[BC] The Blackest Heart (Part II) (IC)

[Mazer Rackham]

Razor - Bridge:

 

'Got it sir. Signal is coming from a transmitter in the landing bay.'

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Obadiah:

 

+Signal source located in our hangar bay,+ he relayed.  +Continue mission, I'll check it out.+

 

He turned to the bridge crew.  "Have a squad of armsmen meet me in the hangar.  And locate the pilots of those pirate birds we picked up, I want them placed under guard immediately -- contact me directly on the vox if the armsmen run into any...complications."

 

Without even waiting for confirmation, he pulled on his helmet and made for the door at a fast jog.

[FabiusV4lcoran]

Atesh Sapik: 

 

Sapik's arm burned as though a molten wire and wound itself through.  He was stuck in a rough spot.  His thoughts burned quickly through his mind.

 

He reached for a decent-sized rock from the path, and threw it slightly back towards the way he'd come, but away from the sister, and prayed to the Great Crow.

[Machine God]

Kraggan

 

The traverse back to the Central Hub was uneventful, and with no sign of the missing crew, he'd instructed Varne to add to the subterfuge with his Bolter. 

 

Varne had unleashed a semi-automatic burst into a couple of the Xenos corpses and a brace of Servitors. 

 

Then they got to work with the fourth device, he thought that the offering of blood would help. Perhaps the spilling was an offence or merely unnoticed. He placed the Demolition Charge against the end of the arm linking the Central Hub to Hub Alpha, but this this time set on the sinister side 

 

 

 

INT54 +20 (Tech Use - Experienced) +10 (Combi-Tool) +10 (Assist) +0 (Challenging) = 94. Result: 00, Infamy Point re-roll : 52, Pass 4DoS

 

 

++Charge number four set and primed++

 

 

They moved across the Central Hub, through the miasma of spilt blood to set the fifth device. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 7 by Machine God
Charge 4

[Mazer Rackham]

Razor - Hangar Bay:

 

Obadiah:

 

The Armsmen await you, and have already cleared away the menials into the pilot's ready room. One of the Corporals confirms the pilots of the ships have been found in the refectory, and have been held there under the pretence of a 'readiness drill'.

 

The hangar bay is quite empty, apart from the yaw and slight tremble of the deck. Such an open space almost provokes the sense of lonliness, the absence of people the telling factor. An Augurman on loan from the bridge is equipped with a signal dectector.

 

'It's definitely in here. Pulse transmission, VLF...' he waves the antenna around, carefully pitching the device as the pitch lowers or increases. 'Gotcha. It's coming from the bomber.'

 

Bounty:

 

Atesh:

The Sister falls for it, striding towards the sound. She lets off a burst of bolter fire, thunderous in the proximity, but all it does is scythe shrubs. Even from here you can see some kind of large legume blown apart, flying in wet shrapnel. She advances into the stalks, away from you, making enough noise to cover any scampering in which you partake.

 

Xerxes:

There is no second-fiddle here. Grenz is it.

 

You must decide on your action before anyone comes. A limited burst of the device would mask your predations...

 

GM: You may make a Difficult (-10) Tech-use Test to choke sensoria and picters with static for 1 Minute. DoS adds minutes.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Obadiah:

 

"You're with me," he says to the augurman, his voice raspy from the vox-mitter.  "The rest of you, quarter and search by twos.  Make sure the deck is empty.  It might be a locator beacon, or it might be a bomb."

 

He stalked forwards to the bomber, hands free as there was no apparent threat.  "I assume you can pinpoint the physical source of the signal emission.  Do a sweep of the craft's exterior, report to me if you find something stuck to the outside.  I'm going to go inside and poke around." 

 

The Mantid steps warily up the gangplank into the voidcraft.  There's not much room, especially for someone his size, but he studies the internals with a keen eye.

 

Spoiler

Awareness Test

 

Per 42 + 10 (Heightened Senses) + 10 (Autosenses) = 62

Roll: 50.  Pass, 2x DoS.

 

 

[Mazer Rackham]

Hangar Bay:

 

Obadiah:

 

The armsmen spread out as instructed, moving carefully, covering each other.

 

You detect no-one at all inside. Even the servitors hard-wired into defence weapons are are on standby mode and still. No gun cocks, no trigger snaps. It's clear.

 

In your ear, through your helm's audio relays, not the vox, the Augurman reports. 'Nothing external, sir.'

 

You hear him shuffle to just outside the door.

 

'It is in here, somewhere.'

 

GM: The bomber is a little bigger than you think - it's closer to a Thunderhawk in size and would be a suitable, if not purpose-built (it could be refitted) gun or dropship for the full Marine complement plus equipment and/or Armsmen support. It has decent armour, since it needs to stand up to fighters, but obviously would need more work to be atmosphere-capable.

 

GM: Unfortunately, you are going to have to make Search tests, which involve you opening lockers, searching carefully and assessing what you find therein. It tests on Awareness (Per) as normal. You will have to Search by sections, breaking the narrative into one Awareness Test per Section. there are 5 Sections where something could be hidden. The rest is either obviously unblemished (crash couches, welded steel panel work, etc etc), too obvious, or inaccessible anyway.

 

GM: I will randomly determine where the object is. Due to the item's size, all Search tests are Arduous (-40). You may benefit from Assistance to a maximum of 1 Assist per Test. If you flood the Bomber with people, there will be too much disturbance (too many cooks).

 

GM: Therefore, the sections are:

• Cockpit (only need one test)
  • Pilot, Navigator stations.
• Bomb Bay
• Avionics Control
• Augur Station and pulpit
• PDC and Weapons hardpoints (only need one test)
  • x 4 hardpoints.

GM: You may commence when ready.

[A.T.]

Xerxes:

 

Turning from the displays Xerxes moved closer to Grenz, attending a new station "+Assessing integrity of relay systems against forced intrusion+" He inclined his head towards the magos but did not pause for permission as he acted, "+Caution Minoris. Observe junction readings. Ensure power containment+"

 

A system reset would have been cleaner but difficult to explain, and Grenz clearly had some degree of pride in his work given the effort of setting additional bypasses and alterations beyond normal specifications. With luck his attention would be drawn to ensuring that the diagnostic comm spike did not spill over onto adjacent systems... after all it would be more difficult to hide blast damage to the chest than to the back.

 

Tech use roll: 34 = pass with much success

[Mazer Rackham]

Bounty:

 

Xerxes:

 

Grenz turns away, filled and reassured by your confidence and competence...the picters and augury hisses with interruption.

[FabiusV4lcoran]

Atesh Sapik: 

 

Atesh mentally thanked the Changer of Ways for this shift in his fortunes, and quietly scarpered north for the woodsy cover.  Once there, he'd have time to see if he could dress his wound at all and figure out next steps.

[BadgersinHills]

Acchiersum Mourn

 

Acchiersum was bored. The station had yielded some weaponry and a terrified crewman, who Varne had literally disposed. A flair for the dramatic was inevitable with some Space Marines, not that it was a bad thing. Some entertainment would always be welcome.

 

Sword drawn, he started searching for a shrine to the Emperor, or the closest thing to it on this station. He had no particular taste for despoiling Imperial sacred places, unlike some of the warriors he had known in the past, but perhaps there would be something interesting there. 

[Mazer Rackham]

Platform Opal:

 

Mourn:

 

You do not come across any kind of official shrine to either the Emperor, or the Mechanicum, although the Aquila and the Opus do feature on several doors, pipes, mechanisms, bolts, rivets, tools, deckplates, firefighting alcoves and the rebreathers, uniforms, tools and belt buckles therein.

 

As a Legionnaire of the old world, give or take a millennium, the dual worship may not be new, but is certainly....overbearing. Perhaps it is only fitting, considering that almost every other spot without one of the aforementioned devices has a skull on it.

 

It is fitting, and therefore rather different to find something more artisan than art. A small, amateur painted mural stretches down the length of the strut in which you saunter, sword drawn. It is obviously the work of one hand, or pair of hands, and just as much it is painted on a surface which a puddle of light from a stab-lamp or helmet-bulb could spill onto impromptu canvas.

 

It tells of long days gone, of the exodus from a planet, out to the stars, with only the hand tools that a man could carry, telling the story of industrialisation, of the coming of a terrible rise of the machine. Some of the glyphs there look esoteric, alien, squares and circles, roundels and rectangles. The story is crudely rendered, even by the matchstick swatch standards of the 'great' Albrecht Mysen Von Katterburg, a renowned oil-dauber from the 19th Millennium, his works retained in deep storage on Chemos, buried in the Apocrypha Vault discovered by Primarch Fulgrim the Magnificent in his early days of Vision.

 

It is this humility of the work, which must have taken many years of careful husbanding of paint and oils that perhaps retells your own escape from drudge, from the misery of execution, of the stories told by other Legionaries of the IIIrd.

 

It perhaps is a pastiche of your current predicament, a beginning from almost nothing, aspiring to dizzying heights of conquest and mystery.

 

Or maybe you'll end up being tossed over the side to your doom by some random toss of a dice by the wilful swipe of the Lords of Old Night.

 

Apart from your ruminations and introspection, there is nothing more to entertain you here, save perhaps the strange glance of a one-eyed teddy bear, his other button-ocular pulled out to hand down on tangled threads on a careworn stomach, thin from the hands of lots of little ones, and now only the caress and predations of moths.

 

This place of dripping water from under-taut bolts in pipes, and slight dankness which is scoured away only by exposure to hard vacuum in shift changeover, is a forgotten vale, a lost place, and there lurks only the mundanity of slop-drudgery and the cyclopean stare of a long-loved and abandoned toy.

 

There is nothing for you here.

 

Maybe that is all you deserve.

 

'There is nothing for you here, Acchiersum...' the dark whispers in the voice of your fellow comrades. 'Just those you left behind to die....'

 

Traitor.

 

Traitor.

 

Traitor.

 

Edited April 7 by Mazer Rackham

[A.T.]

Xerxes:

 

The fatal mistake was not trust but surrender. Decades, perhaps centuries of drudgery and no attempt to escape or rise above. Like the servitors here the techpriest had died long ago in any way by which true life could be defined.

 

Xerxes raised his arms as implants surged with power. No doubt Grenz would register the change but the time to escape had already passed him by.

 

Point blank death arc

 +30 (range), +30 (unaware), -20 (full auto), +10 motion predictor  = target 91

 Roll = 39 = hit (6 total DoS, capped to RoF 5, ++1 for twin linked) 

 

Damage rolls:

 1, 9, 7, 3, 8, 3

 =4+12+10+6+11+6 = 49, Pen 0, Shocking

 

The death arc has a slightly odd hit resolution - after any dodge/field saves all remaining hits are combined into a single wound, less armour and toughness, so it varies between flashlight and lascannon depending on how well you hit :p

 

 

For what it's worth Xerxes isn't trying to blow the guy up - just fry him good and proper.

[Mazer Rackham]

Xerxes:

 

Grenz's head pops off his neck in a flash of sparks and quick slap of blood-clotted oil. Seared meat, burned hair and superheated electronic plasteks, cyanide smoke from smouldering robes, and the palette charming frisson of flash-cauterised bone marrow add to the pungent stink.

 

Grenz lies there burning, his long vigil over in a cruel bout of murderous cowardice.

 

You are master of this depot.

 

Congratulations on your promotion.

 

GM: You boys are gonna wear out that Corruption Track, yes, sir!

 

[Lysimachus]

Hagga:

 

Rykaz entered the airlock to board the Razor's Edge, his hands quickly loosening the deadline that tied Eska to his belt. It felt surprisingly good to get back on the little ship. Hagga realised that the Iconoclast had a good feeling to it, a sense or portent of glory that the Dredge had never held.

 

A lesser Deck Officer, one of Imjin's lieutenants, handed him a dataslate. Reviewing it, Hagga was pleased. The huge fuel tanks had been tagged and ejected, and now floated in high orbit awaiting collection. Most of what the other salvage teams had found had now been brought aboard.

 

However, there were still issues to be dealt with.

 

++All teams still aboard the platform, be warned; four devices are now ready, two left to set. Time for salvage work is running out. Begin making your way back to the docking arm.++

 

From what he had heard, the Magos had done a good job. The explosives were ready at arms C and A, so just the ones on arm B to go - those were most important, though, as they would sever and sink the factory Block along with all its derricks and refineries.

 

He frowned. What was happening with the transmission Obadiah had reported? Within the hangar bay, wasn't it? An odd situation. A low frequency, long range radio signal? It would take years to reach the next nearest system.

 

++Bridge++ he voxed, ++this is Rykaz. Mister Urkash, can augurs find anything in this system that might be receiving that transmission? If someone is talking, that’s one thing... but if someone is around to listen, that's an even bigger problem. ++

 

Edited April 7 by Lysimachus

[A.T.]

Xerxes:

 

The power of the blast came as a surprise, recent alterations should not have been as effective... the miscalculation was unsettling and would require investigation at a more prudent time.

 

Scurrying out from his robes Ephialtes grasped up the head and pulled it tight back against the body as the parasite-construct integrated with the recently fallen depot master. Ligature oils would hide the smell well enough but he had not banked on the colour of the robes and would need to hope Grenz was not frugle with his atire.

 

The repulsor transit would make matters simplier though its grav-systems had caught his eye since first arrival. Beside him the corpse lurched back to its feet as Ephialtes did his work, more than enough time to ensure nothing untowards might be recorded should the local pict-net be unsecured.

 

And now to explore the breadth and spoils of his new domain.

[Mazer Rackham]

Razor - Bridge:

 

+There's nothing out there sir, but Jack and junk, and I think we just watched Jack getting thrown into the planet. There's nothing here but the rig, my lord.+

 

Xerxes:

 

GM: Give me a ballpark what you're after in particular via the OOC or by PM, please @A.T. so I can sort you out.

[Machine God]

Kraggan

 

The walk across the bloody floor was quick, he'd then placed the fifth Demolition Charge on the dexter side of the wall of the arm holding the Central Hub to Hub Bravo. It affixed as usual in its combination hold of base magnets and crushed glue gel strips. 

He then worked on the mechanism. 

 

 

 

 

INT54 +20 (Tech Use - Experienced) +10 (Combi-Tool) +10 (Assist) +0 (Challenging) = 94. Result: 85, Pass 1DoS

 

 

 

After the device had been primed, he'd painted a symbol on the wall of the Central Hub in blood.

 

Together with Varne they traversed via fixed line to Hub B. 

 

 

++Fifth Charge set and primed on Central Hub. Now returning to Hub Bravo++

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 7 by Machine God
Charge 5

[Mazer Rackham]

Bounty:

Atesh:

 

Pursuit is not immediate as you scarper and scamper away from the hospital. It is not long before you are in the environs of the forest. From the treeline, you have a good view of the building, and the dust plumes of vehicles being laagered and of course the pulsating blossom of smoke from the fire you lit.

 

You have the chance to patch yourself up, and it would be best to do it quickly and move on - but to what end? Where does the Great Crow guide your flight now?

 

GM: I am unsure when you last ate, drank or slept, so we will say that you found a small water fount in a shrine and maybe had an hour in the shade on the road. However, pursuit is about to begin, and there may be few stops. You are carrying your immediate equipment - sterile of all the dark gods' iconography, and your disguise is as about as much use here as a chocolate toasting fork. If you know what SERE is, welcome to the suck.

Edited April 7 by Mazer Rackham
Terminology changed

[Necronaut]

Ukalegon

 

Ukalegon followed a fair bit behind the rest of the looting party, as he had stopped to acquire a number of the provided xenos corpses and weapons. Now, followed by a small gang of armsmen he managed to entice away from the rest of the general pillaging with the promise of some live firing of alien weapons, he deposited the eldar corpses in a number of key areas and ordered some of the men to fire upon them at close range with their motley collection of lasguns and shotguns. To the rest he doled out a number of the splinter rifles and ordered them to walk around the mining platform and riddle it with splinter rounds as they saw fit, which they all took to with great gusto once they had figured out the firing mechanism. One of the men accidentally shot himself in the foot and collapsed in a heap as the potent neurotoxin did its work, which amused his compatriots immensely until he started foaming at the mouth, at which point they sheepishly dropped their pilfered weapons and dragged their crewmate back to the Razor.

 

Satisfied, Ukalegon ordered those he had commandeered back to the ship along with the rest. 

Edited April 12 by Necronaut

[Mazer Rackham]

Razor - Starhawk Bomber 013:

 

Obadiah (with thanks to Lysi for the rolls:

 

Your search proves less methodical and more abrasive, as deck plates are unceremoniously ripped off, lockers are upended in your desperate hunt. It is only by chance as something you have discarded drops down into the augur relay pit, and in your annoyance, reach for it and spot the device.

 

Carefully lowering to your knees, you gently prise up the access hatch that is roughly large enough to accommodate your helmed head, which you gingerly duck in.

 

The transmitter object is a small, black box, and the only reason you saw it was the power light on the side provided just enough glow when your discarded object - a glove - brushed against it. A jubilee clip holds it in place, but what really catches your eye is the device behind, and attached to the object.

 

It is a bomb, well put together, assembled, not manufactured, and with some very sophisticated looking devices within it, one with some kind of spirit bubble, and what looks like a pencil fuse of some description. This in turn has plenty of wires and cables splicing into other conduits, which would suggest the 'boom-box' is also connected to  other mechanisms within the craft.

 

It has a small switch on it, so does not appear to be remotely activated.

 

Edited April 8 by Mazer Rackham

[Mojake]

Varne

 

As he lumbered alongside the magos, the lack of any real danger had Varne walking with a uncharacteristically alert posture. His bolter was raised, expert tactical manoeuvres performed as they turned corners and passed through bulkhead doors. I've seen enough genestealer ambushes to distrust silence on an abandoned station.

 

As they passed one of the discarded xenos corpses patched with burn scars - a drukhari youth by his reckoning, or as close to a youth as their ancient and wicked species could be found - he turned to Kraggan, "this mission seems too simple, I find it bizarre that the Tigress would trade a ship like the Razor's Edge for a job as easy as this."

[Mazer Rackham]

Razor - Landing Bay:

 

At the urgings of his Space Marine companions, the Squat 'Prospector' Thainn hefts up his toolbelt and forces a nonchalance as he approaches the device he's been asked to inspect and remove. He clips his beard and long hair up with silver and gold locks to keep it back and out of the way. He gently pushes the Mantis Warrior to the side, and fires a sidelong glance at him.

 

'Ye can hang around if ye want, pal. Ancestors know I could use a steady pair of hands, but I'll no take it personal if ye scoot.'

 

Without waiting for a response, the doughty engineer and brawler sticks his head into the compartment below the deck.

 

'Oh aye, lovely craftsmanship, that. This,' he says, accompanied by the tap of a screwdriver on a plastek case, 'Ah'm no sure of. This big bastard here, though...'

 

Clunk.

 

'Oopsie! We'll we're still here, eh? Going tae try and get the casing ahf...'

 

The auto-driver works, and the tiny tinny taps of screws coming free and dropping to the deck punctuate sotto voce blue language. The words are in his own ancient tongue, guttural, harsh, but the venom gives the meaning better than any translation.

 

Clang!

 

'Oh, it's a boy. Looks like it's powered from the reserve batteries o' the bird...got it's own capacitor...ooh, nice, a tilt switch and anti-tamper...looks like an acid delayed fuse...' He makes a stretching noise, then air sucked through teeth.

 

Ping! Ping! Ping!

 

'Right, big man. A'hm gonnae hand ye this now. Keep it very, very ing still. Ye ken?'

 

With glacial slowness, Thainn produces the linked devices in one of his mighty mitts, and proffers it to Obadiah. His eyes are deadly focused, and his face is grim. A whole host of connected wires and cables come with it, in an absurd tangle of bare metal wires and colour-coded rubber-sheathed spaghetti.

 

'Ye ken, boy?'

[Machine God]

Kraggan

 

The final traverse completed, he finally replied his answer to Varne's earlier statement. 

 

++Aye, you are right in your assessment. Don't oral check Terran Quadraped presents is the general norm++

 

They set down the final Demolition Charge at the end of the arm linking Hub B with the Central Hub. 

 

 

 

 

 

INT54 +20 (Tech Use - Experienced) +10 (Combi-Tool) +10 (Assist) +0 (Challenging) = 94. Result: 29, Pass 7DoS

 

INT54 +20 (Tech Use - Experienced) +10 (Combi-Tool) - 20 (Hard) = 64. Result: 14, Pass 5DoS

 

 

 

He ran a diagnostic test to check the links to all devices, and he was sure that the results were optimal. 

 

If one were able to view the devices topographically, then they would be able to see that the devices in Hubs A, B and C were arranged in an Equilateral Triangle whilst the three in the Central Hub were arranged in an Isosceles Triangle. All of the devices would detonate at the same time, but the different triangles would impart a spin to help the station to separate like a blown Taraxacum officinale. 

 

He rose and beckoned to his companion to board The Razor's Edge with caution and alacrity. 

 

 

 

++Sixth Demolition Charge set and primed. I am able to detonate the the devices remotely. It would be best to return to The Razor's Edge so it can undock and move away from the Space Station++

 

 

 

 

Edited April 8 by Machine God
Dandelion

[Mazer Rackham]

Bounty:

 

Xerxes:

 

With the demise of the depot master, you turn to your cog-whirring kingdom to take stock of possibilities.

 

The servitor schedule provides some envelope to your reach. The municipal works provides logistics support to the market facilities and adeptus buildings - save the Arbites precinct. No logs can be found that any of the servitors, or Grenz ever attended it, despite some loose-lipped babble overheard in the market. However, the loading and landing ports, the Kontor reporting and statehouses have their own picter and security envelopes for which they are responsible, no doubt with an umbrella provided by the Arbites precinct, which would have it's own beady eyes looking down over the approaches to the Hall of Justice.

 

These civilian concerns could be accessed for more control - a routine maintence job...something not too out of the ordinary. Indeed, several work exist to facilitate such a thing.

 

Any central hub which regulates or monitors these systems is not immediately identifiable, which suggest it is inside the Arbites precinct. However, the individual systems themselves present opportunities.

 

Grenz himself is, unfortunately, quite a normal, backwater individual, harbouring no special upgrades or technologies that can be discerned, but he does have crystal data stacks providing for the local pattern of lasgun, laspistols and SP Pistols which his Depot may have been hurriedly called upon in an emergency.

 

GM: Essentially you gain the blueprints for Bounty PDF Pattern Laspistols, Lasguns, Autopistols, Stub Revolvers and Autoguns.