites position? If he comes back, Javid should at least have an idea of what the Excubitor would be heading into.”
“What the fok’s up with her?” Vincent grunted indifferently, and squinted past Sapphira to get a better look at the astropath. The weathered woman had been distressed by her blessed assistant. To mitigate the distraction he posed, Sapphira had taken a few steps back to give the Telepathica personnel more space and move the saint out of proximity. Even so the astropath, through her second sight, had struggled against her restraints to try and see him. Sapphira glanced up at the coarse bounty hunter, with a slight frown, before she gazed thoughtfully back at the re-sedated psyker.
“Apparently her sister knew the saint, and she wants to ask him about her. That could be a delusion from her condition… but she’s been adamant about it since she saw him, so she might actually be telling the truth.” Sapphira said quietly, before she sighed and sadly shook her head. “I-”
“Where is the one called Sister Sapphira? The current crisis requires my full attention and we are ill-served by this distraction.”
“Have to take care of this. Excuse me, Vincent.” Sapphira tensely redirected, her eyes narrowed in annoyance at the unnecessarily loud interruption. She recomposed herself and went to confront the women in charge of this facility. One of them wore the black tunic of the AAT with gold rank braid looped across the front, her pale scalp shadowed with blonde stubble where she was due another shave to keep the local keratin mites at bay. The tech priestess was beside her, a mahogany-skinned woman with gold bionics studding more than half of her bald head.
“Magos Primavesi, overseer Manita.” Sapphira addressed them without introduction, as her distinctive attire marked her as the only Sister present. “As I understand it, there is a tunnel that connects this room to the governor’s command bunker. My team will need your assistance in accessing it.”
“This is an unacceptable and trivial request.” Primavesi bluntly dismissed after a harsh spurt of binary.
“With respect, Sister,” Manita responded with a politeness that was undercut by her irritated tone, “We’re frankly overwhelmed at the moment. Your team has already been accommodated and then some. If you’d like to talk to governor Faroven-”
“Governor Faroven was assassinated and his identity has been assumed by a profane Necron infiltrator.” Sapphira decisively interjected, and used their stunned silence as an opportunity to continue. “I’d like access to bunker so we can purge it and disable the corrupted defense satellites. Your assistance in this matter would be most appreciated.”
“Can this accusation be substantiated?” Primavesi inquired as she reflexively made the cog-wheel with her hands, as Manita seconded her colleague with a nod.
“Of course, magos Prima-” Sapphira started before Kally’s voice cut through the vox.
“Marc, get the blast doors open. Faroven has been alerted and we need to move, now.”
"What?" the ordinate blurted, spinning round to see the two Blacks abandoning their terminals and shrugging off their heavy winter coats to reveal flak vests and even more weapons that the inquisition team had brought into her sanctum. "Who authorised...?"
The magos at her side was less confused, more furious as she rounded on Sapphira. "This is a breach of lockdown protocol, and of machine rights against outsider tampering. Explain!"
“Interrogator Schafer, our immediate superior, has authorized all necessary force to resolve this situation. The breach was made with sanctioned overrides made by the Mechanicus for the Inquisition.” Sapphira firmly answered them in defiance of the other woman’s outrage and voice enhancement. “It was a necessity, magos Primavesi, and I take full responsibility for their use. We’re running out of time-”
Sapphira was suddenly interrupted again by the Mechanicus as Vizkop appeared and pushed the device into her hands. “I apologize for the abruptness,” he intoned to her and her alone, speaking quickly. She gave the adept her undivided attention, and fortunately both Primavesi and Manita silently listened to this unexpected arrival.
“But there is a deadly xenos machine curse infecting the systems of the satellite control network and my attention is needed at the central server room in order to purge it. I need to go on my own from here. I can move faster that way. The auspex is blessed and running. If it detects a replicant it will begin beeping as though detecting toxic gasses. There’s a good chance that once I inload to purge this curse that I won’t be returning. But this must be done. Do I have your leave to go ahead with this, Sister?”
“Absolutely,” Sapphira responded without hesitation as she accepted and protectively cradled the device. She looked up into his visor and nodded encouragingly. “Your Omnissiah and the God-Emperor are with you in this struggle, Adept Vizkop.”
Just then the security door was breached and gunfire erupted into the choir room almost instantaneously. Sapphira immediately reacted and herded the surprised Manita and Primavesi into the cover offered by the astropathic spire. Both of their complaints were lost amongst the other shouts of alarm or panic the suddenly filled the air. Then they were drowned out by the ferocious roar of a bolter kicking off and Kally’s shout.
“COVERING FIRE!”
"Cease fire!" the ordinate was yelling, "Cease fire!"
“Belay that! Keep firing and keep them covered!” Sapphira countermanded as she peeked out of cover and saw Kally dragging the weakly struggling body of John Shere out of the line of fire. Even from a distance she could see a noticeable streak of blood along the floor. She handed the precious auspex to Primavesi, and spared the supervisors a warning glance before she broke out in a crouched run. Shere was choking on the floor, and Sapphira gritted her teeth once she pulled up next to Kally and could hear his struggles.
“Kally, when my hands cover yours, I’m going to take over the pressure. I’ll need you let go, move back, and hold him as still as you can.” Sapphira directed as she knelt down next to Kally and the struggling psyker. She frowned at the amount of blood that was being pumped through the other woman’s fingers. It didn’t diminish when she took over the pressure. After a moment Sapphira critically eyed John, before she glanced over at the blood trail, and then around the room.
“John. John Shere. Look at me, John.” Sapphira urged as she refocused on psyker, and leaned over him to meet his pained and searching eyes. One hand kept pressure and cradled his head as Sapphira dropped the other back to her holster. She bent down to kiss him on the forehead and then tilted her head to speak into his ear. “Thank you for your service, John. The God-Emperor loves you for your sacrifice. He absolves you of your sins for this act of faith. Be at eternal peace by His side.”
While she offered John his last rites, Sapphira eased out her revolver and quietly cocked back the hammer and brought it near to the side of his head. She kept John’s attention on her as she leaned back and smiled encouragingly down at him. He never knew the weapon was there as Sapphira pulled the trigger and ended his life and pain.
Sapphira winced as she watched and felt John’s skull give way to her bullet in a spray of blood, bone, and brains. The smile collapsed as well into a muted grimace as she closed her eyes. For a moment the only thing she heard the echo of her merciful shot. Whatever it takes, we’re going to save this planet and exterminate these abominations. She mentally affirmed as her face settled into an expression of implacable determination. Sapphira opened her eyes and glanced up levelly at the stunned looking Kally.
“When it’s my time, do the same for me.” Kally got back to her feet and reloaded her bolter. “Don't let me suffer.” Sapphira nodded once, and then gently closed Shere's eyes as the other woman moved off to join Vincent. She looked back at John, and her eyes stopped at his plasma pistol. Sapphira unsnapped the scorched holster and reattached it to her gun belt. That should put a replicant down, and I’ve just the one in mind. With that thought she pushed off into a crouch and left two perfect bloody handprints on the ground.
“Team, prepare for an assault. We’re ending this.” Sapphira simply voxed as she stood up and pivoted around to face Manita and Primavesi. She walked towards the supervisors, unflinching at the muted explosions and gunfire in the background. With her steely eyes, Sapphira regarded them both as she calmly spoke. “Magos. Overseer. We’ve only one chance to save Venatora. Are you going help or hinder us?”
Azazeal849
01-16-2014, 10:42 AM
Damn taking these frakkers alive. You kill one of us, you die for it.
And die they did. There were four PDF soldiers on the floor, and two more still standing, reeling back from the grenade blast. Vincent's lasgun hit one in the photovisor of his open helmet, shattering it into blood-flecked shards. Kally's bolter round banged into the chestplate of the other. The layered armaplas stopped the round, but the impact-tripped explosive shattered his ribs.
The two agents advanced, snapping their weapons over each fallen soldier in turn. All six were in the olive drab and carapace armour of Faroven's bodyguards. One had tried to kick one of the grenades back towards the throwers, and had lost his foot in the process. He raised an expression of numb shock from the ragged stump towards Kally's metallic red hair and black lip paint before she finished him off with a shot to the temple. His face disintegrated under the explosive round like an egg crushed in a fist. The only other soldier still alive was the one whose chest had been caved in by Kally's first shot. He had lost his helmet as he fell, revealing the cropped grey hair and lined face of a long-serving veteran. Blood was trickling from the corner of his mouth as he raised a gloved hand towards Vincent, imploring him to wait. Vincent didn't.
"Clear!" the one-eyed ex-Guardsman barked once he had fired the terminal shot.
"Team, prepare for an assault. We're ending this." Sapphira simply voxed as she stood up and pivoted around to face Manita and Primavesi. "Magos. Overseer. We've only one chance to save Venatora. Are you going to help or hinder us?"
Magos Primavesi's eyes dropped to the modified auspex that Vizkop had given to Sapphira. "Our brother in your ranks clearly supports your actions, and we need his help to lift the machine curse. I will assist him."
Without the mechanicus luxury of complete separation from any Imperial infighting, and with several men and women already lying dead in the corridors of the complex she was responsible for, overseer Manita was more hesitant. She ran a hand over the blonde stubble covering her scalp, and looked around the room. The restrained astropaths were trembling fearfully, while their AAT handlers didn't seem to know where to point their weapons. Manita fixed her gaze on the syringes still poised like daggers at the throats of the astropaths.
"Reset those failsafes." she snapped, pointing. "And get those psykers back to work! Worst case scenario, we've got less than an hour to coordinate an evacuation!" She took a shuddering breath and looked at Sapphira, from her steely grey eyes to the holy fleur de lys tattooed on her cheek. "Emperor go with you, sister. I can keep a link open to your interrogator for you, but my men have to stay here."
"I'll stay here and handle the comms with Schafer." Kelly volunteered, stepping up next to Sapphira with her autopistol held low in both hands.
"Adept Vizkop." magos Primavesi said, abruptly striding away from the other three women. "Follow me, please. Adept Landa." She pointed towards the tech-priest who had originally been guiding the repair drones that still skittered obliviously over the astropathic spire, and then to the cogitator that Marc had been using. "Placate that machine spirit and restore its integrity."
She followed up with a blurt of machine code that only Vizkop could make sense of. And verify that the agent's access was by mechanicus-approved routes.
Without flinching, she sidestepped past the still-glowing edges of the hole that Shere had made in the blast door and carried on up the corridor, seemingly oblivious to the smoke, the dead bodies and any more guards that might be waiting for her further up the tunnel.
Following Vizkop and Sapphira's lead, the other agents stepped after her. Fredriq coughed on the smoke and gripped his dataslate tight as he edged round the dead soldiers, but he managed to keep the expression on his pale face steady. Marc visibly gritted his teeth as he passed Shere and the governor's bodyguards.
"Ordinate!" he snarled over his shoulder at overseer Manita. "For frak's sake can you move these bodies somewhere more respectful?"
"Which way, Fred?" Vincent grunted, raising an eyebrow.
Fredriq adjusted his glasses and tugged furiously at his collar. "Er...I believe this tunnel intersects the one coming down from the palace. So just straight ahead. The command bunker should be to the left, and the lift to the palace war room on the right."
+ + + + + +
"Inquisition!" Vincent thundered to get the room's attention as the team came bursting into the cramped, brightly-lit hive of activity that was the command bunker. "Where's governor Faroven!?"
"Not here." Marc hissed from behind the stocky ex-Guardsman. Glancing around the room, he saw that none of the startled officers clapping their hands to their sidearm grips were wearing the olive drab of Faroven's bodyguards.
"He...he returned to the palace to order the evacuation." confirmed one of the officers a moment later, an old but steel-eyed man with a tunic studded with service medals. "What are you doing here? What happened to the lockdown?"
"It is still in effect." magos Primavesi said as she shouldered her way to the front, the overhead lights glinting off her gold cranial bionics.
The grizzled officer put out an arm to bar her path. "Back off, cog-girl. Someone sabotaged the lance network, and only you tech priests know how that thing really works."
"I can confirm that none of my subordinates have the requisite Knowledge to do that." Primavesi said acidly, "Because I do not. Step aside."
"We've got an auspex that can detect the xenos replicants." Marc said quickly, putting himself between the magos and the general. He shot a glance at Sapphira, who was still carrying Vizkop's auspex. "And no-one here is setting it off."
"Which means we're in the wrong fokkin' place!" Vincent snarled.
"In His name, will you please explain just what is going on here!" the old officer thundered.
"We have reason to believe that Faroven is the replicant." Marc explained levelly.
"Er...the governor's private Aquila hanger is in the north wing of the palace." Fredriq put in. "He might be trying to escape that way."
"How do we get there?"
"The governor's audience hall is the main hub for most of the palace."
Leaving Vizkop, Primavesi and the bewildered PDF staff behind, the team spun and followed Fredriq.
+ + + + + +
The frigate's bells were chiming action stations as it plowed through the warp, but interrogator Schafer was impressed by the cool professionalism that still dominated the Excubitor's strategium. Servitors rattled at keyboards, officers barked their clipped naval cant into headsets and vox casters, and a semicircle of magi chanted around the globular hololith that dominated the centre of the chamber, mechadendrites darting in and out of connector ports. Schafer himself stood to one side near the comms hub, grinding his teeth as he willed the well-oiled machine of the ship's crew to work even faster.
"Interrogator." said the junior officer seated beside him, tearing a strip of paper from a brass printing roll and offering it to Schafer. "Message just up from Astro, your team on Venatora advises against entering orbit; they think we could come under fire from the whole lance network. Adept Vizkop is going to attempt to regain control of the satellites."
Schafer cursed under his breath. He still held some antipathy towards Vizkop - mostly a reflection of his anger at Lord Sidonis for not informing him of the second purity monitor on his team - but he knew that Vizkop was the only one of them even half equipped to exorcise a machine curse powerful enough to dominate an entire orbital defence network.
The frigate commander, evidently having heard the comm officer's report, turned on his heel and crossed the bridge towards Schafer.
"Orders, interrogator?" he asked.
"Where are we?" Schafer answered. He looked up at the hololith in the centre of the room, surrounded by its ring of tech-priests and wider-orbiting shoal of bridge officers with their dataslates and command wands. Currently rendering the input from the ship's warp sensors, the projection looked like a bruised purple cloud speckled with red flecks and larger blood-coloured orbs, all superimposed with bright yellow text-tags, lines and oversized wireframes. Schafer understood that the sensors detected souls or some such blasphemous arcana, but aside from the blood-drop planets and the large ripple which he assumed was a reflection of the energy spewed out by the system's sun, he couldn't make much sense of the display. If he stared at the shifting purple cloud for too long he almost felt the deck under his feet rolling, as if the Excubitor was a planet-bound ship being tossed by a particularly violent sea. Appropriate, but hardly comforting.
The commander glanced at the hololith himself, and obviously fared better at interpreting the sphere of red soul points and purple reflection ripples. "We're about to pass Vitaris, sir."
Armed with this information, Schafer looked again at the hololith, and this time was able to locate the wireframe globe that had been placed around a much smaller smudge of purple, spinning slowly near the middle of the display. No bright red marble of souls - only the ripples of reflected solar rays resonating across the immaterium, because Vitaris was a dead world. And yet, something was awake there, beaming out the vox wave signal that had lured the explorators to the planet.
Schafer blinked. He couldn't reach Faroven; nor could he get close enough to send reinforcements to his team without the Excubitor being vaporised by the defence satellites. But there was something he could do to help them. He remembered Kelly Black's report on the Noyer replicant, and how she had described the alien chip in its head synchronising with the signal from Vitaris. There was more to the signal than the vox component, that much was obvious, and perhaps the detectable vox wave had only been included to lure the Imperials to Vitaris in the first place. But it was also clear that the signal was transmitting something to the replicants. Maybe he couldn't stop the xenos machine curse, but he could stop them.
"Kill the warp engines." Schafer barked. "Now! I want you to pinpoint the source of the Vitaris transmission, and I want you to blast it into slag."
The commander knew better than to ask Schafer to explain his reasoning. He merely snapped his head down and up in a curt nod, and turned to point at one of his subordinates.
"Lieutenant, give the order to run out the guns as soon as we're concordant." He unhooked a vox caster from the bulkhead. "Enginarium, bridge. Chief enginseer, I need you to translate us out of warp immediately."
"Praise the Omnissiah." a modulated voice intoned from the wall speaker. "It will be done."
+ + + + + +
Around Remus and Kelly, mentally reeling astropathica personnel tried to continue their duties while others carried away the bodies of Shere and the governor's bodyguards. Next to Remus, the astropath who was providing their link to Schafer retched and slumped forward, trickles of blood running from her nose and tear ducts. The machinery coiled around her began to flash a warning, and the nearest tech adept hurried forward to appease it.
"Shit." the AAT guard said matter-of-factly, and swiped his arm towards the tech priest monitoring the throne's mind-machine interface. "Pull her out. She's done."
Shoving Remus slightly as he sidestepped past him, the guard shouted to one of his black-clad colleagues.
"We need another one for throne 2! Priority link!"
"All the spares have been cycled." his colleague shouted back. "All the ones not plugged in are in recovery. If we put one of them back in we'll kill them."
"What does it matter? We'll all be dead in an hour anyway!"
The tech priest finished deactivating the throne's machinery, and the wispy-haired astropath slumped forward as the cable supporting her head yanked itself out. She groped blindly for the nearest support, which turned out to be Remus' armoured forearm.
"The saint..." she mumbled, still dopey from the throne's cocktail of drugs. "I need to talk to the saint..."
"Agents?" ordinate Manita's voice suddenly cut in. "Did you call in the PDF?"
The AAT overseer was standing over one of the cogitators, her fists pressed into the desk as she stared at the pict feed from one of the complex's external cameras. Crossing the room to glance over her shoulder, Kelly and Remus saw a squadron of Valkyries in PDF grey were flaring their maneouvring jets as they touched down in the palace courtyard. Soldiers were already dropping like black metal beads from the hatches to surround the grounded Arvus and its unfortunate, bewildered pilot. Kelly swallowed, rubbed the bridge of her nose, and touched her earpiece.
"Team? Kelly. You'd better hurry up. We've got a Horus of a situation up here."
+ + + + + +
Vizkop, Primavesi and roughly half of the bunker's tech priests formed a silent island in the middle of the loud and barely controlled chaos in the rest of the war room. While the Imperial officers fought to establish a picture of the situation that they could act upon, and while the lesser acolytes prayed over their wailing cogitators, the tech exorcists exchanged information in curt, efficient bursts of binary.
The machine curse is rooted within this network cogitator. the most senior adept reported. We believe that it is manifesting control through the microburst communion link.
Magos Primavesi nodded her dark-skinned head. Even when the city void shields were up and blocking all incident communications, radio waves originating from inside the shield would still pass out through the one-way barrier.
Attempts to jam the signal externally have proved ineffective, and we cannot gain access to shut it down. the adept concluded, his fingers twitching in a sign that his stress levels had exceeded his implants' ability to suppress them. The curse has located and blocked all of the override access channels. The machine spirit is besieged and completely cut off from our aid.
Then we will have to interface with the machine directly, and fight our way through to our child. magos Primavesi transmitted as she reached out and unspooled the cogitator's communion cable.
With all due respect, magos, inadvisable. The curse is unusually strong and adaptable. It may be capable of bridging the link to infect even our own cerebral implants. I would advise against risking your Knowledge in this way.
Adept Vizkop is a military grade machine empath. magos Primavesi answered. He has the necessary training.
She held out the communion cable for Vizkop to slot into his wrist armour port.
Go with the Omnissiah's will, adept.
Not wasting any time, Vizkop connected himself and opened his mind to the machine. The machine curse was waiting for him.
To Vizkop's mind, translating the vast datascape of electrical pulses back into something his physical senses could understand, it appeared as a huge black dragon made up of corrupted data streams and utterly alien code algorithms. Vast wings of viral code spread up through the communications network, digging hooked claws into the screaming, writhing machine spirits of the lance satellites. The network's own security djinns had been overwhelmed in a heartbeat, pinned beneath the dragon's clawed feet in an avalanche of malicious scrap code. Vizkop could see his fellow tech priests fighting to disable the dragon with their own counter-programs, but every machine code prayer simply glanced off a series of alien firewalls, shifting and layered like scales.
Almost as soon as Vizkop threw his mind into the datascape and beheld the machine curse, it lunged at him with rows of dagger-sharp code packets, closing in around his noosphere like a set of jaws snapping shut.
+ + + + + +
The two guards standing in front of the arched doors had just begun to shout a challenge when shots from Vincent and Kally punched them off their feet. The palace was all gilded statues and flying marble buttresses, but with Fredriq pointing the way the audience hall wasn't hard to find. They moved with*carapace-armoured Sapphira and Vincent shielding the aged researcher from the front, and Kally, Lia and Marc covering him from behind. They paused only to slam the occasional terrified servant or functionary up against the wall until Vizkop's auspex verified them as human, at which point they would let the bystander go with Fred's profuse apologies as their only explanation. None of the palace staff seemed to know reliably where Faroven was. Vincent unceremoniously shot the downed guards through the head, cursing in his native Delphic while the others stacked up behind the door. They didn't wait, crashing through the priceless oak doors and snapping left and right before training their weapons up the length of the hall.
The hall could have held several hundred, standing either side of a red and black carpet that ran from the door to the top of the hall. Right now however it was empty enough for the crash of the door bursting open to echo up the arched hall and back again, bouncing between the arches that ribbed the walls. The arches were hung with red and black banners, but the stained-glass windows that were spaced between them had been covered by thick adamantium blast shields. The only light was provided by a dozen lumoglobes, carried in the pincers of drifting servo-skulls. They threw long shadows across the floor, which was inlaid with panels of different coloured quartz to form frescoes of holy aquilas and scenes of victory from the Necron war. The xenos had been stylised as hunched skeletons wreathed in green lightning and tattered black cloaks.
The only living person in the hall was Faroven, who stood on a raised dais at the end of the carpet, one hand resting on an obsidian throne cushioned with red velvet. At the governor's waist was a black laspistol with a molded grip, but he hadn't drawn it. The team trained their guns on him. Sapphira trained her auspex. Working the screen blinked as a yellow box shrank inwards to close around the heat-map image of Faroven, Working.
Faroven turned his head to look down at the team, raising his hands placatingly. He opened his mouth to speak.
"Stop!" a familiar voice shouted from behind the group. They spun to see security chief Craddock with half a dozen men at her back, all with lascarbines hard against their shoulders and pointed at the inquisition agents.
With his brow furrowed in an expression of regret, Faroven slapped his palm down on a panic button built into the arm of his throne. A heavy adamantium blast shield whistled down to slam across the doorway that the inquisition team had just kicked open, leaving Craddock and her squad stranded on the other side. Almost immediately, the team heard muffled shouts and the frantic crack of lasfire.
"Keeping Vitani's hands clean." Faroven explained as he stepped down off the dais. The muzzles of the team's guns followed him, as did the yellow outline on Sapphira's auspex. Blink...blink. Working. Working.
"Why?" Marc asked guardedly, his gun levelled in a practiced Weaver stance as he stood between Kally and Vincent. "Why would a xenos care?"
"I'm not a xenos." Faroven said calmly.
Blink, blink...red. Sapphira's auspex began to beep its shrill warning, revealing the lie in the governor's words. Faroven, M: Not human.
The team opened fire as one. Bullets, blue threads of las, and the white streaks of self-propelled bolt shells converged on the governor - and vanished in a blinding flash of light as they hit the invisible wall of a conversion field.
"Because it's something Faroven would do." the governor admitted as visors whited out and repolarised, and the less well-equipped members of the team blinked to try and clear their seared vision. "Also, I don't want her to see this."
He raised his arms, turning his open hands towards a seemingly random sequence of points around the vaulted ceiling. It was only as the first lumoglobe hit the floor with a splintering crash that the team realised he was pointing towards the drifting servo-skulls. One by one the constructs dropped their lights and unfurled short-barrelled las weapons from inside their skull cavities. As the room was plunged into sudden darkness, a red slash bisected the hall as Faroven drew his laspistol and fired it at Sapphira's head.
Jarms48
01-17-2014, 09:28 AM
"Oh sh-" he began to say, before a violent crack and flash of lasfire sent him sprawling back against the blackened floor tiles. A second beam vaporised a chunk of metal from the spire in the centre of the room, just above one of the wired-in astropaths. The astropath, a haggard young man with a prematurely lined face, screamed and tried to wrench himself out of his restraints. AAT personnel ducked for cover or clawed for their weapons, shouting protests.
“COVERING FIRE!” He heard Kally scream. The distinctive hammer of each bolt in flight passing mere inches from him.
"Cease fire!" the ordinate was yelling, "Cease fire!"
"Inquisition!" Remus blurted, howled over the sudden torrent of las-bolts. Julianus had placed himself on the doors flank ready for possible breach, he doubted anyone would have known they were waiting for them. He dropped to a crouch, hotshot lasrifle in hand. Unable to get any line-of-sight, pinned by heavy suppression. Blind fire couldn't be relied upon and breaking cover was suicide.
Shere was choking on the floor, blood slopping from a ragged wound in his throat every time he gasped for breath.
He caught wind of Kally's movement, readied a flash grenade and curved it down the hall. Julianus couldn't care for regulations, he pressed his hotshot against the door, angled it around the corner and hammered in his trigger.
* * * * *
While she offered John his last rites, Sapphira eased out her revolver and quietly cocked back the hammer and brought it near to the side of his head. She kept John’s attention on her as she leaned back and smiled encouragingly down at him. He never knew the weapon was there as Sapphira pulled the trigger and ended his life and pain.
He had heard the gunshot, his attention was gained moments later. Horrified, he knew of mercy, though the application of it varied. That was a form of mercy he had never seen, brutal, cold, merciless in its own regard. She was an agent of the Sister Hospiltar, he couldn't fathom why she didn't choose a more peaceful approach. Surely she had morphia, dimmed the pain and given him the overdose. Julianus knew the dose, one syrette would knock you out, two would put you into a comatose state and three would stop your heart.
* * * * *
Leaving Vizkop, Primavesi and the bewildered PDF staff behind, the team spun and followed Fredriq.
"I'll remain here, someones going to have to be your rearguard. Not to mention, hold our only lifeline to the Interrogator." Remus put in, giving them a nod. "Make sure you get the bastard."
"Lia." He walked over to the infant-psyker and shuffled her hair. "Don't get yourself killed."
* * * * *
"The saint..." she mumbled, still dopey from the throne's cocktail of drugs. "I need to talk to the saint..."
"The who...?" Julianus said, confused. He glanced over his shoulder, looked to the struggling astropath. Julianus wasn't uncommon to the sight of astro-personnel, he preferred doing his business in person, and his title was generally enough to grant him basic level entrance. The blood, the screams, the murmured whispers, he had grown use to it. Once, when he was young, there may have been a childish fear, a phobia of those that were different. Those that held the power of the Warp, there was still mistrust, experience and training had seen to that. Possible conduits to the unholy, one had to be careful, to tread carefully across the boundaries of the immaterium.
"The probe?" He questioned, remembering the reaction when she had first seen it. "You know who that was, it knew your sister? You went to Holy Terra did you not? Sent out here when you learned your gifts? Your whereabouts might very well be unknown to her. But I trust she loves you dearly, still remembers the times you shared. Family, family comes before all else, I would do anything to see my sisters safe. Not that they'd need my help, I'm sure they could handle themselves."
"What does she do?" He asked, kindly. Julianus probably could relate to her more than most, his own siblings were spread across the stars. The time between their messages left him worried more-than-most, the Imperium was hardly a safe place, and with the unreliability of Astro communication he often thought the worst. Though, he at least had the privilege of staying in contact with them, as infrequently as it was.
Julianus spoke as if he had all the time in the world, as if the planet wasn't under threat of annihilation, as if they weren't about to be assaulted by the might of the Planetary Defense Force. He turned in the spot and wrapped his other hand on her shoulder, steadying the dazed astropath. He worked up a smile, not that she could have seen it, and guided her to the relative safety of a nearby alcove. He helped her down, sat her against the wall, and looked at her.
"Stay here, alright. I cannot tell you how many innocents I've seen killed, to much for a single lifetime. Keep your head down, and maybe I can do one good thing, nobody else deserves to die today. To much blood has already been spilled." He said, sorrow and regret filled him. He retreated, moving to the breach John had made for them. Julianus would have closed Johns eyes, if the Sister hadn't have placed a round into his skull. He didn't look at peace, his body sprawled across the floor. Lifeless, his blood miring the rockcrete.
His hands jerked up one of the bodies, the mans legs were torn out from under him, his armour however, was still intact. Such was an object of his interest, and Julianus made an effort to unfasten it, and pulled it over the troopers shoulders. He placed it on the ground next to him, then searched the troopers pockets for spare magazines and gathered up their weapons.
"Team? Kelly. You'd better hurry up. We've got a Horus of a situation up here."
"Kelly, put this on." Remus said, loud, loud enough to be heard over the comms. Julianus held her out one of the troopers carapace chestplates. "It'll do you more good then that flakvest."
"Are you trained in the usage of boltguns?" He paused, then added before she could even answer. "Failing that, hotshot lasguns?"
* * * * *
"You." Julianus hailed one of the AAT guards. "Gather up and arm the non-essential staff. The PDF are going to be here in full force any minute now. Try to gather up cargo boxes and storage crates, let's see if we can make some improvised firing positions. Piss-poor cover is better than no cover."
"I'm going to see what I can do about that elevator." Julianus declared, his hand digging into his webbing and grasping the spherical casing of his melta-bomb.
Azazeal849
01-20-2014, 05:07 PM
The AAT handler looked about to object as Remus carried his charge away, but dropped his eyes to the stylised letter I on the stormtrooper's chestplate and thought better of it.
"The probe?" Remus questioned, remembering the reaction when she had first seen it. "You know who that was, it knew your sister? You went to Holy Terra did you not? Sent out here when you learned your gifts? Your whereabouts might very well be unknown to her. But I trust she loves you dearly, still remembers the times you shared. Family, family comes before else, I would do anything to see my sisters safe. Not that they'd need my help, I'm sure they could handle themselves."
"Oh, Anna knows I'm here." the astropath said faintly, as she clumsily scrubbed the blood away from her eyes and nose. The attempt left red smears on the cuff of her robe.
"What does she do?" Julianus asked, kindly. He spoke as if he had all the time in the world, as if the planet wasn't under threat of annihilation, as if they weren't about to be assaulted by the might of the Planetary Defense Force. He turned in the spot and wrapped his other hand on her shoulder, steadying the dazed astropath. He worked up a smile, not that she could have seen it, and guided her to the relative safety of a nearby alcove. He helped her down, sat her against the wall, and looked at her.
"Guard." the astropath slurred. "She's in the Guard. But she promised she'd come and see me when her tour was done...look."
She flailed one arm for a moment before she found the pocket of her robe and pulled out a couple of tightly-folded letters, which she teased open and pressed into Remus' gloved hands. They looked like decoded astropathic communiques, of the same sort printed out by the machine that the astropath herself spent half her days plugged into. The paper was yellowed, and around the fold creases the ink had been rubbed completely away.
"She promised." the astropath insisted.
Julianus probably could relate to her more than most, his own siblings were spread across the stars. The time between their messages left him worried more-than-most, the Imperium was hardly a safe place, and with the unreliability of Astro communication he often thought the worst. Though, he at least had the privilege of staying in contact with them, as infrequently as it was. As he stared at the letter again, wondering how a physically blind astropath could read, he noticed that the date stamp at the top right of the page was nearly 40 years old
"Stay here, alright?" He said, sorrow and regret filling him. "I cannot tell you how many innocents I've seen killed, too much for a single lifetime. Keep your head down, and maybe I can do one good thing, nobody else deserves to die today. Too much blood has already been spilled." He retreated, moving to the breach John had made for them.
"I didn't have you down as the sentimental type." Kelly admitted as she joined him. She turned her gaze from the astropath huddled in the corner to the black-clad AAT personnel clearing away the bodies, and hugged her elbows as they stooped to pick up Shere. Julianus would have closed John's eyes, if the Sister hadn't have placed a round into his skull. He didn't look at peace, his body sprawled across the floor. Lifeless, his blood miring the rockcrete.
His hands jerked up one of the bodies, the mans legs were torn out from under him, his armour however, was still intact. Such was an object of his interest, and Julianus made an effort to unfasten it, and pulled it over the troopers shoulders. He placed it on the ground next to him, searched the troopers pockets for spare magazines, and gathered up their weapons.
"Agents?" ordinate Manita's voice suddenly cut in. "Did you call in the PDF?"
The AAT overseer was standing over one of the cogitators, her fists pressed into the desk as she stared at the poct feed from one of the complex's external cameras. Crossing the room to glance over her shoulder, Kelly and Remus saw that a squadron of Valkyrie transports painted in PDF grey were flaring their maneouvring jets as they touched down in the palace courtyard. Soldiers were already dropping like black metal beads from the hatches to surround the grounded Arvus and its unfortunate, bewildered pilot. Kelly swallowed, rubbed the bridge of her nose, and touched her earpiece.
"Team? Kelly. You'd better hurry up. We've got a Horus of a situation up here."
"Kelly, put this on." Remus said, loud enough to be heard over the comms. He held her out one of the troopers carapace chestplates. "It'll do you more good then that flakvest. Are you trained in the usage of boltguns?" He paused, then added before she could even answer. "Failing that, hotshot lasguns?"
"Regular las and auto." Kelly said dubiously, patting her reholstered solid-slug pistol. "How different is it?"
"Could you please," overseer Manita put in with a kind of pained politeness, "Tell me what's going on here?"
"You." Julianus hailed one of the AAT guards. "Gather up and arm the non-essential staff. The PDF are going to be here in full force any minute now. Try to gather up cargo boxes and storage crates, let's see if we can make some improvised firing positions. Piss-poor cover is better than no cover."
"Now wait a warp-damned minute!" the ordinate finally exploded, "You're not planning on fighting the PDF?"
"Well it's not plan A!" Kelly snapped back at her. She seemed more annoyed at herself than at Manita. "The thing pretending to be Faroven must have called them in. They won't listen to me but they might listen to you!"
"What am I supposed to tell them?" Manita protested as Kelly pushed a vox set into her hands.
"I don't know! Stall them!"
"I'm going to see what I can do about that elevator." Julianus declared, his hand digging into his webbing and grasping the spherical casing of his melta-bomb.
"Is that really necessary?" said a wide-eyed guard as Remus unveiled the breaching charge and began to carry it towards the only way in or out of the underground complex. He had already seen the chaos that had followed one violent door breach in the presence of sensitive equipment and jittery astropaths.
The tech priest who Remus remembered being called Landa, who was currently praying over the cogitator Marc had hacked, looked up and emitted an indignant-sounding squeal of binary.
"No it is not." he said as he straightened with a click and whir of bionics. "Trooper, allow me to propose a solution that does not involve murdering innocent machine spirits. I could send the lift into hibernation by cutting its power supply, thereby denying the PDF access."
"You're going to get my people killed!" ordinate Manita protested, the vox still hanging from her hand. "I can't order them to obstruct the Emperor-damn PDF!"
Kelly paused, lacing her hands behind her head agitatedly. After a few seconds, she let them drop.
"Okay." she said, sounding calmer than before. "I've got a couple of ideas. You could tell the PDF that we're holding you hostage. That should keep your people upstairs safe, though I don't know how they'll react after that. Or we could call the arbites - assuming they've got any spare units left right now. I'm pretty sure they'll still listen to the inquisition...but they might just make the standoff upstairs worse..."
The young verispex chewed her tongue, while on Manita's cogitator the PDF continued to land. The team's Arvus pilot was on her knees in the snow with her hands above her head, apparently protesting her innocence. Squads of soldiers - in a chaotic mix of unit markings, showing the few that had been able to respond to the governor's summons in the midst of the crisis - were already advancing on the AAT complex. The crackle in ordinate Manita's ear-bead could only be the alarmed AAT guards requesting instructions.
"Remus," Kelly asked the stormtrooper urgently, "What do you reckon?"
Jarms48
01-20-2014, 11:51 PM
"I didn't have you down as the sentimental type." Kelly admitted as she joined him. She turned her gaze from the astropath huddled in the corner to the black-clad AAT personnel clearing away the bodies, and hugged her elbows as they stooped to pick up Shere. Julianus would have closed John's eyes, if the Sister hadn't have placed a round into his skull. He didn't look at peace, his body sprawled across the floor. Lifeless, his blood miring the rockcrete.
"There's a lot you don't know about me, it isn't just parade stance and curiosities. I am born to the family Remus, a name that's a blessing as much as a curse. Family expectations, a sense of pride and duty. But I can understand the girls troubles, my siblings are spread across the stars. The last time I saw most of them was in the Progenium, and I do wish I could see them again." Julianus said.
Better to live in hope than sorrow. He thought to himself, his eyes falling back to the Astropath. The Guard was a dangerous occupation, and the date stamp left little to the imagination. Julianus didn't have the heart to tell her, then again, what if he was wrong? Maybe time had slipped away from her, maybe she had her own family to care for. There he was, grasping at his own version of hope, he closed his eyes, his mind conflicted.
* * * * *
"Regular las and auto." Kelly said dubiously, patting her reholstered solid-slug pistol. "How different is it?"
"Not very, save for increased penetration, be careful of barrel strain. Though, I swapped out the barrels when we were back at the starport. So it should be good for a few hundred bolts. It'll generally penetrate most military grade flakvests with ease, hell, I could put down a marine with this." Julianus replied. He slung out his hotshot, and handed it to her. His other hand digging in pockets of his webbing to retrieve the spare battery packs.
"Try to get a feel for it, some practice shots if you can." He said.
* * * * *
"Remus," Kelly asked the stormtrooper urgently, "What do you reckon?"
"Both. Perhaps that could buy time for the Arbiters to arrive. This is their case just as much as ours, surely the PDF will listen to a judicial order from a Judge." Julianus returned.
Atrum Daemon
01-21-2014, 09:47 AM
Since you let me run free with this, I thought it good to run it by you and make sure it's acceptable.
"Adept Vizkop." magos Primavesi said, abruptly striding away from the other three women. "Follow me, please. Adept Landa." She pointed towards the tech-priest who had originally been guiding the repair drones that still skittered obliviously over the astropathic spire, and then to the cogitator that Marc had been using. "Placate that machine spirit and restore its integrity."
She followed up with a blurt of machine code that only Vizkop could make sense of.*And verify that the agent's access was by mechanicus-approved routes.
Vizkop nodded, matching the Primavesi's stride as she walked away. The confirmation was simple enough to come by and relay to the magos. He followed the magos and the increasing cadre of priests through the halls. Walking gave him time to think. To mull over the options about the xeno machine curse. Something of such seeming power would not be undone so easily. From what he had gleaned from the urgency of the request for help, outside stimulus was probably doing little to hinder the foe. From the moment he had heard about the xeno curse, Vizkop had entertained the possibility that he would have to enter the Manifold to fight the curse directly. Whether or not he did so alone was up to Primavesi's discretion. He was prepared for the possibility that combating the machine curse would kill him. He had led a full life in service to the will of the Omnissiah. He was willing to die in that service and would all the happier knowing his final act was to help save a world from a dangerous xeno menace.
Vizkop, Primavesi and roughly half of the bunker's tech priests formed a silent island in the middle of the loud and barely controlled chaos in the rest of the war room. While the Imperial officers fought to establish a picture of the situation that they could act upon, and while the lesser acolytes prayed over their wailing cogitators, the tech exorcists exchanged information in curt, efficient bursts of binary.
The machine curse is rooted within this network cogitator.*the most senior adept reported.*We believe that it is manifesting control through the microburst communion link.
Vizkop nodded, his eyes narrowing beneath his helmet. Most would not have caught the method as microburst was normally difficult to track effectively. But, extended and continuous use did make it easier to find a source most of the time.
Attempts to jam the signal externally have proved ineffective, and we cannot gain access to shut it down.*the adept concluded, his fingers twitching in a sign that his stress levels had exceeded his implants' ability to suppress them.*The curse has located and blocked all of the override access channels. The machine spirit is besieged and completely cut off from our aid.
'It seems we face a proverbial dragon,' Vizkop thought, remembering the few documents of Old Terran myth he had read through years ago.
Then we will have to interface with the machine directly, and fight our way through to our child.*magos Primavesi transmitted as she reached out and unspooled the cogitator's communion cable.
With all due respect, magos, inadvisable. The curse is unusually strong and adaptable. It may be capable of bridging the link to infect even our own cerebral implants. I would advise against risking your Knowledge in this way.
Adept Vizkop is a military grade machine empath.*magos Primavesi answered.*He has the necessary training.
I don't have time to waste then, Vizkop returned. He took the offered cable and slotted it into the port at the base of his skull. He needed absolute control of himself within the Manifold. He would have to dive headlong inside with his full consciousness rather than split it to handle multiple tasks. No, this required all of his attention and ability. His dragon awaited.
To Vizkop's mind, translating the vast datascape of electrical pulses back into something his physical senses could understand, it appeared as a huge black dragon made up of corrupted data streams and utterly alien code algorithms. Vast wings of viral code spread up through the communications network, digging hooked claws into the screaming, writhing machine spirits of the lance satellites. The network's own security djinns had been overwhelmed in a heartbeat, pinned beneath the dragon's clawed feet in an avalanche of malicious scrap code. Vizkop could see his fellow tech priests fighting to disable the dragon with their own counter-programs, but every machine code prayer simply glanced off a series of alien firewalls, shifting and layered like scales.
Almost as soon as Vizkop threw his mind into the datascape and beheld the machine curse, it lunged at him with rows of dagger-sharp code packets, closing in around his noosphere like a set of jaws snapping shut.
'I was not expecting a literal dragon,' Vizkop thought, quickly throwing up a barrier. The jaws set around the data barrier and Vizkop dashed away just before the dragon annihilated his shoddy barrier. He had gotten rusty going so long outside of the Manifold. But, the skills were quickly returning. How to arm himself. How to protect himself. How to destroy this monster was something he would have to work out through trial and error. Vizkop hated trial and error.
His counter-programs swirled up his form and became as armor against the dragon. He liked his chances more than his brethren because he had access to a few tricks that most adepts would not. But as Primavessi had pointed out he was a military-grade empath. The dragon opened it's jaws and unleashed a stream of fiery attack code. Vizkop threw up a new barrier to guard against the stream. The fiery blast crashed against the barrier and it held strong for a few moments. But soon, the fire started to break through the barrier in small streams. Vizkop danced aside before the barrier failed and the flames scorched the ground he had stood on. He retaliated with his own blast of attack code, more sophisticated than the code from the other priests. The code tore a wound along the dragon as the beast moved aside. Vizkop watched as the dragon reconstituted the damaged sections of alien protection programs. That would be problematic.
The dragon attacked again, claws extended fully, and swiped across Vizkop's body. He suppressed a cry as the claws bit him, cutting nasty gashes through his protection programs. He jumped back, manipulating the Manifold around him to create a few pillars of data to take cover behind from the dragon. With a twitch of his mind, he started to run diagnostic programs to try to uncover any secrets about the alien program. His protection fields reconstituted themselves and he dodged out from behind the pillar as the dragon destroyed it with a slash of one claw. Vizkop fired again, his attack code manifesting as shining spears of bright coding. The sophisticated attack codes speared into the dragon's shifting scales of protection. And each time he broke through, the dragon reconstituted itself. Vizkop was able to avoid most of the dragon's strikes, but a tail lash struck him in the side and sent him flying several dozen feet within the dataspace.
He landed just as his diagnostics finished. They had barely managed to purge the viral worms and told him very little about the dragon that he did not already know from observing it. 'Trying to weaken this beast is pointless,' Vizkop said, turning aside a claw-swipe with a wave of his hand. 'Whatever damage I do, it repairs. I need to take it down in one strike. And that means getting close to it. Omnissiah guide me.'
A second swipe broke through his shielding and cut him deep as it sent him reeling. He pushed himself up with effort. He knew he could not keep this up. If he kept dancing around, the dragon would kill him. He had to at least try his all. He had one trick he was sure would be his best shot. The only danger was that he needed to get close and drive his blade into the monster's heart or head. He danced out of the way of another gout of black fire, jumping over the beasts tail as it tried to sweep him away. He dug through his offensive programs until he found the locked file labeled “SOUL KILLER.”
It was a program designed to kill intruders in the Manifold. It was for use against invading heretek's and rogue priests and the like. Vizkop had never employed it before, but he was sure that if anything could put the beast down, Soul Killer could.
He barely avoided another claw strike only to be caught by a black fireball belched from the dragon's jaws. Vizkop was hit center mass by the ball and consumed by the flames of code. His body lost all it's light and he collapsed in a heap, bleeding life from the deep gashes his diagnostics were barely keeping closed. His body flickered and light slowly returned to the recesses of the gleaming red armor. He managed to push himself to his feet, the Soul Killer manifesting as a glowing blade extending over his hand from his wrist. The dragon caught him with an upward strike, cutting into his firewalls and protective programs once again. His diagnostics were working overclocked to keep him together and keep him moving.
He managed to stand, his body kicking into an overclocked state to keep him going. He was barely holding together. The dragon had done a number on him and he knew this was his final shot. The dragon tried to sweep him away again, believing him to be unable to stand against an impact. It was only thanks to the overclock that Vizkop was able to flip onto the tail and stick with data prods from his feet. He started to run, getting clipped by a blast of black fire on his way up the tail. He ignored the screaming pain and jumped onto one of the large arms of the beast, barely ducking under a swipe from the other claw. He then took his shot with a great leap toward the monster's chest.
Spears of defensive code shot out, tearing into Vizkop's form as he closed the distance. The Soul Killer struck home in the dragon's chest, sending a pulse of killing data into the core of the beast. The Soul Killer code proved so unknown to the xeno construct that it could not adapt to it fast enough to prevent the program from breaking it down at multiple anchor points. The dragon broke apart into fragmenting pixels with a howling death roar. As it fragmented around him, Vizkop executed his ejection program.
Back in the real, Vizkop slumped forward as he broke his Manifold connection. He was caught by several adepts and prevented from crashing to the floor. The battle, which had not lasted nearly as long as it had felt, had taken a great toll on Vizkop both mentally and physically. He slipped into unconsciousness firm in his faith that he had done the Omnissiah's will once again and sent a silent prayer to his team mates that they would be able to finish it.
Azazeal849
01-22-2014, 09:51 PM
"There's a lot you don't know about me," Julianus said. "It isn't just parade stance and curiosities. I am born to the family Remus, a name that's a blessing as much as a curse. Family expectations, a sense of pride and duty."
In spite of everything, Kelly smiled slightly.
"If it makes you feel any better, I know what you mean. Marc and me came from a whole family of enforcers." The smile faded as two guards carried Shere's body away. "I wonder who John's family were?"
Remembering their duty, she looked round to see if the AAT guards had managed to find a replacement astropath to maintain their link to Schafer and the Excubitor, but for now there was only the wispy-haired old woman, Olivia, sitting huddled in a corner.
"But I can understand the girls troubles," Remus said as he followed her gaze. "My siblings are spread across the stars. The last time I saw most of them was in the Progenium, and I do wish I could see them again."
Better to live in hope than sorrow. He thought to himself, his eyes falling back to the Astropath. The Guard was a dangerous occupation, and the date stamp left little to the imagination. Julianus didn't have the heart to tell her, then again, what if he was wrong? Maybe time had slipped away from her, maybe she had her own family to care for. There he was, grasping at his own version of hope, he closed his eyes, his mind conflicted.
...
"Remus," Kelly asked the stormtrooper urgently, "What do you reckon?"
"Both. Perhaps that could buy time for the Arbiters to arrive. This is their case just as much as ours, surely the PDF will listen to a judicial order from a Judge." Julianus returned.
Ordinate Manita looked at the two agents, ran her hand across her scalp again.
"Emperor help me..." she mumbled, and took a deep breath as she gripped the vox unit. "Topside, this is overseer Manita. Do not resist the PDF, repeat, do not resist!"
+ + + + + +
He slipped into unconsciousness, firm in his faith that he had done the Omnissiah's will once again. He could hear his fellow priests canting in binary, the sound dopplering away as his auditory implants shut down.
Did he succeed? magos Primavesi's distinct frequency blipped as she helped the junior adepts lower Vizkop to the floor with surprisingly emotional care. Do we have control?
Brother of the priesthood in critical condition. was the last thing he translated as he slipped into the black. Artisan and medical to the command bunker.
Vizkop sent a silent prayer to his team mates that they would be able to finish the job.
+ + + + + +
"Cease fire!" security chief Craddock swore aloud. "Stop wasting your ammo!"
Lasbolts that would have pulverised rockrete and put fist-sized craters in human tissue were barely even scoring the adamantium blast door. Vitani Craddock wasn't letting it show, but she could feel her pulse thudding in her throat, the look of regret on governor Faroven's face as he dropped the barrier seared into her mind. Even when he knew that the agents pursuing him might not even be human, he would rather face them himself than let his subordinates be branded heretics for defying the inquisition. A man like that didn't deserve to die, and certainly not at the hands of alien filth.
It's not too late. Craddock told herself. We can still get to him. But they would need a tech priest to disengage the door locks, and that would take far too long. She swore under her breath.
"Chief!" shouted one of her men behind her. He was pounding up the corridor from the armoury, the heavy silver discus of a melta bomb in his hand. Craddock felt her spirits lift in a sudden surge.
"Get that on the door, now!" she snapped at the man.
To the Warp with the inquisition. The only way those agents were leaving the audience hall was dead or in custody - then, then she would verify who was a xenos infiltrator. Craddock hoped that the whole team were aliens - not to save herself from a charge of treason, but because that was preferable to the thought that their former allies were acting out of nothing more than arrogant paranoia; storming in here and causing panic that could only aid any genuine infiltrators in their ranks, while the people of Venatora burned around them and Faroven tried to save them.
"Reload, ready flash-bangs." Craddock ordered, pulling down her photovisor. As her men began to fix the melta charge to the blast door, the security chief's lips curled back into a snarl.
+ + + + + +
"Astropath Zarus reports that his link with Venatora has been lost." reported the comms officer. "Attempting to re-establish."
Interrogator Schafer swore violently. If Venatora wasn't already gone, it was standing on the brink. The Excubitor had torn back into realspace on a bow-wave of corposant, shields crackling and warp sensors searching for a target as it loomed above the grey wilderness of Vitaris. But it hadn't found one.
"What's taking so long?" he barked at the frigate commander and his weapons officer, who were sending targeting runes skating across the main hololith with curt swipes of their command wands. The weapons officer, a young man whose uniform looked too big for him, glanced up briefly.
"We're having to screen for the warp reflection of the signal," he explained nervously before turning back to his work, "And it's faint as."
"Warp sensors are designed for locking onto large concentrations of warp energy." one of the tech adepts maintaining the hololith elaborated. "Ship crews, cities, planetary mass shadows...the ripples of discord a ship makes in the parallel plane when it fires its weapons, or dumps energy directly into the immaterium through its shields. They are not precise enough for detecting the comparitively tiny reflections of vox bursts against the background ripples under all but the calmest conditions."
"Isn't there any faster way?" Schafer asked pointedly, getting the gist of the tech priest's argument and heading him off before he could waste any more time.
"Standard augers would give us a better lock." said the young weapons officer. "But the shields absorb the return signals, so we'd need to drop them."
"So fething drop them!"
The weapons officer blanched; no doubt traditional Navy doctrine took a dim view of lowering a warship's shields while in orbit round a potentially hostile world. But the way Schafer saw it, if the Emperor-damn xenos had orbital defences hidden on their supposedly dead world then they would have used them by now.
The Excubitor's commander concurred, or at least thought better than to argue under such dire circumstances.
"You heard the interrogator. Disengage voids, get me a full optic and thermal scan of the surface, and tune vox masts for triangulating the xenos signal."
"Starboard las batteries charged." reported a junior officer from the bank of cogitators near the front of the strategium. "Main director is standing by."
+ + + + + +
"What's the SITREP?" growled a flint-eyed, granite-faced PDF soldier with lieutenant's insignia marked on the collar of his black flak armour.
"Hostage situation, sir!" reported a sergeant, turning away from the row of soldiers stacked up behind the primary elevator. The men at the front held full-body riot shields, while the men behind carried autoguns and bandoliers of flash-bang grenades. A pair of tech adepts with flak vests pulled over their red robes were busy behind a removed wall panel to the side of the lift. "The inquisition team left a rearguard in the astropathic choir chamber. They're holding the AAT personnel hostage and they've cut the power to the lift."
The lieutenant shuddered involuntarily, feeling his skin crawl as he shouldered past one of the Blank telepathica guards. Their fool of a commander wanted to send his own men down there to retrieve the situation, but the PDF officer wanted this job done by professionals. In the end he had agreed to allow one blacksoul to accompany the breaching team, ready to deactivate his limiter just in case all the witches penned up down there went berserk in the ensuing firefight.
"How long until you can get that lift working?"
The question was directed at the two tech priests, one of whom was wiring a portable battery pack into the lift winch system, while the other chanted a litany of activation. It was the one connecting the power pack that answered; the ritual chant was far too important to interrupt.
"Sixty seconds, lieutenant."
Emperor only knew how the xenos-corrupted inquisition team were planning on extricating themselves. With the palace locked down, this lift was the only way in or out of the underground complex - unless you counted the governor's emergency shuttle, and that required Faroven's own geneprint to activate. But the fact that they had left a rearguard in the AAT complex meant that the rest of the heretic scum were even now closing in on the governor.
The lieutenant fished an aquila on a silver chain out of his collar, kissed it solemnly, and tucked it back underneath his flak.
"For the Emperor." he intoned.
"Venatora stands!" the soldiers around him snarled back in unison.
kardar233
01-25-2014, 04:28 AM
Lia remained subdued as the Inquisition group flew on to the Governor's palace. She was still unsure of the plan Sapphira had devised, but that couldn't be helped. No more time for questions or infighting. Not much time and lots to do.
She'd heard of Astropathica stations before, but Lia was unprepared for the sheer psychic power manifesting and twisting its way through the air. It made her uncomfortable, but the coursing telepathic power raised feelings of nostalgia that she quickly suppressed. The job was what was important.
The bursts of dialogue between Sapphira, Marc and the two official-looking newcomers escaped Lia, preoccupied as she was. She picked up on the 'going through the large imposing door' idea, but the tall man with the Eyes seemed to have that one in hand, literally.
Melting through the door was admittedly rather impressive, though Lia maintained to herself that it would have taken less time for her to punch it in. Time seemed to slow as a bolt of energy slid messily through the man's neck. Her mind catalogued penetration of jugular and carotid; one to two minutes until death while she gaped.
She stayed like that, trying to process what had just happened for several seconds while the rest of the team laid in with grenades and gunshots. The final shot, the mercy, startled her from her reverie and she looked down at Shere's body.
She'd seen death. Orks vaporized, or decapitated, or with vital organs wrecked; but it wasn't the same. Lia suddenly felt desperately alone; more than the steady ache of loneliness that had lain in the back of her mind for most of her life.
"Lia." He walked over to the infant-psyker and shuffled her hair. "Don't get yourself killed."
She looked up at him, shaken, and smiled. Poked him heavily enough that he felt it through his armour. "Mmm. You're the squishy one." She turned to go with Sapphira and the team, and turned back. On an impulse, she wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him close, squeezing hard enough to make his carapace creak. "Come back, Remy."
Lia followed Sapphira and the team up through the palace, giving the unfortunate souls that they checked for replicancy a tiny "sorry".
Her eyes narrowed as the team caught sight of their quarry in the massive hall, and she stormed forward beside Sapphira towards him. Off her mental balance as she was, she didn't notice the armoured guards sweeping in behind until their threats reached them, but that was quickly rendered irrelevant.
Once the blast shield raised, Lia turned back to the Governor to see a bright torrent of light as the team fired on him. As the lights cut, she focused, tuning her eyes to the darkness. Her heart jumped into her throat as she discerned the thing pretending to be Faroven holding his laspistol on Sapphira. A bolt of protective panic shot through her and she leaped to protect the Sister, moments too late. The Sister's skull-drone had saved her, and Lia turned back to the Governor with a look of fury. Conversion field. Personal defense. Overloadable.
Turning to the bubble surrounding Faroven, Lia rushed forwards, juking randomly to throw off any servo-skull that attempted to track her. Unleashing her talent, she reached down into the stone floor of the hall, locking her to the floor and giving her all the stability she needed. "Flash!" she shouted, as she wound back and hammered at the shield with all of her considerable might. Bright bursts of white light exploded from the replicant's shield with every strike as it slowly buckled under Lia's fists.
She was oblivious to all but her quarry and the field keeping her from him, anticipating the moment that he would be rendered vulnerable. And when the shield finally broke under her barrage, she hurtled towards Faroven, a feral snarl on her face.
PaintSerf
01-25-2014, 09:26 AM
"I'll stay here and handle the comms with Schafer." Kelly volunteered, stepping up with her autopistol held low in both hands.
“He stands by you both. Trust in Him and yourselves.” Sapphira replied with an encouraging nod to Manita and Kelly before she strode off after Primavesi and Vizkop.
She stepped over the basted entrance ahead of Fredriq, who coughed on the smoke and gripped his dataslate tight as he edged round the dead soldiers. Sapphira watched the elderly man carefully, ready to support him if necessary, but he managed to keep the expression on his pale face steady. With Fredriq settled, Sapphira turned her attention to the dead bodyguards. Her clinical eye noted the verification headshots, and she nodded approvingly as Marc visibly gritted his teeth.
"Ordinate!" he snarled over his shoulder at overseer Manita. "For frak's sake can you move these bodies somewhere more respectful?"
“Those who violently resist us or attempt to do so are guilty of treason.” Sapphira stated grimly and expressionlessly as turned away and started towards the command bunker. “Put them down and confirm the kill with a headshot. Whether Faroven’s bodyguards are loyal dupes or replicants is irrelevant; we cannot leave declared hostiles and traitors alive.”
* * *
"Inquisition!" Vincent thundered to get the room's attention as the team came bursting into the cramped, brightly-lit hive of activity that was the command bunker. "Where's governor Faroven!?"
"Not here." Marc hissed from behind the stocky ex-Guardsman. Glancing around the room, he saw that none of the startled officers clapping their hands to their sidearm grips were wearing the olive drab of Faroven's bodyguards.
“Impeding agents of the Holy Inquisition is an act of treason.” Sapphira firmly reminded the staff, who absolutely knew what the consequence of treason was. They exchanged tense, nervous glances and reluctantly stood down. She nodded thankfully, “Your compliance is appreciated. Now, where has the governor gone?”
"He...he returned to the palace to order the evacuation." confirmed one of the officers a moment later, an old but steel-eyed man with a tunic studded with service medals.
…
"We've got an auspex that can detect the xenos replicants." Marc said quickly, putting himself between the magos and the general. He shot a glance at Sapphira, who was still carrying Vizkop's auspex. "And no-one here is setting it off."
“Governor Faroven knew that we had this detector and intended to test him.” Sapphira quickly pointed out to the old soldier, who she assumed had authority by age and experience, trying to make the best of this moment for their case. “He was present when the sabotage occurred, but suddenly leaves when we arrive to find the source? Then his bodyguards stay and engage my team, in an astropathic choir of all places, and kill one of my agents! That’s not innocent -”
"The governor's audience hall is the main hub for most of the palace."
“God-Emperor…” Sapphira momentarily seethed in frustration as her team spun and followed Fredriq. She quickly rallied and met the old soldier’s with a steely look with one of her own. She backed towards the exit and spoke intently, “You swore an oath of service to the God-Emperor. Prove that oath true, general. Help us save His people, your own people!”
* * *
Sapphira followed Kally and Vincent after they kicked in the door and professional swept the blind spots. The only living person in the hall was Faroven, who stood on a raised dais at the end of the carpet, one hand resting on an obsidian throne cushioned with red velvet. At the governor's waist was a black laspistol with a molded grip, but he hadn't drawn it. The team trained their guns on him. Sapphira trained her auspex and subvocalized supplications for the machine to process faster. Faroven turned his head to look down at the team, raising his hands placatingly. He opened his mouth to speak.
"Stop!" a familiar voice shouted from behind the group. Sapphira snapped around and raised her pistol to see security chief Craddock with half a dozen men at her back down her sights. The bodyguard had her covered as well. For your sake, I pray that you’re a replicant. Sapphira through as she stared down her opposite. Otherwise you’ve damned yourself and maybe even your own planet. Before anyone could shoot a heavy adamantium blast shield whistled down to slam across the doorway, leaving Craddock and her squad stranded on the other side.
"Keeping Vitani's hands clean." Faroven explained as he stepped down off the dais. The muzzles of the team's guns followed him, as did the yellow outline on Sapphira's auspex. Blink...blink. Working. Working.
"Why?" Marc asked guardedly, his gun levelled in a practiced Weaver stance as he stood between Kally and Vincent. "Why would a xenos care?"
"I'm not a xenos." Faroven said calmly as Sapphira eyed him suspiciously and kept the governor in her sights. Come on… She thought as the auspex continued to process. Come on…
Blink, blink...red. Sapphira's auspex began to beep its shrill warning, revealing the lie in the governor's words. Faroven, M: Not human.
“Abomination!” Sapphira shouted in condemnation as she and the team opened fire as one. Bullets, blue threads of las, and the white streaks of self-propelled bolt shells converged on the governor - and vanished in a blinding flash of light as they hit the invisible wall of a conversion field. Sapphira cried out and unsuccessfully tried to cover her eyes.
"Because it's something Faroven would do." the governor admitted as visors whited out and repolarised, and the less well-equipped members of the team blinked to try and clear their seared vision. "Also, I don't want her to see this."
He raised his arms, turning his open hands towards a seemingly random sequence of points around the vaulted ceiling. It was only as the first lumoglobe hit the floor with a splintering crash that the team realised he was pointing towards the drifting servo-skulls. One by one the constructs dropped their lights and unfurled short-barrelled las weapons from inside their skull cavities. Sapphira immediately aimed up and fired at the docile drones. The first skull dropped after it was cracked part by a clean shot through the side. Just like John. Sapphira snarled in frustration at that treasonous thought and vivid sensory memory. She banished the unpleasant reminder and hammered down another drone.
By that point all the lumoglobes were shattered only staccato flashes of gunfire lit the room. Sapphira unceremoniously dropped her empty revolver and reached for John’s plasma pistol. She toggled the activation on as it cleared the holster and cold blue light emanated from the energy coil. As the gun came powered up it revealed the abomination to her – and her to it. Faroven had her dead to rights with his pistol. Sapphira shouted out in surprised rage and tried to draw a bead on it. All she could see was the las barrel and Faroven’s impassive face. All she could hear was a low dull whine. I’m dead. She realized with absolute clarity.
Several things happened almost instantaneously. Faroven shot and Sapphira reflexively flinched away with a grimace. She heard something dart over her right shoulder with a low dull whine. There was a crack and flash that was followed by the smell of charred bone and scorched metal. She was buffeted by the backwash of a las discharge. Sapphira shrieked with pain as her the side of her face was raked by shrapnel fragments. Vizkop’s detector and John’s pistol slipped from her hands. Two las bolts smacked down from above; one cracked her ablative shoulder plate and the other glanced off her side. Already stunned and staggered, Sapphira was pitched sideways down to the ground.
Her team was briefly illuminated by the glow from John’s pistol. Lia unhesitatingly bounded forward. Kally, Marcus, and Vincent – the Makita survivors – charged forward as one with a torrent of las and bolts. Red lasers stabbed back at them as they diminished into the darkness. I’m alive. Sapphira belatedly realized, with a ragged breath, as she rolled up onto her knees and froze. She stared down at charred and fractured remnants of a drone. Despite the extensive damage she instantly recognized the aquila engraved on the skulls’ caved in brow. The saint. That revelation eclipsed the agony of her physical wounds and burnt away the dazed fog.
Sapphira’s mauled face contorted painfully as she screamed with primal anguish and rage. She reached out for John’s pistol and grasped it in her fist. With a pained grunt she pushed off the ground and onto her feet. Bright cracks of light flared further down the hall and Sapphira could see Lia backlit by them. She saw Marcus and Vincent exchange bolts with the drones from cover. Sapphira voxed a warning as staggered forward and raised her pistol. The radiant beam of plasma cut the shoal of skulls overhead. Marcus and Vincent’s las bolts pegged several more drones and protected Sapphira as she lunged forward into cover.
No sooner had Sapphira made it when Kally howled. Pain. Sapphira immediately registered as she stiffened and glanced over towards Marcus and Vincent. The men swore spectacularly and redoubled their weight of fire, but they were pushed back by another wave of drone fire. While the drones focused on them, Sapphira leaned out to fire another spear of plasma downrange. Marcus and Vincent made more kills as Kally screamed in the distance. Sapphira grimaced and spat blood as she pulled herself up with the columns support.
“Whatever it takes, we’re going to get them both. Fire and maneuver. I’ll draw their fire and you destroy them.” Sapphira voxed to Marcus and Vincent through gritted teeth as she looked across to them. Even from this distance she could see the expression of tense doubt on Marc’s face. Whatever it takes. Sapphira reminded herself. Martyrdom. She was at peace with that fate. Martyrdom. For almost her entire life Sapphira had imagined – and even prayed for – the chance of a righteous death. Now her chance was here. Whatever it takes. This was her responsibility, her duty, her calling. Martyrdom. She could do this – she had to do this. Inspired, Sapphira started to recite aloud a favorite passage of the saint’s hagiography.
“They were beset by the xenos abominations, and their deaths were imminent. They were enveloped in darkness, and their faith wavered. They were paralyzed by doubt, and their cause seemed lost. It was then that the Saint, returned from death, said onto them: ‘You know what you need to do. You, and only you, can do the right thing. He calls on you to do the right thing. You all have faith. Look to your faith. Use your faith. Do the right thing. Nobody can ask of any more than that.’ They heard the Saint and through him they heard the God-Emperor. They recommitted to the cause, and their doubts were cast aside. They reaffirmed the faith, and their belief dispelled the darkness. They denied death, and their furious anger cast back the profane xenos. Only when they were truly saved did the Saint succumb to his mortality, and return to the Holy Father.” Sapphira repeated words with pained reverence as blood and tears ran down her face. She had tensed and shook with adrenaline and stress, but smiled peacefully regardless of the agony it caused.
The Saint has blessed me with his final sacrifice. I will prove my worthiness to receive it and I will follow his holy example. By my death He shall know me. Sapphira thought in commendation as she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply one last time.
“FOR THE GOD-EMPEROR AND SAINT LEHNER!” Sapphira passionately exclaimed as she rounded out of cover. The cold blue radiance of John’s plasma pistol was like a torch. It illuminated the skulls, which turned to face her with a lazy nods and fixed smiles. She curled both arms over her head protectively and fired. Marcus and Vincent pressed the advantage and opened fire from behind her. Servo skulls were exploded and knocked unceremoniously from the air, but not nearly all of them.
dakkagor
01-25-2014, 12:47 PM
“Two on the door.” Vincent grunted as they double timed forwards. By unspoken agreement, Kally aimed left and Vincent aimed right. The two guards begun to raise their weapons at the Inquisitorial party, shouting challenges.
Kally snapped up the bolter and fired twice from the hip. Both rounds punched into the carapace armoured trooper and flung him backwards against the wall, decorating an ornate fresco with blood. Kally paused to watch Vincent put a round through the poor bastards head, just to be sure as she calmly reloaded, swapping out the empty mag for a full one.
They stacked up on either side of the door, Kally on one side and Vincent on the other. Vincent did a swift count with his fingers, 3, 2, 1, then both him and Kally stepped up and kicked the doors in. They swept in, weapons tight to their shoulders and eyes alert for danger.
Inside it was empty, the hugely ornate hall for a second numbing her in awe at its scale and oppulance, a massive statement of Imperial majesty and wealth. She had never seen anything like it, even on the True Bane, but as they advanced towards the throne Kally occasionally swore she saw the floor mosaics move in the flickering light from floating lumen globes. As if the skeletal necrons where watching her, judging her silently.
She suppressed a shudder. The last Replicant was waiting for them, alone, on the thrones dias. Once Governor Faroven.
"Stop!" a familiar voice shouted from behind the group. Kally turned to see Craddock leading a detail of PDF troopers, weapons up and ready, ready to fire and sweep them out of the hall in a blaze of lasfire. She kept her gun raised and trained on the troopers around Craddock, hoping against hope that Marc of Sapphira would be able to talk Craddock down of the ledge.
Knew it. Kally thought grimly. Have to step over her to get to Faroven. One way or another.
Then the blast door slammed down. For a second Kally blinked in surprise, then she swung her weapon back round to cover Faroven.
"Keeping Vitani's hands clean." Faroven explained as he stepped down off the dais. The muzzles of the team's guns followed him, as did the yellow outline on Sapphira's auspex. Blink...blink.*Working. Working.
"Why?" Marc asked guardedly, his gun levelled in a practiced Weaver stance as he stood between Kally and Vincent. "Why would a xenos care?"
"I'm not a xenos." Faroven said calmly.
Blink, blink...red. Sapphira's auspex began to beep its shrill warning, revealing the lie in the governor's words. Faroven, M:Not human.
Kally yanked on the trigger, a full auto hail of standard rounds as everyone around her opened up. The recoil from the bolter was ferocious, but she was used to it by now, keeping the gun centred on Faroven's centre of mass as she willed him to go down. Then there was the pulse of light and her vision blacked out as her photo-contacts kicked in, leaving her temporarily in the dark. Her finger fell off the trigger and she yanked the weapons barrel upwards, stepping back from the source of blinding light.
"Because it's something Faroven would do." she heard the Replicant finally admit. "Also, I don't want her to see this."
He raised his arms, turning his open hands towards a seemingly random sequence of points around the vaulted ceiling. It was only as the first lumoglobe hit the floor with a splintering crash that Kally realised he was pointing towards the drifting servo-skulls. One by one the constructs dropped their lights and unfurled short-barrelled las weapons from inside their skull cavities. As the room was plunged into sudden darkness, a red slash bisected the hall as Faroven drew his laspistol and fired.
Kally ducked low, then sprung up and forwards, towards Faroven. He had stepped back into the darkness, but Kally followed, her hivers sense giving her a good idea of where he was, the sounds to her left and right telling her that Marc was on her left, and Vincent was on her right. Sapphira yelled something wordlessly behind her, suprise merging into pain as something shattered. Then there was a scream of anger, that undercut the sounds of the the rest of the team fighting the servo-skulls in the pitch black audience chamber. Kally was convinced that if they could kill Faroven, the automated platforms would break off their attack. Even as the thought formed in her head, another squadron of Servo-skulls dropped down from the vaulted ceiling, hellpistols blazing. Kally broke left, firing upwards and making it into the cover of a pillar. Suddenly she was aware that Vincent and Marc had fallen behind, driven back into cover by the servo-skulls. Regrouping with Sapphira, Lia and Fredriq, perhaps? But she could tell someone was ahead of her. The room was suddenly lit up with a pulse of light, like lightning. Sapphira was using Shere's plasma pistol then.
Faroven. In the pulse of light he crossed from one pillar to another, pistol raised in a standard shooting stance, up by his head and ready to drop down and fire. He was falling back under the cover of the servo-skulls.
For a few seconds after the pulse of light she was alone in the dark, waiting and breathing quietly like in her underhive days. There was another blast of plasma fire and she dashed forwards, hoping the servo-skulls sensorium would be overloaded by the light. She would find Faroven, and bring this to an end.
“Come out, you bastard”, she muttered as she reached where Faroven had been. He had moved again.
“Very well” came the response from behind her. Kally spun, only to come face to face with a servo-skull, a small vox-grille settled into its nasal cavity. She reflexively swung her rifle butt up, smashing the fragile construct from the air as a laspistol shot rang out from behind her. The high powered shot bored through her shin and she crashed to the floor. She howled in agony as she collapsed, then watched helplessly as Faroven stepped out from behind a pillar and kicked her Boltgun away. She scrambled back, drawing one of her laspistols, but the Replicant was on her faster than she would have given credit for, grabbing her wrist and throat. There was a dry snap as Faroven crushed and twisted Kally's wrist, and the laspistol fell from her hand as Faroven hauled her up, crushing her windpipe and strangling the second scream.
“Interesting.” Faroven was staring into Kally's eyes, and she saw the same lack of emotion that she had in Clements before the end. Nothing human was behind those eyes. Not even hatred.
“A Pariah. And one that has been contaminated.” he let go of Kally's wrist, and brought the hand up to her scalp. His fingertips began to dig into her skin and hair, immediately painful and hot like branding irons. She choked out a curse as his other hand moved of her neck and clamped to the other side of her skull.
“You've seen this before? Haven't you?” Faroven nodded, as if to himself, as he stepped back into the shadows cast by the plasma pistols sudden killing light. “Lets get inside, shall we?”
The pain from his fingers increased as the Replicant tightened his grip, kneading his fingers into Kallly's skull and causing her to scream and twitch as her skull began to make popping sounds. Faroven pinned her against a pillar, grimacing as his fingers found what he was looking for.
The room faded, and she fell into a nightmare.
The hood peeled back from her mouth and nose and she gasped for air, sobbing. It wasn't drowning. It was worse. She heaved two great lungfuls of air in before the questions started.
She had lasted under this technique about twenty seconds by her count. This was the third time they had used it on her in the last few minutes. It was killing her.
“Name?” Came the monsters voice. Somewhere above her? Behind her?
“KALLY SONDER!” She shouted. Her voice echoed of the hard tiles of the shower block like a judgemental chorus. Her chest heaved in another laboured breath as her hands clawed at the slab for purchase. She needed to escape.
“Age?” A shadow fell over her. She couldn't move her head. Couldn't move her limbs. She knew this one.
“Hive records show I am thirty two years old!” Her breathing was returning to normal. Please not the hood again.
“Who was the first man you slept with?” Doesn't matter just answer, anything but the hood.
“Karlson, a bounty hunter, we were drunk, him more than me. After I got my limiter” Ask me something else, anything else, I know what you're going to ask me next not that please please please please please not that God Emperor above. . .
“What did Lucius Pembroke say to you before he died?”
Her back arched, trying to rip her hands and feet free of the metal straps. She screamed. She screamed because she wanted, more than anything, to tell Nathaniel Strelilov everything. It was there now. Just at the edge of her mind, the tip of her traitorous tongue. But she couldn't force it out. She slumped back onto the slab, trying to breathe, trying to think past the fear.
“I can't, I can't I'm sorry I can't, God Emperor help me I can't”
“I know. I know.” She struggled as he spoke in soothing, mocking tones. Her head was strapped to the table, pinning the sackcloth hood to her sweat streaked forehead. She knew what was coming and she couldn't escape it. “He did something to you. Something I am about to undo. If you weren't a blank this would have been easy, but. . .”
The shadow loomed over her again.
“No! Please I'm trying throne I'm trying please Nathaniel please!”
Nimble fingers pulled the sodden hood over her nose and mouth as she sucked in a breath. Pointless to beg. Should have learned that right away. The water fell again and she started to choke. It was like dying. No escape, barely any movement available to her that wasn't doing her more damage. She could feel herself unravelling, coming apart.
Hold on, Sapphira had said. She wanted the chance to thank her just once before she died. At least someone on this ship had shown her some human mercy.
There was a presence, scratching at her mind. The hall spun around her as blood dribbled from her nose and eyes as the mosaics on the floor bored their dead eyes into her. She used her good left arm to reach for her remaining pistol as her legs kicked spasmodically and she dangled from the Replicants iron hard grip. This was worse than the memory, like red hot iron worms digging into her skull, boiling her brain. A bolt of lightning flashed in the distance, throwing slow motion shadows across the room.
He pulled the hood back after twenty seconds.
“Name?” her chest felt like it was convulsing, like a fish out of water as she fought to control her breathing.
“KALLY SONDER” She shrieked, like she was casting it out of her body, throwing it away so the name couldn't be used to hurt her any more.
“Mothers name?”
“Marta! Marta Sonder! We lived in the lower hive, she kicked me out after my father died of black lung, she was a loom worker, he was a vent cleaner, we lived at. . .”
“Who was the first person you killed?” She would answer this time, she knew she would, please just give her the chance.
“A kid from a rival gang, the Jaguars, they held a water still, I shot him with a 9mm stub pistol, I have a tattoo from my gang on my left arm from it . .” the words just fell out of her, she couldn't stop speaking because speaking meant breathing and breathing meant that the hood wasn't covering her nose and mouth.
“What did Lucius Pembroke tell you before he died?”
Her tongue snarled in her mouth as she stuttered over the lie she had been building. Her throat constricted of its own accord as she tried to force the words out. She made a choking, gargling sound as every muscle tensed and strained against the metal straps. It wouldn't come, it wouldn't come. There was something stopping her saying anything, even a lie.
“please. . .please. . .not the hood, please. . .”
It came down over her nose and mouth in one swift motion. No air left to scream. This time the water flowed for thirty seconds.
The room crashed back with the sound of nearby gunfire. The servo-skulls where still darting about, firing and the team was responding as she wept freely. Faroven seemed to be looking through her, lips moving as if mouthing the words to a book. Her fingers clasped around the grip of the last steelburner, in the pancake holster on her back. Her legs continued to thrash against him and her right hand, with her ruined wrist, tried to claw at his face. The plasma gun fired again, closer this time, the blast travelling down the hall like an eel through water.
“Name?”
Her muscles where on fire. Her shoulders felt like they would snap. The straps had bitten into her and drawn blood.
“KALLY SONDER!” She shouted, then heaved another breath into her lungs. She couldn't take much more than this. There was no way she could live through a full session of this. The stress would kill her first. And if it didn't the next one would. Or the one after that.
“How many inquisitorial agents have you killed?”
“Three! Two of Masani's men, and Interrogator Thane! I'm sorry, please, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to kill her! I'm sorry!”
“How did you kill those agents?”
“The first two where hunting me and Lucius Pembroke in a parking lot. It was close quarters combat, I lured them apart and ambushed them because they had superior weapons and equipment. It was an accident I swear. . .I swear to the Throne I only meant for a warning shot!”
“That is not an answer.” He loomed over her, his shadow blocking the harsh over hanging lights of the shower block as they filtered through the sodden hood.
“I grabbed you from behind and disarmed you! I used your pistol to hold you hostage to convince Interrogator Thane to do as I said. . .when she went for her gun. . .the storm troopers burst in. . . I didn't mean too! I'm sorry! Please, stop hurting me, I'm sorry, please. . .”
The hood came down to muffle her begging. Ten seconds later it came up.
She began to draw the gun. It felt like she was moving through tar, the world slowing down and twisting. The walls of the audience chamber fell away as she blinked, revealing a vast, desolate, landscape. Lightning scarred the sky. The Necrons, previously inanimate, seemed to balloon up from the floor and grab at her legs, dragging them down into a writhing mass of metal limbs even as Faroven continued to dig into her memories.
“Name?”
“KALLY SONDER!” She sobbed. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. . . ”
“What did Lucius Pembroke say to you?”
And there it was. It had taken nearly a month, but there it was. The answer. The one true answer.
She started to laugh, and cry, at the same time. She remembered. And all it had taken was nearly dying at the hands of this sadistic idiot.
“What? Kally, what was it? Tell me!”
“He's not dead!” she managed between waves of hysterical laughter that had seized her. “You fracking morons thought you could kill a god with light and thunder” the laughter was more desperate, more terrified, as the memories flooded back into her skull, ebbing and flowing like the tide. “But he's not dead and when he wakes up he is going to kill us all!”
“What did he say Kally? What did he say?” The shadow was looming over her, the massive vessel in orbit raining nuclear fire down on her home, but surrounded by a halo of light was the man who used to be Pembroke. His arm was reaching for her.
“What did he say you fucking freak!! Tell me!” The hood came down and the vision passed to water and darkness and the agony of dying. She could feel, through it all, the impossible heat of Pembrokes hand as it pressed his thumb into her forehead.
The things she had seen. . .
The room swam back and another figure was behind Faroven. Wychfire eyes, steel bones and a long, ragged cape of brilliant emerald. Its gaunt, skeletal hand was on Farovens shoulder as it met her gaze and she whimpered in fear. It was looking into her mind with Faroven, from worlds away, rooting through her memories like a stack of old, tattered books falling apart, searching for something critical. The same thing Nathaniel Strelilov had been searching for. Around her the room had completed its transformation: a vast, desolate city of black and green monoliths stretched from horizon to horizon, the sounds of the audience chamber gone and replaced with the whisper of dust through ancient monuments. Necron warriors stood dormant around her, a legion of immobile, inanimate soldiers, weapons raised to chests in eternal salute. Green lightning crackled between alien monuments under a leaden sky, the air tasting like copper and ash.
Vitaris.[/I ] Something whispered. [I]A vision of a dead world. A world that is killing Venatora, and ten billion people.
The pistol was halfway raised. The safety was off. She could make it. Throne on earth, let her make it.
He peeled back the hood, and she gasped for air again. She had been thrashing so hard she had dislocated her right shoulder again. Didn't matter.
“He gave me a message. Not for you. But for Him. Just for Him”
The hood came down again. She wanted to scream at Nathaniel, gouge out his eyes because he was going to drown that message and she had to deliver it to the right person, and that person wasn't him. And he was going to kill her for that petty reason alone.
She got the pistol under Farovens chin. For just a second he smiled, condescendingly, as her trigger finger felt like it was encased in ferrocrete.
excise the shard. Whispered the voice, like sand through old, bleached bones. Before it awakens.
A plasma pistol thrust past her head and a strong hand clamped on her shoulder. Faroven looked up from Kally and looked genuinely surprised as he met the eyes of something at once human and yet so far beyond his understanding it was like krill looking in the eyes of a whale.
“She's mine, and she isn't done yet” said Lucius Pembroke, and pulled the trigger.
The gunshot echoed around the audience chamber, the plasma pistol blast banishing the vision and the laspistol blast at point blank range from Kally's steel burner tearing Farovens head from his shoulders. The vision receded and the nightmare faded, the audience chamber returning to fill up the gaps as Farovens fingers let go of Kally's skull. She flopped back to the floor and finally choked in a breath. She was alive, that was enough for now. She closed her eyes. She was alive.
The echo of hard boots came towards her and strong hands pulled her up into a sitting position, against one of the gunshot scarred pillars.
“Throne on Earth . . . what did he do to you?”
She opened her eyes. Marc. Marcus Black was cradling her in his arms. The firefight was over. Sapphira was standing over her, a smoking plasma pistol in her hands. Farovens body was immolating, slumped against a pillar and burning into charcoal from a close range plasma bolt.
“I have no gakking clue.” she managed, coughing. “Is it over?” she leaned her head against the pillar and closed her eyes. “Let it be over this time.”
A gunshot echoed around the shower block. The shadow receded and the water stopped falling from above.
“That's enough! Step away from the table now! We are here for the prisoner on Lord Sidonis orders!”
The echo of hard boots came towards her and strong hands ripped the hood of her face and mouth. The straps came free. The hood came all the way off and strong arms hauled her clear of the table.
“Throne on Earth . . . what did they do to you?”
She opened her eyes. Marc. Marcus Black was cradling her in his arms.
“I. . . I. . .” she looked around. What had happened? She remembered the cell, being brought here, the bench and its straps, the bag and the stream of water, and now. . .
Nothing. Whatever had been forced out of her in the last few minutes was gone again, locked safely away.
Sapphira looked over Marc's shoulder as Kally looked up at him. She felt so weak at that point, so tired, so broken. But she was alive. She had made it just as Sapphira had asked. Marc had said something. A question? She knew how to answer questions.
“I don't know.” She managed. “I don't remember”.
She doubted that was the right answer.
Azazeal849
01-29-2014, 04:59 PM
And when the field finally broke under her barrage, she hurtled towards Faroven, a feral snarl on her face.
Faroven tried to retreat; she sensed his body mass in the dark and swung for it. At the same time, something ripped out from inside Faroven's sleeve and swung at her. It sparked into life with a click. Lia felt her cheek go strangely numb, a sensation that spread almost instantly across the side of her face and her shoulder, and belatedly she recognised it as the approaching edge of a psychic dead zone, spreading out to envelop her, her hardened body freezing as the null rod at the centre of the bubble swung closer. Ah, of course - the palace armoury must have included null batons because of all the psykers in the spire next door.
A split second later the null rod struck her across the cheek. Without her telekinetic attachment to the ground Lia lost her footing, her stonelike body toppling to the floor. Faroven dropped the null rod by her body while she stewed in helpless fury, leaving her locked in place.
Faroven retreated into the dark, clearly shaken by the loss of the conversion field. He clawed for his laspistol and returned fire as shots from the others seared over Lia's body.
+ + + + + +
Did we stop it? magos Primavesi inquired again, directing the machine gun of binary towards the tech priest still seated at the comms station.
Above the slatted mask of his vox grille, the adept's eyes were fixed on his screen.
"I..." he said, so surprised that he used his organic voice rather than the sacred code cant. "I have control, honoured magos."
Shut the lance satellites down. Primavesi ordered, remaining focused as was essential for a senior member of the cult mechanicus. Return them to station immediately.
Primavesi glanced downwards at the small cluster of adepts who had gathered around the unconscious Vizkop, who were carefully connecting mechadendrites to his diagnostic ports and bringing forward syringes of stabilising chemicals. Satisfied that the machine empath was being properly cared for, Primavesi snapped her gaze up to one of the many cogitator screens arrayed around the bunker. It showed the status of the city's void shields; a colour-graded bar that marched relentlessly towards the red as the firepower absorbed exceeded the rate at which the generator could shunt it into the warp, and inexorably began to overheat the shield projectors. The creeping temperature gauge had levelled out. And now, very slowly, it began to fall.
"Incoming fire has ceased, honoured magos." a priest reported, as the unaugmented human officers around them began to shout in jubilant disbelief.
Primavesi looked down at Vizkop again. Praise the machine god, and the vessels through which his works are done.
Turning, she swept out of the bunker.
+ + + + + +
The skull drones were all gone, and shattered pieces of bone carpeted the quartz floor. Lia was brushing bone dust from her clothes as Vincent helped her up. The firefight was over. Not Pembroke, but Sapphira was standing over her, a smoking plasma pistol in her hands. Faroven's body was immolating, slumped against a pillar and burning into charcoal from the close range plasma shot.
"I have no gakking clue." she managed, coughing. "Is it over?" She leaned her head against athe pillar and closed her eyes. "Let it be over this time."
There was a crackling noise behind her. A green glow through her closed eyelids. Kally snapped round to see sickly-green lightning spitting from Faroven's body. Sapphira yelped and fell back as one of the bolts earthed itself on Shere's plasma pistol, shocking it out of her hands. Carbonised bone flaked away as Faroven's ribcage jerked violently upwards. The corpse was spasming - no, rising, a monstrous charred skeleton held up by a cage of lightning as flesh began to re-knit itself over the bones. Vincent raised his lasgun, letting out a roar that was half challenge and half warning.
He was answered by a thunderclap that echoed around the hall. In an instant, the lightning flickered out, and the green witch-glow clawing across the walls faded. Faroven's body, a grotesque half-flayed ruin, dropped to the floor like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
+ + + + + +
Vitaris was burning. Schafer couldn't see it, but he could see the red icons blossoming across the black and blue hololith that had replaced the sickly red of the warp sensors, and he could hear the jolts of power that reverberated throughout the frigate as its batteries vollied fire into the planet. Schafer pictured the invisible streams of las turning blue as they scattered through the atmosphere, and then to white fire as they vaporised huge chunks of the canyon where Noyer and the others had originally landed. With the light-blocking void shields lowered, Schafer glanced towards the central hololith, looking for a moment like he was tempted to request a feed from one of the frigate's hull cameras, so he could see the xenos planet burn. Come on, you bastards. Die!
"Signal from Vitaris surface has ceased transmitting." reported a tech priest near the hololith, in a calm tone that seemed almost absurd given the news it heralded.
"Confirm?" the frigate commander queried, as all eyes turned to the tech priest.
"Confirm." responded the priest, in the same glacial calm.
A short cheer erupted around the bridge, hands forming fists in the air or tracing aquila signs across chests. Even the tech priests briefly laced their hands in praise of the Excubitor's machine spirit before silently returning to their tasks. Orders began to volley back and forth across the strategium once more.
"Starboard battery," the weapons officer said, seizing a wall-mounted vox caster. "Complete current firing cycle. Let's be sure of this."
The commander pointed to the tech priests around the hololith. "Magos, get me some sort of news on the situation on Venatora!"
"Warp sensors indicate void shield venting into warp has ceased."
"What does that mean? Did the attack stop or did the theatre voids fail?"
"Four minutes to confirm on luminal sensors. Request our own shields remain lowered until then to allow light incidence."
Schafer looked away from the hololith. His work wasn't finished yet.
"Commander." he said, fixing the Excubitor's captain with an intense stare. "Good work. I'll be in the comms spire."
As the interrogator turned on his heel and swept out of the room, the young weapons officer looked up from the hololith to his commander, a wild grin on his face. "Orders, sir?"
The frigate commander folded his arms. "Keep firing. I want that whole area scoured down to the mantle."
+ + + + + +
Before the team could process what had happened, a heavy explosion shuddered through the floor, and the blast door over the entrance to the audience hall shattered inward with a blinding flash. It was security chief Craddock and her khaki-clad honour guards, reflected firelight dancing across their armour and laser pointers scissoring across the hall as they shouldered through the molten portal of the blast door.
"Everyone drop your weapons!" Craddock's voice thundered.
"Kelly, Faroven's down!" Marc shouted into his comm-bead, knowing it might be his last chance to report as the team scattered for cover, and as he himself tried to haul Kally by the shoulder straps behind the nearest pillar. "Faroven's down!"
Back in the astropath spire, crouched behind the inadequate cover of an overturned table with guns rested on the top edge, Remus and Kelly were focused grimly on the small screen above the lift doors. Someone up top had managed to wire a new power supply into the lift, and there was nothing the tech adepts down here could do to subvert it. On the screen, LEDs lit up to show green chevrons scrolling downward as the elevator descended. Remus' melta bomb was still attached to the sliding doors, and the stormtrooper's thumb was already tensing on the remote detonator.
"Wait!" Kelly suddenly screamed, slapping Remus' arm downwards. Unprepared for the blow, Remus lost his grip on the detonator and sent it skittering away across the floor. A moment later, there was a click and whir as the elevator doors split open. A pair of fist-sized cylinders arced out of it before the gap was even thirty centimetres wide.
The grenades rang against the metal floor as they bounced. One of the elevator doors jammed as the melta bomb stuck to it banged against the doorframe. A white flash and a shrieking bang filled Remus and Kelly's world as the PDF soldiers in the lift came storming out. Kelly had just enough wits left to raise her hands, even as her eyes screwed themselves shut in an instinctive reaction to the painful sensory assault.
"Down on your knees!" she heard somebody shout, sounding very far away through the ringing in her ears. "Down on your fething knees!"
The cold muzzle of a lasgun pressing down against the back of her neck forced her to comply with the command.
Back in the audience hall, gunfire shattered down from both sides of the hall. Suppressing fire from Craddock's men tore Faroven's throne from its dais and chewed through the support columns, systematically stripping away the team's cover. Abruptly, the hail of las stopped.
"Drop your weapons and get down on the ground!" Craddock shouted at the team from behind the cover of one of the tall stone pillars at the bottom end of the hall. Kneeling down, Marc risked a glance round the splintered side of his pillar, and saw Fredriq's mouth working like a fish out of water as two soldiers hauled him up against the rear wall. Fred had taken cover near the door in an attempt to stay out of the fight, but now he was pinned up against the wall with a lasgun in his face.
Craddock was still shouting. Vincent was spitting curses and defiance in response. No-one expected magos Primavesi to step into the hall, gliding past a PDF soldier who ordered her to stop only to find his lascarbine mysteriously jammed and himself dropped to the floor by a paralysing electric jolt from the magos' hand.
"Everybody drop your weapons." the magos ordered, her vox-amplified voice reverberating around the vaulted ceiling of the hall. "This hall contains some of the oldest machine spirits on Venatora and I will not see them injured by your actions! Sister Sapphira is in possession of an auspex capable of detecting the xenos infiltrators. If you will allow me, I can use it to verify the logic of her associates' recent deeds."
"A detector that one of them designed!" Craddock shot back, as two of her men taking cover around the hall swung their guns away from the team to point at Primavesi.
"I have personally verified it." the magos replied calmly. Beneath her gold augmetics, her thin face was pinched in an expression very much like annoyance. "If you also suspect me of being a xenos construct, I will submit to scanning from the same auspex operated by a machine cult representative of your choice."
She stepped away from the still-gasping PDF soldier and glided out into the middle of the hall, her dark-skinned arms raised to shoulder height as if in prayer. As she did so, there was a series of clunks and a collosal grinding sound, and the blast shields that had lowered over the arched windows began to lift. As if by an orchestrated design, it was at that same moment that the void shields doming the city began to shut down and fade away, allowing sunlight to flood through the stained glass windows. The sky was bruised, and heavy with ash, but free from the apocalyptic glare of lance fire. Several of Craddock's soldiers openly stared.
"Security chief Craddock." magos Primavesi stated. "With me please."
Hesitantly, her eyes narrowed in wary suspicion, Craddock stepped out from behind her pillar. Walking slowly, she followed Primavesi as the magos crossed over to where Sapphira was taking cover and wordlessly held out her hand for Vizkop's auspex. As she approached, Craddock caught sight of the dark fan of blood streaked near Sapphira's pillar, and the skeletal remains slumped beside it. They were completely unrecognisable, but there had been only one other person in the room with the inquisition agents. Craddock snapped her gaze towards Sapphira and her team, seemingly oblivious to the gun muzzles they were all pointing at her.
"You killed him." she accused the agents.
Still not speaking, magos Primavesi extended Vizkop's auspex towards the skeleton. Even though it was charred and half crumbled to dust, the auspex almost immediately began to shrill a warning. Primavesi handed the auspex to Craddock. Faroven, M: Not human.
Craddock stared at the small curved screen of the auspex for a very long time. The crow's feet around her eyes deepened, and the muscles in her neck tightened, as if she was struggling to swallow.
"I will now proceed to scan everyone else in this room." Primavesi said as she took back the auspex. Craddock didn't seem to hear her. Very slowly, she raised a hand to the vox caster mag-clamped to the shoulder of her flak vest, and clicked it on.
"PDF, this is security chief Craddock. What's your status?"
"Astropath spire secure, chief." crackled the reply, loud enough for the whole team to hear. "Two heretics in custody; no casualties."
Craddock's wind-chafed face tensed as she clenched her jaw. "Let the heretics go."
"Ma'am?" the soldier on the other end of the vox replied, just as Craddock released the transmitter button and the vox deactivated with a last pip of static. With the same dream-like slowness, Craddock unslung her lascarbine and placed it down on the floor.
"Sister." she said formally, facing Sapphira. "I wish to confess the crime of heresy. I accept complete responsibility for both my own actions and those of the men and women under my command. I surrender to your judgement."
+ + + + + +
"Are you guys alright?" Kelly asked as the team limped back into the main astropathic complex, accompanied by magos Primavesi who was supporting a now-recovered Vizkop. All of them were hunched and tired looking; armour scored, skin blood-spattered from a variety of minor wounds. Kelly noticed that her brother's face was a grim mask. Behind Kelly and Remus the PDF soldiers looked lost, and overseer Manita's black-clad astropathica handlers didn't look much better. The only people in the room who looked truly animated were the astropaths, still wired into their thrones around the central spire. Some were slumped back in relief, others were praying to offer thanks, and one, still half in his trance, was babbling ecstatically as disbelieving queries flooded in across the planetary psychic network.
"What happened?" ordinate Manita asked, looking uncertainly from one team member to the next.
"Hail to the Emperor." Vincent smirked sarcastically.
Manita laced her hands behind her head. "So what do you want us to do now?"
"Save the city." Kelly replied grimly.
The city above was no doubt still in chaos, and she didn't want to think how many Venatorans had been killed in the initial lance strike or the ensuing panic - her only consolation was that the death toll had to be far less than if the voids had failed, or if Faroven had escaped and...and... Just what was the replicants' objective, anyway?
She was still processing that foreboding thought when she heard a scratching noise from behind her. The wispy-haired astropath, Olivia, was still sitting on the floor where Remus had left her, but her bloodshot eyes had rolled back in her head and she was scribbling away at the floor with a pen she had pulled from her pocket, the nib grinding noisily against the metal.
"She's receiving something." her handler said calmly, as if relieved to be back in a situation he knew how to deal with. "Pass me some paper." he added, beckoning as he knelt down. One of the other AAT staff complied, pulling a blank page from a sheaf of notes on his desk.
The handler frowned appraisingly at Olivia's strained, blood-streaked face as he slotted the paper in under her scribbling pen. The astropath siezed at it with her free hand and kept working obliviously, scrawling over and over a wide circle. She moved on to a smaller circle above it, digging the pen in so hard that it almost tore the paper.
"That's Vitaris." overseer Manita said suddenly, recognising the two circles as a planet with a single moon - of which there was only one in the system after Venatora's own moon had been blown apart in the Necron War.
Olivia began drawing an ugly, boxy shape that might have been an Imperial starship, then joined it to the planet with a back and forth of lines, scribbling over a large swathe of its surface and ringing it with squiggles that looked a bit like flames.
"It's from Schafer." Kelly said abruptly. "It has to be. Can we get a feed from an orbital telescope or something?"
"Most of our comms satellites were destroyed along with the orbitals and docks." magos Primavesi said sombrely, tracing a cog circle over her chest, "But we have the stored auger records of the lance satellites."
She crossed over to the cogitators on one side of the room and traced a holy sign over one before going to work on the keyboard. She swivelled the pict screen towards the team as they gathered round. Above a time-stamp dated several minutes ago, a green-tinged image showed a tiny white speck orbiting the grey disc of Vitaris. The speck was bright with reflections from a much more intense patch of light on the surface, which wavered and flickered as it burned. The surface of Vitaris was glowing with molten fire.
"He's glassing it." Vincent said, suddenly jubilant. His mechanical hand whirred as it made a fist. "He's glassing the alien fokkers! That'll be why our meat puppet in the palace dropped dead."
Marc was more restrained. "You okay?" he asked his sister as he took a step back from the main group.
Kelly nodded, managing a smile. "Aye. You?"
"More or less."
The answer was without the usual wry humour that he might have normally injected. It didn't particularly encourage Kelly, although given the circumstances she wasn't sure what she had expected. She let is slide for the moment and just folded her arms as Marc turned to Kally and asked her the same question. The ex bounty huntress, still in her alarming ganger's hair dye and war paint, looked even more dead on her feet than the rest of them. In spite of the discomfort her blank aura must have caused him, Marc raised a hand and gently squeezed her shoulder. Vincent put his augmetic arm round her other shoulder with surprising delicacy, and together they watched Vitaris burn. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOEgFxZoon0)
dakkagor
02-05-2014, 03:31 PM
"You killed him." she accused the agents.
"No." Kally muttered. "They did." She didn't look at Craddock, as the detector predictably shrilled out its warning. But she had a good idea what was going through her head.
"Sister." she said formally, facing Sapphira. "I wish to confess the crime of heresy. I accept complete responsibility for both my own actions and those of the men and women under my command. I surrender to your judgement."
Kally nodded, as much to herself as anyone in the room, and pushed herself to her feet, waving of peoples attention. She could limp well enough for the moment.
+++++
"You okay?"
Kally turned and smiled at Marc. Her right hand, temporarily splinted and bandaged by Sapphira, went up to her shoulder and held Marc's hand there. This was good. Vincent on one side and Marc on the other. They had won.
"Better and better." She paused, looking back out over the burning vista. "Thank you."
"For what?" responded Marc.
She just smiled, and shook her head. So smart, but sometimes so clueless.
"For everything."
PaintSerf
02-13-2014, 05:52 AM
"You killed him." she accused the agents.
"No." Kally muttered. "They did."
Still not speaking, magos Primavesi extended Vizkop's auspex towards the skeleton. Even though it was charred and half crumbled to dust, the auspex almost immediately began to shrill a warning. Primavesi handed the auspex to Craddock. Faroven, M: Not human.
Craddock stared at the small curved screen of the auspex for a very long time. The crow's feet around her eyes deepened, and the muscles in her neck tightened, as if she was struggling to swallow.Sapphira kept Craddock in her sights as she emerged from cover, slowed by wounds received in her charge to reach Kally. The surgical suite and bone saw on her arms had been destroyed by shots that would’ve otherwise killed her. Her right leg had taken a graze across the thigh, and the left had been clipped on the calf and hip. Another blast had fractured the fleur-de-lys that stretched across her abdomen, but fortunately the carapace had held.
"I will now proceed to scan everyone else in this room." Primavesi said as she took back the auspex. Craddock didn't seem to hear her. Very slowly, she raised a hand to the vox caster mag-clamped to the shoulder of her flak vest, and clicked it on.
"PDF, this is security chief Craddock. What's your status?"
"Astropath spire secure, chief." crackled the reply, loud enough for the whole team to hear. "Two heretics in custody; no casualties."
Craddock's wind-chafed face tensed as she clenched her jaw. "Let the heretics go."
“My agents aren’t the heretics here.” Sapphira coolly reminded Craddock.
"Ma'am?" the soldier on the other end of the vox replied, just as Craddock released the transmitter button and the vox deactivated with a last pip of static. With the same dream-like slowness, Craddock unslung her lascarbine and placed it down on the floor. Sapphira followed her movements with the plasma pistol, and was ready to immolate the Venatoran if she made one false move.
"Sister." she said formally, facing Sapphira. "I wish to confess the crime of heresy. I accept complete responsibility for both my own actions and those of the men and women under my command. I surrender to your judgement."
“You are guilty of heresy and more, Vitani Craddock. Your life is forfeit and your soul imperiled.” Sapphira proclaimed as she raised her aim to Craddock’s head and started to depress the trigger. The chief simply stood her ground, and stared unflinchingly down the plasma’s barrel, as waited for her execution. She was deceived like I was by Arval. But she knows that she has to die, and accepts her fate. Like the honorable soldier she is. Sapphira’s eyes narrowed dangerously as her finger halted with that thought. It could’ve easily been me on the wrong end of a barrel. Do the right thing. She sighed heavily and shook her head almost disbelievingly. Sapphira slowly eased back the trigger as she regarded Craddock appraisingly.
“I refuse to let these replicants waste more loyal lives and souls.” Sapphira quietly resolved before she voiced her sentence, “Chief Craddock, pending approval of Interrogator Schafer, you and your soldiers will be assigned to a penal unit. There you will save your souls by sacrificing your lives for the God-Emperor. I pray that by your deaths you will serve Him better than you have here. ”
“With respect, Sister, my soldiers were obligated to obey my orders.” Craddock argued as soon as Sapphira finished speaking. Her stunned composure had broken, and the concern for her soldiers was evident on her weathered face. “They were my orders, and I should be the only one punished.”
“Would you have spared my agents?” Sapphira genuinely asked without malice. The chief’s expression hardened as she glanced at the Sister and remained silent. Sapphira nodded knowingly as she saw the answer in Craddock’s eyes. “Nor should you have. Your soldiers were obligated to detain or execute you as a traitor for resisting the Inquisition. Instead they followed your illegal orders and condemned themselves.”
“I see.” Craddock eventually managed through clenched teeth. She took a deep, pained breath and made another appeal. “I would like to keep immediate command over my men and women, so that I might better look after them.” The chief’s voice lowered as she forced herself to speak. “Please, Sister, surely you can understand that?
I’ve never particularly cared to give a heretic what they desire. Sapphira felt her cheek twinge, painfully, as she remembered her earlier words to Javid. “I do.” Sapphira quietly responded, and paused to grimace as she considered how to answer. “While that would be highly irregular, I will recommend that your command not be broken up. In return, you’ll make sure they all accept this punishment and know that the alternative will be more severe. Now swear to the God-Emperor that you will be compliant, and then get the frak out of my sight before I change my mind.”
“I swear to the God-Emperor that we will compliant, Sister. His will be done.” Craddock affirmed with a straight face as she made the aquila in salute. With the precision expected of a governor’s chief bodyguard she stepped back, turned, and advanced to her troops. On her order they professionally fell into formation and marched out of the audience hall.
“Okay,” Sapphira wearily sighed as she turned and holstered the plasma pistol. She critically eyed everyone’s wounds over as she shrugged off her medi-kit and started to remove her bloodied gauntlets. “Kally, you’re up first then Lia, Vincent and Marcus. Dr. L’Hoace? I could use your assistance.”
---
"Are you guys alright?" Kelly asked as the team limped back into the main astropathic complex, accompanied by magos Primavesi who was supporting a now-recovered Vizkop. Sapphira stood next to the Adept, and cradled a small bundle of black and red fabric. All of them were hunched and tired looking; armour scored skin blood-spattered from a variety of minor wounds. But at least their wounds all been sanitized, bandaged, and braced as appropriate and possible. Sapphira had needed to draft Fredriq to assist in triage, despite his insistence that he wasn’t that type of doctor, as she tended to her own wounds first. The quick application of synthetic flesh was hardly elegant, but it was effective and it allowed the Sister to tend to her wounded agents, which was what really mattered.
“We’ll live.” Sapphira answered, without really answering, as she slowly walked past Kelly and Manita to the nearest unoccupied work station. With reverent care she rested the saint’s remains, which were swaddled in a banner torn from the audience hall, safely in the middle desk. She felt no need to speak for the team, as she listened to the younger Black and quietly agreed. Sapphira eased off her medical satchel, and barely had time to put it down before one psykers drew the attention of her minder and Manita. Only when she limped over did Sapphira recognize her as the astropath who’d been so fixated on the saint. Reminded of him, Sapphira felt a sharp pang of loss as she silently observed the development unfold.
"It's from Schafer." Kelly said abruptly. "It has to be. Can we get a feed from an orbital telescope or something?"
"Most of our comms satellites were destroyed along with the orbitals and docks." magos Primavesi said sombrely, tracing a cog circle over her chest, "But we have the stored auger records of the lance satellites."
She crossed over to the cogitators on one side of the room and traced a holy sign over one before going to work on the keyboard. She swivelled the pict screen towards the team as they gathered round. Above a time-stamp dated several minutes ago, a green-tinged image showed a tiny white speck orbiting the grey disc of Vitaris. The speck was bright with reflections from a much more intense patch of light on the surface, which wavered and flickered as it burned. The surface of Vitaris was glowing with molten fire.
"He's glassing it." Vincent said, suddenly jubilant. His mechanical hand whirred as it made a fist. "He's glassing the alien fokkers! That'll be why our meat puppet in the palace dropped dead."
Sapphira stood and intently watched the screen without comment. After a long moment she turned around and hobbled back to her claimed desk. With a pained hiss she sat down and rummaged for a stylus and message form. She quickly filled in the destination identifiers and kept the coded message short. The xenos has been confirmed and purged. Control over defense satellites reestablished. Team is minus one. Request your return to Venatora as soon as possible. Sapphira looked up and waved over one of the adepts, coincidently the man she’d spoken to earlier, and handed him the folded note with a nod of thanks. Once she was alone, Sapphira eased back into her chair with a soft grunt of pain and observed everyone the room.
I guess that’s mission accomplished? Sapphira hesitantly concluded as her eyes flicked between the PDF soldiers, Telepathica adepts, and her agents. No. My mission isn’t accomplished. Sapphira reminded herself as she retrieved her data-slate and grasped the stylus, which she tapped against the case as she appraisingly regarded four of them in particular. Kelly Black. Marcus Black. Kally Sonder. Vincent Nyl. The Solomon survivors had congregated together as they watched the Excubitor scour Vitaris. Both men had wrapped arms around Kally’s shoulders, and Sapphira saw the woman clasp Marcus hand and smile up at him and exchange quiet words, which Kelly must have overheard, as she shook her head and managed a long suffering smile.
Sapphira turned away from the companions and thoughtfully considered the screen. Finding the right words was suddenly much harder than she’d expected. While she ruminated, instances from the past few days glared unbidden back at her. Vitani Craddock, her silently wounded eyes as she all but begged for her soldiers. John Shere, and his tortured last breaths as she smiled at him. Julius Farrier, her patient, restrained and all but headless in his recovery bed. The security guard who’d pleaded futilely for her attention, that she hadn’t inquired about afterwards. Arval Clement’s roguish smile and smooth voice as he’d recited prayers with her. In that moment Sapphira almost felt nauseous, and inhaled sharply, as she noticed that her hand had started to shake as she suddenly felt the weight of her exhaustion.
“Throne…” Sapphira hissed quietly through clenched teeth as she favored the slate with a grimace. She dropped the stylus onto it and closed her eyes. I’m a real paragon of serenity. Sapphira bitterly thought as she rested her left elbow on the desk and massaged her unwounded temple. She flexed her right hand on the desk until her fingers inadvertently touched the sumptuous fabric of the saint’s shroud. Sapphira exhaled slowly and opened her eyes as she reached forward to touch the charred remains. “I really wish you could’ve spoken…” Sapphira softly spoke as she gently ran her fingertips across the skull’s remaining temple. “Your blessed insight would’ve always been appreciated, but now more than ever.”
"His insight would probably be that you're an Emperor-damn disgrace and need to polish your armour." a rough voice said, as Vincent slouched over with a knowing look on his face. "Did I hear you calling 'im saint Lehner back in the palace?"
When Sapphira proved too tired to answer, the stocky ex-guardsman let out a bark of laughter.
"I thought I recognised that astropath over there." he said, as his good eye roamed down to the broken remnants of the servo skull. "How do you like that one, corporal Nasty Bastard?"
“Have some respect, Vincent.” Sapphira snapped back as she favored the bounty hunter with an irritated expression. “He’s an Imperial saint.”
Vincent gave her a mocking smile. "Is that what they told you? He wasn't no saint, Sister; he was a hard-nosed Emperor-bothering fok. I should know, cos I knew him. Corporal Nicholas B Lehner, Delphic 94th? My old regiment." He tapped the shoulder of his augmetic arm with the other hand. "I'd show you the tattoo, but it's lying back on Solomon somewhere with the rest of my arm."
He ran a hand over the knife that was tattooed down the centre of his scalp, and sat down next to Sapphira, hooking his leg over the chair.
"No, he wasn't no saint. That said, he must have had the Emperor's ear, cos I can't think of any other way he could've did what he did. We were on our way to some world I can't even remember the name of now, our first deployment offworld. Our transport lost power in transit. Gellar field malfunction. The warp started messing with everybody's heads - our old colour sergeant even flipped out and tried to kill us all. And just for kicks some alien parasites escaped from the lower decks as well and got loose all over the enginarium. In short, we were fokked. The cogboys tried to lock everything down but a few of us including me, Nasty Bastard and, if I'm not mistaken, her sister," He jerked a thumb towards the wispy-haired astropath, who was being tended to by her handler. "Managed to get loose, but the warp and the xenos were picking us off one by one. We got ambushed swimming through one of the ship's water tanks - don't ask me what we were doing there - and Lehner stayed behind and blew his grenades. Grenades, underwater, at that range...ain't no way he could have survived. But somehow he came back, and he helped us turn the power back on before the fokking cogboys did an emergency translation that would've squashed us all into paste. As soon as we were out of the warp, Nasty dropped dead. None of us could ever agree if it was the hand of the Emperor or just the warp fokking with us one last time."
“And what do you think?” Sapphira cautiously asked against her better judgment, which was as stunned as the rest of her consciousness by Vincent’s unexpected insight.
Vincent got his mocking smile back. "I think I'm still alive. Fitz always thought he was the real deal though. Although she was probably even more fokked in the head than the rest of us - the warp tried to trick us with a hullucination of her sister Liv."
The old guardsman craned his neck around, looking at the astropath in the corner.
"Well, if that's her, I can't fault the fokkers for accuracy. But someone needs to tell her that Fitz bought it on Arcus. No point stringing the old crone along." Vincent's voice softened, just a fraction. "For what it's worth, she was saving up her pay to come here after her term was up."
He put his bionic hand on the table and levered himself up with a whir of augmetics, the mocking sneer back on his face.
"Now if you'll excuse me, Sister, I'm off to self medicate until Schafer gets back."
For some time Sapphira sat and stared at the remnants of the saint and brooded on what Vincent had alleged about him. New thoughts and feelings about her blessed companion warred fiercely with ingrained thoughts and feelings. She reflexively clenched her hands into fists as she scrutinized the skull. It wasn’t until the pain got too excruciating that Sapphira realized her face had been contorted as well. Unwilling to acknowledge her distress, the Sister simply exhaled in a slow sharp hiss and observed the room. It was then that she saw the elder astropath and remembered what Vincent had said. The woman had a sister who’d been dead for almost forty years, and almost assuredly didn’t know.
“Frak it, I might as well do the right thing.” Sapphira softly muttered as she reached up and self-consciously fixed her ruined habit. As she did so, her fingers brushed against the Inquisitorial medallion around her neck. I’ll handle this as Sister. After the moment’s thought, Sapphira unclasped the necklace and placed it on the desk top. She eased herself out from the chair; jaw clenched against the discomfort, and smoothed her tattered skirts. Sapphira took a breath to steady her nerves before she started determinedly towards the wizened astropath and her handler.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where do you think you're going? You need to report to a Medicae officer, you're in no condition to be fully active." Remus' voice propped up, as he caught wind of their return. His gaze had fallen across each of the Inquisitorial agents, from first glance alone he could have scarcely imagined their mission was a success. Each of them battered and wounded, armour kits destroyed, wrapped in blood stained bandages.
It couldn't have gone well, they should of had more support. Noyer had taken out a large portion of the PDF airbase before being put down, Julianus couldn't imagine their chance with only small arms. But none-the-less they had succeeded, that much was apparent, the lance batteries had been called off, and the xeno infiltrator was dead. A world saved, and Venatora would live on for a time. For better or for worse, he couldn't care. Living was living.
Remus stepped before the Sister, rose his hand to gesture her to stop. She was perhaps the worse of the lot of them, or the others were at least were giving each other support.
“Conveniently I am a medicae officer, and I say that I’m well enough for this.” Sapphira stubbornly responded as she brushed by the stormtrooper. He sighed knowingly but politely offered a forearm for the Sister to hold, which she wasn’t proud enough to refuse. Forced to walk slower by her escort, Sapphira sighed herself and spoke. “Vincent served with the astropath’s sister. She died about forty years ago, and it’s only right that the poor woman knows the truth.”
“There’s no need, Sister.” The handler called out as he noticed the duo, and he quickly stepped up to intercept them. “Liv’s rather worn out, but I’ve got her under control.” His voice dropped down so his ward couldn’t hear. “Please, there’s no need to kill her too.”
Sapphira winced slightly and shook her head negatively before she quietly responded. “I have news about her sister.”
The handler looked at her sharply, with surprised expression that quickly turned to grim understanding. Evidently the adept knew about the psyker’s sister and could guess what had happened to her. He glanced from his charge and then back to the Inquisitorial agents with a concerned frown. “Seeing Anna is… was, Liv’s touchstone, her hopeful dream. Without that…”
"She has nothing. I can understand that, she gave me this." Remus replied, his had digging into a shoulder pocket and retrieved the letter she had given him.
"The date alone says it all. I didn't have the heart to tell her, I thought it'd be best for her to live in hope. If that's truly how she feels, a touchstone, I don't think we should tell her. What could that do to her?" Remus regretted. He still couldn't imagine what he would do if he lost another sibling, family was everything to him, and he wished, more than anything, to see them again.
“Just be careful, whatever you two decide.” The handler tightly responded after considering. He stepped back and crouched down by the astropath, and gently squeezed her shoulder to get her attention. “Olivia? These two agents would like to have a word with you, about Anna.”
“Anna…” The wizened woman breathed as she struggled to sit up straighter. Sapphira knelt down next to the older woman with Remus’ assistance, and she momentarily froze as the psyker fixed them both with an intent stare. She seemed reinvigorated by the prospect of news about her sister, and reached out to grab the Sister’s hands with nervous anticipation. “Do you know where she is?”
“I do.” Sapphira evenly replied after she overcame the shock from the unexpected contact. While part of her wanted to pull away, Sapphira forced herself to accept it as she took a breath and met the blind woman’s eyes. “I’m sorry to say that your sister Anna was killed in action on Arcus.”
“No. No… No! Anna’s not dead! She can’t be dead! She promised!” Olivia adamantly denied through sniffles as tears immediately started to streak down her face. The old psyker wracked with sobs and shook her head with disbelief as she clutched harder on Sapphira’s hands. “Anna… Anna promised. Promised that she’d come visit me when… when…”
“One day you’ll see Anna again,” Sapphira replied to Olivia, with sincerity in her voice and tears in her own eyes, as she gently squeezed the psykers hands back. “One day He’ll call for you and you’ll answer. Anna will be right there, waiting by His side to greet you, and welcome you to your well-earned place by the Throne.”
Remus grimaced, his face fell low, and he couldn't bare to look at them. What had they achieved? Had they really given her closure? His face slowly turned to anger as he heard Sapphira's attempts to comfort her. He could understand her mentality, but those words - He'll call for you - did nothing but rattle along his spine. What if she took that to liberally, what if this meant so much to her, as the handler said - her touchstone. He didn't want to think about it, yet, he couldn't shake the thought from his mind.
"I know what it's like to lose a family member. I've lost a brother to war, he did his duty, and was executed because the brass had counter-manned his decision, but he refused. His men were dying, they had little chance of succeeding in their objective and he tried to save them. To retreat and regroup, he was shot by the regimental commissar." Remus said, but he had other siblings, she, or at least he assumed, was the only person she had left.
He took a step forward, reached his hand out and placed it on her shoulder.
"You'll be okay." He tried to assure her. Remus would have kicked himself, he didn't know what else to tell her. What could he say? What could he do? Nothing, nothing he could do could subside the knowledge she had just learned. Perhaps she'd be alright given time, perhaps if she was given ample distractions. He could do nothing for her know, but, perhaps he could do something else.
The team would not require him for a time, most of them would need time for recuperation, perhaps, if he was able to attain personal leave. He could at least visit her, give her the distraction she needed, some company. He wasn't uncommon to the sight of Astropaths, but they're handlers would be a different matter entirely. Remus would be sure they wouldn't approve, though, he was a member of the Inquisition. He could get away with it.
Sapphira looked up and listened to Remus’ words alongside the teary Olivia, and picked up where the soldier had left off as she remembered what Vincent had said. “Anna never gave up on you, Olivia, not once she knew you were on Venatora. She’d wanted to visit you and been saving her pay to make it here.” Sapphira extracted a hand and gently massaged the woman’s other shoulder. “I don’t doubt she kept your letters to her also, and that she thought of you as much as you think of her. Treasure that bond, Olivia. Treasure that bond because it’s special and not even death can take that away from you two.”
Olivia remained silent for a while as tears continued to drip steadily down her wrinkled face. After some time the old woman spoke through a strained throat. “Thank you, both of you children. It hurts to know… but it’s good to know. Thank you.” She reached up and gently squeezed Remus’ hand and Sapphira’s at the same time. She looked from the Sister to the stormtrooper and smiled sadly at him. “I’m sorry about your brother, young man. You’ll be okay, too.”
Azazeal849
02-13-2014, 08:32 AM
Kelly Black ducked out of the snowstorm into the commandeered sprint trader's cargo bay, and set about knocking the snow from her boots as the others gathered between the currently-empty mag-cages.
"I doubt we've stopped them for long." interrogator Schafer said brusquely as he climbed down the ladder from the crew deck. "Excubitor will remain in orbit, but we need to tell Sidonis - possibly organise a full exterminatus on Vitaris."
He paused as he saw the auspex that Vizkop was cradling in his gloved hands.
"What's that?" he asked, pointing.
It was Marc who answered. "You had primary contact with one of the replicants, sir."
Schafer nodded, his lips pursed as he remembered his murdered friend Clement. "That's the detector, is it?" Marc nodded. To everyone's surprise, Schafer smiled tightly. "You're learning."
To Kelly's mind, her brother's grim expression seemed to indicate that he wasn't taking the praise the way it was intended. After the xenos infiltrators had forced them into conflict with the PDF and the governor's own bodyguards, Kelly thought she knew why. Yes, Marc was learning. On Solomon he had learned that no-one was above suspicion. Here on Venatora, he had learned that no innocent was above sacrificing. He had mentioned it to her the previous night as they had been packing, but Kelly had stuck to the answer that Kally had given them just a day ago. No-one was above suspicion, but you had to trust someone. Kally, Vince, Sapphira...in time, maybe even Schafer.
She looked at the interrogator as he raised his arms away from his sides, inviting Vizkop to make his scan. The tech priest obliged, and a few moments later the auspex pinged clear. Schafer, J: Human.
Once the test was complete, Schafer gave Sapphira and Vizkop a nod, and gestured with his bandaged hand towards the crew ladder behind him. "Let's get moving."
+ + + + + +
With a sustained bombardment from its laser batteries, the Imperial frigate Excubitor had reduced the explorator's landing site and the ten square kilometres around it to molten glass. The destruction continued deep down into the planet's crust, so that the molten silica oozed down through quake-fractured basalt and dripped into the caverns miles below the surface. It dripped down onto piles of rock that had caved in to smash the dark, derelict machinery criss-crossing the cavern floor. The machinery was so old, and so alien in its geometries, that it was almost impossible to tell apart from the rocks that now buried it.
Deeper still the caverns were still intact, these ones reinforced by pillars and monoliths of black, obsidian-like material. A single green light pierced the subterranean darkness, pulsing a slow heartbeat. It illuminated hundreds of alcoves carved into the walls of the man-made cavern, each one marked with a silver tracery of interlocking lines and circles. Every one of the alcoves was empty.
The light came from a small, pyramidal structure set at one end of the crypt, the green light flowing in waves through the deep grooves in its surface. It was pulsing a signal - but unlike its deliberately-baited counterpart in the destroyed caverns above, it had no need to transmit it in a form that human augers could detect.
+ + + + + +
Venatora's sky was full of streaks of fire, and would remain so for the forseeable future. The recent catastrophe was still painfully in evidence - a new belt of frozen metal and organic matter had formed around the planet where orbitals and shipyards had once floated, gradually dispersing as the wreckage spun off into space or fell out of orbit to burn up in the atmosphere. The massive grav anchor station that held Venatora's climate in check after the loss of its moon had survived, safely distanced inside the ring of moon fragments from the carnage in low orbit. The grid of lance satellites that had caused the devestation also remained relatively intact, although dozens of mechanicus repair shuttles now flitted between them, reconsecrating the robotic sentinels and trying to figure out exactly how they had been subverted. Venatora's defences were severely compromised, and its interplanetary infrastructure crippled for decades to come. But, like a microcosm of the Imperium to which it belonged, it would endure - rebuilding and limping along defiantly until its enemies could muster a blow capable of truly felling it.
Like most of Venatora's vital locations, the planetary capital had survived the lances' misguided fury thanks to its theatre void shield. But the bleed-off from the lance strikes had melted the snow for miles around - including the rocky basin where Lia had halted Schafer and Clement's crashing shuttle, which was now a stagnant lake. Further east, the heat flux and physical shockwaves had dislodged tonnes of snow from the peaks of the neighbouring mountain range. One such avalanche had exposed part of a vast, twisted slab of metal. The metal slab had plowed into the mountainside and broken up, scattering itself so far that the only indication of the inquisitorial shuttle it had once been was part of a giant letter I stencilled along its topside. At the front of the twisted slab was something that might have once been a cockpit. The ice-rimed transparisteel windows had cracked and splintered to admit the elements, and most of the instrumentation inside was covered with a thin layer of snow. Slumped across the instruments was a frozen body, the side of its flight helmet caved in.
Beside the co-pilot's chair, which had been ripped from its mounting, was another.
+ + + + + +
"Stand by for translation." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfTBhpYMkSs) Schafer growled into the vox caster, followed by a pip of static as he took his thumb off the transmit rune.
The interrogator sat with his jaw clenched as he gently raised the sprint trader out of its launch orbit and slingshotted it towards clear space beyond the ring of shattered moon fragments. His friend Clement had been the best pilot on the staff, no question, but Schafer was capable enough. He stabbed another series of buttons and the whine of the power generators filled the deck, feeding power into the ship's warp drive. Blue lights began to wink into life on his status screen, mirroring the glow of the Gellar projection gargoyles lighting up along the trader's flanks. Heavy adamantium blast shields slid down over the cockpit windows as the ship's graviton array prepared to tear a hole in reality. Quite apart from the waves of dangerous energy unleashed, the glowering witch-light of the warp was not something any pilot was advised to look into.
Schafer stared straight ahead as the blast shields closed off his view. As the last light of distant Vitaris winked through the cockpit and disappeared, the interrogator's eyes flashed emerald green.
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