[DH1e] The Damocles Contingency (RPG IC)

[Trokair]

The Eastern Marches:

 

Between the dust, sand and exhaust fumes there was quite a haze between them and the D’regs convoy, perhaps that was why none of the Brotherhood had fired yet, not willing to waist precious ammunition until they were more sure of their shots.

 

The D’regs must know that they were both outnumbered and would soon be caught, perhaps they would surrender. Or where they bait in a trap, Bardas’s paranoia got the better of him and he started scanning the horizon on either side, looking for any sign of an ambush, he would always be able to refocus on the foe ahead of him if the others started shooting.

 

Spoiler

Paranoia induced Awareness Test

Per: 34

D100: 99! Fail, 6DoF

 

[Mazer Rackham]

The Eastern Marches:

 

Seeing nothing untoward on the horizon, but the empty plains, and the needle of Hive Primus in the distance, thrusting up like a spear, the Khamsin Bortherhood close the gap to 50m, and begin firing. The first to die, is the D'reg rider furthest to the right in front of you. An autocannon tears him into red meat and metal confetti as the shells find their mark. It is obvious now why the Khamsin are so close - a mix between terror, and the bloodthirsty need to see the enemy die.

 

In response, the bikers lurch forward, realising they are in the leopard's jaws. Some throw grenades out behind them, others, wickedly spiked contraptions - caltrops - designed to burst tyres and spike riders.

 

"Here it comes..." your driver says.

 

A knife-edged caltrop saws through the air, as the man who you hesitated to shoot scatters the deadly cargo behind him. The thing buries in the metal roll bar three inches from your head. The big D'Reg vehicle has a pintle heavy stubber, that one of the occupants pops the hatch to man, swinging it at the Khamsin riders.

 

Heavy chatter and rapid barking sound over the gunning engines, as more caltrops and grenades pelt the Brotherhood.

 

Aydam Khosh leads his men and women in keening, blood-curdling cries as the battle is joined.

[Trokair]

Mad Max Damocles edition

 

The crack of an autocanon is unmistakable and Bardas’s attention snaps away from the horizon and towards the raiders, one of whom blossomed into a cloud off red tinged shrapnel before quickly dissipating into the general haze.

 

“Here it comes...”, the driver was way to calm for the hurling death that glanced of the roll cage inches from their heads.  That was probably why he was the driver, able to keep his cool even in the midst of battle, unlike the gunner to the rear, whose shifting back and forth as he sought targets for Shenzi and yells betrayed the adrenalin high he was on.

 

A glint as a hatch on the raiders’ big hauler opened, the swing of the heavy stubber that was now crewed, it would reap ah heavy tol on the brotherhood if not silenced. In the noise and confusion it was imposable to tell if anybody else had spotted the D’reg gunner. Bardas raised Saxa to stop the man, but there was no clear line, the heavy shield that formed part of the heavy stubber turret blocked him from this angle.

 

Instead he lowered his aim and fired.  

 

Spoiler

Single Shot, Aimed, Called Shot: rear wheel cluster

BS: 35 + 10 (Aim) – 20 (Called Shot) + 20 (Enormous, I assume this counts even if aiming/call shot a specific target)= 45

D100: 18, Hit, 2DoS

Damage 1d10(7) + 5 = 12 at pen 6 (Pen 3 plus Man-stopper round)   

 

[Mazer Rackham]

Valkyrie 212:

 

+Roger, Two-one-one-gamma-zero-seven, vermillion. Hold course and wait, over+

 

Max Max: Chunder Road:

The bullet chops into the tyre and bursts the outer wheel of the two-wheel drum. A scrap of tyre is catapulted at one of the Khamsin riders, and fouls his bike. The rider goes over his handlebars and chucks it into a sand drift.

 

At a command from Aydam Khosh another rider loops back to pick him up.

 

The shot does have an effect though, as the man sawing on the heavy stubber has his aim spoiled by the disruption to the vehicle, and as it slews about to compensate, his chattering machinegun clips the flank of a Venator.

 

+Ha-ha!+ Khosh spoils, +not this time, filth!+

 

The Multilaser spits a torrent of crimson death, the beams turning the sand red as blood, red as Mars. Two more D'Regs implode or ignite, followed by the boom of detonating fuel tanks. The metallic taste of hot las-barrel is lost quickly as the chase goes on, the needle of the Hive now fast becoming the broader tip of a spear.

 

For their part, the D'Regs don't give up, a passenger on the back of one of the quads turns around to spray bullets from autoguns.

 

D'Regs FAB at Bardas Vehicle:

Spoiler

BS: PASS, 1 DoS (2 Hits)

Random 1D4: 1: Driver 2: Bardas 3: Gunner 4: Vehicle

D3: 2: Bardas (Body, Dam: 6, Pen 0)

D3: 1: Driver (Body, Dam: 10, Pen 0)

 

Driver Reaction: Dodge/Jink:

Spoiler

AG: (+10 Vehicle MV) = 82 FAIL, Plus 4 DoF

 

The Driver gasps as a round tears through his upper left chest at the shoulder, throwing the vehicle violently to the right as his body tries to turn away from the savage blows. Beside you a grenade detonates, blasting the arm off one of the Brotherhood. His bike rears up, toppling him for the saddle, and it falls down to crush him.

 

GM: Note you can't Dodge here, as the Dodge is performed by the Driver.

[Trokair]

Bardas

 

+If you need Medical drop back from the front and I’ll see what I can do+ he informed the driver.

 

The spray of autogun fire had caught him to, but reaching under his garment all he found was bruised flesh and tender ribs, no bleeding and no sharp stabs of pain indicating serious damage, the bless garments mesh inlay once again proving their worth.

 

He could see the raider swing his autogun round for another burst at them. Not if he could help it.

 

Spoiler

Single shot, aimed, called shot the quad passenger that just shot at the Tauros

BS35 + 10 (Aim) – 20 (Called Shot) + 10 (Hulking?) = 35

D100: 80, Miss, 4DoF

 

[Mazer Rackham]

The Eastern Marches:

The bullet flies off into the ether, but thankfully is lost in the absolute storm of flying lead. The driver looks across at you. "I will swap with Naroon. Quickly!"

 

The two men trade places with some cumbersome clambering, but the wounded man is now in the back, hunkered down. He straps himself in. Naroon gets in beside you, and hits the accelerator, blitzing big wads of sand out of the back. The pursuit has continued as you span out, and now you must catch up, but Naroon ahs a heavy boot, and whilst you're out at the back of the pack, your guns are still in range.

 

"Tolan - pop up for a shot with Shenzi when you can!"

 

The gears crunk and cludge as Naroon changes them.

 

Valkyrie 212:

 

Solomon:

Cutter, whilst waiting for the Thunderbolts to come back to him, patches through to Solomon. +Well, now my taciturn trooper, that's the question.+

 

GM: @Marshal Valkenhayn You can assume Cutter fills you in a bit here. If your understanding of the situation is patchy, don't fret, That will lend itself to Cutter's 'bringing you up to speed'

 

+This is Charlie-alpha-papa zero-zero-five. Your clearance checks, we'll escort you, Do not deviate, Out.+

 

It is a long five minutes, but finally you pull into the Halls of Judgement Precinct hangar, and the Thunderbolts peel off.

 

Haldane is waiting on the landing apron.

 

GM: Lads, we're going to hold you there for a bit - if you want to converse with Solomon or each other, or do tidy up/follow on with Gwynne, ask Haldane stuff as you disembark, that's fine, but please do NOT leave the hangar. We've got to wrap up Bardas (hopefully not in a bag). Thanks.

[Trokair]

Bardas

 

With Naroon at the wheel they steadily worked their way through the pack of Brotherhood vehicles until they were once more at the forefront of the chase. The Raiders numbers had lessened as the brotherhoods gun had taken their toll, but they had passed not just D’reg wrecks in the last few minutes but a few Khamsin as well.

 

Tolan had not asked for any medical help, whether because it was not so bad or out of some stoic believe that that would be showing weakness he did not know.

 

Another vehicle was violently catapulted to one side; the raiders were doped blasting charges now.

 

+Get us closer to the big one, it is time to end this.+

[Mazer Rackham]

The Eastern Marches:

 

Naroon rams his foot down, and the Tauros responds, hungrily barrelling onward until you have caught up. The big D'Reg wagon is weaving to try and angle it's flanks to deflect attack.

[Trokair]

Leap of Faith

Spoiler

Strength Bonus 3

so default is 3m far and 0.75m high

Strength test for the actual leap and modify distance acordingly

S35 – 10 for Standing leap= 25

D100: 86, fail 6 DoF = 0m

FP reroll after intense train flashback

D100: 100!

Dice, why do you do this to me?

 

 

[Mazer Rackham]

The Eastern Marches:

 

Your leap is arrested by one of the caltrops embedded in the vehicle roll bars, snagging you unexpectedly. You plunge headfirst, toes trapped in the Tauros, fingers desperately grasping onto the truck, the desert hurling only two feet beneath you at a rapid rate, the dust and arid smell thick in your filters.

 

GM: Make a Challenging (+0) Strength Test.

[Trokair]

Spoiler

S35 = 25

D100: 52, Fail, 2 DoF

FP reroll, please

D100: 62... 

Kids, stunts involving vechils are for movies, not life

 

+Only in Death dose Duty end.+ 

[Mazer Rackham]

The Eastern Marches:

 

At the moment of vulnerability, the machinegunner on top of the vehicle sees your boarding attempt and strafes the Tauros. Bullets slam into Naroon, killing him instantly, and the vehicle swerves away violently, leaving you clinging by one hand, the fingertips on a slipping purchase.

 

History it seems, repeats itself, yet you are in dire peril, for the the twin wheels are churning below you, great scads of sand and sparks where the tyre you shot off had broken away completely, leaving the ragged, whirring wheel rim - a buzzsaw blade and crushing wheel combined. Your legs kick and drag beneath the truck heels catching the sand below as it thunders on, Aydam Khosh preventing his men shooting at it, for fear of hitting you.

 

GM: You must now make a Challenging (+0) Agility Test.

[Trokair]

Bardas

 

Naroon had done his best to get them close, and the jump had been calculated, but random chance, as so often made a mockery of Logic.

 

Catching a glimpse of Tauros swerving away suddenly, red splatter staining the front side, a primal moment of relief that it had not been him was dismissed just as quickly as it arose by the whirr of the wheels below him and the tenuous grip he had on the rear of the rig.  

 

Using the swaying motion of the rig to his advantage Bardas swung leftwards with it, hands seeking better grip so that he could pull his feet further up to find stable footing as well.

 

Spoiler

Agility Test

Ag:36

D100: 37, soo close.

 

[Mazer Rackham]

The Eastern Marches:

 

Your brave gambit to avoid certain death almost pays off. Almost.

 

Your left hand finds the purchase it so desperately needs, but unbeknownst to you, the strut that forms the wheel arch is rotten with rust. It collapses under your touch, and is strange, eerie slow motion, your other fingers suddenly feel dry air, as opposed to the hot metal of the truck.

 

You have a moment to appreciate the billowing of your robes in majestic ripples, the kick of sand, and spank of debris as it tumbles, bouncing off the flanks of the truck, pebbles in the wind, falling, down, underneath the truck, to be brutally crushed and smacked aside with terrible force - and when time jolts back into line, you see nothing but a blur as you follow it.

 

The pain is fleeting as you go under the wheel, since the agony is so terrible, the feedback blows out your optics and aural implants. There is a strange pulling sensation, your knees going the wrong way without any chance of stopping them, and a strange hilarious dislocation as the pain appears somewhere off to your right, whilst you watch your body being comically ragdolled.

 

You end up being tossed away like the stones from earlier - thrown up, discarded in the wake of the truck. You soar, before plummeting back down to earth large rocks falling down as the truck breaks a boulder under its weight. For long moments there is red-hot fire running up and down your body, and a powerful drift of something fine, coarse burying you in blissful darkness.

 

GM: Bardas vs Truck: (Dam rolled OFFSCREEN).

GM: The scale of the damage is so great that I now require Bardas to Burn a Fate Point to survive.

 

 

 

 

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

 

The entire team worked together with almost robotic precision, all aware of the desperate straits faced by Lady Gwynne. From the second the Valkyrie touched down - even before it - they were immediately moving, disembarking and clearing a path for the waiting crash team, ensuring that nothing would impede the medics' departure towards the greater facilities within the Halls of Judgment.

 

After he watched the pale figure being wheeled away on a gurney, surrounded by shouting doctors and med-techs, Reynard turned to answer Solomon.

 

"From what we have been told, there was an element of the Inquisition who wanted the Golem preserved, not destroyed. They ordered it sent into Tau space, to wreak its havoc on the Xenos rather than on Humanity. It seems that this 'she' is part of that element? Perhaps further examination of the Seal will tell us more? But from the picts on this slate, we do know that her followers have been on Damocles for some time… which makes me wonder how many of the problems our cell has encountered thus far can actually be laid at her door."

 

[Mazer Rackham]

GM OOC: Whilst we wait for Bardas/Tro, we'll clear up the bold Inquisitor and his loyal bodygaurd.

 

The Wardroom of Hector's Revenge:

 

Restal:

 

Flag-Captain Halbast looks decidedly uncomfortable. "My lord, I must advise you that her Ladyship Racel Galleus has already messaged ahead, and pressed upo me the fact, that I should defer to her in any matter regarding the security of the Bastion Fleet, or Damocles itself."

 

This is given to the seated assembly. The assault troops and Restal, stand.

 

"I appreciate that, Captain. Yet I must request your obedience. As Lord Inquisitor, and with authority over the Sector, I am obliged to be Primus Inter Pares, here."

 

"The Lady told me you were dead."

 

"An exaggeration. I sit before you."

 

"You must understand my position my lord. To the first goes the spoils, she warned me you would contact me, perhaps you left it too late?" The Captain makes a face that's half-wince. It is meant to display his hands are tied, maybe the power of his own Captain's Throne bleeding through.

 

Locke's face hardens. "I have burned a hundred worlds, and tossed a million to the pyres in the name of my calling, Flag-Captain. I have seniority, and will leave you with express, written orders, excluding the secret nature of my mission. You will comply, because facing the wrath of Lady Galleus' Ordo, is nothing compared to that of the Hereticus."

 

Locke winces, copying the feigned pain of the Captain opposite him. "My word is law, my will is law. We are all in the hurricane now, sir. You will have to plant your flag and hope it blows over without ripping you up."

 

The assembled officers lapse into uncomfortable glances.

 

Locke knows, as does everyone present, Halbast is merely scrambling to please two masters, and save what he can of his ship, his crews.

 

"Let the record show," Halbast continues, "that I have reports from the Praefector of Arbites, and his newly appointed second, Mr Haldane. I further have reports from some lordlings amongst the hive conclave who speak to and for them. It is my decision - mine alone - to favour the request of Lord Locke, due to his seniority and these supporting statements."

 

"You'd better add that if you don't, the Imperium will release a monster upon the galaxy, one which we may never be able to recover from. It is the fabric of the Imperium you protect. It is an enemy of the Emperor I bid you destroy."

 

Halbast's face carries a ghost of relief. "Let is also be noted as spoken."

 

"Very well," Locke stands. "I order you, by the authority of His Majesty's Most Holy Inquisition, to commence orbital bombardment of Damocles no less than twenty-four hours from my departure of this vessel. You shall continue blockade, and refuse all terms or entreaties from the surface, admitting no vessel at all, from the surface. All are to be destroyed without warning."

 

Locke takes a deep breath, in out. He continues. "You are to continue bombardment until this entire planet is destroyed, rendered into rocks and rubble floating in space. These orders are not to be countermanded, nor superseded but by my seal, or completion."

 

He takes out the box containing his Lord grade seal, and places it upon the table with a great, hushed reverence.

 

"By this Seal, do I complete the fate of Damocles, and condemn her loyal servants to martyrdom in His name, and the traitors and wretched to death, in His justice."

 

Halbast stands, which prompts the officers to copy him. "Let the record show, His Will Be Done."

 

With the sign of the Aquila, the officers file out.

 

GM: We can assume that Locke and Restal fly back to the hive, and meet Valkyrie 212 as it comes in - thereby reuniting the party.

[Machine God]

Kerr Restal:

 

They had alighted upon the starship into void. His home, although others, his, his companions they knew the down below. 

 

He was duty. As were his companions. 

 

He remembered the little kinder. He was the Shepherd. 

 

He knelt... 

 

"Remember Bardas, The Wea, No HE WAS CALLED REYNARD, Scourge, Piotr of no doubt, Nicios and Falk!" 

 

In duty, he wept. 

 

"In His Name!" 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 29, 2023 by Machine God
Tidy-up

[Mazer Rackham]

GM: OOC: Players currently in the Precinct hangar are now free to move about and do as they wish, Bardas will not be joining you at this juncture.

Edited April 29, 2023 by Mazer Rackham

[A.T.]

Falk

 

Turning first to Nicios and Scourge, "if an Inquisitor has set his sights on Gwynne then we can consider nowhere truly safe, watch her."

 

To Reynard, "The proctor and his team may have more luck with these codes, the secure pad as well perhaps. We should take what we have found to Locke", and to Solomon, "speak of what you have seen and heard to no-one."

 

Collecting the last of the two prisoners personal effects he nodded to Reynard. This had now become a race against an Inquisitor with a significant head start, their stay here was likely short.

 

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

 

"I agree."

 

Reynard turned to Haldane and nodded respectfully.

 

"Proctor, we need to speak to Lord Locke, do you know where we can find him? You might want to come along too?"

[Mazer Rackham]

The Hangar:

 

Haldane watches as Lady Gwynne is pushed past on the trolley. A look of concern etches onto his face.

 

"We've collated all our anti-toxins, and have requested our Quartermasters to check our contraband seizures." He points. "Lord Inquisitor Locke lands this very minute."

 

As you all watch on, an Arvus Lighter lands, Locke in his formal regalia decants, followed by Restal.  Both look grim in the face or posture.

 

"We'll set a twenty-four hour watch over the patient," Haldane assures Falk. As he's passed the codes and datapad, he frowns.

 

Haldane: INT Test (Ciphers)

D100: 09 PASS, plus 3 DoS.

 

"I recognise this. It's a vox channel write-down. It's an older way of doing it - it also looks like co-ordinates. Deliberate. Interesting. A man named Mulk has been under surveillance. Mr Restal planted a tracker on him. We've narrowed down a couple of his haunts..."

Edited April 29, 2023 by Mazer Rackham

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

 

Of course!

 

"In that case, we need a vox unit dialled into that channel as soon as possible. Receiving only at first, we don't want them to know we're listening. Can we also confirm what location those coordinates would specify? Do they connect with this Mulk, or any other location that relates to our investigation?"

 

Reynard nodded to Restal as he and the Inquisitor Lord approached, and then looked Locke up and down with a slight grin. He winked impudently.

 

"Fancy."

 

Then his face became more serious. He quickly reported everything that had happened and all they had learned. He concluded.

 

"Whatever you hoped to accomplish with Lady Gwynne's assistance, I would attempt it as soon as possible. I'm no Medicae, but she doesn't look well."

 

 

Edited April 30, 2023 by Lysimachus

[Mazer Rackham]

GM (OOC): Just to clarify, the numbers are a Vox channel, they just look like co-ordinates to confuse the average snoop.

 

The Hangar:

 

Locke merely offers a tired smile to Reynard's charm, proving that his efforts and decisions have weighed heavily. You all notice he's leaning on the staff a little more, as the  burdens shift uneasily about his shoulders. The cherubs pay no mind to this, flitting and peering at the acolytes.

With a small sigh, he responds. "We must wait until she is well enough. She must commune with the Emperor."

 

Haldane takes his cue from the older man, letting him just stand there, revealing no more. He answers the questions put to him.

 

"We're already listening in to Mulk, however like any good counter-intelligence operative," Haldane comments with a small smile, "he's been nowhere near any of our areas of interest. Likely how we missed him so long. The thing is, this vox channel is not Mulk's, at least not his regular one. We're scanning as much as we can, in case we were meant to find him."

 

Haldane leans over his shoulder as he produces a notebook, and stylus. He scribbles the number down. "Farrell, task the voxbreakers. I want this number tracked down and dialled in."

 

One of the helmed Arbitrators swarming the hangar salutes and briskly marches away with a copy of the scribbled numbers.

 

"Gentlemen, shall we repair to the security of the Strategium?"

[Mazer Rackham]

?????:

 

The grit shifts over Bardas' body.

 

On some strange, instinctual level, he can feel it. A crimson blink in the darkness, as his mortal consciousness warps in and out of reality, hiding in the blessed steel inside his metal bones. The pain lingers not in such places, except the irritation. Sand, perhaps does that. For long hours (days? err/chrono-fail.bat) he has played games with it, trying to count it by shift, to keep the madness away, composing binharic rhyme to retain sanity, to retain (dynam.cell_reserve//err//) power.

 

To retain life.

 

The noise is like the sea. He humours it, thinking it is perfect - a silica composition bastardising the quartz, a flavour of oxides. He is alone but for the quintillions of grains around him, the silence of his radcounter providing no distraction, but he knows the invisible power is there. It is the background to life. To the cosmos. He gains some strange sort of understanding in that odd static as the drifts wash over him - erasing him from the world. He falls unconscious on this revelation of the Omnissiah.

 

When the sparks in his implants do flare they take up where he left off. A human mind would have been lost, but the machine (neg-resp/limb_actuators//) endures.

 

Which is, of course, Cogdamned irrelevant, because he is dying.

 

Perhaps one day they will find him, he muses, still blinking away in the...(lang_module//corrupt)...GRIT.

 

Bardas, unmoving but for his dual-spirit within a hardened carcass, wallowing like the wreck of the Gladius he'd just left, decides to send forth his binharic composition. Who knows, maybe in a thousand years, precluding the galaxy being torn in half by some cataclysmic eruption (?-like_my_body//err?) someone would get the message. He began to slip away, all energy gone. All hope, gone.

 

All life...

 

The rumble of giant pistons, the thrum of mighty engines! The Cog was near - the mighty Cog!

 

+I have found you.+

 

He heard the words. Not with his ears, but with his heart. The sound was metallic, wrapping a strong voice. Deep. He banished the spur of disappointment the Ominissiah did not address him in binary, but who was he to question the Great Machine God? It was enough that he had found his beleaguered servant worthy. He wished only for the perfection of communion, the harmony of compliance.

 

+I have to dig you out first.+

 

But of course. He was buried. Wait...

 

Giant hands carefully scraped away the coarse grave-earth, and through the tiny, broken fragments of optical lenses, a rolling boulder of smooth angles looms above, sweeping with keen hands, the size of shovels. Blazing blue eyes peer down onto the battered sentinel.

 

+Clever, leaving your auspex on passive. I must remember that trick,+ the blurry figure says, now much clearer without a ton of desert around you. It carries a smile, his previous words proving he already knew it. He pulls you up out of the pit, and pokes about in your battered body until he find a small port. He pulls a data cable from a recess and plugs you into his own armour, the servomechanics purring in odd sympathy for your own ruined plight.

 

Power, blessed power, and life, flow back into your body.

 

Without any effort, Cephas picks Bardas up, and deposits him on the saddlebags of his bike, now minus the teleportation cluster. He straps the half-corpse down so that looking up, he can only see the dark, night sky. The silver needles of warships moving to different stations in orbit pierce the foggy darkness. Bardas feels the bike chug beneath his back, the push and reel of pistons. Perhaps the Omnissiah did save him, after all.

 

+Hold on,+ Cephas speaks through the vox link, wrapped in a grin. +It will be a little bumpy.+

 

He lets the throttle off, and it only takes a moment for Bardas to wish Naroon was driving...

Edited April 30, 2023 by Mazer Rackham

[Necronaut]

Scourge:

 

Scourge stayed at Lady Gwynne's side as her gurney trundled along through the sterile hallways of the medicae wing. His heavy footsteps echoed down the white, cavernous passage all the while, beating a monotonous and damnable rhythm into his mind.

 

I hath failed I hath failed I hath failed…

 

Arcane pieces of machinery with antiseptic smells were brought into a chamber and attached to Gwynne as she fitfully slept under the influence of a sedative. He watched the masked medics and flesh-wrights work with great suspicion; an ecclesiarchal priest bearing a censer burning sickly-sweet incense entered and began intoning litanies in High Gothic to ward off death and decay. He watched the steel orb swing back and forth as smoke billowed out for a time before snapping his attention back to the technicians. He felt utterly drained, but duty demanded he watch over his charge to the bitter end.

 

He thought back upon seeing Locke meeting with Reynard, Falk and Nicios across the hangar bay as he walked alongside Gwynne's litter. The habit of the crotchety monk was gone, replaced with the regal black finery of an officer of the Realm. He was different and somehow unchanged. The weight of a world rested upon his shoulders, and in that moment Scourge knew the hive and all of Damocles had been consigned to Exterminatus for his failure to protect the last Aldario sister. The terrible word lodged in his mind like a parasite. Exterminatus. The final solution, when all hope of salvation or victory was lost. 

 

I hath damned us all. By the God-Emperor, I hath damned us all.

 

He swallowed and straightened his posture. If he was to die for his momentary lapse in attention, for his hesitation earlier, then he would conduct himself honorably and permit no further laxity. 

 

He pursed his lips and then voxed his master, +Lady Gwynne lies in dreamless sleep, my liege, her suffering lessened. I stand watch over her.+

 

The priest's droning appeals to the God-Emperor for protection sounded like a funeral dirge. They were all going to die. 

Edited April 30, 2023 by Necronaut