Sea of Stars - IC

[Destro_Yersul]

Sea of Stars
+++Episode 1+++

OOC Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?551987-Sea-of-Stars-OOC)

The Manticore's Sting was not a small ship, not at all; it measured a full two kilometres from stem to stern, and was home to over fifteen thousand souls. One could spend years exploring, and never see all of its corridors. The vast, cramped halls snaked their way throughout the ship, some dark, some well-lit, some unseen for decades. This ship was the last vessel of the Absalom dynasty, and its history was one of blood. Now, though, the ship was quiet, as it headed slowly towards Footfall. The passage back through the Maw had been harrowing, but thankfully uneventful: even at warp, the Sting was faster than most. But now they had arrived, back to Koronus, back where things had gone so wrong. Those of the crew who remembered hoped that this time would be different.

Footfall was a wretched hive of scum and villainy, the worst sort of stellar rat-warren imagineable. It was also the first port of call for everyone headed through the Maw to Koronus. That was true here, even if some would rather it not be, for the simple fact of the message. The astropaths had recieved it only a week ago, an invitation from another Rogue Trader: Lord Captain Kade Jonell, scion of one of the innumerable dynasties that sought to make their fortunes in the expanse. Captain Jonell had sent it with a fairly urgent priority code and, somewhat unusually, he had sent it specifically to them. One of the few people who both knew what the Manticore's Sting was, and didn't seem to mind.

"Captain Absalom," the message ran. "I've heard of your ship, and I've heard you're an honourable sort. I've something of a business proposition to make, but I'd prefer to make it in person. My ship, the Mailed Fist, will be putting in at Footfall for resupply in eight days time. We'll remain there for several days, and I do hope you'll give me the pleasure of your company during our stay."

That was all. It wasn't much, but it was an opportunity, and the choice of rendezvous was promising. Footfall was designated neutral ground for voidships. Nobody would be stupid enough to try an ambush there, of all places. There was the slight possibility that it was a trap, but there would be plenty of chances to scout the field beforehand. The Fist wasn't due for another day, Macharius' ship having made exceptional time.

[Kobold-Bard]

Pytho

The insane screeching of a dozen Tech-Priests trying to patch a hull breach with debris and binding agent as atmosphere rushed out was going to stay with him forever. As the depressurisation was contained, the cargo bay looked like a bomb-site and standing made the man nauseous. Dizzy and bleeding he hefted the dead boatswain's prized Meltagun and swore loudly as he charged the boarding pirates and unleashed an almighty beam of pyros.

And then suddenly the world was dark again, filaments of gold and green and blue reforming around the people, objects and architecture of the Manticore's Sting. Pytho sighed slightly as he stood up; Senior Voidsman Jace had served for decades in the Absolom Rogue Trader fleet, and reliving his memories of those endeavours was a favourite past-time of the telepath's. But the ringing bells in the distance indicated a shift change, and the voider had walked out of range to go and collect a well-earned meal.

But the shift change meant that Pytho was due on the bridge to bear witness to the changing of the watch officer. He had no role to play specifically, but the Sting's machine spirit was temperamental and reacted when senior officers were not present as required by whatever arcane method the schedule was determined. And so he set off, every clang and heartbeat deafening him as he moved through the deck to reach the elevator.

[Haval]

Anika is in her cabin on the command decks; a cabin that also doubles as her office. It is not the largest or most lavish room and most of the space is taken up by furniture and packing crates that she uses to store most of her possessions. Her desk is in the corner of the room and is covered in stacks of paper and dataslates. Her room is otherwise a mess

She has been checking purchase orders and receipts before they arrived in the Furibundus system. They had taken on supplies at Port Wander and would take on more at Footfall whatever else they chose to do. Normally she would delegate this work to an underling but she didn’t want them to go into the Expanse at anything less than their best. She is still nursing a glass of amasec to get through it.

She is looking forward to getting back to Footfall. As much of the Expanse passed through it at some point there was so much to see, and some of those that had gone before her would have left written records like the ones she had been collecting. Even if there was nothing like that to be found she was content to collect rumours and stories of the Koronus Expanse. Whether they were true or not remained to be seen.

At the ringing of the bell she will quickly finish up and leave for the bridge. She wasn't sure her being there at the shift change had any real benefit whatever the Tech Priests might say, but she wanted to see the others and hear how they were going to approach the meeting with Captain Jonell.

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius Absalom, eighth of the name and First of the House, was sitting in his parlor before the bells. The couch was as comfortable as it was opulent, and it was very opulent. The gold-threaded silk upholstery was actually the cheap part, as the stuffing came from a now-extinct xeno beast's feathers and few traders knew the world from whence the wood came. He played chess with the Navigator Prime, both of them sipping the good amasec. Capital stuff, that. As good as what we used to have, I'd say.. Liveried servants stood to attention, bringing the captain and his guest food and drink before being asked. Macharius made his last play and smiled in his victory as the bells went off.

It appears the game is mine, good Navigator! That makes us even this day. Until next we meet upon this field of battle, good sir! He shakes the Navigator's hand and strides towards the door, the Navigator following behind. Williams, his valet, appears at the captain's side. "Sir's Captain's Baton. And I took the liberty of having the staff bring sir's crimson hat and ermine robe." Servants trail the group with Macharius' armaments. One places his hat on his head as another wraps a fur robe around his shoulders.

Good man, Williams, thank you. These will do nicely.

When the rest of the group arrive, Macharius is standing at the command deck as he did for every Warp translation and whenever they entered port. The men needed to see their leader, know that he was watching them. Know that they were in capable hands.

Ah, Anika, Pytho! Looking sharp as ever. Good to see the two of you. Any word on the little wheeze we're getting ourselves into? His servants glide up to the other officers, offering amasec.

[Leon]

Having spent a good portion of the journey hooked into assorted sensors feeling for any reaction to the howling emptiness outside the shimmering bubble of the Gellar field a Warp Transition was not a thing to be missed so she sent a Servo skull to attend to anything the captain may need.

The Skull is a mostly bronze and chrome affair with little actual original bone to be seen and is more spherical that what you'd expect a skull to be having had some of its features worn off through use and modular replacement currently sporting a transmission relay and pic capture. It currently is at a steady hover to the side of the Captains throne.

[Kobold-Bard]

Pytho

Extending his arm to collect the offered drink, Pytho evicted the on-duty Astropath from his demi-throne and took a seat for the ceremony. Even if he couldn't have sensed the servant's presence he'd have known where the drink would be regardless; the Captain was fastidious when it came to hospitality for his officers and guests.

My Astropaths have seen Silver Eagle, the Torrential Grief and your old friends aboard the Third Revelation in orbit, but no Mailed Fist. The name doesn't suggest a particularly stealthy outlook so it appears the Sting has arrived with time to spare.

[Haval]

As Anika enters the bridge alongside Pytho she will smile at him in a friendly way. She had been comfortable with psykers ever since she was a child and her family had retained an Astropath on their estate. The man had taught her how to play cards. The same could not be said for their resident Tech Priest, and she will avoid acknowledging the presence of the servo skull one way or the other.


Ah, Anika, Pytho! Looking sharp as ever. Good to see the two of you. Any word on the little wheeze we're getting ourselves into? His servants glide up to the other officers, offering amasec.

She will take the offered drink with a nod of thanks to the servant. Macharius usually had the good stuff.

'Well the Navy doesn't have a bad word to say about Jonell. Which either means that he's a decent sort or he at least keeps his bad side hidden if he has one. Whatever the case it's probably ok to listen to his offer.'

'Where do we want to meet him?' If they had the time, Anika would prefer to have a look round the meeting place first.

[Destro_Yersul]

The bridge was designed for combat, not unusual in a ship of this class. Banks of monitoring stations lined both walls, and an armoured viewport at the far end looked out into the void. A raised walkway ran the length of the room, and more cogitators and crew stations were sunk into pits on either side of it. It featured a command throne befitting the captain's station as a Rogue Trader, set with crystalline microcircuitry and a holo-emitter that could be used to call up vast amounts of information regarding the ship's current status. Ravia's servo-skull hovered nearby, the Magos herself currently not present.

While the officers talked, the crew took care of the docking formalities, expertly piloting the ship to its assigned station near one of Footfall's many shuttle bays. Currently, the ship's figurehead was set in configuration three, disguising its history as a pirate vessel. Three was the one most commonly used around settlements that could be considered mostly polite company, and through Calixis. Configuration One was the original, belonging to the Manticore's Sting of the feared Reaver fleets. The crew had learned to leave C-1 alone.

[Leon]

The Skull chimes and a bobs a little and floats around to the front of the throne and inclines as if bowing #Disappointing, being the Maw and all. Output of all Drive systems is inline with expected outcomes. This Ship... i still need to chart more of its wonders#

With that its wafts out of the bridge back down the long passages ways to the suite of rooms somewhere near the Medicae Deck. While the ship did have its own trained crew and servitors staffing the area the Magos somewhat cowed them into submission and had organized a great deal of cabling and machinery installed in the rooms and linking with systems in the medical area's for unknown reasons.

[rax]

Accompanied by a small group of heavies from her favourite gunnery sept, Hannabel steps gaily onto the Footfall longshore, sniffing the foul air beyond the airlock with undisguised pleasure. Unlike many who come to Footfall, Hannabel is happy to be back. Few places she has visited offer such a variety of sight, sounds and sensations, as well as the opportunity to meet travellers of every stripe - perhaps even xenos!

Making her way off the docks, she threads her way through the crowded alleys and tunnels of the settlement, stopping occasionally to listen to a ranting preacher or to join in a game of chance. She grabs a bite to eat - some suspicious-looking, wriggling thing on spit - while inspecting the wares on offer at the various merchanter stalls clustered around a small plaza. The pickings were good here last time. Who knows what might turn up today? she thinks, humming happily to herself...while keeping one hand lightly on the butt of her laspistol.

[Haval]

Anika goes out into Footfall with her bolter lazily carried in one hand, and with only a pair of her more experienced subordinates to back her up. The two were told to keep their distance unless she needed them, but otherwise she tries to blend in as much as possible. In her view, standing out only made you look like someone who was worth trying to rob, or else it advertised her connection to the Sting and it's regrettable past. Even on Footfall there were those who might take offence at the ship's reputation, and so might refuse to talk to her or worse. In her view as long as she stayed away from some of the more dangerous areas, such as where the slaver gangs operated, she should be safe enough.

Regretfully, as she was working, she will stay away from the markets for the moment. There might be time enough for that later. Instead she is looking for a bar for their meet-up with Captain Jonell if they needed to propose a venue. Somewhere public, or at least somewhere that might take offence if a meeting between two Rogue Traders turned to violence on their property. She had no reason to distrust Jonell, but she didn't think it was worth taking chances either.


Inquiry test if a roll is needed
vs. Fel 47
[roll0]

[Kobold-Bard]

Pytho

Pytho smoked a lho stick as he escorted the Navigator's cohort though a large, covered street of shops. He didn't particularly enjoy them, but the smell was better than the port's streets. As the palanquin stopped and a servant examined the warp charts and void maps to see if any would interest his master, Pytho would sneak into the minds of nearby ships officers and probable smugglers, looking for dealings with Jonell or rumours on new colony worlds (assuming Anika shared that info).

Pytho will make his usual offer to have one of his picter servo-skulls accompany each disembarking officer as an extra pair of eyes and link back to the ship. He has a small cadre of picters and translators with him as usual when off the ship; several gun skulls orbiting irregularly at higher altitude amongst the pollution and other drones.

-----
I'm going to roll a bunch of Focus Power tests for Mind Probe, with Mind's Eye active that gives me a range of 20m. Based on what I said above, if I find someone with something potentially relevant, Pytho will dig down to level 5 and get the full scoop.
Mind Probe requires a single successful Focus power test and for me to win an opposed Willpower Test. To do it without people knowing I'm doing it requires I use it Fettered and with a -20 penalty. There's no penalty for sustaining 2 powers thanks to Familiar.

I suffer a level of Fatigue/degree of failure if I manifest the power but lose the opposed WP. Pytho can sustain 2 Fatigue without collapsing, so he will take the time to recover before trying again. If he takes 3 at once and collapses a medicae skull will come revive him, and a servant will make an excuse about their drunk astropath, forcing Pytho to abandon the plan.

Since we're in narrative time I've rolled 30 on the basis of 3/hour for 10 hours. Please amend accordingly.

Focus vs 48: [roll0] | My WP vs 58: [roll1] | Target WP vs ??: [roll2] - Manifest, win WP
Focus vs 48: [roll3] | My WP vs 58: [roll4] | Target WP vs ??: [roll5] - Manifest, lose WP
Focus vs 48: [roll6] | My WP vs 58: [roll7] | Target WP vs ??: [roll8] - No Manifest
Focus vs 48: [roll9] | My WP vs 58: [roll10] | Target WP vs ??: [roll11] - No Manifest
Focus vs 48: [roll12] | My WP vs 58: [roll13] | Target WP vs ??: [roll14] - Manifest, win WP

Focus vs 48: [roll15] | My WP vs 58: [roll16] | Target WP vs ??: [roll17] - No Manifest
Focus vs 48: [roll18] | My WP vs 58: [roll19] | Target WP vs ??: [roll20] - No Manifest
Focus vs 48: [roll21] | My WP vs 58: [roll22] | Target WP vs ??: [roll23] - No Manifest
Focus vs 48: [roll24] | My WP vs 58: [roll25] | Target WP vs ??: [roll26] - Manifest, lose WP
Focus vs 48: [roll27] | My WP vs 58: [roll28] | Target WP vs ??: [roll29] - Manifest, lose WP

Focus vs 48: [roll30] | My WP vs 58: [roll31] | Target WP vs ??: [roll32] - No Manifest
Focus vs 48: [roll33] | My WP vs 58: [roll34] | Target WP vs ??: [roll35] - Manifest, win WP
Focus vs 48: [roll36] | My WP vs 58: [roll37] | Target WP vs ??: [roll38] - No Manifest
Focus vs 48: [roll39] | My WP vs 58: [roll40] | Target WP vs ??: [roll41] - Manifest, lose WP
Focus vs 48: [roll42] | My WP vs 58: [roll43] | Target WP vs ??: [roll44] - Manifest, lose WP

Focus vs 48: [roll45] | My WP vs 58: [roll46] | Target WP vs ??: [roll47] - No Manifest
Focus vs 48: [roll48] | My WP vs 58: [roll49] | Target WP vs ??: [roll50] - Manifest, lose WP
Focus vs 48: [roll51] | My WP vs 58: [roll52] | Target WP vs ??: [roll53] - Manifest, win WP
Focus vs 48: [roll54] | My WP vs 58: [roll55] | Target WP vs ??: [roll56] - Manifest, lose WP
Focus vs 48: [roll57] | My WP vs 58: [roll58] | Target WP vs ??: [roll59] - Manifest, lose WP

Focus vs 48: [roll60] | My WP vs 58: [roll61] | Target WP vs ??: [roll62] - No Manifest
Focus vs 48: [roll63] | My WP vs 58: [roll64] | Target WP vs ??: [roll65] - No Manifest
Focus vs 48: [roll66] | My WP vs 58: [roll67] | Target WP vs ??: [roll68] - Manifest, win WP
Focus vs 48: [roll69] | My WP vs 58: [roll70] | Target WP vs ??: [roll71] - Manifest, lose WP
Focus vs 48: [roll72] | My WP vs 58: [roll73] | Target WP vs ??: [roll74] - Manifest, lose WP

Focus vs 48: [roll75] | My WP vs 58: [roll76] | Target WP vs ??: [roll77] - No Manifest
Focus vs 48: [roll78] | My WP vs 58: [roll79] | Target WP vs ??: [roll80] - No Manifest
Focus vs 48: [roll81] | My WP vs 58: [roll82] | Target WP vs ??: [roll83] - Manifest, win WP
Focus vs 48: [roll84] | My WP vs 58: [roll85] | Target WP vs ??: [roll86] - No Manifest
Focus vs 48: [roll87] | My WP vs 58: [roll88] | Target WP vs ??: [roll89] - No Manifest

Since I don't know the target's WP I can't determine if/when I black out.

[Destro_Yersul]

Footfall's markets were a sight to behold, teeming with the goods and relics of a thousand worlds. People of all sorts met, bargained and traded here; there were hunters, mercenaries, Rogue Traders... In one hall, an itenerant preacher stood on a crate and proclaimed the evils of the Xenos, while next door a curiosity shop was neck deep in the cold trade. A sanctioned Kroot kindred, under the watchful eye of their handler, ate and squawked in a market cafe. There were other Xenos, here and there, and a short hooded hawker of suspect wares who was probably Xenos. All manner of goods and trouble were to be found here, as well as any number of clandestine meeting places. Some of the higher-end meeting areas offered privacy fields at every table, and top security in case of 'disagreements.' What was not to be found here was a residence in Jonell's name. The other captain apparently spent little time staying here, or at least little enough that the quarters on his ship were sufficient when he was here.

While Anika and Hannabel roamed the markets making inquiries, Pytho went digging for the information that people were less inclined to share. Most of what he got was surface thoughts of little relevance, but here and there he found an interesting tidbit. From the mind of a chart seller, he found that Jonell had arranged a meeting to offload some warp charts he had made, to get them to the seller's contacts with the Mechanicus. From a pair of officers on the Dire Portent, that Jonell had run into trouble recently with a trader named Tristan Quinn trying to claims-jump a number of planets. Digging deeper, that Quinn was the wealthier of the two, with a small fleet at his back. There were a few other rumours that were unrelated, but interesting, and could be filed away for later: Sightings of a large derelict, in the treacherous asteroids of a planet somewhere in the Foundling Worlds; An astropathic relay, long abandoned, that had started sending out messages again; Sarvus Trask making seemingly pointless expeditions to the cauldron... It was a lot of information to sift through, but he had time on his side.

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius, unlike his officers, made no attempt at concealing his identity. To do so would be craven, unworthy of his house. Besides, the arrival of a Rogue Trader was rarely unnoticed; the other houses' spies would have found him anyway. Why make it difficult on himself? He disembarks with his Absalom Praetorians, a squad of the best and most loyal of the ship's armsmen, bedecked in Absalom's black-and-gold, and a cloud of servants. He makes the social rounds, chatting with the local dignitaries and other Rogue Traders. While he's out, he tries to pick up on rumors and knowledge about Jonell and his recent doings (or anything else that might be profitable and interesting).

Inquiry [roll0], target 72

[Leon]

Consider the human form, then consider a female human who from a distance looks fairly normal until you get closer and realize she has what first appeared to be a large bust is actually a sinuous bundle of cables with a horrific assortment of blades and other affects on the end neatly coiled in such a way to make you think...

Then there are the what looks like proto claws but of a metal hue on her right hand with oddly long fingers and what looks to be a long twin braid that is on closer inspection a pair of dendrites that if left to their own devices will writhe about looking for something connect with. Above that sits a compact mess of tool and apparatus on its own lengthy coil of cable.

In deference to other people a dark red greatcoat with a white cog trim covers the Medicaldendrite most often unless she is past caring about soft sensibilities or when in the vicinity of the church, matched with gunmetal leggings of durability and heavy black boots. Such is how Magos Del'karro sets out into the heaving mess of Footfall accompanied by a Medical Servitor that had the misfortune of being near the door when she left and her ever-faithful Skull.

Her destination is the Medical supply facilities and parts markets... Both flesh and machine

[Kobold-Bard]

Pytho

Reaching through the immaterium, Pytho locates the shimmering ethereal representations of his comrade's souls and relays to them that Jonell will be selling several new Warp charts to a Footfall trader with Mechanicus connections.

He also passes along the name Tristan Quinn, a Rogue Trader with a small fleet and somewhat wealthier than Jonell, with whom Jonell seems to have had recent bad blood over claims-jumping on several planets.

Pytho himself isn't yet well versed in the politics of the expanse, but he hopes the others can make use of this information in their own investigations

-----
Using Mind Link to connect myself with Absolom, Anika, Hannabel and Ravia, people can reply and talk to each other psychically if desired. This operates at 20km radius from me with Mind's Eye, and since it must be used at Fettered strength I can't invoke Psychic Phenomena/Perils. As such and because we're not in combat time I haven't rolled, but I can if you'd prefer.

[Haval]

Anika is surprised to hear from Pytho in her mind, but will cover her startlement with a brief coughing fit. She is still unuse to talking like this but will try to think back at the Astropath. I have a microbead you know. I'll ask around about Quinn.

While Anika in the market she is mostly looking for anything that she hasn't previously heard of and will watch any of the xenos with curiosity.


Forbidden Lore (Xenos) to have heard of the race of the trader in the hood
vs. Int 53
[roll0]

[rax]

"Really, Varro? I'm away for months and you still haven't managed to lay your hands on those Orthlack Redeyes I asked for? I'm beginning to think you don't love me any more," Hannabel pouts. "Although, if you happen to have a box of tracking cogitators lying about to gift me with, I might take that as a token of your undying affection," she whispers sweetly in Varro's calloused ear. But Varro's mumbled reply does nothing to improve Hannabel's mood. "No? How very disappointing..."

Signalling her heavies that she's ready to leave, Hannabel stalks out of Varro's booth and into the relative openness of the marketplace at the same time as Pytho's telepathic sending invades her mind. From what I've heard, Jonell usually sticks to more explored areas of the Expanse, at least when he's out planting colonies. I suppose that makes it a mite interesting that he's got new Warp charts to sell to the Mechanicus. If they're from his own travels, that would mean he's been straying off the beaten path for a change. And now I need a drink. Call me if anything interesting happens. Shanx out.

Her mood soured by Varro's inability to scrounge up new sights for her guns, Hannabel decides to head over to the market cafe for something to drink and a closer look at the Kroot. On the way, she passes by the hooded xenos hawker, sparing a glance to see if she can identify it.

Forbidden Lore (Xenos) test to see if she can identify what sort of xenos the hawker is. [roll0] vs. Int 40.

[Destro_Yersul]

Macharius picked up much the same information as his officers, in making his rounds, with a few extra pieces added on. The Rogue Traders he spoke with tended to be ambivalent towards Jonell; some thought his focus on colonisation blinded him to better opportunities, but for the most part they agreed he was polite enough company. They chatted a little bit about local rumours, sightings of odd phenomena, that sort of thing. Sarvus Trask was apparently up to his usual tricks, scarpering off to who knows where for no particular reason that anyone could tell. Jonell had started a few new colonies, lately, having happened upon a system full of mineral-rich worlds. While he was doing that, one of the older ones had recieved a visit from Tristan Quinn. The other Rogue Trader had happily set up a small blockade and set about claiming various things on the planet as his.



Anika couldn't be sure, but the hooded thing might have been a Stryxis. It kept its face and hands largely hidden, which made it much harder to tell. It would be a little unusual to see one here, away from the caravans of ships they usually inhabited, but not unheard of. WHatever it was, it no doubt had a number of holes to vanish into if any authorities showed up to question it.

Asking around about Quinn produced only the information that Macharius already had, and the general sentiment that he was successful but not overly popular.

[Haval]

Anika will stop for a moment and watch the Stryxis working. She had seen very little of live Xenos until recently, and even then it tended to be the more commonly seen races. She wanted to ask it what it was doing here beyond the obvious, but wasn't sure if she would get a straight answer out of it. Despite it's appearance it was still a merchant though. She understood that easily enough.

Scanning the Stryxis' wares, she will look for something she vaguely recognises and try to buy it.

Going to buy something pointless for the hell of it

Egerian Geode Grenade (Core)

Commerce + 10 vs. Fel 47
[roll0]

PF 33
-30 for Extremley Rare
+30 for single item
[roll1]

[Leon]

After some time a suitable Pharmaceutical vendor is selected and pricing of the two items Ravia wanted began



PF 33

Stimm (Average +10), (5 Units +20) 30+33 = 66 [roll0]
De-Tox (Rare -10), (5 Units +20) 10+33 = 43 [roll1]

Huh...

[Destro_Yersul]

With their shopping done, the group returns to the ship to sleep and prepare. The next day, they're greeted by the sight of another ship settling in near theirs. The Mailed Fist is small for a light cruiser, but still dwarfs the Sting. Captain Jonell keeps his ship at a respectful distance, likely not wanting to be seen as looming. By the time Macharius has finished breakfast, there's a vox message waiting on the bridge.

"Good morning, Captain Absalom!" Jonell isn't visible, having sent the message voice only on a low frequency where it's less likely to be detected. People will inevitably gossip anyways, if they're seen talking anywhere on Footfall, but for now it appears that the other Rogue Trader wishes to keep a low profile. "By the Throne you're punctual. Just what I like to see. Anywhere in particular you'd like to chat? The Fist has a fantastic chef, capital fellow, but I've no objections to more neutral ground."

[Haval]

Anika is up uncharacteristically early for this meeting. She looks bleary eyed and is drinking recaf, but seems alert enough.

She will lean over and speak to Macharius in a low voice so that the vox can't pick it up. 'In truth I don't have any problem with meeting them on their ship, but finding a bar is obviously safer. Do we trust him?'

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius is, somehow, more dressed up than usual. He's wearing enough gold and precious fabrics to feed a hive for months. Nothing but the best for a meeting with their new employer. He replies to Anika in a low voice.

Well, no sense in insulting him early. Meeting on his ship is a sign of good faith. And, galling as it is, we need him more than he needs us. From what we've uncovered, he seems like a good enough sort. Colony builder, cautious but successful, nothing I've heard indicating that he's a heretic or a pirate. Any warning signs?

[Leon]

Ravia arrives on the bridge looking more or less the same as the previous days trip ashore and acknowledges the other two before wandering off to plug into the external auspexes to get a better look at the Light Cruiser

[Kobold-Bard]

Pytho

Following the excursion into Footfall, Pytho had spent part of the evening in Ravia's increasingly incomprehensible section of the medical wing. His distaste for the Navigator (filthy mutant that he was) was matched by how fond he was of the Explorator. Pytho was native to a Forge World, and the smell of grease and sound of quiet but incessant binary prayers were comforting as he had his evening meal.

The next day he is cloistered within his choir chambers, leading the daily hymns recieving information of nearby warp storms or xenos fleets, and broadcasting any information they'd received in return. Per Trader crew's unwritten protocol, should Macharius decide to board the Mailed Fist then Pytho will also astrally alert his counterpart there of the Captain's preferences in food, liquor and company. No doubt Jonell's officers will have done their research, but the wrong bottle of wine had been known to start generational feuds amongst Trader houses, so better to be sure.

His tasks complete he will await a signal on whether to depart, returning to a data-slate containing an old novel he'd bought planetside.

[rax]

Hannabel has sauntered onto the bridge and dropped into the main gunnery pit. Now she watches the Mailed Fist through the targeting scopes as the cruiser approaches. You're a lumbering old tub, aren't you? Lots of guns and lots of armour, but I bet the Sting could take you. Ghost up right behind that flabby arse, put a full volley into the thrusters, then hit the bridge with a salvo of sunbeams. Cut off the legs, cut off the head, then pick you apart while you drift. A shiver of excitement runs down her spine as she contemplates the various ways in which the Manticore's Sting might win an engagement with the larger ship.

[Haval]

Any warning signs?

'None that anyone wanted to tell me about. As long as we can all make some money out of this he's probably trustworthy enough, and even if he's not it should at least be interesting.'

It was hard to tell with Rogue Traders, as it was always possible that there was some hidden agenda. Yet without any evidence of that Anika is content to let Macharius decide.

[Destro_Yersul]

Ravia

While the others talked, Ravia plugged herself into the datafeeds from the augur arrays. The Manticore's Sting had W-240 pattern arrays, which meant there was little chance anyone would notice them looking a little more closely at Jonell's ship.

The machine spirits were being cooperative, today: Ravia was able to get a very good look at what the Fist was packing. A lot of the components were very standard, and were probably left over from the ship's days in the navy. It was a solidly built, very reliable ship that, apart from the torpedoes, would only be effective at fairly close range. Notably, the spur jutting out just under the prow housed a massive power field generator, meaning anything the ship could successfully ram would be devastated. The scan hadn't picked up everything, but whatever was left wasn't drawing enough power to be combat relevant.

[Leon]

++Very nice, very nice in deed, not as mechanically interesting as this one but a fine ship++

[Destro_Yersul]

The trip over to the Fist by shuttle took only half an hour, once everyone was assembled in the bay and ready to go. Macharius' ship didn't have a huge amount of landing bay space, but they had managed to scrounge up a small hold and outfitted it with an ancient Aquila lander and all the connections the small ship required. The Aquila was old and slightly battered, but was maintained in top condition and the wings were covered in 'feathers' made out of hammered gold plates.

They were recieved in a larger but equally undedicated landing bay. Captain Jonell was waiting for them personally as they disembarked. He was a large, barrel-chested man with an enormous mustache and a bright red dress uniform. The uniform came complete with gold braid on the epaulets, a double row of bright brass buttons, and a couple of medals which he might actually have earned pinned to the left side. He was leaning on a polished white marble walking stick topped with a clenched fist, and wore his weapons at his belt; a basket-hilted chainsword in black chased with gold, and a chunky bolt pistol stamped with the maker's mark of Cinder Crag Forge. He was flanked by a thin, severe-looking woman with a dataslate, and a man in matte black carapace armour of the sort favoured by Imperial Guard Stormtroopers.

"Captain Absalom!" His voice was practically a roar, in this close proximity. "A pleasure to meet you, good sir. These must be your officers and associates. Splendid. This is Ms. Devereaux, my seneschal, and the fellow in the armour is Ambrose. Absolutely chuffed you could make it. Where were you when you got my message?"

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius' formal wear is a blend of Imperial Navy and Ecclesiarchy. His dress-coat's epaulets bore the hereditary insignia of a system admiral, symbolic representation of House Absalom's close ties to the Navy. In place of the system heraldry, however, he wore the skull insignia of the Ecclesiarchy that sponsored his Warrant. The golden Rosarius around his neck emphasized his position as a favored and devoted servant of Him on Earth.

Macharius felt heartened to be in the presence of a kindred spirit. Too many Rogue Traders were jumped-up pirate lords and nouveau riche pretenders, but this man was the real deal. He shakes Jonell's hand heartily and replies in his typical booming fashion. The pleasure is mine, Captain Jonell! Lady Vanhal, my seneschal, Astropath Pythonissam of our Lord's blessed Adeptus Astra Telepathica, Magos Del'Karro of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and Hannabel Shanx. He gestures towards the officers. Splendid to meet you! Lady Vanhal and I were discussing logistics when you called, ensuring that we were prepared and ready for the voyage before us. The Emperor smiles on the ready and the vigilant, as they say. Wouldn't do to disappoint Him with lollygagging, what!

[Haval]

Anika is dressed in a heavy black and silver robe that she has had made specially for occasions where she has to play the role of a Seneschal in public. Her sword and hellpistol are worn at her belt, with the mono sword held in a scabbard bearing her families crest. She is otherwise unadorned except for a silver signet ring carrying the symbol of the Hetaireia Lexis.

Now she meets Jonell, she wonders whether her usual Guard greatcoat would have worked just as well. Through her family she had known people like that all her life. She will bow respectfully to Jonell but will make a mental note to herself to look into the man's service record.

[Leon]

Ravia is as she tends to be wherever, clad in a well made greatcoat adorned with the symbols of the Adeptus and all dendrites in compact modes or braided. Openly not seems to be armed with anything beyond the noticeable blades of her right hand.

[rax]

Hannabel is wearing her flak armor, cut in the style of the Imperial Guard but with no insignia and unnecessarily tailored to show off her fine figure. Her heavy combat helmet is tucked under her right arm, and the Adeptus Mechanicus amulet of warding is affixed to her belt. Holstered on either side are her "Emperor's Will" laspistols and sheathed across the small of her back is a razor sharp short sword. She stands properly at attention behind Macharius, but when Captain Jonell introduces his aides, she can't resist giving Ambrose a wink and an insouciant little smile.

[Kobold-Bard]

Pytho

Pytho is wearing his formal robes; those being identical to his normal robes but these ones are clean. The only addition is a clain-link sash passing over his right shoulder and across his body, which buzzes slightly as they walk. A smaller cadre of skulls have come with him, and no weapon-skulls as they set the wrong tone apparently.

"Thank you for your hospitality Lord Jonell, the astropath speaks quietly, not confident he'd get away with reading his comrade's minds.

[Destro_Yersul]

"No indeed, no indeed. Alacrity is a fine trait to have." Captain Jonell turned and led the way out of the bay, and through the corridors of the ship. Behind him, Ambrose inclined his head to Hannabel, though with the full face covering his helmet offered, it was difficult to read what he was thinking. Then the guard fell into step behind his captain, and the party moved on. Throughout the short trip, Captain Jonell kept up a steady rate of conversation.

"We'll talk business over a meal, I think, as it's not really proper to get down to it before I've shown you some hospitality. I've had the staff lay out enough places for everyone, and I've brought up a bottle of Quaddis 38', which I'm informed would be specifically to your liking. I'm normally a spirits man, myself, but I confess to enjoying a good glass of fine wine now and again. I've also got a fine Cantus Amber 85 year for once we're done eating. Best spirit in the galaxy, as far as I'm concerned, but that might be the old homeworld bias showing, eh? I have it shipped over in barrels, so it can keep properly aging along the journey. Always keep some on hand."

The dining hall was a huge room, likely near to Jonell's personal quarters. It was filled with trophies and souvenirs of hundreds of worlds, set on pedestals around the perimiter or mounted on plaques on the walls. The head of an Ambull, an antique duelling pistol, a chunk of gold ore the size of a fist... The list of items went on and on. The table that took up the centre of the room was vast as well, with enough chairs to seat a whole delegation. Less than half of it was currently set. Were the table full, Macharius would have been given the chair opposite Jonell's as a sign of his status. Given the small size of the party, and the fact they had to be able to hear each other talk, he was instead placed to the right of Jonell. The chair that would normally have been there had been shifted to the side, replaced with the larger, fancier one from the far end. A trio of liveried servants brought out the first course as they were sitting down.

For the first little while, Captain Jonell refrained from bringing up the business purpose of the visit, instead inquiring into Macharius' health and adventures. It was only once the remains of grox-tail stew had been cleared away to make room for a platter of seared fang-fish that the other Rogue Trader put voice to his objectives.

"You've heard, perhaps, of my disputes with a fellow named Tristan Quinn? Damnable claims jumper. He's blockaded my newest colony with a small fleet of frigates and escorts. I could take any of them in a straight up fight or a defensive action, but the Fist is a stoic old girl. I don't have the speed to outrun any of them, and I don't have the firepower to get through all of them. Way I see it, I've got two problems here and you could solve both. The first is that I've got a pile of tools and food supplies all set for delivery, taking up space in one of my holds. The second is that the last message I got from my colony said they'd found something interesting down in one of the mines, but I don't know what it is and I can't connect with them to find out."

[Haval]

During the first course Anika has been making small talk with Jonell and his associates, but will try to ask after the history of some of the more interesting or obscure pieces on display in the dining room. She will try and get a closer look at them when their dinner is finished.

She will reply first, comfortable with pre-empting Macharius. 'This discovery. Do you have any suspicions on what your people dug up? I assume if it's something valuable like a promethium well they would have told you what they found already. Or are they simply worried that Quinn or someone else would intercept the message and take what they found for themselves.'

[rax]

Hannabel nibbles daintily at each of the courses, handling the cutlery with an ease that betrays familiarity with finer dining. Following Anika's lead, she happily makes small talk with Jonell's officers, unashamedly lavishing most of her attention on Ambrose in an attempt to draw him out.

Where is he from? How did he come to be in Jonell's service? What weapons and armour does he favour? What does he do for fun and relaxation? What's his opinion of the Imperial Guard's strategy and tactics in the civil war on Tranch? Is Ms. Devereaux really as severe as she appears? Does he have a pet? What's his favourite spot on the Mailed Fist? The questions come thick and fast throughout the meal, with her tone and demeanour switching effortlessly between cool professional interest and girlish innocence at a moment's notice.

When Captain Jonell begins telling Macharius of his problems, Hannabel pauses momentarily in her interrogation of Ambrose and pricks up her ears. "Ooh, a mystery! I love a good mystery!" she coos excitedly when Jonell comes to the unknown discovery his colonists had reported. "Captain Jonell - sir, you said that you can't connect with your colony to find out more about the find they made. Is that by choice, or are they simply not responding to your calls?"

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius enjoys the meal enormously. He and Jonell regale each other with stories of derring-do and bravado, swapping tales of battles won and adventures had. The trophies along the wall are excellent visual aids. The food and drink are superlative, reminding Macharius of his youth. As the conversation turns to business, he fixes his rowdy crew with a stern eye, then speaks up.

Indeed we had, my good sir. The talk about town is that he's little better than a jumped-up pirate, and that he's been blockading some new mining planets of yours. Contemptible thing, that, stealing from a fellow Imperial. Emperor knows there's enough xenos, heretics, and mutants for us to fight already. Weakening worlds that are already being brought to the light of the God-Emperor is but a small step from heresy, if that. If he wants to raid so blasted much, why not do the galaxy a favor and raid the Tau or Eldar or blighters of that nature?

But your point is well taken. The Sting is a fast ship, and quiet too. What with her... unfortunate history, she likes to pass unnoticed. Much as it pains me as a gentleman to say it, she's the perfect blockade runner and infiltrator. We could deliver your supplies and investigate this discovery. Did your men give you any indication of the nature of their find?

[Destro_Yersul]

From her seat at the table, Anika is able to see a great many of the unsual trophies. She can't get a good close look at them without standing up, but that can wait. For now, there are a few choice ones to ask questions about. A bizarre crystalline skull with a light mounted underneath it turned out to be from one of the famous Sand Tigers of Vaporius. Jonell said that he hoped to return one day, in an effort to retrieve a more complete skeleton. A huge, chunky, and rather crude claw-thing had come from an Ork he had killed. A few shards of bone-like material turned out to be all that was left of a suit of Eldar armour. One large case, holding a vast array of small metal objects, was simply a coin from every civilised world Jonell had visited.

While Anika focused on the trophies, Hannabel had a frustratingly terse conversation with Ambrose. Jonell's guard had removed his helmet to eat, revealling a square-jawed no-nonsense sort of face, topped with sandy brown hair buzzed down almost to the scalp. Where is he from? Cantus. How did he come to work for Jonell? Served together. Weapons and armour? Boltguns. Ripper pistol. He never answered a question with more words than were absolutely necessary, until she started talking about tactics. The War on Tranch got him to open up properly, and before long he was explaining in detail the situation that existed on Tranch, and how he would have deployed men to take advantage of it. The problem, according to Ambrose, was that the Imperium had used a sledgehammer when a scalpel would have done better. Send in a few specialised infiltration and scouting regiments to decapitate the insurrection, follow with a more massed landing to crush the remnants. They were still facing years of bloody meat grinder because now it was a holding action against guerilla warfare, and nobody was taking action to remove the root of the resistance.

"They can't talk to me, and I can't talk to them. It's a new colony," Captain Jonell said, "and I haven't established an astropathic relay there yet. We were relying on a vox-link between a ship and the surface, but with the blockade in place I can't get close enough to make contact. I don't think it's something immovable, like a prometheum well, so it could be that they don't want Quinn to know what, or where, it is. Some sort of archeotech, maybe."

The Rogue Trader brightened at Macharius' response. "Quite so. The history of your ship is unfortunate, but she's in far better hands now, and lucky for me. Where else am I supposed to find a capital fellow such as yourself in command of a ship like the Sting? As I believe I said, I've heard great account of your honourable nature. Wouldn't want just anyone on this job. Someone like Quinn, shiftless degenerate that he is, would pull the discovery out from under me and claim he didn't find anything."

[Leon]

Ravia listened to the conversations in a half interested way, the Trophies now they were much more interesting particularly the Xenos ones except when the word Archotech is mention she pays a bit more interest to that line of talk

[Haval]

In her head, Anika keeps trying to use the size of the Ork weapon to judge the size of the creature that wielded it. The stories about them were true evidently. She found the talk of Tranch depressing for all that Ambrose was probably right about how the Imperium should have acted. From what she had heard, too many had already died on that world and the Imperium would be lucky to salvage anything from it.

On the discovery, Anika is curious but in truth it could be a lot of things. She is mainly content with the chance to set foot on a new planet. To Jonell, 'Well whatever it turns out to be, perhaps I could take a look at it? After your own people of course. I might be able to work out where it came from.' It would never hurt to ask. As long as she could make it clear that her interest was strictly academic.

[Kobold-Bard]

Pytho

Pytho politely eats quietly seated next to the Ms Deveraux, whilst having a skull circle the room recording the treasures and trophies. He directs conversation attempts to the seneschal, accepting silence if she declines to engage.

"I've not been in the Expanse too long, I'm still learning to recognise the names and faces,
odd as it may be for a blind man to say. Does the Fist have any dealings with Sarvus Trask; I've heard he's somewhat of an odd duck, ranging out beyond the Cauldron for reasons unknown.

[rax]

While Anika focused on the trophies, Hannabel had a frustratingly terse conversation with Ambrose. Jonell's guard had removed his helmet to eat, revealling a square-jawed no-nonsense sort of face, topped with sandy brown hair buzzed down almost to the scalp. Where is he from? Cantus. How did he come to work for Jonell? Served together. Weapons and armour? Boltguns. Ripper pistol. He never answered a question with more words than were absolutely necessary, until she started talking about tactics. The War on Tranch got him to open up properly, and before long he was explaining in detail the situation that existed on Tranch, and how he would have deployed men to take advantage of it. The problem, according to Ambrose, was that the Imperium had used a sledgehammer when a scalpel would have done better. Send in a few specialised infiltration and scouting regiments to decapitate the insurrection, follow with a more massed landing to crush the remnants. They were still facing years of bloody meat grinder because now it was a holding action against guerilla warfare, and nobody was taking action to remove the root of the resistance.Hannabel listens attentively to Ambrose's lecture on Tranch, sometimes throwing in a dissenting opinion to get him to expand on his thinking, but mostly agreeing. "Thank you for that enlightening lecture, Ambrose! Speaking with you has been a delight! And if you ever have the time, I'd love to get a closer look at that ripper pistol of yours!" she rounds matters off with a sunny smile.

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius smiles. This had the potential to be a very profitable venture, even aside from the value of establishing an alliance with House Jonell.

It appears the Emperor smiles upon us both, Captain. A partnership between Jonell and Absalom strikes me as a capital idea. Always good to do business with an honorable fellow such as yourself, if I do say so.

[Destro_Yersul]

Jonell clapped his hands. "Excellent, excellent. I'll have some men start transferring the supplies to your ship - See to it, Ms. Devereaux - if you'll have someone there to meet my shuttle and direct the cargo to your storage areas. Whatever they've found, you are of course welcome to examine if you think it's worth examining. Once you've got it, send me some details and I'll know which contact to refer you to. I've got a few around, for different subjects." He hesitated a moment. "Then, of course, there's the subject of compensation. Only the first meeting, here, but I've always thought it prudent to get the details sorted as soon as possible. Mere money would never be enough, of course, so I've a few thoughts on what I can offer, and perhaps you've a few ideas as well. I've settled a lot of colonies around the expanse, and a few are doing quite well. I'm prepared to offer you star charts and trade rights to some of them, or shares if you'd prefer."

Jonell's order interrupted the conversation his Seneschal had been having with Pytho about Sarvus Trask. She stopped speaking just long enough to tap her dataslate a few times, likely delegating the order further. "As I was saying," she continued, "Trask is indeed a little strange. Perhaps mad, in some ways. That said, he's also managed to be extremely profitable. Turned the fortunes of his house around by himself. If he's going out there, there's something out there worth looking for."

Ambrose, for his part, does not produce his ripper pistol at the table, but does offer something noncomittal about if there's time later.

[PotatoGolem]

Shares sounds like a splendid reward, Captain. Nothing like a spot of co-operation with a fellow house in the Emperor's work, what! Besides, depending on how this shakes out we may have to run supplies to the colonies through the blockade more than once. Nothing to motivate the men like knowing it's our lads down there too, eh? Do you have any details on Quinn's forces? What ships does he have? Is his flagship there?

[Leon]

++If it is Archotech then it will need to be validated++

[Destro_Yersul]

"Shares it is, and I'm happy to hear that. I'll have paperwork for you to sign after your return." The remains of dinner were being cleared away, the staff bringing out dessert. Jonell picked a dark spice cake for himself and set in. "Quinn's got four ships in the blockade that I know about. His flagship probably won't be there, he's not the sort to sit around idle supervising a blockade when there's other villainy he could be getting up to. Still a stiff fight, though. At least two frigates and two escorts. If it comes down to them noticing you, your Sting can likely run circles around them. They won't be able to cover the whole planet at once, but they don't need to. They'll be concentrated around the colony."

[Haval]

Anika will take a piece of cheesecake and start plotting. She wasn't worried but four ships was still four ships. 'I admit that I'm not one for tactics, but is it feasible that we can lure some of Quinn's ship's away from the planet before making our approach? If some of their ships are drawn to the other side of the system, or even are tricked into looking in the wrong place it might make our job easier.'

And will ask Jonell, 'There's also the matter of how Quinn's people might react if we manage to deliver the supplies. Is he the sort to threaten the colony directly if he isn't getting his way?'

[rax]

"Void bait!" Hannabel chimes in. "It's an old pirate trick. We drop off a lure that projects a signal Quinn's ships will be sure to investigate, and when they move to do so, we can move into orbit and do our thing. Of course, once they've checked up on the lure and noticed that it's a diversion, they'll come burning for home at flank speed. If we're still in orbit, we'll just be a big, fat target and they can pick us off at their leisure. Plus, if I were Quinn, I'd have left strict orders that at least one or two ships always have to maintain the blockade, so the bait would have to be really good to draw them all off."

Turning to Macharius, she continues her train of thought. "Lord Commander - the way I see it, there's likely no way we can deliver the supplies and possibly go dirtside to investigate whatever the colonists found without a fight. Facing four ships on our own is a problem, but if we can divide their squadron and ambush them one by one, I like the Sting's chances. Up close, with a proper target lock, we stand a good chance of crippling any of Quinn's ships in a single volley."

By now, one can positively see the gears turning in Hannabel's mind. "Of course, even if we can kill one of them, there's no way to be certain we can pull off another ambush. They might come after us in force, or sit tight over the colony and force us to come to them. All in all, this would be a lot easier if the Mailed Fist were there as well. She'd be a target Quinn's crews can't ignore, and when they move against her, we can move in behind and shank them...or chase them into range of the Fist's broadsides."

[Haval]

"Void bait!" Hannabel chimes in. "It's an old pirate trick. We drop off a lure that projects a signal Quinn's ships will be sure to investigate, and when they move to do so, we can move into orbit and do our thing. Of course, once they've checked up on the lure and noticed that it's a diversion, they'll come burning for home at flank speed. If we're still in orbit, we'll just be a big, fat target and they can pick us off at their leisure. Plus, if I were Quinn, I'd have left strict orders that at least one or two ships always have to maintain the blockade, so the bait would have to be really good to draw them all off."


Anika wonders how Hannabel knows anything about pirate tricks but won't press the issue. 'Well them coming back and catching us in orbit rather depends on how quickly we can offload the supplies, but I take your point.'

[Leon]

++What do we know of the Systems other bodies, any moons or stellar phenomena.++

[Destro_Yersul]

"If you put a time delay on the lure, you might be able to sneak into position to do your unloading more easily. You can start working as soon as they leave to investigate, and have twice as long before they get back." Jonell suggested, in between bites of spice cake.

Ms. Devereaux fielded the other questions. "Historically, Quinn's actions and blockades have been designed in a way to inconvenience the Jonell Dynasty as much as possible, while minimising risk to Imperial citizens. Rogue Traders are still part of the Imperium. A direct attack on a colony could draw the attention of Navy elements, or the Inquisition. As long as Quinn can frame this entirely as a disagreement between Trader dynasties, the Adepta will stay out of it. It's tremendously frustrating." She pursed her lips. "The system actually has three planets, which is why we selected it as an excellent colony location. The main colony world has breathable atmosphere, and scans revealed fairly high mineral concentration as well. The other two are a ball of lifeless rock too cold for habitation, but possibly suitable for mining, and a gas giant. Lots of useful things in the atmosphere. The gas giant has collected a small handful of moons, most of which appear to be captured meteors and asteroids. Nothing much useful on any of them, unless we had a way to grind them up for their iron content."

[Haval]

Anika will reply to Jonell and develop her argument, 'Time delay and a lure set as far away as possible. It won't fix every thing for us but it at least feels like a good way to break up our opponents. Even if they come back too quickly we only have to slip away and come at them from another direction. Knowing that we are out there doesn't neccessarily mean they can do anything about it as long as we're quick enough. I believe the Tacita called it crossing the T or some such thing.' It had been a while but some of her education had stayed with her.

'If they do decide to sit over the planet the question is really do they have enough fire power between them to cover each other from every angle? Especially if we've managed to disable one of their frigates first.' As Hannabel had said, a second ship would make things easier if Jonell was willing, but Anika wondered if that would effect the terms of their deal. She wasn't that worried either way.

[Kobold-Bard]

Pytho

Pytho politely nibbles at a small slice of fruit tart; 20 years of field rations had obliterated any sweet tooth he might once have had. Not wanting to be disrespectful (despite remembering Anika's distaste for it), he raises his query quietly in Hannabel and Anika's minds rather than question them publicly:

Drawing off the blockade to drop the supplies is one thing. But the need to be gone when they come storming back into position won't give us any time to investigate their mysterious find, which our good Captain has just won us a share of. If we plan to make this a hit-and-run, would we need a second phase where we enter orbit on the far side of the planet and reach the colony by land to investigate?

[PotatoGolem]

A combination of distractions may be in order. Our ship does love disguising herself, and much as I'd prefer an honorable stand-up fight it'd be quite foolish here. Ships can't blockade indefinitely without resupply. We could pose as a reinforcement ship, allowing us to get into position, then fire off the bait. Perhaps we are a ship sent by Quinn to make planetfall and begin exploiting the colony on his behalf? Would give us an excuse to be sending landers down. Alternatively, we're a supply ship. We begin transferring supplies to their weakest ship, then the lure goes off. The rest of their fleet sails off to investigate, leaving us with only one to deal with. One with its shields down to accept cargo, at that.

He looks inspired and pained, the love of a plan coming together conflicting with its less-than-honorable nature. The supply crates could even contain remote-detonation mines, should we be so inclined. If we can broadside a frigate once before its shields are up and then set off melta charges in its hangar bay, the fight is almost won.

[rax]

Drawing off the blockade to drop the supplies is one thing. But the need to be gone when they come storming back into position won't give us any time to investigate their mysterious find, which our good Captain has just won us a share of. If we plan to make this a hit-and-run, would we need a second phase where we enter orbit on the far side of the planet and reach the colony by land to investigate?All depends on their orders and their discipline. There's no way to tell how Quinn's crews 'll react when they find out they've been had. If they bunch up over the colony, we could perhaps hide on the far side of the planet or behind a moon, but then we'll be a long way from the colony when we head down to investigate, and every hour in orbit is an hour for them to find us. If they decide to spread out and scour the system, that may buy us more time to head dirtside, or it may mean they go looking on the far side of the planet straight away. Of course, if they're sloppy, our odds of getting in and out will be a whole lot better.


A combination of distractions may be in order. Our ship does love disguising herself, and much as I'd prefer an honorable stand-up fight it'd be quite foolish here. Ships can't blockade indefinitely without resupply. We could pose as a reinforcement ship, allowing us to get into position, then fire off the bait. Perhaps we are a ship sent by Quinn to make planetfall and begin exploiting the colony on his behalf? Would give us an excuse to be sending landers down. Alternatively, we're a supply ship. We begin transferring supplies to their weakest ship, then the lure goes off. The rest of their fleet sails off to investigate, leaving us with only one to deal with. One with its shields down to accept cargo, at that.

He looks inspired and pained, the love of a plan coming together conflicting with its less-than-honorable nature. The supply crates could even contain remote-detonation mines, should we be so inclined. If we can broadside a frigate once before its shields are up and then set off melta charges in its hangar bay, the fight is almost won."With all due respect, Lord Commander, we'll need a lot more intelligence on Quinn's operations if we're to pose as part of his organization. Ciphers, code speak, SOPs - we won't be fooling anyone without those. And to be fair - up close, the Sting is nobody's idea of a supply ship." Hannabel reminds her captain, a note of pride creeping into her voice when she speaks of the Manticore's Sting.

Fingering one of her earrings, Hannabel continues her musings. "If Quinn makes a point of not antagonizing the Navy, perhaps we could work with that? I'm pretty we've enough ex-Navy folk on the Sting to play the part. We could drop the lure, continue ghosting towards the planet, then - when the lure's gone off and one or two ships have headed to investigate, we announce ourselves to the ships still at the colony and tell them we're the Navy, come to inspect reports of an illegal blockade. Then we can demand to come aboard and speak to their commander, and carry out your plan from there. Come to think of it, if we drop two separate lures we might be able to get even more of Quinn's ships out of position. Of course, we still have to figure out what might get them to weigh anchor and go investigating..."

[Destro_Yersul]

"Something of mine, likely," Jonell said. "I could have a package put together that would broadcast as a message from the Fist. They know that they can outrun my ship, and with all four of them they could outfight it. Because you're right, it would be too great a prize for Quinn to ignore. If they do leave one behind to guard the colony you might have to improvise, but the Navy idea is a good one by my estimation."

[Leon]

++Something to consider along the lines of posing as Navy is that with such a technological marvel of a ship design that we fly could be an Exporator ship that has come to follow a lead from a old survey. We're known for being secretive and operating out of the loop of normal procedure, particularly the Thule secte++

[Haval]

++Something to consider along the lines of posing as Navy is that with such a technological marvel of a ship design that we fly could be an Exporator ship that has come to follow a lead from a old survey. We're known for being secretive and operating out of the loop of normal procedure, particularly the Thule secte++

'Maybe. As long as we don't try to talk to them for long enough to expose the lie. Although even if they are suspicious, who would want to antagonise the Mechanicus without cause.'

'Conversely the only problem I can see with claiming to be attached to the Navy is the Sting itself. Perhaps the Navy took a raider as a prize to augment their fleet? I am confident that we can talk them into believing that we are not merely pirates, but not so much that we can't prove that we aren't what we are, namely a Rogue Trader ship with some hidden agenda.'

'In any case, they would only need to believe us for long enough to allow us to get close.'

[Leon]

++A Explorator ship isn't going to be interested in much communication. Code Bursts that Decree Mechanicus interests on this planet and surrounds would likely be sufficient. With a sufficient show of Force in that myself with Servitors and some of the Enginirum staff to look the part in a "official" Party while the rest of you investigate.++

++I shall generate some verbatim for the crew to use if they do decide to be inquisitive but if they are sensible they will leave us alone. Maybe some heavily armed and robed armsmen for skittari effect in the party aswell, given some time and parts im sure i could create some facsimiles of cybernetics for them to wear++

[rax]

"You make a good point, Adept Ravia, the Manticore's Sting isn't your typical Navy tug. But like her doctorship says, the Navy's always short of hulls, and they've been known to press prize vessels into service, at least temporarily. But I suppose pretending to be an Explorator vessel is as good a ploy as pretending to be the Navy."

"What I'm not really keen on the idea of any of us being aboard one of Quinn's ships - at least not if we're going to fire on her. Too much risk of our own people getting hurt, and if we have to wait for the away team to return from negotiating or planting charges, we may miss our opening and end up trading broadsides. That would be very bad for the Sting."

[PotatoGolem]

I don't like the idea of falsely claiming to be the Navy. For one, it's entirely dishonorable. For another, the real Navy would be quite upset if they discovered we were pretending to be Navy in order to attack other traders. The Explorator's ploy will work as well, by my reckoning. We drop the lure, making it look like the Fist is coming. Once they're drawn off, we approach. If anyone is left, we pretend to be a Mechanicus ship long enough to get in broadside range and take them out if they seem skeptical.

Now, are there any mines or anything we can put in the lure to delay their return journey? We don't want to be caught with our team still planetside

[Destro_Yersul]

The Manticore's Sting dropped out of warp on the edge of the system. Immediately, the augur crew started making a detailled scan of the planets. There were, as they had been told, three. Jonell's colony world was the second of those three, and was identifiable by the four ships in orbit around it. Two frigates and two smaller ships, as they had been expecting. None of the blockade seemed to notice them yet; the Sting had left warp with everything but the essentials powered down, just a step above drifting. The plasma reactors were lit, but running low and coule be cycled up to full power at a moment's notice.

In one of the holds was a large sensor package put together by Anika and Magos Del'Karro. When activated, it would output a series of signals, as well as a radioactive aura, designed to emulate a Rak'gol cruiser as closely as possible. Looking around the system, there were plenty of places to drop the lure. The gas giant would likely shield the signals from being noticed by the blockade ships, but its many smaller moons would not. The first planet was another idea, but would involve circling back once they had set the bait. They had settled on Rak'gol after some debate on the journey here, as most of the senior officers felt the famously aggressive Xenos species would warrant a larger response from Quinn's ships.

I need Ravia to make a Tech-Use test at +20 to make sure you've not forgotten/missed anything when assembling and setting the lure.

[Haval]

On the journey here Anika has spent alot of time helping Ravia with the device. Normally she preferred to keep her distance from the Tech-Priest but this project was important. She could only really advise, but it was good to put some of what she had read to good use. Much of what the Imperium knew about the Rak'gol was only conjecture, but enough of her books agreed on enough about them that she was confident she could help build a decent impersonation.

When the Sting enters the system she's already on the bridge. She is mostly confident but feels a certain amount of responsibility to ensure that this plan goes well.

[Leon]

Much of the Trip has been spent in building and fine tuning the Rak'Gol lure (decoy maybe a better thought process here since we don't want to lure the Rak'Gol...)


Tech Use @ +20 [roll0] 58 Int + 20 (Trained and Misc)

[rax]

"Watch those engine readings, Hobbes," Hannabel hovers over the pilot's station. "Low and slow does it, we're in no hurry..."

"Lord Commander, with your permission, I'm confident I can plot a course that can bring us to wherever we want to drop our lure with minimal chances of detection. Hiding it among the gas giant's moons would be a smart play in my estimation. The presence of the giant itself would help explain how our "xenos" managed to avoid showing up on the blockade ships' auspexes before we activate the lure. We could then swing wide past the colony and make our approach from the opposite direction - that would put the most space between us and any ships Quinn's commander sends out to investigate the lure."

Hannabel has Pilot (Spacecraft) trained and Ag 48. If we only take the default manoeuvre action while silent running, she should automatically succeed as long as Macharius grants her his exceptional leader bonus: 48 (Ag) +25 (Sting's manoeuvrability) +10 (Ordinary difficulty) +10 (Reaver background) +10 (Exceptional Leader) = 103

Of course, this means we'll only be moving at 5 VU, but since we're not in any hurry, that shouldn't be a problem.

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius is at his usual position when the ship leaves the Warp , standing in front of the command throne. He sits and listens to his advisers, thinks for a second, and smiles.

Good show, ladies! Jolly well done, Anika, Magos. Hanabelle, I like your idea. Having the Rak'gol come from inside the system would be too suspicious. We'll drop the lure and sail around to the other side of the system. Trigger it when the gas giant is far from the colony world, to maximize the distance they have to travel. Hopefully, that pulls them out of the orbit entirely to do their duty as good servants of the Emperor and exterminate the vile Xenos.

If not, we'll go with the Mechanicus plan. Magos, could you rig up a device to either distort my voice as I speak or distort our broadcast frequencies? I don't sound much like a Mechanicus captain, if I do say so myself.

[Haval]

Macharius is at his usual position when the ship leaves the Warp , standing in front of the command throne. He sits and listens to his advisers, thinks for a second, and smiles.

Good show, ladies! Jolly well done, Anika, Magos. Hanabelle, I like your idea. Having the Rak'gol come from inside the system would be too suspicious. We'll drop the lure and sail around to the other side of the system. Trigger it when the gas giant is far from the colony world, to maximize the distance they have to travel. Hopefully, that pulls them out of the orbit entirely to do their duty as good servants of the Emperor and exterminate the vile Xenos.

'It makes sense. Even the Rak'gol have to operate their ships like the rest of us, for all that some in the Expanse seem to think speaking of them at all would be enough to summon them here.' The idea was nonsense of course, even if the reality of that species seemed to be bad enough without ascribing such powers to them.

Anika is less optimistic about the morality of the blockade ships. 'If we're done our work well enough, maybe they'll leave the system undefended to 'xenos' attack. The type of people who would starve a colony of supplies don't seem the type to be of particularly good character.'

[Destro_Yersul]

The crew put the plan into action expertly and efficiently. The void lure was jetisoned into orbit around the gas giant, set to a remote activator that Ravia had spent a great deal of time making sure would work exactly right. The Magos had been very thorough, and the lure was a fine piece of work. It would operate within α0.01 of required mission parameters.

With their trap set, the Sting ghosted into position, still running silent. When the lure went active, it would ping on the passive sensors of every ship in range. There should be no reason for the enemy to run an active scan until they got close to it, which would allow Macharius' ship time to move in unnoticed. At last, after a series of carefully planned maneuvers by Hannabel, everything was in place. The order was given, the switch flipped, and suddenly there was what looked to all the world like a Rak'gol cruiser lit up on the auspex. It swung slowly out of the shadow of the gas giant, and the officer manning the sensor console shivered involuntarily and made the sign of the aquila.

The reaction from the blockade ships was immediate. The smallest of the two escorts turned the other direction and started burning its engines to get away, either to report to Quinn or just escape the percieved threat. The two frigates formed up with the other escort, moving away from the colony world to take up a more defensible position near the inner planet. When they entered the shadow of the planet, the escort split off and went dark. If they wanted to see what it was doing, they'd need to do a more focused scan to look for it. In the meantime, they had an opening.

You rolled really, really well on that Tech-Use test. If you want to do anything fancy with the lure, by all means have at it. I just described its basic function here, there's room for a couple extra gimmicks with a roll like that.

[Kobold-Bard]

Pytho

Wires as fine and flexible as human hairs extend from one of the astropath's servo-skulls into a secondary auspex terminal, the gaps in Anika's display lighting up.

Pytho himself is quiet, watching the immaterium for any outward communications from the Quinn ships.

[Destro_Yersul]

When the enemy escort went dark, the Sting started looking harder. The ship's augurs were designed to be unobtrusive, so they could search the void without blowing their own cover. With the assistance of a servo skull, Anika borrowed the augury station from a crew member and set to searching. The first pass didn't yield anything, but the second found the escort drifting towards their lure. Looked like they were going to check it out, try and figure out what was going on while the frigates put up a show of taking defensive positions. It was a good tactic, but of course they weren't expecting another ship to be watching their every move.

This was an opportunity.

[Haval]

Anika normally leaves this sort of thing to those better qualified for it, but she at least knows how to read the augur. 'I take it we can't wait until the other escort leaves before ambushing this one? The idea that the other ship might enter the warp still believing that the Rak'gol were in the system was appealing to her, but she doubted they could be that lucky.

'If they decide something's up and turn around, they are still far from their friends. Would that make it our next target?' Now they were in the opening stages of the battle there was no point being anything other than ruthless about all this. There was no reason to assume that Quinn's people wouldn't behave the same way if the situation was reversed.

[rax]

"There she is!" Hannabel whispers excitedly when the enemy escort appears on the auspex. "Steady as she goes, Hobbes, you're doing fine. Just keep us on course to close with that scow, and I'll get us lined up for the shot." She fairly skips over to the main gunnery pit and begins to relay orders down to the gun decks. When all is ready to her satisfaction, she looks up expectantly at Macharius. "Say the word, Lord Commander, and she's dead before they know what hit them."

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius raises his hand. Hold a moment, Mistress Shanx. Wait until that moon passes between us and the rest of their fleet- don't want an Imperial ship suddenly appearing on their auspex, what? While we wait, I shall remind the crew of why we fight.

He strides to the shipboard vox and speaks into it, his voice resounding through the ship. Glorious Master of Mankind, we dedicate this battle to you. Our foe profanes Your holy name, polluting the sanctity of the Warrant of Trade by engaging in piracy. Your sacred Writ, given that we humble men may drive out the Xenos, the Heretic, and the Daemon, is used as base cover for preying on Your loyal servants! For this I name them heretic and blasphemer. And yet they sink further! They shirk the duty You have lain upon all men, turning tail and fleeing from the Xenos, leaving a colony of souls commended to Your light in grave danger. They deny the sanctity, primacy, and superiority of Humanity in their cowardice! For this I name them twice accursed.

But the men and women of the Manticore's Sting are loyal and true, oh Glorious Emperor! We will fall upon the heretics like Your sword of judgement! We will send them screaming to the oblivion that awaits all who deny Your glorious Imperial Truth! We fear not war, for we fight in Your name! We fear not death, for we will live eternal at Your side! We are the Manticore's Sting, and we shall triumph! For the Emperor and Absalom!

The speech is perfectly timed for the climax to coincide with the ship's passing behind cover. He steps back and faces Hannabel. You may fire when ready, Mistress Shanx. Bring down the fire of the God-Emperor.

Inspiring Leader on Hannabel's shooting

[Leon]

Intoning the Litany of the machine Ravia makes the adjustments to the lure 's relay that makes it seem to be powering up something (a timed release of radioactive effects)

[rax]

"Missiles, launch! Now the sunbeams, target the bridge!" Hannabel barks. The Manticore's Sting shudders as the first salvo of missiles launches, followed by the thrum of giant lasers unleashing their deadly pulses of light across the void. Hannabel grins savagely as tightly packed explosions lace the length of the enemy vessel, tearing great holes in the escort's armour. "Lord Commander, we have multiple direct hits!" she exclaims, sounding for all the world like a child delighting in a fireworks display.

[PotatoGolem]

Splendid, splendid! Excellently done, Mistress Shanx. Now, can we jam their communications? Wouldn't do to have them broadcast back that they're being attacked by a human vessel.

[Destro_Yersul]

The Manticore's Sting struck without warning. A volley of missiles streaked across the void, impacting on the enemy destroyer. The first few exploded against the void shields, but the fields rapidly overloaded against the sustained assault. With the shields down, the Sting's lasers raked across her foe. Multiple explosions blossomed across the hull, gas and debris venting into space. In the middle of Macharius' question about jamming them, a secondary explosion rocked the target, and all their lights winked out.

"Multiple hits confirmed, sir!" The crewman at the augur station looked up at his commander. "I'm getting void shields destroyed, and we've hit their main drive. She's dead in the water."

Ravia's manipulations to the lure had been perfectly timed. To the other enemy ships, it would have looked like the 'Rak'gol' ship had a power spike, followed immediately by horrendous damage to their escort.

[Leon]

++Excellent Gunnery++

[rax]

"Thank you, thank you!" Hannabel responds to the compliments with an overdone bow. "We aim to please!"

"Now, what do we do about those poor devils over there, Lord Commander? They're powerless, so they won't be transmitting any information about who attacked them unless they have an astropath aboard. And I think we managed to time our attack so that the frigates will believe the "Rak'gol" did it. If we kill the escort for real, that would be in line with expectations when dealing with Rak'gol, but it does run the risk of blowing our cover. If we go silent now, we can set up a new ambush for the frigates, but we run the risk of the destroyer getting power back and letting them know that it wasn't the lure what got 'em. And no matter what we do, going up against a pair of frigates is a much tougher fight than this one..."

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius smiles. No, Mistress Shanx, what the Rak'gol would do is board the ship and slaughter all those inside. And while the command staff are clearly heretical reprobates of the highest order, the ship herself and some of her ignorant, benighted crew may yet be redeemable.

Commodore Gilead! Have the marines board the assault shuttles and commence full-scale boarding action. Winston! Prepare my lander. See to it that my jump-pack and armaments are properly delivered. He turns back to Hannabel, Ravia and Pytho and gestures grandly towards the shuttle bay. Care to join me for a little excursion, dear chums?

[Leon]

++I will join you in the dock++
Ravia leaves to prepare and gather her arms and amour for a boarding.

[Haval]

'Have fun.' As they shouldn't be in any real danger Anika didn't feel any compelling reason to go with them.

She will make a brief note to herself to reward the crew of the weapon that had inflicted the most damage on their target. Perhaps it hadn't been needed but a deal was a deal.

[PotatoGolem]

Onboard the shuttle, Macharius relays orders into the vox. He's dressed for battle in a fine suit of black and gold carapace armor with the Absalom sigil gleaming on the front. His Rosarius hangs prominently on the middle of his chest.

We seek to redeem the benighted ignorant who followed their leaders child-like into the darkness. Our goal for the crew is pacification and a return to the Emperor's glorious light, not wholesale slaughter. Kill the leaders of any resistance, as well as any security forces that oppose you, but show mercy to the non-combatants and those who surrender. We come like Saint Jeremiah to spread the word of the Emperor to his wayward children, not like Saint Alenikov to slaughter the recalcitrant. Attempt to capture as many of the command staff alive as possible, that they may be called to answer for their heretical treason.

One we have control, disarm the ship's defenders and move our own people in to take control of the armories and critical systems. Forward, for the Emperor and Absalom!

Striking to maximize Morale damage and minimize Population damage by targeted killing of leaders and defenders. Stop killing once they surrender. Command: [roll0], target number 212

[Destro_Yersul]

The stricken enemy vessel tilted to one side, a massive gaping hole in its midsection. It was an Iconoclast Destroyer, one of inumerable such ships in the Expanse. Small and fast, the Iconoclast is a true escort type vessel as opposed to the near-frigate status of the Manticore's Sting. This one bore the scars of older battles, as well as the fresh wounds inflicted on it by the 'Rak'gol.' Macharius' aquila moved in alongside a swarm of smaller boarding shuttles. Back on silent, the Sting moved up in support. Their enemy wasn't going anywhere.

The easiest mode of access for the boarders was the hull breach they'd caused. The shuttles moved in, bumping aside shattered pieces of adamantite hull plating and dead men, their bodies drifting through the void. Macharius' men were all in heavy-duty voidsuits, armed with boarding shotguns and other low-impact weaponry from the ship's stores. The small-arms damage wasn't likely to matter all that much compared to the devastation inflicted by the Sting's weapon batteries, but they did want to capture this ship. Less damage now would mean fewer repairs later. Even so, it would take a long time for the vessel to be properly spaceworthy again. On they way in, they got a look at what remained of the void shield generators; twisted metal and loose cables, shattered deck plates, a thousand glittering shards of glass. The rest of the damage could be fixed, given time. The shields would need to be torn out and replaced entirely.

Hatches opened, and the boarders poured out into the stricken ship. There was no gravity. Ignoring the noncombatants as per Macharius' orders, his men hit hard and fast against the defenders. Fighting was fierce, but sporadic. The crew had little time to raise a proper defense. Cries of 'for Absalom!' and 'for the Emperor!' sounded over the vox. Macharius led the push for the bridge, his jump pack allowing him to navigate the zero-gravity environment inside the ship with greater ease. The Rogue Trader sliced through the lock to the bridge with his power sword, and was in the thick of the fighting from there. He personally slew the opposing captain, who had been trying to coordinate the defense. After that, the fight went out of the enemy - a few of those remaining on the bridge threw down their arms in surrender, and were captured by Absalom marines. When the rest saw that surrender was an option, they took it.

The final tally was hugely in Macharius' favour. He'd lost a small handful of men, but he'd captured most of the enemy officers and taken the ship relatively bloodlessly. Of the original crew of sixteen thousand, fewer than six thousand remained... but most of those had been killed in the opening salvo. The boarding action had been clean and efficient, and looked very very good for keeping up the Rak'gol pretense. Anika, who had remained aboard the Manticore's Sting, reported that the other escort had made the jump to warp. The two frigates, likely fearing a full on assault by a Rak'gol cruiser following the loss of their scout, looked ready to follow suit. Both were running full burn on a course for the opposite side of the system. Ravia kept up the lure's broadcasting until they were gone.

All told, the plan had been very successful.

[Leon]

++This will be a interesting archive to go through at a later time, there much this ship has seen that could be very useful for my line of knowledge++

[rax]

Hannabel sticks close to the Lord Commander, emptying her laspistols into any enemy that shows himself. Her movements are smooth, professional, and she seems quite unfazed by the carnage they encounter as the battle rages through the ship.

Once the bridge is secured, she gathers a small escort of marines and immediately sets off to inspect the damage her gunners inflicted. She tuts disapprovingly as she notes that most of the damage seems to have been caused by the Sunsears. The Jovians appear to have managed little beyond knocking down the void shields.

"Not up to spec, not up to spec at all. Someone's going to be doing extra shooting drills for the next month or so..."

[Haval]

++This will be a interesting archive to go through at a later time, there much this ship has seen that could be very useful for my line of knowledge++

'I think I'll help you with that. It would be nice to know what that ship has seen.'

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius gives a grand speech, thanking his soldiers for their bravery and heroism and welcoming his new vassals to the service of the glorious Emperor and House Absalom. It's very heavy on religious imagery, and he repeatedly refers to the former captain as a heretic and blasphemer. Double rations are ordered all around, with ale for the troops. It proves a popular speech and proclamation. Afterwards, he speaks to his command staff.

Splendidly done, friends. Truly, the Emperor smiled upon me when you all joined my cause. Magos Del'Karro, could I trouble you to repair the drives on the Talon? We'll need to have her somewhat operational to get her back to a repair yard.

Now, I believe it's time to have a little chat with this ship's former officers while we approach the colony. Pytho, your powers could prove extremely useful here. Jansen, have whichever one of them is highest in rank brought in. I want to know why Quinn was blockading this colony and what his plans are.

[Leon]

++Affirmative. As an aside when you are done with the command crew see about converting them to be a helpful labor force it will make the task easier and sometimes the recipients have a familiarity with the location they used to reside in which can help++

Ravia will begin marshaling resources and materials to see about returning at least functionality to the ship for a return to a actual shipyard

[Kobold-Bard]

Pytho

"Of course Lord Commander." Pytho prepares to put on the game face 20 years as a tool of the commissariat helped him perfect.

He has liked Absolom's speech. He'd enjoyed the entire endeavour really, and the Sting's crew were actually quite good at this. It was fortunate for the Imperium that the Captain was an honourable man, they could be quite troublesome brigands if they were so inclined.

[Destro_Yersul]

Ravia set to work on the drive, bringing a few crew members from the Sting over to help. The Iconoclast happened to have the same basic pattern of plasma drive installed, and so there wasn't much trouble getting it running again. It took time, a lot of welding and replacing broken cables. Damaged sections of hull were cut away and repurposed, makeshift hull plates muscled into place over the vast gaping hole in the ship. In the end they didn't have enough time to fix everything before putting into orbit over the colony world, and the ship would still need a new void shield array and a great deal of work repairing rents in its hull before it would be fully capable again, but for now it would have to do.

While the Magos set about getting their prize at least capable of moving itself again, Macharius and Pytho made ready to interrogate their prisoners. Jensen brought in one of the captured men, leading him over to The Chair and shackling his arms behind it. "The Captain died in the fighting, sir." Jensen said, mildly. "This one's the first officer."

The captured first officer looked up at Macharius with undisguised suspicion. "Not telling you anything," he mumbled. His eyes widened, however, when he saw the grim-faced Astropath standing behind the Lord Captain. Pytho stepped forwards. After that, there was a great deal of screaming.

This technique was not gentle. The officer would know what was being taken from him, and he would not enjoy it. Pytho reached for the warp, and began looking for cracks in the mind before him. He found them almost at once. Then he was Erik Tarsus. Erik was worried. This had not been a good day for him. His heart skipped ocassionally, but he didn't know or notice. He was 48 years old, in generally good health. Not overly corrupted by exposure to the warp, which was a nice surprise. You never could tell, with these voidsmen. Erik didn't much like the men he was looking at, sitting here in this chair. How had everything gone so wrong, so quickly? He'd been a small but important (he thought) part of Quinn's fleet. The Talon was a decent ship to serve aboard, if slightly worrisome at times. The last few days had been routine. They'd patrolled the system, running regular scans to see if anything came up. There was something down on the planet, but they didn't know what it was and the locals were being recalcitrant. They had their orders, though. They weren't supposed to go in, just block supplies until the colony surrendered and Quinn could add it to the list of claims he'd successfully jumped. Erik looked up to Lord Captain Quinn. He looked up to his own captain, as well, and the men he'd served with aboard the other ships in the fleet. He didn't like that the captain of the Aggressor had sent search parties down to Jonell's colony. They were looking for something, down there. Something important. The question burned in his mind. His life flashed through his mind. Born in the darkness below the hive, joining a gang and feeling like he fit in for the first time, flashing lights and the crunch of an Arbitrator's trunchion, press-ganged into service aboard a starship, working his way up through the ranks with a mixture of cunning and genuine aptitude. Ciphers, codes, fleet compositions. There were sixteen thousand men aboard the Talon. Erik knew the names of only a handful. What was on the planet? The ship rocked, hit from behind by an enemy they hadn't seen coming. There was a bright flash of light. What was on the planet? It was a convenient target, isolated, not yet self-sufficient. He saw a phonograph, playing on a desk, some old song he didn't know the name of. There was something on the planet. Had Quinn known? They were supposed to check in. Had the others escaped the Rak'gol? There were no Rak'gol. His vision blurred.

He was Pytho again. Erik had given him all there was to know, or at least, all there was that Erik knew.

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius smiles grimly at the captive. I believe you'll find that's irrelevant. My colleague sees with the Emperor's eyes, from whom no sin can hide.

He leans back in his chair. You stand accused of piracy, heresy, and blasphemy against our Eternal God-Emperor. Master Pythonissam, tell me this recidivist's sins.

[Leon]

Ravia directed her forces to bring the engines back to life and into a level of stability that would see them back to a shipyard and then began to restore the labratorium and salvage any thing she could for later usage, no time to look at it now but to have the means was most important.

[Destro_Yersul]

The Laboratorium was badly damaged. A lot of the equipment hadn't survived unscathed, but someone had thought to install a locker full of replacement parts. What couldn't be fixed could be assembled without too much difficulty. By the time the ship reached orbit, Ravia had the lab back to full operating capacity. Luckily, the many volumes of documentation were sealed in airtight cabinets to prevent damage due to depressurisation.

While the Magos worked on the lab, Pytho and Macharius were aboard the Sting, working on a different sort of problem. One by one, Jansen brought in the prisoners to be put to the question. One by one, Pytho delved into their minds, reporting the relevant parts of what he found to the Lord Captain. Most of the men they'd captured knew less than Erik had, unfortunately. They got enough information to corraborate Erik's, though, and Macharius had a few of his more specific questions answered by the time they were done. Jonell had left a small number of troops to defend, and the colonists had dug in. The search parties from the Aggressor had come back empty-handed, and none of them knew what was actually to be found down there. In the end, a few repented, but most didn't, and Macharius had them executed for piracy, treason, heresy, and a host of other charges. The bodies were shuttled to the Talon, and stacked in Ravia's new lab.

[Haval]

In the end, a few repented, but most didn't, and Macharius had them executed for piracy, treason, heresy, and a host of other charges. The bodies were shuttled to the Talon, and stacked in Ravia's new lab.

Watching all this frontier justice from the sidelines, Anika is not entirely happy. For all that these men needed to be stopped, they seemed like criminals and opportunists rather than heretics. It would have been cleaner in some ways to have destroyed their ship outright, but that would have only condemned the Talon's crew to death along with them. Damn Jonell for making this neccessary.

[Leon]

Ravia organizes the servitors in waiting into a cold storage until she can deal with them later and then locks down the laboratory until her return. Minor techs are tasked with keeping on working to patch hull damage.

++I will see to the reclamation of flesh later, I am interested as to what is on the planet and seek to see it first hand++

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius has one of the vox-operators hail the colony's leaders. Greetings, colonists! This is Lord-Captain Macharius Absalom, here by agreement with Lord-Captain Jonell. Sorry for the old rak'gol wheeze; hope you weren't too shaken up, what! Anyways, send us the landing coordinates and we'll have the relief shuttles fly down to resupply you in no time. He mentioned you had a discovery to deliver to him?

[Destro_Yersul]

The reply to Macharius' vox message was a short time in coming. It took long enough to wonder if anyone down there was recieving, but eventually there was a reply. It was filled with static, badly distorted by distance and intervening atmosphere.

"...ou say you're from Captain Jonell? Thank the Emperor for that, if it's true. Can you..." the connection crackled, and and several metallic thumps could be heard from the other end. "Sorry. We're dug in down here, and this vox set's about had it. You can land at the colony, there's a field just outside the main walls. You'll have to forgive us for not taking your word on being a relief force. We'd like to see you land before we roll out the red carpet."



It didn't take long to get the shuttles organised. Many of the crates of supplies had been stored in shuttle bays during transit anyways, since the Manticore's Sting lacked a dedicated cargo bay. Macharius and his command crew went down with the first wave of supplies. Hannabel had done a good job getting the Talon's remaining crew organised. There had been some grumbling, but overall the speeches dseemed to be doing the trick. They'd done some crew transfers back and forth, to facilitate their new employees. Getting everyone properly integrated was going to take some time, and probably a few good handfuls of thrones, but it was a solid start. At the very least, the loyal crew from the Sting would serve as good examples of how well it paid to serve under House Absalom.

The collection of lighers and shuttles in the first wave touched down outside Jonell's colony after a brief and mostly rattle-free descent. The buildings of the colony didn't look damaged, but there were no people visible, and a lot of signs that people had picked up and left in a hurry. Vehicles were left uncrewed and abandoned, belongings scattered in the streets. A short distance away, a road led up into the nearby hills. The surrounding terrain was green and pleasant, rolling hills and a few stands of very tall trees. Ground had been broken on some agricultural works, but it looked like they'd still need a regular influx of food and tools. There was nowhere near enough here to be self-sustaining.

As Macharius' servitors and crew started rolling pallets of goods down the lighter ramps, their vox units crackled to life.

"Alright, we see you. Sorry about the distrust. How'd you get past the blockade? Something about Rak'gol? We're holed up in the mines, you can come meet us by the entrance. You'll want to see what we've found down here."

[Haval]

Anika will make sure that a few of the crew sent over to the Talon are those with connections to the her office. If there was any chance that some of the Talon’s crew weren’t exactly loyal to House Absalom it would be better to hear about it in advance.

On the planet she is prudent enough to have brought all of her weapons and armour with her but she isn't really expecting any trouble. Jacob, her lingua servo-skull follows her out of the shuttle floating just above head height. It's been a while since she has set foot on a planet, and she is excited at the prospect of possibly getting to dig something out of the ground again. ‘Nice place they’ve got here.’

In response to the voice on the vox, 'Don't worry about the Rak'gol. They were never here in the first place. The blockade captains were a surprisingly gullible lot. Lucky for us.'

'Anyway. This discovery. I would very much like to take a look at it. Do you have any idea what it is?'

[Destro_Yersul]

"Not really. It's old, been down here a long time, but it's a bit spooky looking and there's some cables wired to the room it's in. We didn't want to set anything off, if there's even still power." The vox crackled again. "Any of you an archeotechnologist, or anything like that? We told Captain Jonell we wanted a specialist."

[rax]

Tuning in her micro-bead to the correct frequency, Hannabel interjects: "We brought our own Magos. That should do the trick, wouldn't you say?"

Speaking privately to Macharius and the other officers, she pleads: "Now can we please get over to the mine? All this sky is making my head hurt."

[Haval]

Over the vox, 'Between us I think we should be able to work something out. We'll meet up with you shortly.'


"Now can we please get over to the mine? All this sky is making my head hurt."

'You'll get used to it. It's like the first time you have to voidwalk.'

Unless given a reason not to go, Anika will head off in the direction of the mine.

[Destro_Yersul]

The trip to the mine was a pleasant walk up a gently sloping road. The road was tamped-down dirt covered in gravel, just enough traction for the colony's big construction vehicles. Along the way they saw some signs of fighting, las burns on walls and clumps of scorched earth. No bodies, which was a good sign. The mine's entrance, at the top of the hill, was a flakboard door covered in wire mesh and set into a ferrocrete bunker of sorts. There were narrow little vision slits along the walls, and a nice killzone out front. It looked halfway between a proper mine and a military installation.

When they came into view, the door opened and a bearded man stepped out. He was short and stocky, wearing a torn uniform and carrying a chainsword on his belt. Behind him could be seen a few other uniformed men with lasguns, and a slew of people in loose-fitting clothes cut in a utilitarian style.

"Welcome, Lord-Captain Absalom and company. I'm lieutenant Colburn, those men back there are my command squad. We serve under Lord-Captain Jonell, and we're mighty glad to see you and those supplies you brought."

By his voice, this was the man who had been speaking over the vox. He waved the party in, shutting the door behind them. His men took up posts at the vision slits. "Good to maintain discipline," Colburn explained. "We had a minor skirmish with the search parties the blockade sent down. They stopped bothering us after that, but it doesn't do to drop guard. The artifact's in shaft three, over this way."

Shaft three turned out to not go down very far. It looked as though the colonists had started digging, but stopped when they broke through the ceiling of the room below. There was a ladder that went all the way down, tied to spikes hammered into the floor to stop it from falling away. At the bottom was a round chamber, with a hole in its roof for the ladder. The walls were made of ferrocrete, or something similar, and covered in intricate scrolling lines. There were two alcoves to either side, apparently empty, and a door that must once have led to another part of whatever this was. The hallway had caved in, though, and the doorway was full of huge rocks. In the center of the room was a pedestal, made of metal and crystalline circuitry. Cables ran from the pedestal over to the collapsed hallway, and the two alcoves. On the pedestal sat a cube of high-density data crystal, bound in gold and stamped with the Imperial Aquila. It looked like the crystal storage mediums used for hololithic display units, but larger and probably much older.

[rax]

Hannabel briefly pokes her head through the hole to get a closer look at the artifact, before addressing Lieutenant Colburn. "That's a right shiny find you've got yourself, soldier boy. Has it done anything interesting besides just sitting there?"

[Haval]

We had a minor skirmish with the search parties the blockade sent down. They stopped bothering us after that, but it doesn't do to drop guard.

'So some of Quinn's people might still be around.' Anika will make sure the crew that are unloading the supplies are warned of the possibility.

In the mine she will climb down the ladder into the room to get a closer look at the object.

She will pull out her auto-quill and think aloud as she makes notes. 'So...we have some of sort of permanent structure which stayed up even when the roof fell in over there. Might be part of larger complex if we want to dig it up. Was this part of a larger human settlement? And if so, when was it built? Does it pre-date the Maw being opened?' No reason to assume it was that old. But even finding a colony that was set up more recently was still a discovery.

'And it's Imperial. So what is it doing here?'


Scrutiny to get a closer look
vs. Per 38 (Assistance from Hannabel if needed)
[roll0]

Forbidden Lore (Archaeotech) for more information about the cube
vs. Int 53
[roll1]

[Destro_Yersul]

"No. Like I said, we've not touched it. When the miners broke through the roof, they went and got me, and I told everyone not to do anything until we could get someone to examine it." Colburn stood by while they information regarding Quinn's men was relayed to the shuttles. When Anika went down the ladder, he stayed at the top, as a rearguard.

The cube was probably data storage of some sort. On close inspection of the pedestal, Anika found what looked like dataports, caked with dust. The cube wasn't connected, but it was set into a regularly-shaped recess on the pedestal. So, maybe this was a reader for whatever was inside it? There didn't seem to be any way to activate it, no control panel or anything like that. She could be sure, though, that it was quite old. Older than the more recent discovery of the Maw, anyways. She remembered a story, an old tale about an Explorator-Magos who had found the Koronus passage millenia ago. Unfortunately the fleet had been lost somewhere in the Expanse before the location and means of passage were recorded, and it hadn't been until much later when PurityLathimon charted the passage that exploration had really taken off. The cube was certainly older than a few hundred years, and the room was well-constructed to have stayed up as it had. Possibly this was a remnant of that time, then. Taking samples of the cube was likely a bad idea, but taking a sample of pedestal might work, if they wanted to try properly dating it.

Hololithic displays usually worked with some sort of laser reader, and a light source. The pedestal might be a projector, though very old and of a rather unusual and ancient design. With a power source, they'd be able to verify that. They might also wake up any systems attached to the cables, though if there was still some residual power somewhere and the cables hadn't been severed by the cave in, everything in here might be merely dormant in the first place.

[Leon]

Ravia followed the group into the mine and waited to descend into the room. Took one look at the relic and said ++Dark Age of Technology, without a doubt but as to what it contains is any guess and i would very much like to know.++

Studying it intently and making sweeps with here dendrites around it. ++One always hopes to find a STC, even a fragment++ She sets her Skull to record every detail of the room and relic while seeking to see what her auspex would reveal from the fallen hallway and the alcoves


and i forgot the roll: see OOC

[Haval]

++One always hopes to find a STC, even a fragment++

'If there's even a chance.' Anika is aware of how much they could make off the back of such a discovery. If some ancient Explorator had left this here the Mechanicus would probably appreciate hearing of it. 'But even if it's not that exciting I'd still like to know where it came from. Magos, do you think you can get it working?'

[Destro_Yersul]

The auspex sweep revealled a few things that couldn't be seen unaided. First, the alcoves were apparently not actually empty. Each wall had something with an energy signature hidden behind it. Not a large one, but something with power. There were a couple more in the ceiling, near the collapsed door. Part of a security system, likely. The pedestal still had power too, albeit only a trickle. That something down here had lasted, providing power for all that time, was quite impressive indeed. The auspex didn't pick up much of anything outside of the room, but that was to be expected. All of the rock would severely limit its range.

[Haval]

Anika will finish making notes and taking whatever samples she could obtain without damaging the device. 'Best guess. The cube was intended to store information. Probably a lot of it. Maybe whoever left it here used this room to access the info, either through holithic display or maybe through plugging themselves in if they were Mechanicus. Maybe this was something like a library at some point. We'd probably know more digging through that cave-in and see if it leads anywhere, but I don't see any reason to rush that unless we have some better idea of what we might be digging up.'

'I think given the way they stored it, whatever is on here is probably worth knowing. Or even if this is just my professional curiosity talking and it's not that interesting to the rest of you, I think switching it on might give us some idea of what it's doing here, and what else might be buried around here.'

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius arrives, having been held up with giving orders to the two ships and colonists. Per usual, he's been assuming that any non-noble he commands will do as told. Through a combination of charisma and being the commander of a significant military force, he is rarely proven wrong. Splendid, splendid. Excellent work as always. I do say, Magos Del'Karro, turning it on would be most wise. We ought to know what we've found before we bring it back to Jonell, what? Wouldn't do to damage sanctified archaeotech by moving it prematurely or to bring back what turns out to be some manner of vile heresy, eh? Besides, I find myself sharing Lady Vanhal's curiosity. Not every day we find ancient treasures of information at the bottom of a hole, if I do say so.

[rax]

"Well all right then! Say the prayers, squirt the libations, and show us what this glow globe's hiding, Magos!" Hannabel squeaks excitedly.

[Destro_Yersul]

Ravia nodded, stepping up to the podium and inserting a data-probe into one of the dusty old ports. The port sparked as she connected, some remnant of the ancient power still in the system. Muttering in binary, she hunched over the cube... to the spectators in the room, it looked as though not much was happening. The Magos navigated systems and activation codes invisible to the eye, but very real all the same.

Suddenly, the cube flickered. The inside lit up, and the projector came to life. Light shot out from all sides, filling the small chamber with stars, lines, and hovering notations in a millenia old form of high gothic. They could see planets, orbiting many of the stars. Ravia manipulated the display and it rotated around, focusing for a moment on things that looked interesting, then zooming out for a broader picture. It was a map, essentially, an ancient star chart of a detail and complexity most of them had never seen. Even if this was the only such artifact down here, Captain Jonell's colonists had stumbled across something that was very valuable indeed.

[Haval]

'Well look at that.' Anika will watch Ravia operate the controls so that she can understand how to do likewise, and will watch the map so that she can orientate herself. How long had the constellations and warp storms in the Expanse remained as they are now? She had never really paid attention to stellar navigation, but had been on enough ships to have a go at reading the device.


Probably should have a go at High Gothic
vs. Int 53 /2 - TN 27
[roll0]

Scrutiny if it helps
vs. Per 38
[roll1]

[rax]

"Oh! That's beautiful!" Hannabel exclaims in an almost reverential tone. "I'm no navigator, but just think of the places we could go if we can learn to read it..."

Mayhap Hannabel's skill in Common Lore (Koronus Expanse), Navigation (Stellar) and/or Scholastic Lore (Astromancy) could help identify some of the stars or planets on display?

All tests vs. Int 40:
Common Lore (Koronus Expanse) [roll0]
Navigation (Stellar) [roll1]
Scholastic Lore (Astromancy) [roll2]

[Destro_Yersul]

Hannabel had more luck than Anika in reading the map. She couldn't necessairly make out the notations either, but her experience in stellar navigation told; she found Burnscour first, up near the edge of the map, surrounded by warning symbols. Following the stable warp routes from there, she found the twin stars of the Serpent's Cradle, and the twelve worlds orbiting them. Lucin's Breath, the Undred-Undred Teef... the area covered by the map was vast, and while many of the worlds marked as surveyed had been rediscovered already, some had not. The trailing fringes of the Expanse were beyond the domain of the map, but that was hardly a let-down compared to the huge number of stars it did cover.

[PotatoGolem]

Marvelous, Magos, marvelous! Truly a splendid discovery. Hmm, I wonder what the writing says. Let's see... Old Gothic was never my strong suit, I'm afraid. Dreadfully boring stuff, if I do say so myself. A thought for you, Magos: would it be possible to copy this data to our ship's cogitators? While we will of course return the device to Captian Jonell, having this information could prove immensely useful.

Linguistics (High Gothic): [roll0] vs 38

[Haval]

Marvelous, Magos, marvelous! Truly a splendid discovery. Hmm, I wonder what the writing says. Let's see... Old Gothic was never my strong suit, I'm afraid. Dreadfully boring stuff, if I do say so myself. A thought for you, Magos: would it be possible to copy this data to our ship's cogitators? While we will of course return the device to Captian Jonell, having this information could prove immensely useful.

'If it's not easily copied then perhaps Jonell would agree to share access to the map. At least as long it's still here.' There was always the possibility that Jonell would prefer to sell it on. 'It's a big Expanse and he can't explore all of it by himself.'

To Colburn, 'Lieutenant, whether or not you're going to dig up the rest of this complex, I suggest you be careful mining around this area. The map is obviously extremley valuable by itself, but there may be more archaeotech buried around here and I would hate to see it broken.'

[Leon]

++Its not the STC i was hoping for but this will be of significant use++

++Not easily, no. great risk in trying to copy such data to a machine of our age from one of the Dark Age++

[Destro_Yersul]

"Do you think there might be more of this down here?" Colburn asked. "We could dig out that cave-in no problem, put in a few braces to keep things stable... I don't think the Captain would want us to drop the regular mining to focus on this entirely, but we could spare a shift and have the rest of it cleared out over time. Unless you think it might be dangerous. I'm a bit surprised nothing happened when you turned that thing on."

[Leon]

++Undoubtedly more down that passage as the cables come from there and with careful work further wonders should be uncovered++

[rax]

"Clever, soldier-boy. Always scout the location properly first. How about it Magos, can you detect anything like a security system connected to the map projector? I'd hate to be down here if the whole room's gonna blow up when we start shifting that rubble."

[Haval]

Anika has stopped adjusting the map and has gone to stand in front of the cave in to see if she could hear anything. 'Dangerous? That depends. If they have a security system to set off perhaps there's an alarm going off somewhere to set guards on us that have been dead for centuries. Or if they have automated defences would they still be working after all this time with no one to maintain them? How long does a servitor last anyway?'

She has some idea about how quickly things could go bad in these situations, but this was hardly the same. She had at least a chance of understanding old human tech.

[Leon]

++Might not be a servitor as we know it, Dark Age held so much that we have lost and if this relic is still active much more could be aswell++

[Destro_Yersul]

"Alright, I'll take that as a 'be careful.' We're pretty good with typical mining hazards, but I wouldn't want the colonists to run into anything they have to fight. Just clearing out the rubble ought to be fine. I'll issue a standing order that nobody touches anything that looks valuable, and if anything moves we block it off with the biggest rocks we can find." Colburn gestured to the cube. "You going to take that one with you? The Captain will want to see it, I'm sure. With the blockade cleared out, I can start getting the colonists moved back down to the main buildings, and we'll help get all the supplies stowed away."

As the Lieutenant was talking, their commbeads crackled to life. Macharius' men had swept the colony, and found no trace of Quinn's search parties. They must have all returned to their ship before the Sting had arrived.

[Leon]

During the two weeks of high orbit Ravia splits her time between organizing further repairs to the Talon and working in the lab on both servitors and siphoning as much information from the box as possible that is relevant to her studies

[Destro_Yersul]

Macharius ordered the Talon hauled in for repairs. With the system empty now that Quinn's blockade was gone, the two ships entered station above Jonell's colony and set about the dual tasks of patching the worst of the holes and giving the crew some much-needed shore leave. They worked in shifts, directed by Ravia, scurrying over the Talon in void suits. For days, the flash of welding torches could be seen all across the hull. The hull breach was covered by plates pulled up from storage, and the damaged systems were brought back online. There was no repairing the void shields, which had taken a direct hit from one of the Sting's missiles. Still, there was work that could be done. Shorn beams were hacked off, debris removed, hookups capped... in the end the space was largely empty, ready to recieve a new generator once they had acquired one. Until then, the Talon couldn't be considered truly voidworthy, but she could transit warp and fight if she needed to.

The rest of the crew were not idle while the work was going on. Pytho sent a message to Jonell, telling him they'd picked up his artifact and would be on hand to deliver it at the appointed place. Anika divided her time between the colony and the Librarium, overseeing mining work and digging up old records. The miners worked quickly, but the cave-in turned out to be quite significant. By the end of the two weeks they'd cleared much of the initial corridor, shoring up the tunnel with beams cut from the local forests. The room they'd stumbled upon looked to be part of some larger complex, perhaps a fortress or waystation. Excavating the whole thing would take time, but the initial results were promising.

The results from the Librarium were interesting, if perhaps less promising. There was still nothing detailling where the ship had been built, the earliest entry Anika could find in the logs picking up with her already in operation. She'd spent some time as a pirate vessel, been captured by a Rogue Trader from a family she'd never heard of, and then been sold when the fortunes started failing. Time as a chartist escort, time as a cold trader, bought, sold, eventually ending up as part of Quinn's fleet. Nothing looked especially untowards, though there were long lapses in some of the record keeping. The ship had spent most of its life in the Expanse, rarely entering the Imperium proper. Interestingly, the Hymn-casters seemed to predate the early log entries, meaning the ship had probably been built with them installed.

Macharius himself spent much of his time in the Laboratorium, going over map data with the Navigators. They were joined by Father Ornstein, the Sting's surly Confessor, who turned out to have quite the talent for tracing lost branches of High Gothic. He informed the Lord Captain that many of the labels and notations on the map were explanatory in nature, the result of long-range augur scans and sample analysis. There were quite a few good-looking worlds in terms of mineral wealth and exotic beasts, but many were too dangerous to plant a proper colony on, or had already been rediscovered and claimed. Some, though, had almost certainly not been. Macharius noted the locations, and the Navigators noted the routes, to reach some of the best ones, including one frozen world that had registered very high concentrations of prometheum-grade ice.

Finally, Ravia declared the repairs as complete as possible given the time and resources at hand, and the two ships made ready to leave.



The journey through the warp was rougher than usual, this time around. The immaterium beat against the gellar fields, battering against the Sting and the Talon. They arrived together, in the empty patch of space they'd selected to meet Jonell. They were a little early, the rough ride having translated into increased speed, and the other Rogue Trader had yet to arrive. They were alone in the void.

Despite the solitude, the bridge was still busy. It was never a good idea to drop guard, even when you were apparently alone. The Expanse was a dangerous place, after all. The crew kept quiet, focusing on their work. A few hours after arrival, Macharius noticed that the crewman at the auspex console had turned to look in his direction.

"Sir? Picking up a distress beacon on the long range. Imperial."

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius looks concerned.

Any indication of who it is? What are they saying? Perform long range auspex sweeps- we don't want to fall for our own false signal trick.

[Haval]

'Or of who is doing the attacking for that matter? Although it might be poetic justice for someone to trick us in turn, they still need to see us coming.'

Anika will think for a moment of Rak'gol and the rumours surrounding them, but she won't mention that to the others.

On phone, so I'll probably roll detection after work.

[rax]

"Just because there's a distress beacon it doesn't mean anyone has to be attacking, you know. Could just be an accident of some kind. But just in case, Lord Commander, now would be a good time for the Sting to go to silent running. The Talon can be our bait - she may not be in any fit state to fight, but she's as fast as we are and her sensors are even better, so if this is a trap, she can draw in the attackers and the Sting can ready a counter ambush."

[Destro_Yersul]

"It's a cargo hauler. Torgan's Pride? The signal's faint, but..." The crewman flipped a switch on his console. "General request for assistance. Their ship's been... hit by something, maybe? I'll put it on the vox."

The bridge's address system crackled to life, playing the recording. "...is Torgan's Pride. There's been a mishap. Captain's down. Requesting help from any Imperial vessels in range at these coordinates. Message repeats."

It didn't sound like they were under attack. The message was too calm for that. It didn't sound like they were saying everything, either, but that was only prudent given the nature of the beacon. Pretty much anyone could have picked up the signal.

Waiting to see a Detection roll before I give you more

[Haval]

'A mishap. That doesn't sound so bad. Perhaps they hit an asteroid.'

Anika will watch the augary for sign of any ships in their vicinity.

Rolled augary in the ooc thread. Failed unless it's easier then challenging or I'm getting assistance.

[Destro_Yersul]

'Vicinity' was perhaps an overstatement. Jonell had picked this patch of space for their meetup because it was empty and far from, or supposed to be far from, anything else. Anika worked the augurs, cycling through the various sensor suites available. Finally, she picked something up just over half a million kilometers away. It was far enough out that even at the Sting's speed, it would take them over two hours to get there. The scans picked up one ship, about the right size for a transport, and one very large object. It looked like it could be another ship, but the readings that should have been there - drive emissions, oxygen content, thermals - weren't present. Whatever it was, it was big and metallic, and surrounded by a number of smaller metallic anomalies. Debris, maybe. Or a small asteroid field. The readouts were full of strange sensor ghosts, flickers of heat and gravitational fluctuations causing spikes and valleys to appear on the screen. It was too regular in shape to be an asteroid, too small to be a space hulk, and there had to be a reason for the transport to be near it.

There did not, however, seem to be any other lurking surprises. The transport was the only ship on the charts, apart from them and the Talon.

[Haval]

Anika will pass on this information. 'Maybe they collided with each other, or else the transport thought that it was something worth boarding. Could be a structure of some kind. Although I don't know what it's doing out here.'


Forbidden Lore (Xenos) vs. Int 53
To have heard of ship's that resemble that

[roll0]

[rax]

"Everything looks to be made of Imperial standard alloys, so whatever it is, I don't think it's xenos," Hannabel offers. "I still think we should make like a ghost and then close to visual range. Let the Talon move in a bit ahead of us and answer the distress call, and we can float along in her wake, all nice and quiet. And with our auspexes, we can keep an eye open for any ambushers without giving away our position."

[Destro_Yersul]

Orders were issued, and the Talon went on ahead. The Sting followed behind, augurs active. For a couple of hours nothing changed, the backdrop of stars against an endless ocean of black barely even shifting as they sailed through it. Slowly, a pair of shapes resolved against the stars. One small, one large. Once it reached visual range, the Talon hailed the cargo vessel. They had orders to relay the conversation back to the Sting, and the comms officer kept the channel open so they could hear what was going on.

"Torgan's Pride from House Absalom vessel Talon. We've recieved your beacon and are moving in to assist. What is your situation?"

"Thank the Emperor! We're glad to see you, Talon. Don't get too close to the big wreck, there was some kind of discharge and our engines are fried. Haven't been able to get them running again. The reactor works, so we've got power, at least."

As the Sting got closer, and they were able to bring up the two objects on the exterior cameras, they saw why the augurs had been having so much trouble with the large one. It was a huge starship, or it used to be. It was badly damaged, some long-distant battle having practically gutted one side. Entire decks were crumpled in, ragged wounds in the hull trailing debris as it drifted slowly through void. Miraculously it seemed to still have some power, as a handful of lights remained on, but for the most part it looked dark, cold, and dead. The proud figurehead was still intact, a lonely sentinel on the vessel's silent journey.

"Do you have anyone on board with experience repairing Jovian 1's?" the cargo ship was saying. "Our techpriest thinks some of the plasma couplings might have burned out, and that's why we can't get power to the engines. Also, our captain's... well, he's missing. He took a shuttle down to the wreck with a crew, to try and identify the valuable parts. We were getting some weird flickers on the auspex, and he wanted to be sure. We lost contact, though, haven't heard from him for a couple of hours."

That, combined with the massive clamps visible hanging under the superstructure, made their purpose here somewhat more clear. This was a salvage ship. They'd probably been trying to attach to the larger vessel when the accident happened, which also explained the extra debris floating around.

[Haval]

"I still think we should make like a ghost and then close to visual range. Let the Talon move in a bit ahead of us and answer the distress call, and we can float along in her wake, all nice and quiet. And with our auspexes, we can keep an eye open for any ambushers without giving away our position."

'Seems like common sense to me. I don't think there's ever a reason not to do that. Unless we're worried about living up to the Sting's reputation.' Anika did not care about the sort of people that might judge them based on their ship's reputation, but she assumed that Macharius at least thought differently.

As they got closer to the transport ship Anika will press her face closer to the augary to see what she could make out, 'Well it's not an ambush. Is that thing even Imperial?'


vs. Per 38 (+20 Sting's detection)
[roll0]

[PotatoGolem]

That looks... worrisome. Mostly because it's not destroyed, whatever it is. The power is on and the weapons are online....

He turns back to face his officers. His orders come sharp and fast.


Helmsman! Keep us away from the wreck. Don't get any closer to that Throne-forsaken thing than necessary. Master Enginseer! Ensure that our shields are at full power.

Magos, Doctor, what in the Emperor's name are we looking at? Can you identify anything about it? Mistress Shanx, any other signals out here? The Fist should be here soon, and I don't want anything else creeping up on us. Master Pythonissam, what does the Warp show? Is that thing tainted by Chaos sorcery?

[Destro_Yersul]

The Sting's helmsman responded to Macharius' orders at once, turning the ship on a course oblique to the derelict instead of straight at it. Pytho responded as well, reaching out through the warp. "I can't sense any corruption," he reported after a moment. "There's some background noise, but something that large would stick out if it was tainted, and it doesn't."

Anika dialed down the augurs, focusing in on the wreck. It looked Imperial, though of an older pattern than the common Lunar-class. The sensors played over its surface, probing its secrets. There was a strange flicker there, now that they were in closer to it. Almost like there were two ships, overlaid on top of each other. There was clearly only one, though. Interference, maybe, from interstellar radiation. Anika increased the gain to compensate, and the flickers coalesced into one image. The data from the scans scrolled by on the augur screen, reading more like a casualty report than something you'd get from a functional starship. The engines were gone, destroyed long ago, and the life sustainers were gone as well. Nearly everything else was in various stages of disrepair. Multiple decks were open to void, and there was a gaping rent in one side where macrobatteries should have been. The gellar fields were still online, though, powered by a set of auxiliary generators. Likely not enough juice for the thing to fire its weapons, if there was even anyone alive over there. The augurs were picking up a few faint lifesigns, but that was probably the other captain and his salvage crew.

You got three degrees of success, which is enough for everything on the wreck. Here's the full laundry list:
No plasma drives
Miloslav H-616.b warp drive (damaged)
Warpsbane Hull
Repulsor Shield array (depressurised)
Fleet Flag bridge (unpowered)
No life sustainers
Cold Quarters
Auto-stabilised Logis-targeter (damaged)
Portside: Hecutor plasma broadside, Hecutor plasma battery
Starboard: Hecutor plasma broadside (Damaged), nothing
Prow: Best-Craftsmanship Godsbane Lance (Damaged)
Auxiliary Plasma Banks
Field Bracing (Damaged)
Munitorium (Damaged)
Teleportarium (Unpowered, Depressurised)
Tenebro-Maze (Depressurised)

[Leon]

++Its a very old design now more commonly associated with the Archenemy than with Imperial Navy, it was then what the Lunar class is now++

[Haval]

'The ship looks mostly dead. I wonder what killed them? Might be recoverable eventually but I assume it would take a lot of work.'


++Its a very old design now more commonly associated with the Archenemy than with Imperial Navy, it was then what the Lunar class is now++

'But the Archenemy ships were once loyal weren't they?' Anika does not sound sure of that. 'So either this is a survivour from those times that did not become tainted, or it was wrecked even earlier. The Navy might have an idea if anyone would. We should see if we can find out it's name.'

[rax]

"Oh, she's definitely Navy, alright. See the sigil over there?" Hannabel says, pointing out a winged sigil. "And that icon near the bow says she belonged to Battlefleet Solar. Don't know what battlegroup though," she continues, chewing on her lip as she stares at the augur screen in concentration. "I don't think she was always Navy, though. Looks to me like a lot of the Navy iconography was added later, so she was probably commissioned by... other interests... before the Imperial Navy took her over."

[Leon]

'But the Archenemy ships were once loyal weren't they?'

++Yes, not all of those ships from the now tainted classes fell when the others did but they are no longer used given the reputation of the ones that have, the damage to this one makes any guess at its age or what happened hard to judge beyond the lack of obvious corruption. That the Gellars are still active is worrisome that they are holding something back++

[Haval]

++That the Gellars are still active is worrisome that they are holding something back++

'And something seems to have found the Pride's captain and his people. Assuming it's not just a matter of their vox being broken.' To Macharius, 'Assuming we're going over there to take a look we might want to let the Pride know we're here. Wouldn't want any misunderstandings.'

[PotatoGolem]

Going over to take a look? He stares levelly at Anika for a good amount of time, then turns back to the rest. Here's what we know. The augurs are picking up two ships superimposed on each other. The heraldry is Navy on top of something else, and it's of a class used almost exclusively by the Archenemy. It somehow fried out the Pride and disappeared the salvage crew. Finally, the Gellar fields are still up, even when everything else is dead, indicating that this was the most pressing and urgent need. This stinks of Warp-witchery to me. The Emperor smiles on the bold, but he frowns on the foolhardy. Let's not all jump to have our sols ravaged by the warpship, shall we? Magos, can you attach sensors and a relay to a servitor team, so that we can send them to explore. We may as well tell the Pride we're here, though.

He turns to the inter-ship vox link. This is Lord-Commander Macharius Absalom of the House Absalom flagship Manticore's Sting. We have received your communication and are approaching to assist in the Emperor's name. We will maintain our distance from the Hulk. Relay all information you have available on the Hulk- it looks unpowered now, but we wouldn't be overly surprised if it was far from harmless.

He turns back to the auspex crew.

Just to be on the safe side, perform an extended scan of the Pride and keep weapons and shields ready until it completes.

[Destro_Yersul]

Turning the augurs towards Torgan's Pride, Anika started a scan of that ship as well. They had a Jovian Class 1, like they'd said. It looked alright from a distance, but the engines were powered down, so something was definitely wrong there. Burnt plasma couplings was one of the possible culprits. The Warp Drive was an Albanov, which meant the Pride would be slow, but about as safe as warp travel could get. Someone had evidently wanted to save power, though, and had opted for a Gellar-void integrant. It was a thoroughly terrible decision, even with the safer drive.

The voice on the vox sounded surprised to have a second ship show up so closely behind the first. "We're grateful for the assist, Lord-Commander. We took some pretty detailed auguries before we moved in to attach. I'll have those sent over."

There was some shouting in the background, and information started scrolling down the communications consoles a moment or two later. It was mostly the same as what they'd picked up from their own scans; extremely limited power provided by the auxiliary generators, nearly everything broken or otherwise offline. The augur arrays, Teleportarium and lance were pretty clearly the most valuable components. The arrays and teleportarium were priceless pieces of archeotech, and the lance wasn't far behind. The portside batteries were undamaged, but the Pride clearly hadn't taken a hit from a plasma macrobattery; that would have left more than a couple of scorch marks. There wasn't anyone left to fire it, either. A power surge wasn't out of the question, though, or an arc from the comprimised warp drive. If a charge had built up in the hull, contact through the Pride's salvage clamps...

Basic success gets you everything except augurs and void shields:
Jovian 1 plasma drive
Albanov 1 warp drive
Mezoa-Gellar void integrant
Commerce Bridge
Vitae pattern life sustainer
Clan-kin quarters

[Haval]

Anika will try to look impassive as she fiddled with the auspex.

Was the ship corrupted? Perhaps, but Pytho couldn't see anything, and Anika would thus prefer to be sure before they scuttled it. Whatever else was going on here she was not sure how much they could find out remotely. Although boarding an underpowered and mostly depressurised wreck would not be her first choice, she wouldn't want anyone else to go in her stead. But she could not fault Macharius' reasoning either.

[Destro_Yersul]

Ravia prepared twelve servitors, which dutifully filed in to an Arvus and were sent off to explore the wreck. Each was equipped with a vox feed and full audiovisual sensor arrays. The Arvus was piloted by another servitor, since it was a simple shuttle mission back and forth, and none of the human pilots had exactly wanted to volunteer. They watched it on the auspex as it vectored in to the wreck, settling in one of the great rifts in the hull to disgorge its cargo before returning.

One by one, the servitors shuffled through the ship. Their journey was recorded on grainy pict-feeds, broadcast back to the Sting through a relay the shuttle had dropped off. Two had been dispatched to the bridge, but both of them got lost almost immediately, wandering through empty halls and stomping into rooms long abandoned. Everywhere they found evidence of an ancient battle, fought long ago. The walls were pocked and scarred by weapons fire, the floors littered with forgotten equipment. Everything organic had long since turned to dust, at least in the parts of the ship that still had air. The air that existed was by no means breathable, fouled without a proper recycling system to sustain it. Fortunately, the servitors did not need to breathe.

Both of the drones sent to check on the gellar fields eventually found their way there. The old generators were in remarkably good repair, despite having operated for ages. A small handful of servitors were present, engaged in maintenance tasks. One was trying to apply sacred oils, entirely unaware that its dispensor had run dry. The rest plodded about unconcerned, or sat idle in charging stations. The hatches that led to the generator chamber bore witness to heavy fighting, but here at least it seemed the defenders had prevailed. Though who, or what, they had been fighting against was unclear. Time eroded the bones of the faithful and heretic alike.

The servitors sent to check on the plasma drives were foiled, but not because they got lost; the chamber where the vast generators had once sat was gone, torn open to void. Conduits ended in jagged ruin, and a mess of cables drifted in a tangle. Ravia had done her job well, though, and rather than pitching themselves into space the servitors turned about and went searching for the auxiliary banks. Here, as with the gellar fields, they found things in good repair. Undoubtedly the maze-like nature of the ship had helped preserve the towering capacitor arrays and power plants, which were buried deep within the substructure. Fuel for the great generators had nearly run dry, the giant coils still producing power out of the dregs that remained.

Of the two that went looking for the Pride's missing captain, only one made it. The first tried to head down a darkened corridor, the feeds struggling to filter through the darkness. The lights in this section of the ship were dead, the blackness complete. There was a sudden lurch as the machine missed its footing, and a thud as it landed three decks down. The last image from its picter was blood-spattered deckplates, lit by the sickly green of the servitor's optics, before it flickered and died. The other was more fortunate, winding its way through to the teleportarium. The glow of a work lamp betrayed the position of the captain and his crew - there were five of them in all, slumped to the ground in their void suits. The suits were undamaged, their breath misting the interior of their transparent faceplates. They appeared asleep.

The remaining four servitors had mixed success. Navigating the winding corridors of the ship would have been difficult even if it weren't a half-airless hulk, but in its current state the challenge was greatly increased. One of the servitors wandered for hours without finding anything more than old shrines to the omnissiah, scattered about in forgotten corners. Another suffered a similar fate to the seventh, ending its mechanical life when the decking beneath it tore free with a screech of tormented metal. The other two had better luck, one wandering into the powered sections of the wreck. The fighting seemed to have been lighter here, and they got several good images of barracks and mess halls that looked servicable, if in need of some polish and new fittings. The background hum of old machinery followed the servitor around as it explored the various crew areas, before linking up with the last servitor just as it made perhaps the most significant discovery: following a trail of ancient stains on the decking, the two servitors happened upon a suit of ruined power armour.

The armour was bare of paint, the iron-grey ceramite pitted and scored in a dozen places. The trim on the armoured plates was hammered gold, held in place by tarnished brass rivets. It was sitting on the deck, leaning against the wall where its owner had died. One gauntlet still held a massive boltgun, its casing painted with black and yellow hazard stripes. The same design was repeated on one of the ovoid kneepads, and the left shoulderpad bore a grinning skull device. The helmet looked like a knight's helmet, such as might be seen on a feudal world: a heavy reinforced brow ridge, a single narrow vision slit, its lens cracked and broken, and an angular front plate to deflect hits. Here at last was a hint towards who the occupants of the ship had been fighting.

[Haval]

'Traitor Legionary' Anika mutters. She feels sick. This was like seeing a monster from a storybook come to life.

Recovering, she will try to remember what she could from the Apocrypha of Skaros. 'Judging by the iconography, that was a member of the Legio Astartes, specifically the 4th, the Iron Warriors. They were amongst those who spat on their oaths to the Emperor. I take it they were the ones that destroyed the ship. That armour is an antique, and would be a priceless relic of the Astartes if anyone else was wearing it. As it is I'm not sure if it's even safe for us to go near it.'

Then there was the other thing, 'And while I'm hardly knowledgable about these things, judging by the state of the armour, this one may have died early in the Heresy War. That would mean that there is a possibility that this ship was from the time of the Great Crusade.'

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius pales briefly. A traitor legionary. A Fallen Angel. Heresy and blasphemy made flesh to war upon the righteous. He shakes himself together Mustn't let the crew see weakness. They'll look to their leader for inspiration.

By the Golden Throne! A Traitor Astartes. This ship is ill-omened indeed, floating in the void since the days of that foulest of heresies. A priceless treasure, tarnished by an inconceivable vileness. No wonder the Navy lost- what can mere men do against such foes?

And what sorcery is this, that the scavenger crew have fallen asleep? I doubt that they'd settle down for a nap in a space hulk. Magos, have the servitors attempt to rouse the captain and crew. I would know what's happened to them

[Destro_Yersul]

Ravia had limited ability to issue orders to the servitor remotely. The machines had been programmed for exploration, not to handle the task of trying to wake someone up. It nudged the captain a few times, failing to successfully rouse him. It tried to request assistance from the other servitors, but couldn't reach them through the many layers of decking and armour. Eventually it settled on retrieval, simply picking up the unconscious men and hauling them back up to the room they'd entered from. The servitor could only really carry one at a time, and so the work took it several trips. On the last trip, it took a wrong turn, quickly vanishing down the twisting corridors. The last of the salvage crew was left in the Teleportarium, destined to go unrecovered by the plodding machine. The remaining servitors, with typical robotic unconcern for their newly missing fellows, awaited retrieval from the shuttle with their charges.

Of the twelve servitors dispatched to explore the hulk, only six managed to find their way back. They loaded the salvage team onto the shuttle, and prepared to return to the Sting. Halfway there, the captain and his men started to wake up.

[Haval]

What was wrong with the Pride's crewmen that they should lose consciousness but somehow still be alive. Were their suits leaking, or was it something else?

Seeing that they seemed to waking up in the shuttle, Anika will speak to them directly over the vox. 'Captain, this is the House Absalom vessel Manticore's Sting. Your people lost contact with you, and you seemed to be in some difficulty, so we chose to pull you out of there. Can you tell us what happened?'

[Destro_Yersul]

"What? Where... nng" The captain sat up to find himself surrounded by servitors and still in his voidsuit. "We entered the ship. Made our way to... teleportarium. Got tired. I was.. dreaming, I think. There was a battle, and the ship was getting hit hard. We were aboard the wreck, me and my crew, but it wasn't wrecked. It was still active, fighting. Not sure who."

[rax]

"You're in luck, Captain, we have a lead on that! Our servitors found a dead traitor Astartes further in," Hannabel interrupts cheerily. "Judging from the armour, our antiquities expert thinks he may have been laying about since the Great Crusade, so him and his lot are probably what the old girl was fighting when she went down for the count."

[Haval]

'The battle was still going on?' So memories of the ship's death lingered on in some fashion. 'We found you unconscious. Do you require a medic?'

She will briefly mute their side of the call to talk to the others without being overheard. 'The state we found them in. I imagine living through the echo of an ancient battle might have quite the impact if you aren't expecting it. Otherwise, if they felt the ship being attacked, they might just have been knocked about a bit. We might want to have Pytho take a look at them on general principles.'

[Destro_Yersul]

"Great Crusade? She's that old? Suppose I should have guessed... Astartes? Throne of Terra." There was a moment of silence as the captain evaluated his position. "I think we're fine. We have enough air left in the suits, no leaks. I'm missing a man, though. There should have been five of us."

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius raises an eyebrow at the Captain's explanation. He speaks into a command-crew-only vox to not alert the Pride or the salvage team. And to shield his own crew from the awful knowledge of Chaos.

Docking crew, hold the shuttle in a quarantine bay on the Talon. Ravia, have the shuttle servitor slow their approach to give us time to prepare. Astropath Pythonissam, Father Demetrius, transit to the Talon to examine the salvage crew for possible warp taint. Talon, have your Navigator Secundus join them. It appears they may have been exposed to Warp influences, and we cannot risk corruption spreading to our crews.

[Haval]

That approach felt right. The Pride's crew deserved a chance. If it was that easy for the warp to corrupt someone then humanity was in more trouble then most realised. Anyone who fought the Archenemy would only be another potential vector for it's influence.

To Macharius over the command vox, 'What of the wreck? If we cannot get anything useful out of it we could record it's
co-ordinates and pass them on. The Navy or the Mechanicus might be interested.' So might the Inquisition for that matter.


"There should have been five of us."

No reason to lie about that. 'Our servitors were unable to get close enough to bring them out. Are you able to contact them?'

[Destro_Yersul]

"Not if they're still asleep, like we were. I can vox them, but that's it."

The shuttle vectored in to the Talon, landing in a disused bay near the keel. Pytho, Father Demetrius, and the Talon's navigator met it there. The cleric had with him a copy of the Litanies of Faith, and ended up not doing very much. As the crew disembarked, he explained where they were, and why. Pytho examined each, peering sightlessly at them and muttering to himself. He reported back that he couldn't sense any sorcery, they hadn't the stink of chaos on them. Certainly none of them were psykers, and probably hadn't been affected by one recently. The navigator's report was more interesting.

"The warp clings to them faintly," she told Macharius and the other officers. "But it's not an active presence. It's... an echo, likely of trauma caused by the deaths of so many aboard the wreck. Part of that ship is still fighting its last battle. The crew experienced a residual psychoactive phenomena as a result of that echo, and it's almost certain the same would occur to others who boarded. It didn't happen to the servitors because they're stupid blind machines. It also shouldn't have any lasting effects. Once you leave the ship, it vanishes in a few hours. Almost exactly like a dream. Of course, if you want to use the ship for anything, you'll need to figure out what to do about it."

[Leon]

++Very interesting, the empyrean clings to them and retains a echo of the ships last battle. This is a intriguing topic that is worthy of further study if the time is allotted, maybe not here but as much data as i can gather will be inloaded to the laboratory++

[rax]

"Could we rig something to block out the echo? I mean, I fought warp-cursed traitors many a time in the Navy and this here" - Hannabel taps her helm - "saved my noggin more than once when there were mindbenders among them. Maybe Magos Ravia can make us something similar?"

[Haval]

'Or at least find some way to block it out enough so that no one loses consciousness.' Anika mutters. If there was some echo of an ancient battle aboard the wreck, part of her wanted to witness it rather than block it out entirely.

Still, perhaps something solid could still be recovered.

Tech-Use to make Magneto's helmet? :smallsmile:

[Destro_Yersul]

"It would help," the Navigator allowed. "Wards, psy-blocking helmets like yours. A blank, if you could stand to be around them. The real problem is going to be finding a long-term solution. If we knew more about the last battle and how it ended, we'd be better equipped to come up with strategies other than simple avoidance. Those helmets are expensive; you don't want to have to outfit an entire crew with them."

It would be Trade (Armourer), not Tech-Use. You'd also need the specific special materials to make it.

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius claps his hands. Splendid, splendid! We shall of course sally forth and see what we can learn then. If there's no chance of corruption, we'd be derelict in our duty as the Emperor's emissaries to shrink back. Master Pytho, can you or any of our other astropaths shield our minds to stop us from going comatose? Magos Ravia, your studies are of course appreciated, as is your diligence in data-gathering. If you can devise a method of shielding us as well I'd be most appreciative. Do we have any blanks in the crew that could help? Although a thought arises: perhaps by immersing ourselves in the past for short periods of time, we could learn about what happened. That way, we'd be able to come up with a long-term solution

He leans over and speaks into the ship-to-ship vox. Torgan's Pride and salvage team, this is Lord-Commander Macharius Absalom. The salvage team has been cleared of warp influences. However, the ship is not safe to approach- it bedevils the mind and benumbs the senses, as the salvage team found. As Saint Eustantine said, a moment of laxity spawns a lifetime of heresy. As such, only the most strongly shielded by their faith in the God-Emperor and His holy works and aided by his glorious astropaths transcendant should approach it. I myself will lead a team of my finest crew to recover your missing comrade and get to the bottom of this. Captain, the shuttle will return you to the Pride along with our technomats to attempt repairs.

[Destro_Yersul]

Pytho confirmed he would be able to place the guiding light of the Emperor upon them, strengthening their minds against assault. It would not be a perfect defense, but it would increase their odds. Unfortunately, finding a blank would be considerably harder. Such individuals are exceptionally rare, and even with the large crew pool to draw from there was no guarantee they'd find one. The preparations to go over to the wreck, as such, were not lengthy. The captain and his crew were transferred back to the Pride with a crew of techpriests to start work on the damaged drive. Pytho intoned a prayer, a corona of golden light briefly surrounding the Aquila pendant he was wearing. The weight of the world seemed to lift, as though the hand of the Emperor himself was guiding them along their path. The shuttle launched.

Inside the passenger compartment, it was hard to see the wreck looming larger as they approached, but they could feel it out there. It was huge, an ancient relic of humanity's distant past, a piece of history made real. Once, it had fought the true Enemy. Now it was a tragic figure, drifting alone through the vastness of space, its only company the ghosts of the battle that had seen it nearly slain.

If you have anything you want to do prior to boarding the wreck, you can do it in a time-skip. Just tag the relevant parts of your post with (then) and (now) or something similar, so I know what's referring to what. Also, I need a WP test from everyone. If you have anything that protects against psychic powers, like Hannabel's helmet, that applies. You also all get +10 from Pytho's power. Do you want to bring along anyone other than the PCs on this mission? If you do, they'll need rolls as well. Use the Crew rating unless otherwise specified. Anything with the Machine trait does not need to test.

Here's the test for Pytho, so I don't forget: [roll0]

[Haval]

Then

Anika will prepare in the usual way that she prepares for going into somewhere that might be dangerous. She will recover all of her weapons and armour from her quarters and will pick up a voidsuit from the Sting's eqiupment stores. Perhaps it wouldn't be enough for the possibility of moving in vacuum, but better to be prepared anyway.

She will forgo any mental preparation. The Navigator's verdict had been comforting and, in her grandfather's words, the Emperor helps those who help themselves. It had always worked for her so far.

[PotatoGolem]

THEN

Macharius prepares for boarding the Hulk by retiring to the officers' chapel to pray. He spends a good deal of time in prayer, meditating on the power and glory of the God-Emperor and his exalted place in His glorious plans. By His will, Macharius will vanquish the remnants of the Enemy. What the Emperor wills, Macharius will achieve.

After praying, he dons his armor, jump-pack, and armaments, secure in the Emperor's guidance.

NOW

Macharius sits in the shuttle, one hand resting on his Rosarius. He's flanked by a cadre of servitors he brought along to carry out artifacts or crew members who get overwhelmed.

[rax]

THEN
Eager to get to exploring, Hannabel stops by her quarters to pick up her personal equipment, then drops by the ship's stores to pick up a pair of glow-globes, extra air canisters for her helmet rebreather, and clip harness in case climbing becomes necessary.

By the time Lord Commander Absalom arrives, she's already waiting in the shuttle.

NOW
Hannabel stares out of the shuttle's porthole, gazing in wonder and anticipation at the ancient warship.

[Destro_Yersul]

The 'bay' that the shuttle landed in was the same one where it had set down the servitors not long ago. It hadn't originally been a bay, but the shattered armour had opened it to void just the same. This section of the ship still had power to the deck plating, at least, and so they didn't have to worry about floating away. There would be sections of the ship that were undoubtedly dark. When they stepped off the shuttle, a creeping sense of unease stole its way over them. Most were able to shake it off without too much trouble. The weight of years on this place was immense, its last battle having taken place so long ago that the bodies of its slain had crumbled away, even their bones turned to dust by the ceaseless grind of time. Their footsteps echoed mutely through the decking, communication with each other only possible via voxlink in the hard vacuum of the room. Pressing on a short distance into the ship, their flashlights and lumen-globes playing over the walls, was a much different experience than watching the servitors do it over grainy video. It was more real, somehow, the darkness and quiet more oppressive.

Turning down one corridor, Hannabel's boot hit something that skittered away with a metallic tinkling sound. It was a shell casing, the floor here littered with them. The walls were covered in impact marks. The servitors had barely seen any of the ship in their search for its primary components and the missing salvage crew, and vast sections of it were still up for exploration. This area appeared to be part of a small munitions locker for the crew, stenciled signage over a nearby door proclaiming the room to be 'armoury C-5.' A glance inside revealed empty weapon racks and a bank of personal lockers, many of the doors hanging loose or broken off entirely. The sigil of the Imperial Navy was visible on a plate on the floor, which had fallen from where it had been hastily bolted to the wall. Underneath was a different sigil, one which Anika recognised from the Imperium's history; the Imperialis Auxilia, split into the Guard and Navy after the Great Heresy.

As the group left the room, Anika thought she heard someone call her name. Looking back, the place was as deserted as ever, but... hadn't the weapon racks been empty a moment ago? They were full now, rows of shotguns sitting oiled and ready for use. As it should be, really. The sign of the Imperial Navy on the wall might take some getting used to, but it had been a necessary move. Severing the ties between the Guard and the Fleet would make it harder for any one person to sieze power. Who had called her, though? Turning away again, she saw that the group had pulled ahead, and she had to hurry to catch up.

Continuing on, Pytho pointed out a few shrines to the God-Emperor that had been erected against the corridor walls. They were covered in melted wax from candles, and affixed with the stubs of purity seals, but the organic parchment was long gone. One such shrine had its prayer to the Emperor engraved on the wall, still readable. It was a variant of the voidfarer's catechism, which seemed appropriate given the location. At each of these shrines, the Astropath stopped to offer a brief prayer.

At each of these stops, Pytho seemed to be going a little more slowly. The expression on his face was hard to read, especially with no eyes, but it looked as though something was bothering him. Of course he was unlikely to ever complain, and if it was something unsafe Macharius was sure he'd have spoken up. Still, it was unusual.

A few meters on from the last shrine, the group reached a junction. The room they were in was octagonal, and branched off in four directions other than the one they'd entered through. None of the routes were labelled, and they hadn't seen any effort to post such niceties as a map. Their options were each of the other three cardinal directions, and a lift platform that led to the deck above. The lift was listing badly, nearly broken off the teethed track that its simple gear drive used to ascend, and was clearly inoperable. If they wanted to climb, though, it didn't look like it would be too hard.

[Destro_Yersul]

Climbing proved not very hard at all for those wearing the Selenite pattern voidsuits. The old gearlift only travelled between three floors, and this one was the bottom. Getting up to the top was a simple matter of using the suit's integral grapple system and, once those with were at the top, using it to pull up those without. This ship had probably been built to a standard code, which meant they had a rough idea of where the bridge should be, but it was proving difficult to actually find. The interior was mazelike, dark corridors made cramped by ancient pipes and conduits. They did, however, have a fairly significant piece of luck. The ship featured a transit conduit to carry munitions from the stores to the weapons. They found a service hatch leading to the conduit, and emerged into a room where there was actually some room to breathe, so to speak.

The passage was large enough for automated servitor-trams carrying macrocannon-shell sized plasma canisters, which made it plenty spacious to walk around in. Their lamp packs played over the vaulted ceiling, the regular holes leading to servo-skull transit tubes. Up here there were actually labels, and they found the one leading to the bridge and followed it. When they reached the branching off point, though, they encountered a problem.

The bulkhead sealing off access to the bridge was visible, trapped behind a collapsed auto-tram. A badly decayed servitor, attached to the tram at the waist, was clearly no longer operable. What was worse, the tram had been carrying a load when it failed, huge canisters of volatile plasma fuel scattered across the deck. Each was massive, mean to be shifted by loaders rather than men. Some were still held in place on the tram, having not yet broken the straps tying them down. There'd be a way around, this wasn't the only access point to the bridge, but finding another route would mean backtracking, and that would waste time. The rebreathers on their voidsuits were rated for twelve hours - a long time, but they'd already spent one hour getting to here.

[Haval]

After the climb up the broken lift Anika has been moving slightly ahead of the others. She is confident that she can get to the bridge eventually even with the maze-like layout of the ship's interior. The broken tram gives her pause though.

Over the microbead, 'I suspect we're lucky this didn't spill everywhere and damage the bridge.' She will look around for any sign of a maintenance hatch. It probably wouldn't be enough to let them bypass the wreckage to get straight to the bridge. That would be a hole in the ship's defences after all. But it might be enough to give them a shortcut to another part of the ship so that they could come at the bridge from another direction.

There was always the broken tramway as well.

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius claps Pytho on the back. Pythonissam, my good man, what's the matter? You look a bit peaky, what. Is there any Warp influence about?

He looks at the blockage up ahead. Decidedly inconvenient, that. Shuttle, Sting, can you use our transmission signal to find where we are in the ship? If we can have them locate us now as we're by the bridge, perhaps they can direct us back towards the bridge as we backtrack so we don't lose our bearings.

[rax]

Hannabel's eyes linger on the bulkhead while the others speak. "Magos Ravia, do you think you can squeeze past those canisters and open the way? Surely a locked bulkhead is no match for you?"

[Leon]

Then

Getting ready to explore a ancient warship is not something an Adept of the Machine Cult has an occurrence to do everyday. The ship had some wondrous Void exploration gear but they were not designed for someone with extra limbs so they had to be disconnected and less useful related tools taken instead, several spare dataslates to inload information from Skull for backup and noteworthy finds, spare roles of duraweave conduit tape in case of suit leaks. While it would be uncomfortable for the duration Ravia retracted her claws as far as possible and then bound the tines carefully in flakweave and mentally subdued her neural connection to them for safety. Eschewing her Hellgun as another bulky item that would be a pain to make work with the Selenite she picked up ship munitions Lasgun from the armory.

Shuttle

The trip across was something else, to fall into the shadow of such an ancient warship that had died fighting the Enemy so very long ago.

Now

++I can endevour to do so, although with such an old vessel nothing is certain++

[Destro_Yersul]

There were maintenance hatches nearby, but nothing that looked like it was designed to be used by people wearing full voidsuits. There was also no indiciation any of them actually led to the bridge. With the atmosphere toxic at best and nonexistant at worst, risking a suit tear by trying to crawl around in the ductwork seemed like a losing proposition. Getting up to the tramway might be an option, though.

Pytho shook his head. "Slight headache, sir. I don't think it's anything to worry about."

The Sting was quick to respond. "We've got you in one of the fore sections. There's some interference, but we're trying to compensate. Still got that sensor ghost on the scopes. I think we can pinpoint the location and lead you back."

The bulkhead, for its part, looked operable. There was a control shrine next to it, the lights dimly lit. Getting to it would be the main problem; the fallen tram was in one big piece, and there was very little room to get behind it.

[Haval]

Perhaps backtracking would not be that inconvenient, but on the other hand they probably shouldn't waste the air if they could help it.

After getting a closer look at the wreckage, Anika is going to attempt to climb up into the tramway to get a look around.


If there's no sign that climbing the wrecakage might be dangerous, will use the grapnel on the Selenite to get a look up there. Climb is at basic so probably difficult without the suit.

Climb roll if needed vs. Str 30 /2 - TN 15
[roll0]

Related, rolling Awareness.
vs. Per 38
[roll1]

Edit - almost made it

[Destro_Yersul]

With the assistance of the suit's grapnel, and the fact that the tram presented a good number of hand and footholds, Anika was able to make it up to the broken track. It was a magnetic rail, about a metre wide, supported by struts placed regularly along the wall. The top of the rail was flat, apart from the jagged ruin where the tram had crashed to the deck below. The track was mostly straight, and though it was too dark to see very far, looked as though it might run much of the length of the ship. There would likely be stations for loading and unloading at many stops, though there was no telling what the nearest one to the bridge would be.

As Anika reached the top, the vox crackled again. "Captain, we've got a lock on your signal. Managed to pin your location down, should be able to keep a fix on it as you move through the ship."

[Leon]

After spending some time referencing data logs and cross-referencing with know info about Imperial Navy ships (be old or current) Ravia suggests they go down to get past this blockage

[rax]

"Definitely," Hannabel agrees. "No unnecessary climbing for me, thanks."

[Destro_Yersul]

Returning to the floor of the tunnel, Anika rejoined the group. Ravia led the way, supported by the Sting's powerful augurs tracking their progress. They passed what looked like a tram station up above, before finding another bulkhead that led back to the ship's winding corridors. Looping back around, they started heading towards the bridge once more. At Ravia's insistence, they took a shortcut through a monitoring chamber connected to the air circulation systems. The massive fans were silent, ground to a halt years ago. Red warning runes blinked on a wall console, the machine spirits calling for ministrations that would not come. Passing through the other side, they found themselves in a lightless corridor connected to the bridge's crew pit. Switching on their photo-visors revealed that the bulkheads here were sealed as well, and unlike the one back in the tram tunnel, there was no indication that these had power. The activation shrines were easily located, but they were as dead and dark as the rest of the hall.

[Haval]

Anika has a better understanding of ancient technology than a lot of the tech that is common in the Imperium of today. In her experience you could make an educated guess about how to cajole a machine spirit even if you weren't always sure what you were doing.

Thinking out loud, 'No power now, but there must have been power at some point. So we ought to be able to connect the bulkhead to a replacement source of energy. Just have to find the place where we can plug it in. If the ancients were anything like us, I expect their doors broke down all the time as well. So there might be something around here we can unscrew.'

She will look for an access panel or failing that, will try to judge where the wiring connected to the door should be located so she can follow it back to somewhere where she can access it. An energy source should be easy enough to find. All they had to do was get the bulkhead open wide enough to let them through. They didn't even need it to close again. Her own hellpistol might carry enough of a charge to do that by itself.

[Haval]

It was a lot harder to do this in a void suit, but Anika will unscrew the access panel on the back of the shrine to peer at the wiring inside.

'Green wire. It'll probably be broken somewhere behind the bulkhead. Do you think you can get this working Magos?' She'll hand over a hell pistol clip in the hope that it held enough charge to be useful as a makeshift battery.

[Leon]

It was harder with the suit one but with some effort Ravia managed to reach the problem wire and hook the hellweapon battery into the link. ++Quick now, i have no idea how long this will power it for++

[Destro_Yersul]

The hellpistol's power pack was relatively small, but it held enough charge to power a single door. Ravia hooked the pack into the system and tapped a few keys on the control shrine, and the bulkhead door ground slowly open, its motors fighting against millenia of disuse. The fact that it worked at all was testament to the skill of those ancient shipwrights. With the last obstacle removed, the group entered the bridge.

The bridge was huge, and as dark and silent as the hall they'd just left. They were standing in the starboard crew pit, next to one of the fire control consoles. Further along was a staircase that led up to the bridge proper, the steps made out of metal mesh. There were dozens of crew stations, each console dead, the screens cracked, some shattered entirely to expose the inner workings. The bridge had been designed to coordinate a fleet of ships, and was filled with uplinks, monitoring stations, vox hubs and a massive holoprojector table. The walls were lined with large flat screens, likely to emulate windows for a room that was nowhere near the outer hull. In the center of the bridge was an elevator shaft, its doors askew and the lift nowhere in sight. The ceilings were high and vaulted, the barrels of heavy stubber defence turrets visible in the green-tinted vision of their photovisors. The turrets were inactive, the whole place unpowered.

Near the rear of the room was a security station, the first line of defence against intruders trying to gain access to the bridge. Next to that were a pair of adamantium doors, their surface dented inwards in dozens of places. The gates had held, though, and the bridge itself had no signs of combat damage. High on the wall above the security station, in hammered gold lettering, was the ship's name: The Terminus Omni Agraphum.

Pytho walked slowly towards one of the consoles, placing a hand on the chair in front of it. "Many died here," the Astropath said. "I can see their echoes in the warp. But I don't know how they died."

[rax]

"Whatever it was that killed them, it didn't come through those," Hannabel says, indicating the adamantium doors. "And it doesn't look like the crew went down fighting anyway. The hull's not holed here either, so there's no immediate reason for the entire bridge to have dropped dead in one fell swoop. Not like it really matters right now, though..."

[PotatoGolem]

Suffocation, perhaps? When the power went out, the life support would have failed, and the crew would die from lack of air. If the answer is more... unusual, it would be good to know so we don't suffer the same fate. Astropath Pythonissam, can you glean anything from the echoes? Did they die all at once, or over time?

Macharius walks to the end of the bridge and sits in the command throne. He looks across the room, pondering the fate of the bridge's inhabitants, his fingers drumming idly on the throne's arms.

[Haval]

Anika is walking around the bridge looking for any sign of what had happened here. The lift shaft was still open, although whether something had gotten in through it or survivors had used it to escape was unclear.

[Destro_Yersul]

"All at once, I think..." Pytho had taken a seat at one of the consoles near the grav lift, and was inspecting the workstation. The astropath looked tired, but perhaps it was just the thought of so many loyal souls dead. "The logs would tell us more, if we could find them. I'm not sure how, though, with the entire bridge powerless."

Ravia, of course, already knew the answer to that. The blackbox recorders would be removeable, with a separate internal power supply and dataports for download to a slate. The main problem there would be finding them. There were usually two or three, for redundancy in case of catastrophic damage, and likely placed somewhere on the bridge. If they could find a way to restore power, they'd also be able to check the ship's logs that way. There might be other things, as well. Ships like this always had their secrets.

What damage there was to the bridge looked superficial, apart from the buckled doors. It was likely the occupants had died when life support failed, but it was always good to be sure. The command throne Macharius had seated himself at was a sophisticated piece of work, a true marvel. The ancient upholstery maintained its deep red, even after all this time. Synthetics, probably. The throne's armrests were gold, with sliding panels near the end of each. The whole assembly fitted onto a track and swivel mounted, so it could be rotated to watch the viewscreens or moved in closer to the large command console. Cables crusted the back, snaking off to vanish under the base mounting, tying the throne to the ship's systems. A dizzying array of information would have been available to whomever had sat here - Macharius was likely the first person to occupy the throne since the ship had been wrecked. Now though, like the rest of the bridge, the command console had fallen dark. It was sad, really. The ship's heart may have been its great plasma drives, but its mind was here, the throne at the centre of its nervous system.

Sitting in the throne, Macharius could feel the deckplates humming under his feet. The ship wanted a master, it wanted to ply the void again, to bring death to the Emperor's enemies as it had been built to do. He imagined he could see crewmen, sitting at their stations, ready to defend mankind in His holy name. The scripture said that the only true fear was of dying with your duty not done. Proud men and women, in navy uniforms, had gone to their deaths aboard this ship. When they died, had they felt their mission complete, their duty discharged successfully?

Can I get a WP test? You still get the +10 from Pytho

[Haval]

Not having found anything of note, Anika will join Pytho in slumping down in a seat next to one of the consoles. She wanted to rub her eyes but the voidsuit made that inconvenient. 'The Traitors probably tried to get in. Maybe when they failed they destroyed the life sustainers instead. Left everyone to suffocate.' This room was making her morbid.

Pointing at the throne, 'There ought to be a failsafe power supply connected to that. It's too important not to have it.'


Forbidden Lore (Archaeotech) to find any backup connected to the command throne
vs. Int 53
[roll0]

[Destro_Yersul]

Even if there was a backup, Anika wasn't quite sure where it would be. It should have one, of course. Looking around, she did spot a locker over near the security station, the faded label marking it as an emergency oxygen supply. Looked like it had already been emptied long ago, and she knew that those canisters wouldn't be good for all that long. Maybe long enough to get to a lifepod and eject, but not for much more than that.

The decking shook suddenly. When Anika looked up, she was still on the Bridge, but it was different. The others - Pytho, Macharius, everyone - were nowhere to be seen. Instead, all of the stations were fully crewed, the emergency locker she had noticed a second ago still closed and stocked. The station she was sitting at looked like fire control for the ship's weapon batteries. The admiral, his uniform as crisp and immaculate as always, was sitting in the command throne. He leaned forwards, over his console, to look at the hololithic display table. Several of the officers were clustered around it, watching their battlegroup approach the traitor fleet.

"There she is," the first officer pointed at one of the red holograms. "The Iron Regent. Nowhere for her to run this time."

"All ships, move in." The admiral's orders rang out over the vox. "First squadron, strike their flank, take those escorts apart. Helmsman, form up with the Indomitus. The Regent is ours. Check your targets, and fire at will."

Enemy ships started lighting up on Anika's scopes. Weapons were hot.

Closing his eyes for what felt like only a moment, Macharius realised he was no longer on the bridge. Where was he? Looking around, he found himself sitting in ready room six, with a squad of the ship's provosts, most of whom were currently engaged in a game of Tarot. The poster on the wall - Lightning Lancers - was not strictly regulation, but nobody had protested all that hard when Barry put it up. Sixth Squad needed a name anyways, and Barry had worked hard getting it printed without anyone noticing. Plus, it kept morale up, promoted comraderie.

The room's vox crackled, interrupting this train of thought. "All ships, move in." Admiral Davis, issuing orders to the rest of the fleet. "First squadron, strike their flank, take those escorts apart. Helmsman, form up with the Indomitus. The Regent is ours. Check your targets, and fire at will."

"Sounds like we're in the drek already," Kristof discarded a five, and drew from the deck. "Think we'll see any action?"

[rax]

"She may be old, but she's still a Navy ship, and the Navy likes to do things the same way - again and again and again. Tradition, they calls it. So if our blessed ancestors used black boxes, then I'm thinking that over here would be a good place to start looking," Hannabel says, making her way towards the command dais.


OOC: This assumes that Ravia has actually pointed out that there are likely black boxes to be found. Hannabel is ex-navy, so I'm hoping she might have some idea of where to start looking for them. I'll do some rolls in the OOC thread to see if she might have a clue.

[Haval]

Surprised, Anika will jolt up in her seat. 'What the..?' she will start to exclaim before falling silent. Had anyone even noticed? Perhaps she had fallen asleep? The dreams of Kadath had been making that hard lately, but the wreck was hardly a safe place to be napping.

But there was the other possibility. Had Macharius been right to be worried about coming here? If so he'd never let her hear the end of it. If it was a dream it was the most lifelike she had ever experienced.

She didn't seem to be in any immediate danger at least. Not counting the fleet engagement they seemed to be part of. The Navy wasn't the Guard, but she had no reason to be afraid of them. With a growing sick feeling, and with occasional surreptitious glances around the bridge and at the console in front of her, Anika will try to keep a low profile for the moment.


:smallbiggrin:

So if this is appropriate, Deceive roll to not attract attention
vs. Fel 47
[roll0]

I think that failure is only fair

Scholastic Lore (Archaic) on the Iron Regent
vs. Int 53
[roll1]
And same on the Terminus Omni if I'm in a better frame of mind to do that now
[roll2]

Forbidden Lore (Archaeotech) to work out how to operate the weaponry in front of me
vs. Int 53
[roll3]

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius leans back in his chair for a moment, concentrating. Astropath Pythonissam, are you still connected to me? I'm apparently inhabiting a provost from the ancient battle. I'll relay any information I can get to you. What's happening back in the real world? Are any of the others similarly affected? I think that maybe the ship wants us to win the ancient battle for her, but it'd be a damned sight easier with my crew here.

He faces back into the game. Trigger finger getting itchy, Kristof? I'd expect they'll board us, this being the flagship and all. The Lancers will get plenty of action, I'm sure. Be ready to move out as soon as Barry's done taking all your money, lads.

[Destro_Yersul]

Rooting around underneath the command console, Hannabel discovered a metal hatch cover built into the decking. The handle was just a recessed metal ring, set flush with the rest of the decking, but it wasn't too hard to hook something in and pull it up. When she did, she found she'd got it right the first try: every Navy ship she'd ever been on had kept one of the blackbox recorders underneath the command dais, and this one followed that same rule. It probably wasn't the only one, but if it was undamaged they wouldn't need to find the others, and it didn't look damaged. The cables tying it in to the ship's systems unscrewed - with some difficulty - and the box popped free.

It was rectangular and jet black, built out of durable polycarbons and reinforced durasteel. The compartment it had been in was armoured to prevent damage. There wasn't an obvious way to activate it, but it did have a dataport and a switch to trigger the backup power unit. The port looked standardised, probably from an STC design.

The reply was slow in coming, from Pytho's end. Still here, Macharius heard in his head, just as he thought the link might have been severed. Hard to concentrate. I suspect the warp echoes affect psykers differently. Massive headache. The link was quiet for a moment longer, and then Pytho's 'voice' returned. You're asleep, looks like Anika is too. Ravia and Hannabel are still active. So am I, but maintaining the link is the best I think I can manage right now.

Back in the game, Kristof laughed. "Barry's luck will run out, sir. You're right, though. We'll be their priority target. What've you got, Al?"

Albertus looked at his cards with disgust. "Sweet bugger all," he said, folding his hand. Jilian followed suit, and Barry scooped his third pot in a row.

"I swear you cheat." Jili shook her head at the grinning Barry and headed for the lockers. "Alright Lancers, the boss-man has spoken. Playtime's over."

A chorus of groans and 'I'll-take-it-back-later-Barrys' followed, as the men abandoned their cards and made ready for combat. When the order came to repel boarders, their post was supposed to be the Starboard upper shuttle bay. The bay had easy access to gravlift seven, and was well placed to defend the macrobattery decks.

It seemed as though the startled outburst had caught some attention. The admiral was looking in her direction, as were a couple of the other crew. Trying to think, she realised that while she'd never heard of the Iron Regent, she could place this ship. The man in command was Admiral Davis, which was right for this ship. She remembered seeing an ancient remembrancer sketch of him - neatly clipped beard, iron uniform, chest full of medals - in a very old book about Imperial heroes. He'd been in command of the Terminus Omni Agraphum back during the scouring, his battlegroup one of the largest tasked with tracking down and eliminating renegade elements following the Great Heresy. The battlegroup had gone missing, presumed destroyed, and none of the ships from it had ever been found.

Well, until now. But 'now' was a relative concept, with a fleet of very real-looking heretic ships out there to fight. Studying the console, Anika discovered she had two advantages. The first was that, minor innovations aside, everything being built to a pattern meant that control consoles didn't change very much. The second was that the ship's augur arrays were combat-specialised, constantly scanning and feeding targeting data into the cogitators in real time. She'd not have much trouble plotting firing solutions. As Anika was working out the firing controls, she heard boots on the deck approaching her station. She looked up to find the ship's commissar at her side.

"Is everything alright?" the commissar asked, an eyebrow raised under her peaked cap. "You look a little out of sorts."

[rax]

"YES! I knew it! The Navy never changes. Here you go Magos," Hannabel exclaims triumphantly, tossing the box to Ravia. "Say the words and flip the switch or something, and let's hear this old girl's story!"

"Lord Commander! We found one of the black boxes!" she calls up to Macharius.

[Haval]

The memory of books distracts Anika from her situation for a moment. Davis had been a good man by all accounts. So the ship had been lost during the Scouring? She could hardly belive it had held together as long as it had. Given what the Sting's servitor had found, she could guess who likely crewed the Iron Regent. But was her brain merely filling in the gaps here or was this actually happening?

The Commissar forces her to pay attention. Of course. The Navy had them too. Whatever was going on, best not to get on the wrong side of one who for some reason thought she had a right to be here. Trying to sound composed. 'Might be coming downn with something sir. I'll go see a medicae later, but I wanted to be here for this.' She will motion towards the firing solutions on the console. Hopefully a Commissar would be leniant towards someone trying to do their duty. Or if not, would at least force her to leave the bridge and see a Doctor.


Deceive
vs. Fel 47
[roll0]

[PotatoGolem]

Good! You can relay communications then. What's going on in the real world? See if they can find anything on Provost Squad Six or the Lightning Lancers. And find out where in the past ship Anika is.

Macharius slaps Barry on the back. Lucky as always. Hopefully the traitors try to fight us in tarot, eh?

[Leon]

Ravia will perform the rites to bring the Blackbox online linked through one of her spare data slates and also have Skull record a linked image for backup ++Now we see an age ago and what fate befell this ancient machine++

[Destro_Yersul]

Macharius, Hannabel found when she looked up, was still sitting in the command throne. He was soundly asleep as, by the look of it, was Anika. The seneschal's head was rested on the ancient console she was sitting in front of. Pytho was still up, but didn't look especially well. The astropath pushed himself to his feet and walked over to where they were to examine the blackbox.

"Captain's fine," Pytho said as he watched Ravia work. "So is Anika. They're experiencing a dream of the past. I can still talk to them through our mind link. Macharius is with one of the old Provost squads. Number six. Is there anything in the logs on that?"

With the dataslate hooked up, that was something Ravia was able to actually check. There were reams of data here, damage reports and technical specs scrolling across the dataslate's small screen. Nearly everything was offline, just as their scans had reported. But where had the trouble started?

Things had started to go wrong soon after the weaponry was last powered up. Multiple macrocannon impacts had overloaded the void shields, followed by depressurisation events on several decks. After that, intruders were detected on board, and everything went downhill from there. The ship fought hard, the exchange of hits to the hull followed by discharge orders issued to its own weapons continuing for some time despite the depressurisations. Then system failures started to come in across the board. Power linkages to the Teleportarium and Munitorium were destroyed. Then the life sustainers went offline, and then the hull bracing field. Given the cascading failures, it looked like sabotage. Ravia read on.

The engines went on full burn, and the warp drive started powering up. Halfway through the startup sequence, the ship took a big hit; that was what had breached the hull, destroying several decks and starting a fire in the plasma reactors. The fire suppression system failed, and the ship entered the Immaterium on fire and badly crippled, with intruders still on board. A few more systems were damaged, here and there, including the warp drive's control circuits, and then the bridge lost main power when the fire claimed the reactors. There was the occasional report of weapon discharge across the ship after that, then nothing. The ship de-warped, and all lifepods were jettisoned.

Someone had to have remained on the ship, though. A few priority level orders were entered manually through a backup system in the bridge command terminal. Emergency power distribution was set to prioritise the gellar fields and crew facilities over all other concerns. The damaged control circuits caused a malfunction, and the ship re-entered warp space. Across the ship, things started to shut down. A single weapon discharge, small arms fire, was reported in the bridge lifepod bays. Then, silence. Silence for millenia, punctuated by the breaking down of the last few functioning subsystems as lack of maintenance took its toll. Eventually the control circuits for the warp drive failed entirely, and the ship de-warped.

"Keen on bringing death to the Emperor's enemies? Cartainly those traitors out there deserve what's coming for them." The commissar looked Anika up and down, perhaps searching for signs of disagreement. She seemed unconvinced by Anika's lie, but found no immediate fault to seize upon. "Just be sure to see the medicae, if you're still feeling unwell after the battle." Turning away, she walked back towards the holoprojector.

Where are you? The voice sounded, suddenly, in her mind. Pytho's link was still active. Captain's asleep too, he says he's with Provost Squad Six.

"That'd be an easy victory, but then we'd have to let Barry hog all the glory." Kristof said.

Barry elbowed his comrade in the ribs, and grabbed his helmet. "Git. Where to, boss?"

It was always like this, Macharius knew. They would be effective enough at teamwork once they were suited up and focused on the job. The trick was finding them a common enemy to fight. Well, wouldn't be hard if they were boarded.

[Leon]

++Millennia in the Empyrean, even with active gellar shielding will cause some leakage hence these dreams of its last actions. This will be of great use to my projects++

[PotatoGolem]

Starboard upper shuttle bay, lads. No sense in keeping them waiting. I've got a bad feeling about this one. Ship like this, they're not going to send just the Traitor Army. They'll be bringing Traitor Astartes.

Macharius shivered involuntarily at the the thought of facing one of the Fallen Angels. This wasn't real, this had all happened so long ago, and yet it felt real. He wanted to save these men and women, though that was impossible. At the very least, he'd send them to their God-Emperor with heads held high.

For those of you too thick to figure it out for yourselves, Barry, that means anti-armor. It's time for hellguns, not shotguns. They may damage a bulkhead here and there but the traitor's bolts will do a hell of a lot worse if they're not stopped. Now grab your guns and head out. For the Emperor!

[Haval]

Anika will try to keep her face impassive. As long as the Comissar wasn't actively threatening to shoot her that was a plus.

Hearing Pytho in her head came as something of a relief. At least Macharius was around somewhere. 'What the hell is going on? I'm on the bridge and they're treating me like part of the crew.' And might as well get to the heart of it, 'We're about to engage the Traitor ships. If I'm only asleep how worried should I be about this?'

[rax]

"Well this is a fine time to be taking a nap," Hannabel grumbles jokingly. "Nothing yet on specific squads, but you can tell them both that it looks alot like there was some skullduggery - sabotage - involved in the Terminus going down."

Reading aloud as Ravia scrolls through the data, Hannabel reports: "She charged up her batteries, but enemy fire overloaded the shields and breached the hull, causing multiple depressurisation incidents. They then detected enemy boarders but the ship kept fighting. Then we start getting cascading system failures - power linkages to the teleportarium and munitorium get destroyed, life sustainers go offline, then the hull bracing field. Could be enemy raiders, could be mutineers, but someone was being quite systematic."

"Next, the engines go on full burn and the warp drive starts powering up. No way to tell from the data if that was captain's orders or not, but she was hurting badly, so retreat would have been wise in any case. Anyway, halfway through the sequence, the Terminus takes another big hit - major hull breach and fire in the plasma reactors - so she warps out on fire and with boarders still fighting. After that it's pretty much over. Some more fighting, some more systems damage, then the fires kill the reactors causing bridge to lose main control. The ship exits warp and all the life pods are jettisoned."

"But... looks like someone was still aboard after that, manually entering priority commands from the bridge command terminal. Looks like they prioritised power to the gellar fields and crew quarters and... yes, the warp drive controls were malfunctioning. I guess whoever was putting commands in knew that, because the Terminus then does an uncontrolled dive into the warp. Systems keep shutting down, then there's a weapons discharge in the bridge lifepod bays, then... nothing. The old girl keeps breaking down until the warp drive fails completely and she drops into the real world millenia later."

"Hmm, might be worth checking out the bridge lifepod bays. May be that there's some clues as to who the last survivor was. Pytho, ask the Lord Commander what his orders are, will you?"

[Destro_Yersul]

"I think Raiders is most likely. The failures started right after boarders were detected. I'll relay what I can, and see what Macharius wants us to do." Pytho looked over his shoulder, at the broken elevator shaft. "Lifepod bays are at the bottom of that. There's a sign by the doors."

Not very, I think. Pytho's voice sounded unsure, even in her head. It's like a dream, so you should simply wake up if you die. I can't be certain, though, so you should avoid testing that if possible. This is a previously undocumented warp phenomena, without any established rules. If the crew are treating you as though you belong, perhaps you do. Or you're taking the role of someone who does. Do you know anything about what sort of opposition you're up against?

That question, at least, was easily answered. The console was busily displaying targetting data and FoF tags for every ship in range of the augurs. This looked like quite a large engagement. There was the Terminus, which was cruiser size at least, plus the Indomitus, which was just as big. Two light cruisers, each with two escorts, and three frigate squadrons rounded out the loyalist side. The enemy was more numerous, but mostly smaller ships. Plenty of destroyers, with a few frigates here and there. Of larger ships, there were only three; two light cruisers and the Iron Regent. The Regent was an unusual pattern, but it carried the sigil of the Iron Warriors legion. Some early form of Strike Cruiser, and all the more dangerous because of its crew.

The two fleets enetered firing range of each other, and macrocannon shells filled the void.

"Astartes?" Jilian said nervously. "I fought alongside a group of them, once. They're called Angels of Death for a reason. Al, you'd better bring the heavy stuff."

"I'll grab something extra from the armoury." Albertus split off from the group, heading down a different corridor. "I'll catch up, don't wait for me."

The rest of the squad shouldered their hellgun capacitors and followed Macharius. Their armour was woefully inadequate, it would do next to nothing against a boltgun. There was no sense in telling them that, of course.

Pytho's voice returned when they were almost at the shuttle bay. Anika's on the bridge, and about to engage the traitor fleet. Your orders, sir? Hannabel is asking what we should do next. We've found the logs, and it looks bad. You should expect boarders immediately after the opening salvos.

[Haval]

'Check to see if I'm still me you mean.' It was a good idea. Anika will check to see what she's wearing and whether she has retained her equipment. Who knows what she looked like to these people.

'As for the enemy, it's the same Traitor Astartes that we found remains of, which means that this is probably the Terminus' last fight.'

[PotatoGolem]

Excellent, thank you Pytho. Although I don't like the idea of the ship suddenly going into the warp while we're here. If the traitors attacked the teleportarium first, then we'll divert to there. Have Anika give whatever orders are necessary. I'll tell you when we're in position. Tell the rest of the crew to find out whatever they can about what happened to the bridge and that survivor and the weapons discharge in the life pod bay.

He turns back to the men. Change of orders. We're to head to the teleportarium in case they try to warp in boarders. Make sure to bring rebreathers in case oxygen gets low. Move out.

[Haval]

So did the enemy bombardment break the Terminus' warp drive in some way or did the battle end up leaving it's mark in the warp for others to relive? Anika is interested in spite of herself, but she probably didn't have time for that.

She isn't entirely used to communicating like this at such length, and so will try and think carefully at Pytho. 'Leaving aside the possibility of dying to wake us up, how do we get out of here? Assuming everything plays out the same way, do we get off the ship before it enters the warp? Do we try to find somewhere safe to wait it out once everything falls apart? Do we try to change things for the better? I'm not sure how the Comissar here would react if I start showing foreknowledge of a battle that hasn't started yet.'

'If the internal damage wasn't caused by Astartes boarders then the Terminus had the supreme bad luck to go into battle with the Archenemy already aboard. But they had to have started somewhere. Is there a record of the time and the deck where the sabotage first started? Perhaps we can just happen to have seen the boarding craft coming in. Maybe we can give the Terminus crew a fighting chance?'


I suppose pass this on if it's easier.

Related to above, if I have a display of the battle I'll roll Scrutiny as a Detection test to look for something that might be enemy boarding craft
vs. Per 38 (Ship detection?)
[roll0]

Does Anika have her gear and particularly her microbead?

[Destro_Yersul]

"Captain's orders are to find out what happened to the bridge, and the survivors," Pytho reported after a moment of silence. "He especially wants to know about the one in the lifepod bay."

As the astropath was speaking, he walked over to the lift shaft, putting a hand on one of the doors and staring sightlessly at the inside. "Lift's broken," he said. "Looks like the cables snapped. The car's in a heap at the bottom. There's a ladder, but I can't quite reach it with the doors only half open."

The decking shuddered, the huge ship shaking as enemy fire slammed into the hull. The section they were in hadn't been hit, thankfully, but Macharius felt the reverberations as the lances struck home. The teleportarium was behind a set of large reinforced doors, but the provosts were allowed past as part of the ship's security detail. Albertus was a few minutes behind them, and arrived carrying an ornate plasma gun and a satchel of spare fuel canisters.

"Sorry I'm late, boys, had to source the party favours. Wouldn't want to give our guests a poor welcome."

Anika wasn't wearing a voidsuit, but she had everything else she'd brought with her to the Terminus. Which meant she wasn't wearing a uniform, but then who knew what the other people on the bridge were actually seeing. They were all long dead by now, just ghosts.

This is just a theory, Pytho thought at her. But what you're experiencing is a psychic echo generated by the deaths of the people on board. This is the last part of their lives. When none of them are around anymore, the dream might end naturally. If you change the way the battle went, jogging the echo off the rails might force it to end sooner... Anika heard something that sounded like the mental equivalent of a sigh. This is purely theoretical, you understand. The most reliable way to get you out would be to take your body off the ship. The teleportarium is where it all started to go wrong. Macharius has diverted his squad there.

Checking the auspex readings, Anika picked up a wave of small craft that had just launched from one of the enemy light cruisers. They were closing fast, but they weren't pinging weapon sensors so they were probably lightly armed. Assault boats of some sort. The Regent's weapons opened up moments later, massive shells slamming into the void shields. Once those collapsed, the lances fired, beams of directed energy raking across the Terminus' hull. It was a light hit, but not without injury. The helmsman struggled to keep the massive ship on course as explosions rippled through the rear end. The lances were followed by a wave of torpedoes, both from the Iron Regent and the other light cruiser.

"All batteries, return fire!" The Admiral was standing now, shouting down at the fire control stations. "Show them the might of the Imperial Navy!"

[Leon]

Ravia moves to see about making the door open more if possible

[rax]

"Getting down won't be a problem if we can just open the doors. I brought a clip harness for just such an occasion," Hannabel says. "Think we can wiggle the doors open if we can find something around here to act as a lever? Or do you have something tucked away in those robes of yours that could cut us a hole in the doors?" she asks Ravia.

[Haval]

Anika is happy to see that her bolter seemed to have come with her. It had a reassuring amount of stopping power.

She could think of ways in which Pytho's theory might be wrong, but it was as good an idea as she had at the moment. 'I don't think I'm in any immediate danger at least. Maybe I can steer the bridge in the right direction. Look after my body Pytho. I hope to be getting back to it shortly.'

The Terminus' shields going down was the first step. On balance she would much rather be aboard the Sting if they had to do something like this. She will work the console to fire on the Regent more out of the need to pretend that she belonged here then of any expectation that she might hit anything. Besides, how often would she get the chance to fire on the Legio Astartes. The assault boats on the auspex were far more important. She will attract the attention of the Commissar or the nearest officer. 'Boarding craft on approach sir.' She will give them the coordinates and approach vector of the ships. If the Terminus' turrets couldn't bring some of them down, perhaps they could concentrate their defences in the right place.


Rolling BS to fire back
vs. BS 36
[roll0]

[Leon]

Careful application of Powered edge to key sections of the door brought access ++Not what i had expected to be using it for i must admit++ to the shaft beyond

[Destro_Yersul]

Ravia's power axe made short work of the doors, the weapon's crackling edge cutting easily through the thin metal. The doors were in ruins shortly, the gap between them widened enough to fit their bulky voidsuits. Hannabel attached her grapnel line to a solid-looking chunk of pipe, and rigged up the harness. One by one, the group descended.

They ended up on top of the smashed lift car, climbing down into it through a large maintenance hatch on the top. The doors below were already opened, alleviating the need to repeat the application of power weapons. This lower section of the bridge was comprised of meeting rooms, a small number of staterooms for visiting officials, and access to the bridge lifepod bay. The atmosphere down here was highly toxic, Ravia estimating that without the void suits the poisonous air would kill them all within the space of a few minutes.

The lifepod bay was a wide room, set up in a manner which resembled a drop-pod launch bay. Rows of mounting racks, now empty, sat above rows of launch tubes. The floor was diamond-tread steel, gaps in the handrails corresponding to the locations of the launch tubes. At the far end of the bay were a smaller set of executive lifepods, designed to comfortably accomodate a single person instead of packing in many. One of these was still in its rack, its hatch wide open. A handful of small items were strewn across the floor in front of it, including a pistol, a dataslate, a rebreather mask with cracked eye lenses and a collection of O2 canisters. Pytho kicked one, and it rattled across the floor. Clearly empty.

The teleportarium was a marvel of ancient technology. It consisted of a series of raised platforms, each encrusted with countless wires, conduits and small blinking lights. Above was the teleportation matrix, an impressively complex looking piece of arcane machinery. Macharius had no idea how it worked, but probably nobody else did either. This was old humanity's craftsmanship at its finest, a relic of the ingenuity of Mars from the Imperium's shrouded past. The console that operated the various teleportation platforms looked even more complex than the command console up on the bridge. Currently it was being operated by a tech-adept, and the room was occupied by a number of the ship's armsmen. One of them was approaching to ask Macharius what he and his squad was doing there, when the vox crackled.

"All hands, stand by to repel boarders. Repeat, all hands, stand by to repel boarders." The ship shook from mutliple impacts.

The first volley of plasma fire, directed by Anika's console, sailed just over the Regent's prow. The crewman at the secondary fire control station was more accurate, and a number of hits splashed over the void shields. Waving at the officers to attract attention caused the commissar to come back over. Anika pointed at the screen, and the commissar nodded.

"Well spotted," she said, straightening up and turning to the command throne. "Assault boats incoming, sir. Multiple vectors. Torpedoes as well, from the looks of it."

The admiral, in response, picked up the vox. "All hands, stand by to repel boarders. Repeat, all hands, stand by to repel boarders." Seconds later, the smaller turrets opened fire, sending many in the first wave of small craft off to meet the Emperor. There were too many to get them all, though, and there was nothing to be done about the torpedoes. The ship's cogitator registered multiple impacts, several of which were followed by explosions as plasma warheads detonated, blowing chunks out of the Terminus' armour. Not all of the torpedoes detonated, though, and Anika was sure that at least two from the Regent had been among those which didn't go off.

[rax]

"Eeny, meeny, miny, moe... my razor sharp perception says that our designated survivor ended his days in that pod there," Hannabel quips, pointing at the remaining pod. "Hellooo? Designated survivor? Are you still haunting this place?" she giggles, then strides purposefully over to the pod and takes a look inside.

[PotatoGolem]

Prepare for boarders! Lancers, set up to cover the area. You're packing the heat, so stay in cover and keep your eyes open for armored boarders.

You there! Armsmen! What in the Emperor's name are you doing milling around in the open?! If any of those Throne-damned traitors teleport in you'll be redecorating this area with your innards. All you're doing right now is blocking our fire lanes. Take some frakking cover and keep your eyes open! Looking for boarders or sabotage attempts. What are you doing staring at me like a stunned grox?! MOVE!


Macharius draws and powers up his sword and plasma pistol, moving to a vantage point with enough machinery to allow him to take cover from the inevitable Iron Warrior assault. He knows the Astartes will be here sometime. Waiting for them is a torment.

[Haval]

Anika will pass on to the rest of the bridge the news of the unexploded torpedoes from the Regent. Perhaps they were merely malfunctioning munitions, but she just bet she knew what was on those torpedoes. If the crew couldn't hold them off, the air was likely to be switched off any minute now.

If neccessary, she is ready to leave quickly depending on how fast everything started to fall apart on the bridge. Hoping that everyone else is equally distracted she will try to use her microbead to call Macharius on the usual frequency. Assuming that the memory of the device worked in the same way as the real thing. 'If you can hear me, what's your status?'

[Destro_Yersul]

The lifepod had a brass plate over the hatch. Though tarnished by age, Hannabel could still make out 'Admiral Davis' engraved on the surface. The inside of the pod was devoid of human remains, the floor covered with a thick layer of dust. The evidence of occupation was there, though. The compartments that once held ration bars were open and empty, decaying wrappers stuffed into the small disposal unit. The life sustainer was inoperable, the pod's internal power long drained, and the spare oxygen canisters were likely among those scattered outside.

This close to the pod, Hannabel was also able to get a better look at some of the items on the floor. The pistol was a naval officer's sidearm, the grip inset with the name Terminus Omni Agraphum and an engraving of the ship. On the barrel, the sigil of the Imperial Army could be seen. It had never been replaced by the Navy icon, probably a point of pride for its owner. The rebreather mask, apart from the cracked eye lenses, sported a ragged hole and visible powder burns at the temple. The floor here was stained, a single shell casing lay nearby, and a number of small round objects and other loose pieces of metal could be found as well. Hannabel got a closer look at some of the round things; they were uniform buttons. The unfirom they belonged to, and its owner, must have been here so long that everything organic had turned to dust.

A chorus of 'yessir!' followed Macharius' orders, as both the armsmen and the lancers moved to obey. The four provosts set up watching the door, as the enemy's main method of entry. The armsmen mostly had shotguns, a poor choice at best when compared to the stopping power of the hellguns and plsama gun carried by Macharius' squad. They dug in as best they could, making use of consoles and structural reinforcements as cover. They didn't have to wait long.

The first wave was traitor soldiers, ordinary men and women in uniforms debased with blashpemous iconography in place of the old Imperial markings. They fought a pitched battle against the ship's armsmen, slowly forcing their way closer to the Teleportarium chamber. Macharius could hear the thump of the ship's turrets echoing through the hull, so some of the assault boats must be getting shot down. The enemy's numbers would not be infinite. The bigger problem, though, was the heavy thud-thud of bolter fire he could hear from behind the screaming rabble. Then the doors were smashed aside, and a nightmare made real charged into the room.

The Iron Warrior was huge, clad in steel grey warplate with his massive Astartes bolter held in one armoured fist. He towered over the other traitors, one of the Emperor's fallen angels in the flesh. Macharius had been ready, had known the traitor Astartes were coming, but to see one alive was another thing entirely. In the half second of calm just after the doors had flown open, his microbead crackled. Anika's voice.

'If you can hear me, what's your status?'

A few minutes after Anika reported the unexploded torpedoes, her suspicions were confirmed.

"We're getting reports of boarders, sir!" the crewman at the communications console called across the bridge. "Traitor Astartes, and lots of soldiers. The space marines are using boarding torpedoes, it's just men on the assault boats. I've got... three confirmed battles going on right now. One in the Teleportarium, and two on the munitorium deck."

[Leon]

++Whoever it was granted themselves the Omnissiah's mercy it looks like when O2 or food ran out and the situation persisted++ Ravia will poke about the rest of the Life pod bay to see if there is anything of use in the place ++I wonder if there is a separate log for down here that tracked Life-pod diagnostics++

[rax]

"Aye, the poor sod probably did himself in when he realized the Terminus wasn't going to be dropping out of the Empyrean any time soon. I wonder who he was, though..." Hannabel muses out loud.

"Assuming he didn't go about looting the place before coming down here, the pistol says he was an officer. And pillaging the Admiral's personal life pod? I reckon our boy was high up in the food chain - most enlisted men wouldn't have the stones for that, even after the ship was abandoned. Plus, there's the grand old tradition of the captain never abandoning his ship. Or, in this case, perhaps an Admiral doing penance for losing his ship and fleet to traitors... I wonder if he was kind enough to leave a record of his final days?"

Stooping, Hannabel picks up the data-slate and tries to start it. She also takes a closer look at the buttons, to see if she can identify the wearer through them.


OOC: I assume that a Naval officer would have fancier buttons than an enlisted man, possibly even personalized ones or ones with some sort of "rank" markings. If neither the dataslate nor the buttons provide any clues by themselves, Hannabel next intends to inspect the pistol.

[Haval]

Hopefully her foreknowledge of how the battle had originally gone would have some use. She will address the Commissar, hoping to give the impression of being an over eager junior officer rather than someone in need of being disciplined. 'The traitors will go for the life sustainers next. It's straight out of the Principia Bellicosa They did the same thing to the Veritas Lux at the end of the war. We need to be prepared if our people can't hold it.' Perhaps the crew could be persuaded to start responding to a problem before it had started. This lie had the benefit of probably being mostly true. The Veritas was a vessel of Battlefleet Koronus that as far as she knew had not even been built yet.

How do you win a battle that has been lost once already. The crew of the Terminus would do what they can to hold the most important parts of the ship, but had obviously been no match for the Iron Warriors. The Astartes were said to not be afraid of anything, but perhaps they could be told something that might slow them down. She will look around for the nearest Tech-Priest.


Deceive for lying to a Comissar
vs. Fel 47 (+10 bonus for having Etiquette as a Noble?)
[roll0]

Forbidden Lore (Archaeotech) to see if I have any idea of the vox frequency the Iron Warriors on the Terminus might be using to talk to their ships. In the hope that it might make jamming them easier.
vs. Int 53
[roll1]

And because I think I ought to roll for this rather than assuming that Anika already knows it
Scholastic Lore (Legend) to know about the Iron Warrior / Imperial Fist rivalry
vs. Int 53
[roll2]

Admittedly, there was probably no chance of this working

[PotatoGolem]

Ah, Lady Vanhal! Battling a Traitor Astartes in the Teleportarium. Rather a rude guest, if I say so myself. And yourself?

He leaves the vox link open as he turns to the men. Lancers! Focus fire on the Traitor Astartes! Al, your plasma gun is our best shot, so make it count! Armsmen, hold off that rabble! Remember Holy Sanguinus and Ollanius Pius, who gave their lives unafraid for the glory of the Emperor and the future of Mankind! We shall not falter! We shall not fail! FOR THE EMPEROR!

He aims his pistol at the Iron Warrior and fires with a roar of burning plasma.


Half action aim, half action shoot. [roll0], target is 46. Damage [roll1] pen 6
Free Action to give Albertus +10% to shooting.

Command test: [roll2] vs 102 (base 92 +10 Peer (military)).

EDIT: Eight degrees of success. Those troops should fight like mini-astartes themselves.

[Destro_Yersul]

The bay was empty except for the few belongings of the last survivor, everything of use having gone with the pods that did escape. The data-slate Hannabel picked up looked standard, but it was very old. Pressing the activation rune resulted in a brief flicker of the power light and nothing else. The batteries had died a long time ago. Stooping to inspect the uniform remnants instead, Hannabel identified a couple of larger discs as tarnished medals, and an admiral's rank bar, amidst the scattering of what was once bright brass.

The Lancers had been waiting, and the entry of the traitor Astartes was met with a hail of hellgun fire. The bolts pinged off the marine's power armour or whisked past entirely to strike the soldiers behind him. With so many targets, they couldn't really miss, but the fusillade had left their main opponent untouched. Albertus was more fortunate, swinging up the plasmagun's barrel and pulling the trigger twice. The weapon hissed and spat, sending two glowing blobs of superheated plasma into the space marine's leg. Ceramite bubbled and melted, and the stench of burnt flesh filled the room. Macharius' own shot hit the marine dead center, scorching a much smaller hole in the thick chest plate.

The marine was still standing, though, fighting on through a wound that would have felled lesser men. He roared his defiance, and the Lancers were forced to duck for cover as a torrent of high-explosive bolts sailed over their heads. The ship's armsmen were fighting hard, the banging of shotgun fire drowning out the whining crack of the enemy lasguns. So far, they were holding.

"Take a moment for the gun to recharge, sir." Al shouted over the din of battle. "Got him good though, hey?"

"I've never heard of the Veritas. Which battlegroup was she in?" An explosion rocked the ship, another round of enemy fire hammering the void shields. "Never mind," the commissar said, clearly much more concerned with the matter at hand. "The life sustainers are an obvious target. You there! Send anyone still unengaged to hold the sustainer chambers. We'll fight them off yet."

Looking at the auspex readings, Anika wasn't so sure of that. The Imperial Navy had good ships, and good men, but the enemy outnumbered them and the advantage was beggining to show. Two of the frigates the Admiral had sent on the flanking strike were drifting, the swarm of destroyers that had sent them to their dooms turning to meet one of the light cruisers. The Indomitus had taken a bad hit from the torpedoes, but was still going. Enemy frigates were closing in, though, and the Regent had started accelerating towards them. Boarding torpedoes would be a small worry, if the ship got close enough to bring its full complement of Astartes to bear. There was a techpriest by the reactor monitoring station. After a few moments of trying, Anika was able to wave him over.

[Leon]

++We'll have to see whats on that later when i can recharge it if possible, so it was the Admiral after all. Guess we can just take the detritus that is here and show the Lord-Captain++

Ravia waits at the bottom of the shaft for Hannabel to finish

++I am interested to keep exploring this ship to see what of use it actually hold beyond dead memories++

[rax]

"Hello Admiral," Hannabel whispers respectfully. "If you don't mind, we'll take some of your gear with us as proof we were on board and let the Navy know what happened here. We'll tell them that you never gave up the ship." She picks up the pistol, the medals, and the admiral's rank bar, placing them carefully in her sealed satchel. Then, she turns to Pytho. "You might want to let her ladyship and the Lord Commander know what we found here."

"Why wait?" she then asks Ravia, responding to her statement about the data-slate. "I knew a very nice electro-priest once. He could do all sorts of interesting things with his... tentacles," she says with a grin, wiggling her fingers at the Magos. "I know you've got some nice ones too - can't you just stick one of them in the data-slate and recharge it here? It might contain useful information to help us focus our explorations."

[Haval]

Finally, some good news. In reply to Macharius, 'Splendid. Let me know if I can do anything to help with that.' She is not feeling optimistic but will leave the link open.

The Terminus had warped out after taking one last hit that had damaged the plasma engines. Was it the damage to the ship or the battle that continued after the ship left that was responsible for all this. Could she do anything to affect the ship engagement without attempting to take the bridge hostage. Perhaps even then.

To the Tech-Priest, 'You. I don't expect anyone to be knowledgable on standard Astartes vox frequancies, but I've seen the Mechanicum do some impressive things in the past. Can you jam the comms of our uninvited guests.'


Scholastic Lore (Legend) to know of any circumstance where Astartes turned away from killing a ship before they had a chance to finish it off. In case my roll gives me a better idea.
vs. Int 53
[roll0]

[Leon]

++Two reasons, One i am in a void suit currently and Two the functionality is possible but my system is not currently optimized for such capability. Its part of a future update that i expect to enable when i upgrade the settings that my enhanced coil allows for. I've barely touched on what this Coil is capable of thus far. I expect that given the time to extract all pertinent data that this trove of ancient knowledge has to offer i will be able to do a great many more things with it++

[rax]

"A fair point," Hannabel agrees with a grin and a shrug when Ravia points out that she's suited up. "Well then, I guess I'd better record some evidence of our own before we move on. You know, in case the relevant authorities want more proof of our discovery than a gun and a handful of old medals." So saying, she produces a pict recorder and takes a moment to film the admiral's escape pod, then films some more of the bay as she returns to the lift shaft. "Any reply from the Lord Commander?" she asks Pytho before they begin the climb back up to the bridge.

[PotatoGolem]

Keep firing! Put as many shots on him as you can! Jilian, you almost had him-keep it up! Al, take cover while it charges.

Macharius aims and fires again, keeping only his head and left arm above the cover.

Command [roll0]
Shooting [roll1]

[Destro_Yersul]

"No reply yet. I've reported our findings to him, but I believe he may be engaged." The astropath looked tired, and somewhat concerned.

Ravia, meanwhile, was fiddling with one of the dataslates she'd brought along, extracting its battery to use as a replacement for the admiral's. Omnissiah be praised for standard connectors - the new battery fit. The slate booted up, and Ravia saw that it was a common utility model. It had a suite of organisation functions and data storage, but everything had been wiped except for one text file. She opened it.


Admiral's log: This will be my final entry. The oxygen is running out, and the ship is still in warp. I've done what I can. There's fuel for the backup generators, and Emperor Willing they'll be able to run for long enough. Most of the crew is gone, dead or launched in lifepods. The only ones left are the servitors, myself, and the poor souls in the cold quarters. I couldn't save the ship. We caught the Regent, but we couldn't stand before the Astartes. Filthy traitors. If you're reading this, and you're one of those damned who turned to the dark gods, then know that with my last breath I defy you. I will go to my death proudly, head high, as an Admiral should. I do it on my terms, rather than face the slow death of suffocation.

If, by some miracle, this finds its way into the hands of the Imperium, then go to the Navy. Tell them we fought to the end. Tell them I did everything I could to ensure the survival of the Terminus, and as many of her crew as could be saved. Go to the crew decks, and use Navy Code aegis 7 to release the executive override on the stasis pods. If any still live, tell them Admiral Davis sent you.

For Terra and the Emperor.

Hannabel's found the Admiral, Pytho's voice resonated inside Macharius' head. Or his equipment, anyways. He appears to have gone down with the ship. The rest of the lifepods down here got launched, but his stayed behind. Ravia's going through the dataslate he left.

It was hard to focus on what Pytho was saying, though, with the battle going on. The Lancers raised their guns to fire again. Jilian's shot looked good, but the Space Marine threw himself into a roll at the last second, and the shot passed through the space where his head had been a moment ago. He was surprisingly quick, for something so big. Kristof and Barry tried to fire at him as he was coming out of the roll. Instead of being rewarded by the crack of hellgun fire, both their guns buzzed and did nothing. Barry cursed, and started trying to re-adjust the focus lens. Kristof would have done the same, but he never got the chance.

The Astartes came up firing, strafing to the side as his bolter kicked and roared. Albertus' cover exploded under a hail of the mass-reactive shells, and Macharius ducked. He felt something smash him in the chest - it was like getting gut-punched by a prizefighter. Beside him, Kristof took one of the shells in the shoulder. The provost's arm and half his chest blew apart, sending him crashing lifeless to the deck. When the smoke cleared, Macharius saw that Al was down too, his lower body entirely gone. Blood slicked the floor. Ears ringing, Macharius glanced up over his cover to see that the traitor guard in the room had taken heart from this small victory, and were surging forwards. The defence looked a lot more precarius than it had a moment ago...

The techpriest nodded. "I can do a blanket jamming easily enough. The Iron Warriors typically use one of three battle frequencies. I'll block those first." He set to work, while Anika wracked her brain trying to think of times the Astartes had given up.

The problem was that it depeneded largely on Chapter, or in this case, Legion. The Astartes they were facing were the Iron Warriors, a notoriously tenacious legion specialised in siege warfare. They were ferocious in combat, giving no quarter and asking for none in return. The only times she could think of them retreating, they had been up against overhwelming odds. Those were large-scale battles, though. A single ship, boarded by torpedo... probably their objective was to do as much damage as they could, then retreat via the landing craft.

Hannabel's found the Admiral, Pytho's voice reported in her mind. Or his equipment, anyways. He appears to have gone down with the ship. The rest of the lifepods down here got launched, but his stayed behind. Ravia's going through the dataslate he left.

[Leon]

++You were right about there being useful data on here, the ship has a cold quarters deck. That alone is a useful bit of tech if the power holds, this long with this amount of ship wide damage we wont know till we find it++

[Haval]

After Pytho's comment she will glance at the Admiral appraisingly. 'Why go down with his ship when the lifepods had already evacuated?' The dishonour of defeat probably, but it seemed like a waste. Although there was the commands that the Admiral seemed to have entered before the end. 'Perhaps he was trying to keep the ship as intact as possible for the Imperium.'

To the Tech Priest, 'Do what you can.' Jamming them was an inconvenience but it was a start. It was only common sense that it would be harder for the Iron Warriors to organise themselves when they were cut off from each other. Yet jamming them might also make deceiving them easier. From all she had heard, the only way regular humans could defeat the Traitor Legions was through strength at arms and the manpower of the Imperial Guard. Failing that there was one thing that was likely to worry the Iron Warriors. It was said the remaining Loyal Legions had chased their treacharous cousins all the way from Terra to the Eye. Perhaps it was a matter of fooling the Iron Warriors into believing that they faced a worthier enemy. Even the Archenemy might want to withdraw at the prospect of a fair fight. Anything to give the Terminus' defenders more time.

Besides, judging by what Macharius had said he was doing, she needed to do something. Anika will wait for the Tech Priest to commence jamming and then use her microbead to vox the locations on the Terminus where fighting was reported. She is increasingly angry as she dwells on exactly all that these things were responsible for.


Speech maybe depends on rolls in the ooc, especially if I need an Archaeotech roll first. I'll edit as needed.

<'Corpse Grinders. Dullest of legions. You who were ultimately fit only for garrison duty in support of the work of your betters. You all who failed at Terra and who rightly now skulk away in fear of the retribution of your former brothers. Rejoice, for the Ravenlord and his sons have come for you to end your miserable lives. Even now your boarding parties are dying. Your ship will soon follow.’>

[PotatoGolem]

For a moment, Macharius is stunned by the deaths of his squad. His mind races back to the carnage he saw as a boy, running away helplessly as the Praetorians died to hold back House Tremayne's assassins, fleeing as his homeworld burned. He snaps back to the present (or the long-dead past). He is no frightened child. He is High Lord of House Absalom, and he will neither retreat nor surrender. Cover wasn't doing him much good. The Traitor's boltgun made it of little more value than a paper wall. His people would die trying to match its destructive power.

Barry! Pick up than gun and bring the bastard down! Show him how the Lancers fight! Jilian! Precise shots! Men! Life is the currency of the Emperor, and we will spend it well!

As the Lancers fire, Macharius whispers into the vox. Anika, any reinforcements you can send would be greatly appreciated. Things are not going well. But by the Emperor, we'll make them pay.

As the plasma sizzles away he vaults the cover and charges the monstrous Fallen Angel, power sword raised high. For the Emperor and Holy Terra!

Choosing out-of-character to fail against the flaw of High Vendetta- Macharius will not suffer his men to die while he runs again. Free Action to improve Barry's shooting. Full Action to charge the Iron Warrior. Yay for Ambidextrous!

Attack: [roll0] vs 56
Command: [roll1] vs 91
If Command is bad I'll use fate to re-roll [roll2]

3 DOS

[rax]

"Engaged? Did he meet a nice girl in the distant past?" Hannabel giggles. "Oh, don't look so sour, mindbender. If you can't laugh at a time like this, then when?"

"Not just ancient tech, Magos! The cold quarters could contain survivors as well! Now wouldn't that be something - thawing out someone ten thousand years old. The things they could tell us about ancient times! Not to mention the ship!"

"Hey! A thought just occurred to me - you know what doesn't need much power and is built to last? Guns. Armour. Guns AND armour. Maybe the sleepers could tell us how to get to the main armoury? I quite fancy myself an archaeotech pistol or two! Of course, they might all be stark raving mad by now - assuming they even survive the re-animation process. Well come on, what are we waiting for? Let's go!!!" Obviously giddy with excitement, Hannabel begins climbing back up the lift shaft.

[Haval]

To Macharius, 'I'll pass that on. Don't take any risks.' And don't leave me alone in here.

'Commissar. Report from the teleportarium. The defenders are holding but have taken casulties. They need reinforcements if we can give them any.'

Destro - I don't know how this fits in with the other post, but it seemed important if Macharius is in trouble

[Destro_Yersul]

"I believe the crew decks still have power. We saw part of them over the servitor feeds earlier." Pytho studiously ignored Hannabel's joke, following along back to the bridge. With their collection of evidence in tow, there was little left in the lifepod bays for them.

Thanks to the suit grapnels and the harness, climbing back up was relatively simple. At the top, though, they had a decision to make. Macharius and Anika were still asleep, but Macharius had brought servitors. They could bring the sleepers along, though they'd have to go more carefully, or they could leave them here.

The techpriest was more than helpful, setting her up a voice modulator so she could give her speech over the vox. It wouldn't do to not sound the part. The comms jammed, and the speech delivered, she had to think of other things she could do from up here. The commissar had agreed to try and dispatch more men to the Teleportarium...

Looking back at her console, she saw that the battle was going poorly. Space was filled with drifitng hulks, from amongst the loyalists and traitors alike. Most were smaller ships, but as she watched the Indomitus took another torpedo salvo, the proud ship buckling under a series of explosions. Macrocannon fire from half a dozen escorts chipped away at her armour. She was still fighting, but a couple good hits were likely to end her. One of the chaos light cruisers was down, but the Iron Regent was still up, having taken barely any damage, and closing fast. It looked as though she intended to ram the Terminus.

Barry ducked out of his cover and ran, scooping up the plasmagun and firing a shot that went wide, sizzling past the traitor Astartes and blowing apart one of the enemy soldiers instead. Jilian's shots hit, but neither seemed to have penetrated the thick ceramite of the marine's armour. Macharius went over the top, his battlecry echoed by dozens of throats.

"For Terra and the Emperor!" The loyalist forces rallied, pumping fire into the boarders. Macharius heard weapons fire starting up from outside the Teleporatarium, reinforcements coming in to catch the traitors in a crossfire. Then his vision was filled with whirring chain teeth, as the towering Fallen Angel let his bolter fall and powered up his chainblade. Macharius blocked the first strike, his powersword sparking as it met the Astartes Chainsword. Though fallen to chaos, the space marine was a powerful foe. Above, the vox crackled.

'Corpse Grinders. Dullest of legions. You who were ultimately fit only for garrison duty in support of the work of your betters. You all who failed at Terra and who rightly now skulk away in fear of the retribution of your former brothers. Rejoice, for the Ravenlord and his sons have come for you to end your miserable lives. Even now your boarding parties are dying. Your ship will soon follow.’

The voice was modulated, sounding more metallic than human, but Macharius recognised Anika's speech patterns. The marine, however, did not. "Corax?" Briefly forgetting his enemy, the helmeted head turned to look up at the nearest vox-grill. "How? We reduced your legion near to dust! You - agh!" Macharius' power sword bit deep, slicing into the space marine's leg. He had to duck out of the way of a backhand strike as the marine reacted, squaring up against him.

"Your Emperor will not save you. Corax will not save you. If I cannot escape, I will take you all down with me." As he spoke, Macharius saw him ready a frag grenade with his free hand.

[rax]

"So, do we take the sleeping beauties with us or leave them here till we finish exploring the crew quarters? So far, we've seen no evidence of anything dangerous roaming the halls, so they should be alright if we leave them here, and we're probably not going to get into a fight. On the other hand, if we have to make a quick evac, we probably won't have time to come back for them, and that could be... bad. Should we rig some sort of stretcher and have the servitors carry them?"

[Haval]

That would be the final hull breach. They ought to just warp out, for all that it would be to ensure that history repeated itself. The trouble was getting the Navy to willingly retreat even when the alternative was certain death. To the bridge as a whole, 'The Regeant's going to ram us. If we can't get out of the way, recommend we meet them on this heading. Might minimise damage to the plasma engines.'


Forbidden Lore (Archaeotech) to recomend a heading that might reduce structural damage to the ship
vs. Int 53
[roll0]

[Destro_Yersul]

"That's certainly an option." Pytho said. "It'll be a little slower, but rigging a stretcher shouldn't be hard. The servitors are here to carry people."

I need one of you to make a choice before I can update further. Stretcher, or leave them here?

"Helm, can you bring us about to a new heading?" The Admiral called to the crewman at the wheel. He'd seen the Regent coming as well, and seemed to agree with Anika's assessment.

"Going to be tough, sir! Thrusters aren't fixed. I'll try, though..."

Slowly, very slowly, the warship started to turn. Anika could see the path of the Regent on her monitors, extrapolated by the auspex. An explosion rocked the deck, cannon fire hammering the hull.

"Damage report!"

"We've lost the munitorium, sir! Power's down. There's still fighting, all across the ship."

"Damn!" The Admiral pointed at Anika, and the other fire control stations. "Soon as they get close, hit them with everything we've got. Helm! Bring us about as best you can. Take the impact on our prow. The field bracing will stave off the worst of it."

[Leon]

++Bring them with us i suggest. They may wake up and it would be better to have them wherever we are rather than have to backtrack to collect them once we are done or need to leave++
Ravia will begin to see about the needs of making a carrying apparatus and sorting the servitors out to carry them ++We may find something that makes a forced wake-up a necessity as well, only issues that come to mind right now are ascents/descents will be a lot trickier but we will overcome that when its needed++

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius laughs, keeping close to the Iron Warrior. He taunts the Astartes, giving his Lancers time to back away from the blast radius.

I fear not death, Traitor, for the Emperor is with me. My God is eternal and all-powerful. I will sit at his right hand for eternity, while you are consigned to the oblivion that awaits heretics. So detonate your grenade. The Emperor endures.

Macharius waits until the last moment. As the heretic drops his grenade, he activates his jump-pack and soars away.

OOC-delay action until the IW tosses the grenade, then jet pack move out of range

[Haval]

Until the hull bracing fails of course. Wishing she had paid more attention to the details of Hannabel's war stories, Anika will target the oncoming Regeant.

To Macharius, assuming he could hear her 'They're going to ram us. You might want to hold onto something.'

Then remembering Pytho's message, 'Tech-Priest, what is the status of the life sustainers?' Perhaps the impact had managed to break them. If not, the air might be going away any minute now.


Vs. BS
[roll0]

[Destro_Yersul]

Setting up a pair of stretchers, each to be carried by a servitor, was easy. The materials were readily available by scavenging the ship, combined with things they'd brought along. With Macharius and Anika secured, the party headed for the crew quarters.

It took some time. The bridge was a significant distance from the crew decks, and twice they had to go around collapsed corridors full of ancient, broken pipes. The closer they got, though, the less the damage seemed to be. The crew quarters must have been a low priority for the enemy boarding parties, and one of the Admiral's last acts had been to set the ship's systems to preserve them as much as possible. They passed through barracks and mess halls, a recreation deck, a small shooting-range for the men to practice. The way to the cold quarters was marked by signs, and everything here still seemed to have power. The brightness of millenia-old lumen strips was a marked contrast to the darkness and silence of the majority of the ship.

At last, they reached the cold storage pods. There were hundreds of them, rows upon rows of ancient stasis chambers. Many were empty, the crew they had once held thawed out long ago. Some were occupied, their inhabitants clearly deceased after some failure of the pod's mechanisms. Their bodies were preserved, but their life was not. In the center of the cold vaults, Ravia discovered the central control room. The console here still worked, its systems monitoring the arcane technology that powered the stasis pods. A huge percentage were red, empty or failed. A few, a rare few, were still lit up green. The console was on lockdown, however, the systems it controlled blocked behind an executive override. The Admiral's last ditch defence of his men, in case the ship should fall to enemy hands.

Plasma batteries blazed into the darkness, striking out at the incoming ship. The Regent sailed through the fusillade, firing as she came, emerging untouched from the other side. It was almost unfair, the ease with which the enemy seemed to evade their shots. The Terminus was turning, though, the flank that was so heavily damaged in the present slowly rotating away from the incoming strike cruiser. The tech-priest looked down at his console, and started to answer Anika's question. A thunderous boom shook the deck, a detonation somewhere deep inside the ship.

Thrown off by the sudden explosion, the helmsman didn't suite make the turn in time.

The ships met with a hull-shattering crash, the Regent's prow scraping along the side of the Terminus. Klaxons blared as entire decks depressurised at once, metal shrieking and tearing. Rivets blew outwards as the hull folded in, the field bracing failing seconds before the impact. Crewmen were thrown from their chairs, the officers around the holo-table landing together in a tangle. All the lights went out, replaced by the blood-red glow of emergency luminators.

"Life support is gone," the techpriest reported, pulling himself to his feet. "We'll have some time before the atmosphere on the ship becomes too toxic to breathe, but it won't be long. Admiral. I recommend we retreat, while we still can."

From her own console, Anika could see the damage reports. It wasn't as bad as the ship would have taken, if she hadn't turned, but it seemed the saboteurs had made it to the life sustainers. The Teleportarium still worked, though, and the reactors were not on fire. She and Macharius had accomplished something, but what? Briefly, reality seemed to blur, the faces around her sliding in and out of focus before snapping back. She took stock of the battle; both fleets had suffered terrible losses. The Indomitus was gone in a fireball, taking half of the ships that had swarmed it. One of the chaos light cruisers was down. Frigates and destroyers were burnt and broken, on all sides. The Terminus was nearly crippled, the Regent still in decent fighting shape. Remaining on the Imperial side were two Sword-class frigates, and a badly damaged light cruiser. On the traitor side were the Iron Regent, a light cruiser, and a handful of destroyers.

"We are not traitors." The Marine's voice rang out loudly, amplified by his helmet's vox grill. "We are the members of the losing side. The Emperor was a man, not a god. He had flaws. He used us. He failed us. Believe what you will, the truth endures." At the word truth, he hurled the grenade at Macharius' feet.

Macharius had been waiting for that. Firing his jump-pack, he shot backwards even as the grenade hit the ground and bounced back towards the Astartes. The giant roared with anger, swiping with his chainsword at his fleeing opponent. Macharius swung his power sword to block the strike, but misjudged the timing. The chainblade's whirring teeth connected with his leg just as the grenade detonated, tearing into flesh with all the force the Astartes could put behind the strike.

[rax]

Staring at the console, Hannabel mimes scratching her head through the helmet. "Well, that's a shame. I mean, it was nice of the Admiral to tell us what code he used to lock down the ship, but I weren't no officer, so no one ever bothered to tell me what an Aegis 7 code sequence looks like. I don't suppose you can... talk?... to the ship and get it to release the code locks?" she asks Ravia.

[Haval]

As reality seemed to break for a moment, Anika will briefly look around to see if anyone else was responding to that. They had disrupted the narrative but perhaps not enough to break it. Perhaps there was a chance she could get out of this if she made it to a life pod before they entered the warp. With the Iron Warriors everywhere that was itself a big ask. But the Terminus was destined not to warp out in good order, and she would bet that either taking damage at the wrong moment or continuing the battle within the warp would be enough to seal the creation of the echo. She needed to try and stop this.

'Admiral. The Traitors can board us with the Regeant's full complement, and if we retreat they'll be coming with us. Unless we can make it to somewhere with Loyalist Astartes backing, they will take the ship. A ship like the Terminus should not be left in their hands.' This was absolutely true. 'The Teleportarium remains active. If we disable the bridge to deny it to the enemy we can try to evacuate to one of our frigates through there.'

The monorail that had earlier blocked their access to the bridge had given her some ideas on how to do that.


Glory to Nuffle etc

Charm probably
vs. Fel 47 (+10 etiquette bonus)
[roll0]

[Destro_Yersul]

Macharius is waking up, Anika heard Pytho say. How are things for you?

The Admiral picked himself up off the ground, looking around the bridge. Things were a mess, consoles broken and cabling dangling from the ceiling. The holotable sparked, and went dead with a pop. Most of the officers were also picking themselves back up, though the commissar and a number of other crew looked to have been stunned or killed by the impact.

"The plasma reactors are still working," the Admiral said, leaving his command throne and walking over to stand next to Anika. He was limping, but she couldn't see any blood. Looked like he would survive. "But I think you're right. What's your name, ensign? You've had some good insights, during the battle. I think the officer corps missed out, if they passed you over for promotion. I'll call a general evacuation, and we'll use the Teleportarium to move everyone to the Argus."

Looking around the bridge, he sighed. "We can't let them take the ship, though. I can lockout the bridge, but there's a chance they could get around that, and any damage we can do in the time it takes to evacuate could be repaired."

The chainsword sliced through his leg, the teeth chewing through the bone in an instant. The grenade exploded, throwing the astartes to the ground alongside him. Macharius couldn't stand. He felt the loss of his leg, the pain and slick sticky wetness as his blood pooled beneath him. His vision started to blur.

"Bastard!" he heard Barry shout, and saw the flash of plasmagun fire. Two blobs of glowing plasma struck the monstrous space marine, melting through armour and setting fire to flesh. The men behind the remains of the lancers opened fire as well, pouring shots into the bod. The astartes collapsed, and through the corner of one eye Macharius saw the enemy soldiers turn and try to retreat. They were caught by the reinforcements coming up from behind, trapped and out numbered. The writing was on the wall; they had won. Then everything went black.

Hannabel and Ravia heard a noise behind them, from where the servitors were. Macharius had started moving again; looked like the Lord Captain was finally waking up.

When Macharius did wake, it wasn't to the bridge. He was lying in a makeshift stretcher carried by one of his servitors, in a room he didn't recognise. Hannabel and Magos Ravia were staning near what looked like a control console, and all around the room he could see monitors covered in status indicators. Most were red, a few were green. Pytho bent down over him.

"How are you feeling, Captain?"

[Haval]

Anika wasn't sure what to make of that. At least getting out of here was possible. 'Bridge is messed up. I'm going to see if I can evacuate the Admiral without taking the ship into the warp.' If that didn't work nothing would. 'Does Macharius seem...normal?'

She will grin in spite of herself at the Admiral's compliment 'Vanhal sir, and my parents would be surprised to hear that.' She will look around and try to judge the location where they had run into the crashed auto-tram. 'And I was hoping for something more explosive. There's a tramway around here somewhere that carries plasma fuel canisters. If it still has power we can park a couple next to the bridge. Ought to go up nicely with the right incentive.' Unless of course, the tram was following the script and was already wrecked.

It was a lot of ifs, and it did rather depend on them having something lying around that they could use to detonate it remotely. Pointing at the Tech Priest, 'Magos, how are you at blowing things up?' Plan B was that someone would need to stay behind and detonate the canisters in person.


So because maybe partly causing the problem that we ran into earlier appeals to me, I'm going to see if there's a working console that I can use to operate the tramway to get plasma canisters closer to the bridge
Forbidden Lore (Archeotech) (+Tech Priest assistance?)
vs. Int 53
[roll0]

Otherwise I'm going to see if I can get the find the bulkhead that was blocked and try and get the door open