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Thread: [M] War in the Shadows - Imperials IC

  1. #11
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    There would be no young martyrs to anoint and bury on Coseflame.

    The insidious, unbidden thought of the Silent Vigil’s murdered novices came to Sapphira’s mind with each of the shrunken, almost child-sized corpses they bypassed on their way to the cargo elevators. The thought of a generation of Sisters scoured from existence before they could serve the God-Emperor stung at Sapphira’s eyes worse than the thick, acrid smoke caused by the aftermath of orbital fire.

    They were the first martyrs – not those heretical Nebula Corps from Concordia. Sapphira bitterly seethed to herself, and blinked away the wrathful tears which threatened come. She averted her eyes from the wracked, contorted bodies of Baraspini underhivers who assuredly had no say in the Patriot agenda...unlike their native-son ‘Governor of the Patriot Republic of Adrantis’ Thomas Tierce. And now your own people are martyrs for the sake of your faithless vanity, traitor.

    Serenity, now. The Sister quietly exhaled as she caught, chided, and began to compose herself by remembering a passage from the Hospitaller’s Book of Hours. Ours is to honor the martyr, tend the fallen, defend the innocent, and walk always in the light. Sapphira unwound the strand of prayer beads and faith charms from her left wrist. You will honor the martyrs by your deeds, Hospitaller.

    “A spiritu dominatus, Domine, libra nos…”

    Sapphira’s new heart thumped in mechanical rhythm with each footfall as she hustled with the team through the blackened, scoured alleys of the burned out district. She worked the lacquered wooden prayer beads and small metallic faith charms in time to the tectonic rumble and elemental roar of artillery. Her own soft prayers were silent compared to the miserable choir of cries and screams from the downtrodden underhivers, as they pleaded for Him to deliver them from their pain and torment.

    Our Emperor, deliver us – all of us - from this evil. Sapphira concluded as they reached the customs plaza. She gently held one of the small Aquila charms between thumb and forefinger, and surveyed the crowd of irate humanity outside the checkpoint and tactically assessed the grim spectacle as she stood next to Glabrio. And may He forgive us what we may have to do in His name.

    The Sister wound the prayer strand back around her wrist, and hooked the remainder of it over her thumb to secure it in place – exactly like the Ramado Sept she had adopted the custom from, and more than slightly reassuringly, rested the Aquila talisman against her palm. She traced the Aquila points and brought the small icon to the mouth slit of her humble Baraspini mask and kissed His symbol – and belatedly recognized it as the blessed charm gifted to her by Commander Ban Thurlow of the Impiger.

    “Well, lady and gentlemen. The music’s started. Shall we dance?”

    “I don’t dance anymore.” Gavin deadpanned is his raspy, damaged voice. “I’ll stick to what I can do.”

    “Ah…shit.” Glabrio murmured, immediately recognizing his error with an irked click of his tongue.

    “I’ll keep an eye on him, Ri.” Sapphira quietly assured as they watched the psyker lurch forward on his groaning, sighing bionics – Osada, Lucullis’ assassin, had already disappeared into the refugee crowd – to awkwardly kneel down by some crates with a direct line of sight towards the security cordon.

    Glabrio’s eyes were meaningful as he glanced down at her. "You go and do what you do best, Saph."

    I mustn’t lie to the faithful, Sister. Hurtin’ those y’all care about is doin’ what y’all do best.

    Sapphira gave an affectionate squeeze of his hand which Glabrio briefly held as she pulled away.

    “Deus vult.”

    “Deus vult.”

    +++++

    Death to the oppressors!

    “Oh, fuck off.” Gavin muttered at the errant, foreign thought which screamed within his mind.

    The psyker screwed his eyes shut and shook loose the lingering, phantom presence of Jakub Kozica, and when he reopened them he focused intently on the Divinatory Guard and their security perimeter. His attention was immediately drawn to the electric fences which, quite understandably, the scrum of desperate and immaterial underhivers had kept their distance from – and the local oppressors had optimally deployed their personnel with the premise of its continual operation in mind. That’ll do.

    “Gav.” The Sister whispered, as she seamlessly crouched down next to him.

    “Saph.” The psyker rasped back, unperturbed by her silent arrival or proximity.

    “Fence, I take it?”

    “But of course.”

    “Okay, Gav.”

    Sapphira nodded as she settled down onto a knee, and curled an arm around his shoulders while she rested her free hand on his forearm. Gavin could feel a tiny Aquila press against is skin as he turned and made eye contact with her. To all outward appearances, the she merely looked like another masked underhiver supporting a friend or relation overcome by fatigue or grief. None but the team were the wiser that a Sister of the Imperial Creed, known to have executed psykers before, was trusting one.

    He silently nodded his thanks to Sapphira, who wordlessly squeezed his shoulder in response.

    Gavin screwed his eyes shut and launched his consciousness from his body like a hunter-killer missile and all but instantaneously impacted into the electric fence and psychically bored his way into its current. The technopath momentarily enjoyed the novel sensation as he became one with the continuous arc of contained lightning, as he sourced the direction from which the phenomenon originated – and immediately went on the offensive…not that he was opposed in any sense of the word.

    While the other agents had acquired human and signals intelligence over the past five days, Gavin had psychically reached out for intelligence on the technological infrastructure of the district. Hive Alda had suffered the usual, inevitable decay of systems as the oppressor bastard tech-priests struggled with increasing futilely to maintain peak operational capacities. The hive had suffered further damages when Baraspine had been occupied in the Dominion Crisis – and like every Imperial reconstruction effort, asset prioritization, incompetence, and petty corruption meant longevity makeshift repairs.

    Underhive districts were a low priority by any metric, and the electric fence of a downhive customs post were a vanishingly distant priority for the Imperial reconstruction effort and the Patriots who had insidiously sought to rebuild Baraspine’s orbital defenses to hold off a loyalist counter-attack…who had also syphoned off as much energy from ancillary systems to fuel theater shields and laser defense silos.

    The ancient, inefficient promethium generator with a misfiring ignitor which served as the emergency power source for such contingencies was not even a blip on the noosphere of the Patriots’ overworked fucking cog-wheel drone tech-magi - and fuel had been spilled on and around the generator by shaky, fearful hands when the district was under threat of danger-close orbital bombardment…

    Gavin distantly heard someone shout “Fire!” as his consciousness caressed the faulty ignitor.

    He obliged them.
    Last edited by PaintSerf; 01-22-2019 at 05:24 AM.

  2. #12
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    Spoiler: Gavin Jenkins, Sapphira Wilder, Kojiro Osada - Baraspine 
    Last edited by Azazeal849; 02-04-2019 at 11:00 AM.
    Spoiler: My RP links 

    PM me for novelised versions of any of my RPs, or ones that I have participated in. Set by the awesome Karma.


  3. #13
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    “Let’s move.” Glabrio ordered, squeezing Sapphira’s shoulder where she knelt supporting Gavin. “We need to get on the loading platform before some budding tech-priest figures out how to send it up.”

    “Sir.” Sapphira affirmed.

    The Sister and the psyker shifted around so his arm was yoked across her shoulders while she had him firmly secured around the waist. On a squeeze of her other shoulder from Gavin, she took his modest weight and gracefully leveraged them upwards with muted grunt. The psyker muffled a curse as he grasped onto the edge of the crate to assist their assent, while his bionics emitted a labored wheeze. She continued to support him, and reassuringly squeezed his forearm as his knees slowly eased free.

    “We’ll need to clear them away.” Sapphira commented, as she observed the irate and agitated crowd hammer at the lift hatchway with a frown behind her mask. “It’s too dangerous to share the lift.”

    “Damn it.” Gavin grunted as he disentangled himself and rested his forearms across the crate, while he flexed a stiff ankle. The psyker sighed and brought one hand to the side of his mask, which rimed slightly with ice as he pointed distantly towards the lift shaft. “Well, they’re not going anywhere quickly.”

    “Holding the lift for us, are you?” Glabrio wryly commented, despite the serious situation.

    “Technically, I’m preventing the signal from being sent,” The psyker clarified, his scratchy voice somewhat distant as he recognized his pedantry and fractionally shrugged, “so…yes, essentially.”

    “How very gentlemanly, Gav.” Interrogator Hybrida archly quipped, as he thoughtfully scratched at his stubbly chin behind his Baraspini mask. “Okay, so let’s talk out our options real quick.”

    “I’d prefer a non-lethal solution, or as far as is reasonably practical.” Sapphira quietly said, as she grimly observed the human carnage around the former security perimeter. “If I were a gambling woman, I’d wager more than a few of those habbers have las rifles – mostly full cells, and maybe grenades too.”

    “Smart money for a non-gambler, Sister.” Glabrio commented, with a subtle sideways look she returned. The interrogator knocked his knuckles against the grenades hidden beneath his robes, with a ‘thunk’ and the muffled tell-tale rattle of jelly beans. “We’ve all got flugs in, so toss out some choke or smoke?”

    “Check over the dead Divinatory Guard and their checkpoint as we pass?” Sapphira proposed, as she raked her eyes along the former barricades to try and spot a supply dump. “Perhaps they had some non-lethal options they never got to use? All the better if we make this seem a wholly domestic event.”

    “That’s a thought.” Glabrio conceded, with a tilt of his head.

    “We can use the Cargo-8 to clear them. One way or another, they’ll move.” Gavin suggested, rather nonchalantly for the prospect of almost assuredly more fatal collateral damage to the Baraspini.

    “That’s another thought.” Glabrio conceded, with another tilt of his head.

    Sapphira made a distasteful noise in her throat as she remembered a similar incident on Hercynia, and craned over to glance at Lucullis’ assassin. “Any other thoughts on how to play this out come to mind, Kojiro?”
    Last edited by PaintSerf; 01-24-2019 at 09:29 PM.

  4. #14
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    I'm beginning to think my bad luck was from someone I was hanging around with.

    Kally sprinted to the tank and vaulted into open bay, and then climbed to the front drivers hatch.

    Dogged shut. Against the rain?

    She banged on the hatch with the butt of her pistol.

    "Driver!"

    After a moment the hatch opened and a head emerged. Wide eyes behind goggles and under a synth leather helmet told her that she was dealing with forge guard, the second line troops who were mainly very frail meat, and confined to second line positions, like manning artillery and ferrying officers around in command vehicles.

    Before the poor bastard could drop back into his tank, Kally grabbed his shoulder. The poor guy couldn't be much older than 16 standard, and had probably been thanking his lucky stars that he hadn't pulled frontline duty, or worse, been called up to replenish a skitarii unit.

    "Listen to me." She hissed. "You want to be a hero right? Make it out of this alive and retire to some nice, dry, safe, not-being-shelled hab block right?"

    There was a nod. Good.

    "Then get back down there, and take us towards Ragnarov, as quick as you can, and I swear I'll make that happen for you."

    She watched the kid climb down and back into his seat, and poked her own head into the hatch. With a throaty roar, the powerful combustion engine of the salamander growled into life and sent the tank trundling forwards. She watched the kid drive, and cast an eye over the gunner in the bow of the tank. Another kid, no augments, wearing the typical leather-and-chain armour of a tanker. She climbed back onto the hull of the tank, dogged the hatch shut, and got into the rear bay. For a second she watched for pursuit, just making out skitarii climbing out of the trench. They were already at extreme range for their carbines, and the kid was not sparing the engine, putting real distance between them and the battery. Pulling her hood free, she got her first unfiltered taste of the battlefields around Ragnarov. It tasted like battery acid, chems and death.

    She fiddled with the headset under the autocannon and got it in with some fiddling and cursing as the tank bounced and trundled over shell holes and past scavenging servitor clades.

    "Driver."

    There was a pause.

    "Yes ma'am."

    "I didn't catch your name. Or your gunners."

    "I'm. . .I'm Brin."

    Another pause.

    "Emmie."

    "Right." Kally threw another glance behind her. She knew they would be pursuing, but time was ticking down. . .
    "Well, the good news, Emmie and Brin, is you are both out of the war. Once we get to Ragnarov, I'll vouch for you as loyalists, and you can sit the rest of this shit-show out."

    "The tacnet is going insane." This was the gunner, Emmie. "Did you. . .did you kill Magos Delzharian?"

    Kally looked down to the plastek bag clipped to her equipment belt.

    "Maybe."

    There was another long pause.

    "Holy Cog. We should hand you over. We should stop. . ."

    "Do that and you are as good as dead." Kally said, firmly. "I'll kill you and drive this tank if I have to. Just sit tight, and if someone asks you a question over the tacnet, pipe it through to my position."

    "But. . .but you're the enemy."

    "Only because the Patriots, and Delzharian chose me as an enemy. I didn't start this war. You didn't start this war. You're just trying to get through it, and I'm just trying to settle a score. A score which might bring this whole damn frag-fest to an end."

    "We didn't get your name." Brin cut in.

    "My name?" She smirked as a timer ran down. She turned from her position at the autocannon, and watched. For a second, nothing seemed to happen. Then a tremor passed through the earth beneath the tank. In the distance, at the artillery park, it seemed like a column of earth had slowly climbed into the sky. The sound reached them a few seconds later, a titanic roar which fell to a dull rumble as millions of tons of dirt and ferrocrete came crashing back to earth.

    "I'm Interrogator Sonder."

  5. #15
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    Spoiler: Kally Sonder - Perinetus 
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    PM me for novelised versions of any of my RPs, or ones that I have participated in. Set by the awesome Karma.


  6. #16
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    "Stay down and stay quiet" She hissed as she clambered out onto the mud.

    Identify.” one of the dragoons canted in low, modulated Perinetine Tech. “You have five seconds.”

    She glanced round. Three of them. She didn't move from the side of the tank, glancing over each one in turn.

    I don't recognise the heraldry.

    She looked past them, at the blasted ruins and tried to identify where the tank had been flipped from, and where it had landed. Had the Dragoons been pursuing, or intercepting?

    At a half second, their guns began to rise, and Kally gambled. Her augmetics pulsed a identification code attached to a biometric ident. The metallic arms halted at the mid point of going to fire.

    "What. . .what did you say to them?" Brin asked. He was propping up Emmie, who was cradling an arm to her chest like a fledglings broken wing, her face pale with shock.

    "I told them I was an interrogator for the Ordo Hereticus." Kally muttered. "No sudden moves."

    "I wasn't planning on any." Brin muttered, and Kally couldn't help but smile.

    "Confirm with a voice ident." Barked the lead Skitarii.

    "Sonder, Kally. Interrogator, Identity code Kay Es nine nine six five dash Delta five two."

    He gestured with a tazer lance, alarmingly close to her face.

    "Those two?"

    "Defectors from Delzharian, who have assisted me."

    She could almost feel the messages flitting back and forth. The three mech-mounts had not stopped moving, walking on the spot in a way that Kally found a little disconcerting. Emmie was mumbling something, and dropping deeper into shock. Kally was getting nervous. These Skitarii were probably friendly, but other things out there were not.

    "Agent Sonder." The voice that came out of the lead skitarii was clear, regal and feminine. "I am Princeps Hange Zoerrin of the Legio Sirena. Exactly what are you doing in my battlespace?"

    Kally blinked in surprise. "I am on a mission for the Ordo and the Lords Dragon. Its exact nature is a matter of operational security."

    "I see." There was an agitating pause. "Did it have anything to do with the sudden detonation of an artillery park and the disruption of Patriot-aligned forge forces?"

    "Yes. Any more than that isn't secure over noospheric channels."

    There was an offended sniff. "I assure you my skitarii's encryption protocols are air-tight, agent. But I take your point. These Dragoons will escort you and your. . .allies to our front lines."

    +++++

    With some liberally applied chain, and the help of the Dragoons odd cyber mounts, the salamander was hauled over. The autocannon was a wash, but its engine turned over first time.

    Kally had Emmie in the top bay as Brin resumed driving. Kally set and bound the young womans arm and dosed her with a morphia vial, before slumping into the bay herself.

    "You're hurt." Emmie met her eyes and pointed to Kallys leg. During the excitement of the air strike, Kallys quick patch job had popped, and was oozing blood. Kally began to patch it up.

    "You seem. . .really young." Emmie muttered. Kally laughed. "I suppose I do. Don't worry, its all fake. I'm like a hundred years old."

    "Really?"

    "No." Kally finished the binding and cinched it tight. "But I feel like it sometimes."

    Emmie looked away. For a moment, silence reigned as the wounded Salamander thumped and weaved through buildings. The Skitarri were taking a less direct route, checking ahead for enemy scout-skulls and guiding them back to the Legio forces by the river. Every now and then they would vox to Brin, and they would hole up in a shelled out hab-block or burnt mill as aircraft screamed over head. The loyalists still hadn't reclaimed the air.

    "Why did you save us?" Emmie was staring at her again, trying to read her face. Understand why this woman, who she instinctively disliked, had put in effort to keep her and her friend (Lover? Kally wasn't sure. Military units could develop tighter bonds than that) alive, when it would have been easier to kill them both and take their tank and flee.

    "Because I could." Kally finally answered. "Because I killed a lot of people just doing their jobs today, and maybe if I can save two innocents my hands will be a little cleaner, and I'll sleep a little easier."

    "You said you had a grudge to settle."

    Kally nodded. "I do. You've heard of Alicia Tarran, right? I'm going to kill her. Her, and every Nebula.
    And then I'm going to drag Ella Seren back to Terra in chains, and toss her before the Golden Throne to judge."

    "You're a monster."

    It was a statement, almost without malice or contempt. Just a frank assessment.

    "I'm what the Imperium needed me to be. The Imperium makes monsters to kill other monsters."

    "What. . .what happens when we run out monsters to kill?"

    Kally laughed, and pushed herself back to her feet. On her right, the shining oily band of the river stretched to the Legio Sirenia positions. To her left, quarry machinery began to replace abandoned urban desolation. She fixed her eyes on a column of acrid smoke to her right, between herself and the river.

    "There's always another monster."

  7. #17
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    Spoiler: Kally Sonder - Perinetus 
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  8. #18
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    "I agree with Jenkins-san." Koji said, showing no emotion. "Not only would it be the quickest way through, it will do enough damage to stun the crowd long enough for us to escape. In my experience, while a person may be brave, people are cowards. In order to make them react that way, a certain level of violence must be crossed. Non-lethal weapons might-" He is sure to add emphasis, "make them disperse, temporarily. But without armored bodies swinging cudgels, this will only spur them on to greater riotousness, and might not give us enough time." He gestures to the truck. "However, a grand act of savage violence, causing many deaths, will activate the survival instinct of every person there. Those that aren't stunned instantly will flee the square, and those that are foolish enough to keep trying, will find the truck is blocking their way to the elevator. Even more so, if we plant charges on the truck and detonate them after we leave, it will cause a grand distraction. It might also cause more deaths, but such things are within acceptable parameters."

    “Mister Osada,” Sapphira neutrally responded, as she met his eyes with an even look, “we’re talking about destitute downhivers who’ve had what little they’ve had in this life taken from them in, as you say, savage acts of violence.”

    The Sister gestured at the corpse and fire choked remnants of the Divinatory Guard cordon, and swept her arm back towards the smoke and screams which emanated from the ravaged district behind them.

    “In my experience, someone who’s desperate and with nothing more to lose is the most dangerous person you can face, so I wouldn’t take it as a given everyone will flee.” Sapphira said, as she craned her head toward the banging and shouting mob by the spine elevator. “They’ve had their homes and families burnt by the Navy, they’ve seen friends shot by the Divinatory Guard and they’ve trampled neighbors to death to bash their fists bloody against that elevator lift gate…so we may have some survivors who take it a bit personally when they almost get run down by a truck after all that.”

    “Not to interrupt the lovely exposition on human psychology…but if you all could hurry the fuck up with a plan?” Gavin interjected tersely, his scratchy voice distant. “I’d be most appreciative.”

    “I would, too.” Glabrio casually prompted, with a pointed glance down at his wristwatch. “I’m sure our noble friends up in the spire would as well.”

    “Okay, okay.” Sapphira sighed, as she critically assessed the crowd. “How about we do both?”

    “That sounds like a promising start.” Glabrio said, with a brisk nod. “So let’s hear it, Sister.”

    “I’ll check the checkpoint while you make it to the truck, Kojiro. Once we’re set, I’ll use less than lethal measures to herd as much of the crowd away from the lift gate as possible, and you charge the truck in behind them as a barricade. You’ll bail out and secure our side and the elevator from any stragglers while Gav and the interrogator move up. I’ll keep them suppressed with choke, smoke and prevent any chancers from flanking around or under the Cargo-8, and then we’re onwards and upwards.”

    Sapphira reached out to touch Osada’s arm before he could move away.

    “Oh, and forget about the demo charges. The crowd itself is the distraction for the Divinatory Guard, when they inevitably send a patrol to see why a checkpoint has gone vox-silent.” Sapphira commented, and then hummed thoughtfully. “I’ll look for a vox as well. It couldn’t hurt to listen in on the PDF band.”

    Kojiro went eerily silent for a moment before nodding. "That is acceptable. I will secure the vehicle. Ping me with the commbead when you are ready." With that, he vanished into the crowd again, almost instantly.

    Having reached the truck rather quickly, he climbed into the cab. The door was unlocked. He made sure to lock both behind him. Searching for the keys, he found them in the overhead visor of the driver’s seat, and slid the key into the ignition, hand at the ready to activate.

    +++++

    A grand act of savage violence…Nasreen would’ve liked him. The Sister clicked her tongue at the unbidden, unpalatable thought as she watched Lucullis’ assassin disappear into the crowd and smoke.

    “That was interesting.” Sapphira mildly commented, as she turned around to face Glabrio and Gavin.

    The Interrogator hmm’d flatly and reflexively flicked an eyebrow behind his mask. His recognition of the icy, prickly undercurrent in her seemingly neutral tone made the Sister smile despite the situation. She adjusted the shoulder strap of her satchel, and opened her downhiver over-robes for freer access to her concealed weaponry, quickly double-checking the readiness of her revolver and shotgun.

    “As always, we keep our eyes open.” Glabrio levelly responded, as he unclasped his Baraspini robes to draw one of his silenced auto-pistols and attentively inspect it. “We trust, but we damn well verify.”

    “And be ready for anything.” Gavin quietly concluded.

    “I had no doubt, gentlemen.” Sapphira agreed as she secured her weapons back out of sight.

    The Sister certainly noticed the dark, low undercurrent in Gavin’s psychically strained voice. She was well aware that the psyker was ready, willing, and able to take extreme measures – even against nominal allies. – and well understood the feeling. The revelations on Concordia had disabused them all of easy trust, and the betrayals were all the more wounding after the efforts of dear, noble Solvan to unify the team.

    Sapphira clicked her tongue, and quickly set aside the past which had led them to this awful present, and appropriated a choke and smoke grenade from the Interrogator’s belt. She secured them onto her satchel’s strap. She exhaled deeply as she stared up at the humble mask that mostly obscured Glabrio’s handsome face, so she focused on his eyes. The subtle tension around them was apparent to Sapphira and as well it should be, after all these years as she was aware when Ri wore his other masks.

    The Sister wordlessly reached out to cradle his trademark pouch of jellybeans, and gave it a decisive, clinical squeeze. Glabrio choked out a laugh, which morphed into a faux-cough as he gamely turned his head. The two shared a quick, trusting smile as Sapphira gave him a sly, suggestive wink as she briefly caressed the sack of confectionary sweets and rustled it with a deft, rhythmic flutter of her fingers.

    “For luck.” Sapphira disingenuously explained as she spun towards the checkpoint and spire lift.

    “Uh huh.” Glabrio dubiously deadpanned. Sapphira sensed him settled in behind her, ready to cover as she advanced. She rolled her eyes at his firm, encouraging squeeze of her backside. “Off you get, Sister.”

    “Sir, yes sir.” Sapphira dryly affirmed, with only a semi-disbelieving shake of her head as she darted out from the concealment of the crates and stalked towards the demolished Divinatory Guard checkpoint.

    The Sister’s fleeting sense of warmth of reassurance dissipated as she saw the carnage up close. She saw dozens of battered, ruptured bodies littered across the customs plaza and heaped where the security barricade had come down under the weight of desperate humanity climbing it. Those brave enough to climb, and the soldiers who had defended the barricade, had mostly been crushed to death beneath the press of bodies which had surged over them towards the cargo elevator. Mostly.

    Sapphira saw signs of movement amongst the abettor, predominantly feeble twitches as the few surviving stampede victims coughed and gasped. Two hunched habbers were crying as they cradled one another and a broken, child sized corpse. She stonily tuned out the grief stricken Baraspini, and a weak, muffled pleading as she as she sidestepped a gloved hand which futilely clawed out from the mounded dead. She hiked up the hem of her robes as she deliberately picked her way across the blood slickened rockcrete towards the sprawled, face down body of a Divinatory Guardsman behind the atrocity.

    The Sister crouched down by the body, studiously avoiding the halo of sprayed blood and pulped grey matter around where the man’s head had been violently driven into the rockcrete in his unsuccessful attempt to flee the wrathful tide, and then stomped open. Sapphira grasped the corpse by his shoulders and rolled him onto his back. The body groaned as the air within his lungs was forced out with an ugly rasp which splattered blood across the dented iron facemask stamped with the Two of Monasteria.

    Sapphira stifled an unpleasant grunt tingle as she regarded the Tarot mark, even while she plucked two concussive flash-bangs and a dented hand-vox from the savaged corpse. She knew with painful certainty that in the occult lore of divining the God-Emperor’s Will that card signified a new beginning. Two of Monasteria had been a constant, ominous fixture in Ella’s - the traitor’s – readings as the team was deliberately strung along in their disastrous prior mission by Alicia and the Patriots.

    “Was this the new beginning you foresaw, Ella?” Sapphira bitterly murmured, before she cast her mind away from the sore personal and theological subject of the team’s former astropath and friend.

    She palmed a riot grenade in each hand, and showed one behind her back to Glabrio with two raised fingers to give him and Gavin a moment to make ready to move once she started the show in motion. The Sister unpinned one as she stood and hurled the device towards the congregation around the lift controls, and quickly tossed out the second to where the mob would be next as she clicked her vox to signal Osada into action.

    “Ave Imperator.” Sapphira steely affirmed as she reached for her next grenades.

  9. #19
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    Spoiler: Gavin Jenkins, Sapphira Wilder, Kojiro Osada - Baraspine 
    Spoiler: My RP links 

    PM me for novelised versions of any of my RPs, or ones that I have participated in. Set by the awesome Karma.


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    Masks pressed against the bars, the eyes behind them wide with anger and desperation.

    “What are you doing?” a young man demanded, looking utterly lost. “What are you doing?”

    Next to him, a woman tried to press a squalling, swaddled infant through the bars towards Sapphira.


    Oh sweet, merciful God-Emperor! NO!

    The Sister inhaled sharply and recoiled in horror from the plastek masked child, arms reflexively raised to discourage the mother as she quickly backpedaled as if the infant were an armed melta charge. She stumbled as she bumped into Glabrio, who caught her around the waist before she could fall. Sapphira grasped tightly onto her partner’s strong, steadying arm as she stared fixedly at the screaming, crying, blank faced baby pleadingly held out towards her. Her whole attention narrowed onto the infant.

    My baby was silent…and had his father’s glowing green eyes. The Sister knees buckled as her heart skipped a mechanical beat at the memory of a nightmare. She distantly heard Glabrio’s insistent whisper in her ear as he was obliged to hold her upright as she sagged against him.

    BITCH!” The Baraspini woman roared with maternal fury, tears streaking through the ashes adhered to her burled wooden mask. She was forced to fall back as the huge lifter plants rumbled into action.

    Sapphira exhaled a shuddering breath of relief which she immediately hated herself for as the infant was withdrawn in time, and the denied, irate crowd was left behind. She shivered as she processed the raw, burning hatred she had seen when she fleetingly locked eyes with the mother. She knew with complete certainty that not even the most deranged of the lost and damned had stared her down with such a depth of wrathful intensity in the entirety of her service to Imperator and Imperium.

    She wasn’t wrong…

    “Hospitaller Sapphira.”

    Sapphira blinked as Glabrio pierced through her mental stupor with the use of her formal title in his Interrogator Hybrida tone. The Sister softly grunted an acknowledgement as she came to her senses and detached herself from her partner. She stood, tensed, and hunched over with a grimace.

    “Is there an issue, Sister?” Glabrio asked, with steadying hand on her arm.

    “I’m fine.” Sapphira muttered as she massaged the heel of her palm against her breastbone and the aching scar tissue from her recent implantation. She gritted her teeth as she felt the mechanical thumping through her hand and Glabrio’s almost…demanding squeeze on her arm.

    The Sister glanced sharply at him - yet her fierce, reflexive rebuke wouldn’t come. She recognized with excruciating clarity the glint in her partner’s eyes, hidden behind the masks of Baraspini culture and an Interrogator’s authority. She had seen that accusatory concern as she lay on the Impiger’s deck, after insisting she was fine and don’t worry about me so he would leave and she could die.

    She sighed softly. Kally was right…this relationship gak is hard. Sapphira grimaced again at the thought of her absent friend, waging her one-woman-war on the Patriots, and her knee-jerk offence to Glabrio’s genuine concern for her wellbeing. She sighed again, and took up the battered hand vox.

    “Mission capable, Interrogator.” Sapphira affirmed, with a determined nod to reassure them both.

    Glabrio seemed as though he was about to say something. He silently returned the nod instead.

    You will be stronger. Sapphira remembered the sage, encouraging words of another absent friend in the miserable aftermath of Concordia as she took a breath to regain her composure and steady her bionic heartbeat. I’m trying to be, Raech. I’m trying.

    The dented vox in Sapphira’s hand was silent, the tuning dial having apparently been knocked out of alignment when its unfortunate former owner was tackled to the ground. She thoughtfully pursed her lips as she contemplated how to reactivate the device. The Sister looked aside at Gavin; eyes closed and face sheened with sweat behind his knotted and whorled synth-wood mask, slouched against the back wall to ease the strain on his legs, and immediately discarded the thought.

    Your target. You have the shot. Execute.

    Sapphira’s eyes narrowed critically as she noticed Gavin’s hands subtly twitch, and she blinked in surprise as she translated them into Task-Force Carbon’s sign-code. The non-verbal combat-cant of the Inquisition’s foot soldiers was a language of hunters and killers. Direct, lethally oriented, and wholly unsentimental – at least without the important context of camaraderie and trust within the unit.

    The psyker opened a slightly bloodshot eye and offered her a subtle nod as he cracked open a flask of electrolyte fluid. The Sister was momentarily struck by the equally warming and worrying realization that Gavin Jenkins was offering her encouragement and reassurance. She wordlessly returned his fractional nod as she turned her attention to the captured Divinatory Guard hand-vox.

    One of Raechel’s machine prayers and some fiddling caused the caster to blurt out orbital launch traffic, and then what sounded like emergency services. The third channel she came to was a much fainter signal, and to Sapphira’s surprise wasn’t even in Baraspini standard. All she could make out was a woman’s voice, followed by a man chuckling darkly as he replied.

    The Sister frowned, deeply and reflexively, at the sound of static-laced laughter.

    “Got the PDF frequency?” Glabrio queried as the rumbling of the elevator began to slow to a stop.

    “Not yet, but…” Sapphira answered, thoughtfully chewing her lower lip as she considered the chatter and laughter. The Sister clicked her tongue, brow furrowed as she looked over at her partner. “This isn’t Baraspini.”

    “It could be a noble dialect.” Glabrio half-heartedly speculated with an accompanying shrug.

    “Or not.” Sapphira gently countered.

    “Or not.” Glabrio readily conceded.

    They exchanged a fleeting shadow of a smile as the elevator finally eased into a halt.

    “Keep on trying to find the PDF –”

    “HANDS, HANDS IN THE AIR!”

    “GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES!”

    “HANDS, KNEES, NOW!”

    “HANDS ON YOUR HEADS, DOWN ON YOUR KNEES!”


    Sapphira involuntarily flinched and tensed at the torrent of belligerently shouted commands, emphatically punctuated by a high-pitched siren wail. She saw Glabrio’s teeth gritted behind his mask, and the partners exchanged a grim look as they turned towards the security cage as it wrenched open.

    The Divinatory Guard cordon was built around what could only be a repainted arbites Repressor, its flamethrower replaced with a stop-gap heavy stubber. No doubt it was ripped off during its capture, and God-Emperor willing the crew burnt many of the heretics before they were martyred. Sapphira speculated, and prayed, as she heard the sequential crack of Glabrio’s knuckles as his fists clenched. She suppressed her own instinctual surge of anger at the sight of a Rhino variant used by the Sisters Militant as a blessed instrument of His retribution appropriated by the traitorous Patriots.

    The squad on the ground wore long flakweave coats, helmets and metal faceplates with built-in ballistic goggles. They were standing or kneeling in the open on either side of the Repressor, lasguns – no grenades or squad-level support weapons in sight - levelled and ready, so as not to obstruct the gunners who were up manning the cupula weapons for maximum fear factor, rather than buttoned up inside the tank. Their enginseer, an obvious non-combatant despite his ballistic vest and faceplated helmet, was unsurprisingly hunched in cover behind the Repressor’s thick dozer blade.

    They were only expecting underhivers.
    Sapphira surmised as the Divinatory Guard were confronted by four people, rather than a mob of desperate civilians, who had not panicked and immediately obey their commands. Soldiers on the ground exchanged a few subtle, confused looks while the Repressor crew more openly turned and shrugged at one another. The capstone to the slightly absurd lull was the enginseer, most likely a mechanic by the grease stained robes, as he curiously peered around the dozer blade accompanied by duo of mechadendrites barely craned over his shoulders.

    “Found the PDF.” Sapphira airily murmured.

    “Uh huh.” Glabrio dryly muttered.

    The Sister heard the Carbon click-code for standby over the vox, and Glabrio’s uncomfortable grunt as the temperature within the elevator took a noticeable drop. Gavin. She shivered slightly at the psychic presence as one of the Divinatory Guard, a sergeant by the rank chevrons, advanced. The fireteam seamlessly adjusted their positions to cover their superior and maintain lines of fire.

    “Hands on your heads and down on your knees.”

    Sapphira was surprised by the sergeant’s calm, measured authority and definitively female voice. She had been unable to decipher that between the mask, thickly reinforced coat, stocky build and no screaming, crying baby desperately thrust out for salvation. The Sister shuddered at the unwanted memory, which earned her the sergeant’s attention and a place in her crosshairs with a fractional pivot.

    “That means now, citizen.”

    “Hold fast, Divinatory Guard. I’m coming out.” Sapphira cautioned, and kept her hands visible at her side as slowly advanced out of the elevator. She was pleased, yet wholly unsurprised, that she wasn’t indiscriminately shot down for the vox in her hand. We’re in the wealthy zone, after all...

    She had rapidly transmuted her Baraspini accent into Glom laborer-argot and unsubtly included Navy terminology. The Sister shot a brief, appraising glance at the traitor’s stolen Repressor as she formulated a stratagem. It worked on Venatora and Hercynia…in a sense…all those years ago… She suppressed a sigh. You’re a Sororita. You’ve got this.

    “That’s far enough.” The non-com ordered, and prompted towards the ground with a flick of her rifle barrel of her rifle. “Down your knees, and hands on your head. Slowly.”

    “I can’t do that, sergeant.” Sapphira evenly countered as she met another Baraspini woman’s mask. She recognized the Tarot rune stamped into the steel from a previous prophecy. Eight of Discordia, associated with bad omens, meaning a dangerous foe. Ella drew that card here on Baraspine... The Sister slightly shook her head at the thought of the dead city. “We’re friendlies.”

    “That’s grox shit, ma’am!” a Divinatory Guardsman shouted. Sapphira stifled a curse as she registered faint vibration of the hand-vox, the foreigner’s conversation drowned out by the soldier’s incredulity.

    “Steady now, soldier.” Glabrio cautioned firmly, the command tone seamlessly blended into his respectable midhiver accent. Tierce’s accent. Sapphira observed. She saw her partner in her peripheral, palm raised to forestall any rash moves. “We’re comrades in the defense of our world.”

    The sergeant kept her attention and rifle trained on them as she silenced her impulsive subordinate with a decisive finger snap. Sapphira noted the uncomfortable similarity to her standoff with Vitani Craddock on Venatora. Yet another soldier of the Imperium ill-used by treachery…

    “So you say.” She was skeptical, but she was listening. That was promising. “Identify yourselves.”

    “Chief warrant officer Koskynen, Republic Navy.” Sapphira answered, as she pointedly overlooked Glabrio’s surreptitious side-glance at her choice of false name. “I’m on detached assignment from Resistance with Governor’s Tierce’s household, may the God-Emperor’s grace be with him.”

    “Androv,” Glabrio declared, “Commander, RNR and executor in His Excellency’s secret service.”

    Sapphira registered further uncertain glances and some muted mumbles from the PDF soldiers, at the mention of Republic Navy, Governor Tierce and secret service. The sergeant betrayed some tension as she processed that information, and the way outside her paygrade implications. She subtly thumbed her palm to make an Aquila head as she fractionally adjusted her aim downward.

    “You’re going to have to explain that, all of that, further.”

    “Understood.” Glabrio reasonably agreed, with a respectful nod to the non-com. “Your caution is prudent, and does the Divinatory Guard credit, sergeant...”

    “Drass,” the sergeant curtly stated, unmoved by the compliment, “and I don’t need silica blown up my skirts, commander Androv. I need answers, starting with what the Horus happened down there.”

    “Checkpoint’s gone. The security fence blew out, a mechanical failure of some kind, and the mob was on the mates in a moment.” Glabrio regretfully shook his head. “It was quick, but there were no survivors.”

    There was an ugly murmur from the Divinatory Guard as they considered their comrades and their riotous murderers at the bottom of the elevator lift. It was undercut by a static rush as the tech-priest stepped out into the open, his mechadendrites curled agitatedly. Sapphira was reminded of Solvan, when she noticed the hint of a silvery beard peak out from beneath his mask. In spite the tense circumstances, she almost smiled at the thought of her dear comrade, friend and mentor.

    “How did you manage to lock out my overrides?” The man’s voice was wizened and unaugmented. He uneasily rubbed his hands together. One was a worn yet serviceable bionic, the other gnarled and oil stained flesh. The Sister Hospitaller suspected he was an arthritic with his swollen knuckles.

    “I was graced with Knowledge by an allied tech-priestess, reverend enginseer.” Sapphira stated, with the tactful omission of actual allegiances and the blatant lie about Gavin’s involvement. She surmised that the tech-priest was comparatively low ranked despite his age. His motivation for defection?

    “Dissemination of Knowledge by one of the priesthood to an outsider is…irregular.”

    “We agreed to respect one another’s faith, when we agreed to work together towards our common cause.” Sapphira spoke the relative truth, as she humbly copied Raech’s devotional circle over her heart. She faintly felt its mechanical beat within her chest, and made the Aquila as he looked at him. “The faithful servants of the God-Emperor and Omnissiah will stand united and win this war, reverend.”

    “While that’s all well and good,” Drass interjected as the tech-priest stood silently, seemingly mollified by the display and notion of inter-faith cooperation, “and if you are who and what you say you are, why in the name of the Emperor and Adrantis are you, the Republic Navy down here on the ground?”

    “We’re here because of the Inquisition, sergeant.” Glabrio answered, as he made his voice thick with contempt at the mention of his true service. “Governor Tierce isn’t anyone’s fool, and has learned the hard way how devious these Imp bastards can be. He expects the invaders would send in their bloody psychopaths ahead of the invasion. We’re his contingency against their damned underhanded tactics.”

    “Okay, Androv. That makes sense.” Drass cautiously allowed. She tilted her head back towards her vocal subordinate. “Or that’s grox shit, like Bulgarin suspects, and you’re actually the Imperial infiltrators.”

    “May I speak candidly?” Sapphira politely requested.

    “We’d sure appreciate it if you would.” Drass graciously allowed.

    “Governor Tierce loves the God-Emperor, the Republic, and most especially those Patriots who’ll follow in the first martyr’s footsteps and stand to quarters and defend Adrantis.” Sapphira confidently stated, as if she knew the mind of the hero-turned-traitor. God-Emperor forgive me for these words, which I say so that I may better offer you their disloyal souls for divine judgment. The Sister smiled after the lull for her silent prayer, “Although I’m sorry to say he loves the Navy a slight bit more than the Army.”

    “Not too sorry, if you’ll understand.” Glabrio continued, and Sapphira could easily visualize the rakish smile on her partner’s face as he deftly played into the service rivalry banter. She saw him offer an apologetic half-shrug to the rank and file behind the sergeant, who were exchanging a few grumbles.

    “We’ll understand better once you make your point.” Drass flatly rejoined. The firm edge in her voice made the squad cease their muted conversations and refocus their aim and attention on the team.

    The Sister tensed at the blunt rejection. If they had not been under the guns of traitors, she was sure she would have completely and thoroughly enjoyed her partner’s bruised ego and certain irritation, that a woman was so impervious to his charisma. Charm isn’t working. Sapphira exhaled slowly, and boldly stepped ahead of Glabrio towards the Divinatory Guard. Rifles quickly shifted to cover her.

    She calmly stared down the firing line. She was a Sororita. She had faith, and she was going to use it.

    “The point is the Old Man may not wear his mask, if only to appease the society types on Tephaine.” Sapphira injected a growl into her rhetoric at mention of Tephaine. It came naturally to the Sister, at the thought of that vile nest of treason not yet purged. “He’s Baraspini, heart and soul. He sent us because he wants our world, our people, to resist the Imperials as fiercely as we did the heretics.”

    Sapphira held out the appropriated hand-vox, still dialed into the foreign channel, as she unhesitatingly took another step towards the firing line. She swept her gaze along the staggered rows of traitorous Baraspini soldiers, who were exchanging glances and murmurs after she’d unleased her barrage of Adrantean populism, before she settled her attention on the ill-omened steel mask of sergeant Drass.

    “We’re in a chase after Imperial agents who’ve been set loose in the hive. The God-Emperor and Governor Tierce expect us to overhaul and destroy them. Will you stand with us, Divinatory Guard?”

    +++++

    Fuck this, fuck this, fuck this...

    Gavin chanted his mantra as he deliberately worked his ethereal consciousness into position to flank his latest targets. The Divinatory Guard was ready for action in this instance, and the mission team was without the convenient distraction of a mob of desperate baselines to move amongst. It was an inconvenient development, yet it was not an insurmountable obstacle to a technopath in a hive. He did not lack for options to exploit in order to achieve the current objective and move on from Baraspine.

    Baraspine…Divinatory Guard or civilians…loyalists or traitors…none of this matters.

    The psyker had not waited for an order to go active…not that he usually did, these days. It would have been impossible for the Interrogator to issue under the guns of the Patriots, in any case. Gavin trusted that his team would stall for time while as he transcended his mortal coil and slinked his projected self, outwards and upwards from the elevator. He wound his consciousness inexorably through the tangled plaque of wire which clogged the corroded conduits of Alda’s ancient electrical grid. Almost…

    …there we are.
    Gavin exhaled a mental sigh as he emerged in the rafters above the cordon, and took a moment to assess how things had progressed since he went active. The psyker could see Interrogator Hybrida and Sister Sapphira had advanced from the elevator, and were in discussion with what must have been the squad’s sergeant. He could not hear the conversation, or spare the effort to divide his concentration to listen in on the conversation’s course. The absence of gunfire was promising, however.

    Gavin surged through the floodlights nestled amongst the gantries and rafters of the district’s ceiling. He darted between the fixtures, directly from bulb to bulb rather than continue along the sizzling current of the wire. It did not matter. The Divinatory Guard’s attention was firmly on the two agents, anyhow. He took position above the stolen Repressor parked amongst the Patriot’s divided ranks, and was intrigued to notice the steady plume of exhaust from the idled vehicle. He could certainly work with that.

    Infiltrate the vehicle through its vox aerial. Of course the most expedient route would be a vox...

    Gavin exerted his will to nullify a reflexive, resigned sigh from his distant body. The last year had not made for pleasant remembrances of vox work. The technopath cast aside the distant, mental echoes. The chanting, transhuman choir from when he was used as a psychic conduit by the Grey Knights on Saros. The screech of machine code as existentially opposed jammer and vox dueled on Marioch. The too-mortal screams as he used the heavily augmented ‘Lord of Sabilis’ to alert Impiger of the Patriot’s betrayal at Concordia. His thoughts lingered briefly on the constant within those moments.

    “I've got you covered.”

    “I know, Kelly Black. There is nobody I would rather usurp a vox with.”


    Gavin allowed himself a slight exhale in the corporeal, and turned his mind back to the objective.

    Manifest projection in descent so the others are apprised of my progress. Travel through vox system and block out-bound transmissions to delay reinforcements. Listen into conversation as I assume control of the Repressor. Deploy smoke launchers to obscure team if discussion breaks down. Disengage break, turn and accelerate to spoil crew aim. Plough vehicle through one of the Divinatory Guard teams – and if I’m lucky for once, manage to run over the bastard tech-priest oppressor in the process.

    The psyker’s smile was first to form as he manifested his avatar and speared downwards at the APC.

    +++++

    Campaign to be concluded in the Patriot thread.

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