[M] The Replicants - IC

[Felwether]

“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]

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]

“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]

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]

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]

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]

"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]

"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]

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]

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.