[M] Penitence - IC

[Thrannix]

Marc looked down the corridor towards the main door. "Not from here. It's too exposed - anyone coming in the front door will have a clean sweep of the hallway."

Solvan shrugged and followed the rest of the group. "The quicker we clean up the basement the less time we have a back to keep a look out for."

He had kept himself at the back of the action until now, mainly because he was notoriously lame at getting live captives and more prone to leave enemies generously spread over a wide area in messy chunks. So he had swallowed all his righteous indignation until now. Emperor damn him if he left without sending a couple of this human wastes to their final judgment.

Josiah felt a sharp pain in his upper arm as his shoulder pad cracked from a ricochet, and beside him he heard Crenshaw stumble back a step and curse under his breath.

"Excuse me. Elderly people first." Solvan grumbled stepping to the front and towards the door, badly aimed shots flaring harmlessly off the aura of his rosarius as he stepped out of the cover from his teammates' shields.

And forth onto the darkness we shall bring Your light. Let evil wither and burn under its radiance.

He slammed his thunderhammer against the center of the double doors. After being already weakened by the shooting the doors shattered into a hail of shrapnel that sent the heretics inside ducking for cover for a few precious seconds. One of them, to slow to react, was caught by a deformed doorknob right in the eye, the unexpected projectile went out of the back of the heretic's skull with a splash of gore and bone pieces.

The priest stepped into the room and immediately turned left and caught another enemy as he tried to bring his weapon to bear, his hammer glancing the enemy's right shoulder and crushing it into its owner's thorax who dropped with a wet gurgle.

A third enemy, his gun clicking empty before being dropped, jumped onto Solvan’s back grabbing his thunderhammer's handle and wrestling it against the priest's neck choking him. The man was big and strong, the bishop struggled to get free as both fell to the ground behind a cabinet, his opponent pressing his knee against the Solvan's back to keep him pinned. The handle closed his traquea shut and his vision began blurring.

Before Solvan could fall unconscious he manage to unholster his blessed autopistol and fired it over his shoulder five times, leaving him almost deaf from his right ear and burning wounds on his neck and jaw from the proximity of the shot. The heretic screamed and the priest felt the pressure of the handle being released.

He coughed and breathed heavily turning to confirm the heretic was dead, with two gunshots to the neck and one to the cheek. He spat blood on the corpse and stood up rubbing his neck that was starting to bruise.

Good thing Tomas isn't here, he thought smiling, getting jumped by this scum like a bloody rookie and almost getting strangled with my own weapon, disgraceful, he would never let me live it down.

[Cfavano]

Josiah cursed as the bullet hit him, yet he continued. He wasn't injured, and he had felt worse. As Solvan paved the way, he and Crenshaw secured the room. Josiah called out to Crenshaw. "Secure a door." Josiah went up to a door, kicked it down, and tossed another choke into it, before advancing behind his shield with his pistol. He opened fire on any silhouettes he didn't recognize. He heard the thumping of the ornithopter's blades, and only hoped that his support were handling it while he was down here.

[PaintSerf]

"Well volunteered. Ella is scanning for our missing target. With three captures we can start being a little more aggressive. Only take prisoners if its low risk, otherwise kill on sight."

“Gladly.” Crenshaw confirmed as he heard the brief commotion behind him, and saw the conscious heretic was in capable hands of Sapphira and Vizkop. He rolled his shoulders and advanced to the basement door, and appropriated the favorable position to the left. From there Crenshaw knew that he could initiate the breach, control the push pace, and retain use his dominant hand in combat. Whether or not that disadvantaged Josiah hardly mattered to him so long as that other shield remained moving.

"Crenshaw, I have a plan. Before we go down, we toss in a few chokes to loosen 'em up, then advance with our shields locked, forming a moving wall, and then bash a path for the rest of the team."

“Uh-huh.” He grunted, and graced Josiah with a deadpan aside glance. Major Crenshaw was a well-seasoned veteran, and he hardly needed the other shield bearer’s tedious and irrelevant reminder of basic breaching technique. It was hardly the moment to upbraid Josiah, but Crenshaw would make certain that it would come later.

"Let's give them a breath of fresh air.”

So Alia’s newest acquisition was that sort of Arbitrator. How fantastic. Crenshaw merely rolled his eyes as he killed the maul’s power field and mag-locked it against the inside of his shield. He braced the ceramite slab against the basement door as quickly confirmed the condition of his goggles and filtration plugs. Once his environmental protection was secured, Crenshaw caught Josiah’s attention and started down a hand count before prying open the door to a rattling welcome of automatic fire.

"Kally, Marc, join Jo and Crenshaw and get that basement cleared now."

"Goggles on." Crenshaw warned Marc and Kally curtly as they reappeared.

The major spared either penitent another moment’s thought, as he knew that they knew their business. Instead he pushed his shield against Josiah’s to set the advance in motion. He detached the maul and powered it back into the lethal range as the gunfire tapered off. No sooner were they advancing down the corridor when another torrent of bullets shredded the door and clattered into the shield wall.

“Shit!” Crenshaw hissed under his breath as he was knocked back a pace by the sledgehammer blow. Merely keeping his footing forced Crenshaw to fall out of sync with Josiah and break the shield wall. The major repeated the curse as Solvan slipped through the gap and smashed open the door with his thunder hammer as his rosarius crackled from deflecting otherwise potentially fatal shots. Crenshaw shifted to keep the two penitents behind the bulk of his shield while they advanced in the priest’s wake.

Crenshaw barged open the burst remnants of the door with his shield, as he continued to keep Kally and Marc relatively covered as they cleared the threshold. Once they had cleared the immediate vicinity, Crenshaw closed the distance to Solvan. The old priest had evidently had a life or death moment in those few seconds between knocking his way through the door and the other’s arrival. Crenshaw once again dialed back the power as he locked the maul away in favor of detaching his bolt pistol.

“I would expect such heroic behavior from the Arbitrator, Belannor.” Crenshaw mildly commented as he stood sentinel in-front of Solvan as the old priest regained his feet.

It was impossible for Crenshaw not to notice the sheer quantity and quality of the basement’s hexagrams. His eyes were also drawn warily to the few warded doors which were also padlocked shut, and that made Crenshaw frown contemplatively. In his personal experience, what was discovered behind locked and warded doors was seldom either safe or wholesome.

"Secure a door." Josiah went up to a door, kicked it down, and tossed another choke into it, before advancing behind his shield with his pistol. Crenshaw’s prosthetic teeth clacked faintly at the presumptive order as he maintained cover for the breach team, his bolt pistol’s predatory green targeter swepting across the corridor.

“There it is.” Crenshaw grunted, off vox and as much to himself as Solvan, before he tersely countered. “Maintain vox discipline and hold on breaching the padlocked doors. They will keep until we are cleared down here and Kally or I am present.”

[Atrum Daemon]

In the kitchen, Vizkop's augmented senses tagged the blurring grenade and slowed it to an almost beautiful slow-motion tumble as it came spinning in through the broken window.

With his senses already overclocked to interface with the dataslate, Vizkop perceived the launcher grenade tumbling almost serenely through the air. He was also able to spot the delay timer and his mood brightened. He could save that. With his mind overclocked, he did the same to his limbs as secondary actuators kicked in and began spinning. He dented the floor as he kicked off into the air moments after the round passed through the window, spinning as he went. The spinning would seem silly to anyone who did not know how Vizkop operated, did not know that he hardly ever did anything out of hand. The spinning was a calculated part of his plan, absolutely needed to remove the explosive.

He span once, twice, snatched the grenade from the air, and as he faced the ceiling for the third time sent the grenade firing back out of the window. He promptly crashed into the floor as his overclocked brain and limbs returned to normal. He felt the toll immediately, breathing hard as steam rose from his helmet thanks to the heat generation.

[PaintSerf]

Gavin followed into the library’s main entrance after Marc and Kally, Kelly Black alongside him. The pysker had drawn his laspistol as soon as the gunfire started, and he kept it cradled at the ready. The practiced weapon familiarity may have appeared out of place, at least to those unfamiliar with his service history with Task Force Carbon and AAT. However neither were door-breachers by any stretch of the imagination, so they held back until the all clear was sounded.

"Fourth man down." Marc added a moment later. "Ground floor's clear."

“I will disable the jammer.” Gavin advised as he holstered his pistol, and idly scratched his neck where the absent null collar normally rested. His voice was hollowed and worn out, the damage done on Saros only exacerbated by his time within the Inquisition’s cells. At least he’d begun to regain weight and rebuild muscle mass, albeit not enough to yet wear his recovered suit of old IST carapace.

With a rattling exhale tinged by weariness, Gavin cast out with mind and was rewarded almost immediately with the grating static melody of the jammer. It was active and within close proximity, hidden away within a cabinet drawer in the file room. The psyker thumped over to the device’s hidden location, which required him to step over the dead cultist. He stood unaware and unconcerned within the corpse’s expanding blood pool as he and pried open the door and regarded the disruption device.

Gavin mentally shushed as he narrowed his focus down onto it and rested a hand, which slowly closed around the jammer like a vice, as he began to smother the device’s machine spirit. Its discordant techno-wailing was diminished by choked out protests that went unheeded. However intent his focus on trying to nullify the counter-measure’s existence, even Gavin’s narrowed band of psychic potential could not miss the sudden and belligerent arrival of the ‘thopter’s predatory avian war-machine spirit.

Gavin kept the jammer stifled under psychic pressure as he divided his attention, so as to hear how they were going to react to this unexpected and unwelcome development. The psyker has his suspicions as to what role would be expected of him, and the device would be best served un-nullified. He was not at all surprised when Tomas Prinzel confirmed his suspicions with the task assigned to him.

""Gavin, jam the copters' comms, now."

"I've got you covered." Kelly assured the machine empath, pulling her laspistol from its hip holster.

“I know, Kelly Black.” Gavin quietly replied with a note of reciprocal assurance, strained as it was by his psychic concentration. He knew that she sincerely meant what she said in a positive way, and he made the effort for her to know that he knew. “There is nobody I would rather usurp a vox with.”

“Gavin!” the tech-assassin hissed into the vox. “Meet me near the kitchen. We have an interloping air support vehicle to deal with.”

“We are on our way.” Gavin breathed. He clenched both eyes shut and smacked his palm against the jammer, momentarily dazing the already tormented machine spirit. He reached into the cabinet and recovered the jammer. Ice had rimed around the boxy device as its signal lights continued to flash with distress under his continued psychic pressure. “Guide me, Kelly. Please.”

Gavin barely felt the woman’s supporting arm as she ushered him towards the kitchen, but he remembered how steady she’d been on Saros and Hercynia before that. He trusted her to protect him, even if that was from himself. Gavin sent the majority of his psychic potential soaring from the library towards the looming ‘thopter, instinctively honing in on the vehicle’s vox apparatus. His psychic presence slipped into and curled around the machine’s communications sub-system, and with his attention divided Gavin was forced to tune out the PDF soldiers' clipped transmissions.

Distantly he heard Kelly’s voice and felt a squeeze on his arm, and trusting that they were there he slumped down onto his artificial knees. The psyker deposited the device on the ground and kept it pinned with an open palm. Gavin took a deep breath as his is other hand shot out towards the ‘thoptor as if in a mirrored image. With a conscious exertion of will the psyker brought the two oppositional machine spirits towards one another. When both hands interlaced, Gavin exhaled deeply and snapped his eyes open as he fled the machine war he’d instigated.

“The soldiers will not be heard.” Gavin assured through the vox, and disengaged it before speaking aloud – oblivious to anyone else in the kitchen. “They are fortunate not to be alone with their screams.”

---

"Alright, alright!" the younger man squealed, looking terrified as he scrambled back to his knees beside the cooking unit, his hands up either side of his head. "He went to take Ryad his dinner, he's..." Mid-sentence, he lunged forward and tried to grab Sapphira's shotgun.

Sapphira took step towards the cultist as she reflexively swinging her shotgun around, ready to smash the shoulder stock into the man as he charged. No sooner had she started to pendulum the stock forward, Sapphira abruptly arrested her motion as Vizkop darted in from her peripherals put the would-be hero down with a boot to the chest. The Sister merely cocked her head to the side as she considered the Secutor, although she was hardly about to make a precious complaint about his intervention.

We’re on the same team, and lone wolves get killed. Sapphira softly exhaled and relaxed her tensed pose, subconsciously thumbing the aquila on her palm as she made a quick benediction. Hail to the God-Emperor, Javid. The Sister quickly refocused on the mission as she walked up next to the Secutor and loomed down impassively at their captive prey.

“Such a disobedient child,” the assassin said softly to the youth, “I will remove one of your feet in a very unpleasant manner if you try again. Now answer her question properly. Be a good boy.”

“You decide how much you’d like to suffer before you give us what we want.” Sapphira calmly stated, and then joined Vizkop as she pressed a boot down to firmly pin one of the cultist’s outstretched arms.

"What the frak do you...!" Vizkop's prisoner began to shout, only to be interrupted by the rapid thwak-thwak-thwak of a rotating wing aircraft suddenly roaring into position outside.

"Overwatch to team! Be advised, be advised! PDF 'thopter over your station!"

Sapphira suppressed her sigh of disappointment and frustration as she stared down at their lucid captive, who seemed to be as surprised as they were by the PDF’s unexpected arrival. Although the Sister knew that hardly was any proof, as in her experience heretics were often blindly ignorant in many ways beyond their spiritual degeneracy. Regardless of why ‘thopter appeared, or who sent the PDF, it was about to terminate the field interrogation before it properly began. She knew she would need to act quickly.

“Where is the woman that you abducted?” Sapphira sharply asked, and she trained her weapon on the captive’s head as Vizkop moved away.

“I don’t know! I don’t know!” The cultist desperately tried to plead. “Look, lady, I’m just-”

"Everyone else, prepare to repel an assault and keep Gavin covered. Vizkop, if we can't get them to back down kill the copters engines. At that point, Vince, use the autocannon."

“About to tell me what you know, or else I’ll show you how serious I am when I give my word. Hand first.” The Sister levelly told the cultist. To prove her point, and attempt to expedite an answer, Sapphira lowered the shotgun’s barrel and rested it lightly against the man’s fingers on his pinned hand.

“He told us to, he told us to!" The man almost whined with alarm, and Sapphira was quite certain of whom this he truly was. However the cultist’s validation of that suspicion would be appreciated.

“And where is he?” She tersely prompted. He only grimaced and whimpered in distress, which made her lean on her shotgun. The man yelped in pain as his fingers were crushed, but did not answer. Sapphira see the terrified expression on his face, and she was certain that this heretical wretch considered her the least of his worries. He feared the Blue Devil more, at least for the moment.

Sapphira knew she did not have the time to break the heretic now, and nor did she want to have him as a wild card in the seemingly inevitable fight with the PDF. She sighed as she shifted the shotgun to rest against the cultist’s throat. With one hand Sapphira rifled through a hip pouch as she crouched down over the man. The Sister produced a disposable kalma injector and unkindly thumped it into his arm.

“We’ll continue this conversation later, heretic.” Sapphira hissed as she depressed the needle, and watched as the terror in his eyes glazed over into serene numbness. With the cultist rendered docile, the Sister stepped back and then roughly goaded the captive out of sight from the breached door behind a refrigeration unit, its scant cover better than most of the kitchen’s limited options.

Sappphira darted back towards her fighting position of choice; an old and robustly built industrial mixer. She exchanged a brisk and passing nod with Kelly as she hustled in with Gavin on her arm. The psyker clearly in the middle of a psychic exertion, and Vizkop was also likewise engrossed with his data-pad. The Sister had faith that both men would find a way to handle the unanticipated aerial threat, and she hunched into cover with her weapon trained on the door to keep them covered while they worked.

“They are fortunate not to be alone with their screams.” She glanced over to share a look with Kelly, who was crouched down next to Gavin. The moment quickly passed as Vizkop’s own success was announced by the distressed note in the ‘thoptor’s engine and the gunfire started outside.

Sapphira’s eyes widened as the window blew in and she recognized the muffled note of a launcher. She reflexively hunched low into her ad hoc cover, but it was all for not. No sooner had Sapphira blinked then Vizkop crashed seemingly inexplicably to the floor. There was an explosion outside, and the Sister was rather certain she had not imagined the Secutor spinning through the air. However it had all happened so quickly that she could not be completely certain of anything, other than now was absolutely not the time to process what she may or may not have seen.

“Overwatch, where are the PDF going to breach first?” The Sister voxed as she re-levelled her shotgun at the broken kitchen door, her eyes fixed on it as she called out. “Secutor Vizkop, what’s your status?”

---

Merle remained slumped and shacked in his chair by the door as the raid team moved in on the library, broodingly sullen and silently bored as his manacled and tattooed hands fidgeted. From right to left underneath Merle’s knuckles was boldly spelled in faded ink ‘Gene Pure’. It was an old testament to his hate fueled youth before he diversified his outlets for aggression. The fingers on his right hand tapped a slow and steady rhythm on his knee. The fingers on his left kept compulsively curling, dragging along the rough palm into a fist, before they released and repeated.

With his obligation of providing what information he could was done, Merle occupied his time by watching the others in the room from his well-positioned chair. Occasionally the convict would stare covetously at Theodosia’s flask, and his gaze only intensified when she raised it to her lips and drank. However most of Merle’s unsavory attention was focused on Sister Mahin. The Sister had taken responsibility to guarding him and covering the apartment door with her laspistol. The convict’s lips curled appreciatively as his cruel blue eyes meandered over the Sororita, and it was clear that Merle’s approval was not because of her calling as a woman of faith or as warrior of the Imperium.

Once the raid was launched, and the gunfire started, Merle leaned forward with elbows on knees as he strained to hear the vox. The convict’s bruised and weathered face scrunched into a feral grin as he listened to the unfolding situation down below. Merle chuckled darkly with each complication no matter how promptly the operatives resolved them. He stopped once his ears picked up the rapid thwak-thwak-thwak of a rotating wing aircraft as it came in fast and low over the apartment building, and then began to howl with laughter.

"Overwatch to team! Be advised, be advised! PDF 'thopter over your station!"

“Well, ain’t this some shit predicament we’ve gone and stepped into? I’m thinkin’ this cunnin’ plan y’all had is well and truly fucked. Now as for how fucked,” Merle shot a nasty grin at Mahin. “I’d say almost as much as your missin’ girly-friend’s been gettin’, cutie.”

Mahin reacted as he expected, but he vastly underestimated how fast the woman was as she closed the distance between them. Merle grunted as his reality became a blinding white flash of pain as she efficiently worked him over with her pistol; correcting his presumptions about her strength. The Sister doubled him over with a smash to the temple, and then floored him on the reverse with a pistol whip. Merle tried to speak as he stared dazedly up at Mahin before she took his breath away, with a decisive kick to the abdomen. That kept him down and silent while Tomas called the play.

"Everyone else, prepare to repel an assault and keep Gavin covered. Vizkop, if we can't get them to back down kill the copters engines. At that point, Vince, use the autocannon."

“Hey, Ser Prick!” Merle hoarsely shouted at Tomas as he struggled to sit up straight, his efforts hobbled by Mahin’s correction and his fetters. “How’s about cuttin’ me loose, huh?” The convict rattled his manacles for emphasis. Despite the most recent well-earned beating, a bloodied grin was spread wide on Merle’s face. “Y’all are gonna need all the killers you got for sortin’ out these fuckers, and if I ain’t nothin’ else I’m that!”

“You’re also condemned heretic whose soul will be tormented by daemons for eternity, wretch.” Mahin spat contemptuously as she dutifully traced the aquila points with her free hand. The Sister unwaveringly kept Merle in her pistol’s sights with the other.

“So I keep gettin’ told.” Merle growled lowly through clenched and bared teeth, the edge of tension unmistakable. There was genuinely serious expression of doubt that flickered on his face, which lingered momentarily before Merle hitched up a broken and cheerful grin as he stared at Tomas.

“Look, you ain’t really got a fuckin’ choice here. Dawdlin’ is only makin’ it likelier that someone y’all actually give a shit about buys it.” Almost as if to emphasize his point, retaliatory fire from the PDF ‘thopter smacked into the apartment floors below them. The condemned man laughed along with the screams as he broke into a sing-song routine. “Tick, tock, tick, tock! Someone’s on the death clock!”

Merle chuckled as his gaze shifted to Nyl, and his grin only widened as he hollered to be heard over the autocannon. “Hey, Vinny, who’d you like to see get zotted first? I’m bettin’ you like to see soulless wonder, the righteous and ragin’ old cock, or our naughty, naughty nurse all gettin’ theirs!”

[dakkagor]

+++++

Tomas gritted his teeth as he ducked down from his window perch. Lasbolts blasted into brickwork and the window frame, sending gobbets of molten lead and plastek past him while releasing puffs of vaporised dust. But that wasn't why he was gritting his teeth. He was gritting his teeth so that he didn't respond to Merle's goading. He'd been called much worse things than 'Ser Prick' during his tenure in the guard, and he still held to the belief that no-one swore like a guardsman when their blood was up. But, damn him, Merle knew how to mash peoples buttons for maximum effect.

He reached up and fired his lasgun blind, spraying a fan of ruby bolts into the soldiers below.

“Overwatch, where are the PDF going to breach first?”

"The back door!" He yelled, and fired again.

"Mahin, if Merle says another word or gives you any trouble, gut shoot him!"

+++++

Kally stepped behind Crenshaw and gave his shoulder a tight squeeze. She hoped it conveyed at least some of what she was thinking.

"You're ok, no hits got through." She said as she checked his armour for breaches. "Josie, wait up."

She stepped up to the Arbitrator with a sigh and removed her collar. Instantly the room began to feel muggy and unpleasant as she started to focus on her breathing, a smooth cycle of inward and outward breaths as she put into place the meditative techniques she had learned. Her aura strengthened and she saw Solvan twitch away from her reflexively.

"Now you can start kicking down warded doors."

[Thrannix]

“I would expect such heroic behavior from the Arbitrator, Belannor.” Crenshaw mildly commented as he stood sentinel in-front of Solvan as the old priest regained his feet.

Solvan picked up his warhammer and rested it over his shoulder.

"A little ambitious stunt I admit. But you can't leave all the work to the youngsters.” He said with a smirk. “Otherwise, before you know it, you are left behind at HQ or whatever place they figure is a safe place to leave the old fart to drool."

“That would be an exceptionally undignified end.” Crenshaw agreed as his eyes narrowed on the padlock.

The priest followed Crenshaw's gaze towards the hexagrams on the padlocked doors and made the sign of the Aquila, sharing the Major’s apprehension, his mind hurting just by staring at the twisted markings.

“Maintain vox discipline and hold on breaching the padlocked doors. They will keep until we are cleared down here and Kally or I am present.”

Not tearing his eyes from the hexagrams Solvan took his flask filled with holy water, unscrewed the tap reverently and dipped his index in the liquid as he approached one of the warded doors.He heard Crenshaw audibly clear his throat as he took a step forward.

"Shall I repeat myself louder for you?" The Major asked.

"Don't worry Crenshaw, I'm not opening anything, I'm not that senile." Solvan said licking his lips. "Just testing the quality of the warding on these mystery doors."

His wet finger touched the door a couple of inches above the hexagram and left a drop of holy water trembling on its dry surface while his mouth whispered a prayer of protection.

The bishop stepped back as the liquid trickled down towards the edge of the marking. When it touched it the substance, Solvan wasn't such a fool as to hope it was paint, it boiled and bubbled, rotten fumes escaping towards the ceiling with a sound that could have been a scream.

Solvan gave the Major a look that needed no words to convey his thoughts.

"Kally, whenever your ready." The priest said into the vox.

Kally stepped behind Crenshaw and gave his shoulder a tight squeeze. She hoped it conveyed at least some of what she was thinking.

As she let go of her collar Solvan couldn't help to take a step back, not that it helped much with the nausea, headache and general feeling of sickness. But the effect on the room was clear, the hexagram stopped hissing from the holy water.

"Now you can start kicking down warded doors."

"Gladly." Said Solvan with a grimm look on his face.

Flicking the activation rune of his thunderhammer he spared a glance towards Crenshaw and Kally as he placed himself to the door's right side.

"I smash it open, and you go in with your shields, I come in behind you and hit whatever is still standing." He swallowed the bile rising to his mouth from Kally's Pariah effect and shook his head trying to focus, cold sweat on his forehead.

Crenshaw nodded and the priest swung his hammer into the first padlock, shattering it along with half the door, hexagram included

[Azazeal849]

“Secutor Vizkop, what’s your status?”

“We need to do something about that multi-las in the ‘thopter.” Kelly said anxiously, ducking down from the window.

+ + + + + +

"Where are they?" Vincent grunted to Ella as he picked himself and the autocannon up off the floor. He kept low, not wanting to present the thopter gunner with another target through the smoking ruin of the window.

"Gathered round the rear of the building." Ella replied with a cough, one hand still over her head as she hugged the floor. A scything beam of las had carved a gash through the brickwork over her head, and her robe was showered with plaster and dust. In the lower floors of the hab the shouts had reached the stairwell, as some of the unfortunate inhabitants bolted. Excellent cover to extricate the team, if they could move without being cut up by the multi-las.

“Overwatch, where are the PDF going to breach first?” Sapphira voxed.

"The back door!" Tomas yelled, "Mahin, if Merle says another word or gives you any trouble, gut shoot him!"

He fired again, and this time was answered by a sustained burst from the ‘thopter’s multi-las, which hissed as it demolished the wall. Sister Mahin dropped to the floor, as did Merle, taking the chair he was cuffed to with him.

Vincent cursed and abandoned his attempt to swing his autocannon up to point through a football-sized hole in the brickwork. Tomas threw himself backwards just in time, blinding white lines seared across his vision. One of the threads of sun-hot light went through sister Pari as she crouched by the door, stuffing the last of the vox equipment into one of the kit bags. She let out a soft gasp of surprise and toppled over, clutching at the charred hole in her stomach.

+ + + + + +

Solvan coughed and breathed heavily, turning to confirm the heretic was dead with two gunshots to the neck and one to the cheek. He spat blood on the corpse and stood up, rubbing his neck that was starting to bruise.

"Perhaps I have spoken too soon.” Crenshaw opined, off vox and as much to himself as Solvan, before he tersely countered. “Maintain vox discipline and hold on opening the padlocked doors. They will keep until we are cleared down here and Kally or I am present.”

“Got it.” Marc nodded. By Ella’s count, there might still be a dozen men down here. “We can clear the outside corridors then hit the main rooms from both sides.”

Kally stepped behind Crenshaw and gave his shoulder a tight squeeze. She hoped it conveyed at least some of what she was thinking.

"You're ok, no hits got through." She said as she checked his armour for breaches. "Josie, wait up."

She stepped up to the Arbitrator with a sigh and removed her collar.

+ + + + + +

"Stand the fuck down right now!" Theodosia cut over the squad vox with a tone of unquestionable command, her voice cracking like a whip. "This is the Rogue Trader Theodosia Prince and those are my personal armsmen you're firing on. Stand down right now or you'll be in shit so deep you won't see the sun for the rest of your
life!"

A number of confused queries shot back and forth across the vox, the most discernible of which was "Who the Horus is Theodosia Prince?" followed by a more authoritative voice barking, "Rotate vox, channel 6."

The same voice remained on the line as the others blipped away one after the other. The man's anger was clearly roused, and he was biting down at the end of each word.

"Trader Prince, check your frakking fire. This is a
government-sanctioned counterinsurgency op. If you're not working with
the bastards in that building, then leave now or you and your men will be considered targets!"

"Pilot says the frakking vox on the 'thopter's out!" she heard another voice spit faintly in the background.

“Breach or abort?” another asked sharply.

+ + + + + +

Marc quickly leaned round the corner of the corridor, ducked back, then crabbed across to the opposite wall with Kadath’s pistol held forward in both hands. As he did so he heard running footsteps, and a gangly man in a simple vest and cargo trousers rounded the opposite end of the corridor, a short-barrelled autopistol in his hand. He didn’t even notice Marc at first as he ran for one of the small study rooms that lined the outside of the cramped hallway. He was half-turning towards the agent as Marc’s own pistol barked thrice in quick succession, sending the man tumbling back against the wall. Advancing, Marc paused to swing his gun into the small room the cultist had been running for. The single study desk and chair had been removed from the room, and replaced with a wooden crate that had already been opened. The crate contained neatly stacked flak vests, although they showed signs of being rummaged through, and an arbites-grade suppression shield was propped up against the wall.

“They’re storing supplies down here.” Marc reported into the now-clear vox as he resumed his advance, glancing into the other side rooms as he passed them. Several seemed untouched behind the thin glass strips that windowed the doors, while one was padlocked shut and had been blacked out with tape. It was marked with an anti-psychic hexagram, like the one near the stairwell. As per Crenshaw’s advice, he left it be.

“Watch out for body armour and riot shields.” he added as he turned the next corner. Along the inside wall was a set of glass doors leading into the library proper; along the outside were male and female toilet blocks.

“Okay, I’ve got the back exit covered.”

"Secure a door." Josiah called out as he went up to the corresponding door opposite the front stairwell. He kicked it down and tossed another choke grenade through it, before advancing behind his shield with his pistol. He registered an open plan library space divided by long bookshelves, before las began hissing from the aisles ahead of him and bullets spat from somewhere on his right. They were aiming low, and he grounded his shield to protect his legs, crouching behind it as he swung his pistol right and opened fire on the silhouette he didn't recognise. His arbites bolt pistol fired with a deafening bang-whoosh and the shooter wheeled backwards with a scream, spraying an arc of ruptured flesh into the air as he fell. The lasfire from ahead of him tapered off, and he heard coughing and cursing as the gas grenade took effect in the confined space.

“Back door!” Josiah heard someone shout in heavily-accented Mariochi.

“Forward!” contradicted another, “The only way you’re getting to the stairs is through that motherfrakker!”

A large rectangle loomed through the smoke, and Josiah saw a man with a suppression shield just like his own running straight for him, two half-blinded men with laspistols rushing behind. The man with the shield let out a yell that was part warcry and part scream as he barrelled into Josiah.

+ + + + + +

Flicking the activation rune of his thunder hammer, Solvan spared a glance towards Crenshaw and Kally as he placed himself to the locked door's right side.

"I smash it open, and you go in with your shield, I come in behind you and hit whatever is still standing." He swallowed the bile rising to his mouth from Kally's pariah effect, and shook his head as he tried to focus, cold sweat beading on his forehead.

Crenshaw nodded and the priest swung his hammer into the first padlock, shattering it along with half the door, hexagram included. The tiny study room beyond had been stripped of its furniture, but instead it was full of weapons. Belts and magazines of ammunition were stacked beside two missile launcher tubes and what looked like a battered old meltagun. A faded cloth sheet had been thrown across another crate of ammunition, and on top of it was something bundled inside an old jumper. When Kally stepped forward to unwrap it, she found a small leather-bound book.

[dakkagor]

"I've got something" Kally held up the book like a sump scorpion, before she carefully opened it. The pages where covered in a random, darkly inked scrawl to her eyes, but some of the runes looked familiar from her training back on the True Bane. She knew more than she would have liked about the four, as part of her anti-psyker training. There was annotations on a few pages, which seemed to be more identifiable. She picked the jumper back up and quickly wrapped the book in it again, before turning to the others. Moral Threat she thought to herself. Good thing I don't. . .

She caught that errant thought and frowned.

"I'd best keep hold of this one, just to be safe." she nodded to the other door. "Lets crack that one and get out of here."

+++++

"Hold fire and stay down!" Tomas yelled to Vince. He cast a desperate glance at Theodosia and then crabbed over to Sister Pari and hauled her back into cover, throwing his back against a wall that hadn't been blasted down yet and pulling the Sister alongside him. The smell of blood and burned flesh, the weight of a potentially dead comrade in his arms triggered a pile of unpleasant memories in him that he beat back down. He placed a pair of fingers on her neck and to his surprise and immediate relief, found a thready pulse. But he doubted his basic knowledge of triage would be enough to keep Pari alive for more than a couple of hours. He needed Saphirra. He got to immediate work with what he had to hand, plugging the wound as best he was able.

[Cfavano]

As the man with the shield rushed him, Josiah put all of his weight behind his shield and slammed back, at an angle. Luckily, the heretic did not know the proper way to balance the shield, and the weight quickly unbalanced him, and caused him to knock over the one behind him. Quick as a flash, Josiah raised his pistol, and with another deafening report, ended another life of sin. The two others, half-blind and half-suffocated, were not quick enough and with two more shots their lives ended as well.

This brought his kill count to four. Four heretics ended. It was a good start. He kept his guard while he went deeper into the library.