[M] The Replicants - IC

[Atrum Daemon]

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]

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]

“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]

[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]

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]

"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]

“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]

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]

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]

“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.